Oregon Officials Confirm Third Coronavirus Case "Of Unknown Origin"; Risk Of "Community Outbreak" Is High
by Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/28/2020 - 21:58
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Summary:
- Health authorities in Texas and Oregon report 12 new coronavirus cases in US
- US coronavirus case total hits 63, 2nd case 'of unknown origin' confirmed
- US issues travel advisory for Italy
- Italy says first case discovered in Lazio
- Google says employee who visited Zurich office has coronavirus
- France confirms 57 cases
- Italy reports 3 deaths in Lombardy; nat'l toll now 21; total cases 821
- Google employee tests positive for coronavirus after visiting Zurich office
- British man becomes 6th 'Diamond Princess' passenger to die
- Two Japanese dogs tested positive for coronavirus
- Mulvaney says school closures, transit disruptions may happen in US
- Dr. Tedros said Friday that there's no evidence of 'community outbreak'
- Mexico confirms 1st virus case
- Fauci warns virus could take 'two years' to develop
- Kudlow says "no higher priority" than the "health of the American people
- Toronto confirms another case
- WHO says 20 vaccines in development
- St. Louis Fed's Bullard pours cold water on market hopes
- Netherlands confirms 2 more
- United cuts flights to Japan
- Advisor to CDC says shortage of tests in US creating a "bottleneck"
- Nigeria confirms first case in sub-saharan africa
- SK reports more than 1,000 new cases in under 48 hours
- Italy cases surpass 700
- WHO says virus will 'soon be in all countries'
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Update (2130ET): During the presser - which is still ongoing -
Oregon officials confirmed that the case is of "unknown origin", the third such case in the US. The individual is a Washington County resident, but has
spent time at the Forest Hills elementary school in Oswego. The school will inform students and family about the risks.
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The case will remain "presumptive" until they get the test result back from Atlanta, though CDC protocols call for treating presumptive cases as legitimate cases. For the record, the Oregon state health lab was able to conduct an initial test, which came back positive.
Amazingly, officials confirmed that the patient is still hospitalized, and has been isolated, but hasn't been subjected to "quarantine" status. They're reportedly being treated at a hospital in Hillsborough Oregon run by Kaiser Permanente.
Health officials said they're scrambling to trace the patient's movements over the past days and weeks and ferret out anyone who might have come into contact with her during that time.
"The most important thing to do - as mundane as it sounds - cover your face when you sneeze, wash your hands, and if you have any flu-like symptoms, stay home."
As far as the patient's condition, officials wouldn't go into specifics beyond saying that she remains "hospitalized". Since the patient didn't travel abroad, the assumption is that the infection was acquired "in the community."
The officials said they hope Oregonians would "go about their daily lives" and not let the news affect them. We suspect that might be difficult, considering that the patient hasn't even been quarantined, and is likely only the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to infections in the state.
Before we go, we wanted to point out an interesting detail from the press conference: When asked by a reporter about a rumor from earlier in the week about a coronavirus patient at a Kaiser Permanente facility in the state, officials said that they believed that rumor "didn't refer to this case" - when it's obvious to anybody with a brain that the rumor was accurate.
Officials insist that they're conveying the information to the public "just hours" after finding out. But the presence of this rumor seems to contradict that. And if officials did know about the case earlier in the week (their phrasing seemed to imply that the materials for confirmation were sent to the CDC in Atlanta days), why did they wait to tell the public?
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Update (2045ET): Any reporters who were hoping for a quiet night relatively free of coronavirus news, well, those hopes have unfortunately been dashed.
Because in a major bombshell that seriously undercuts President Trump's 'everything is under control' message from his big press conference Wednesday night, state health authorities in Oregon and Texas reported a combined 12 new cases of the virus.
This is in addition to two new cases that were confirmed earlier on Friday, and brings the total number of cases confirmed in the US to 74.
11 new cases have been confirmed by federal officials, according to local media reports.
The new cases include nine from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, one from the Wuhan group of quarantined passengers, and one that was transferred from the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego.
City officials in San Antonio insisted that the risk of infection remains very low, since the patients have all been under mandatory quarantine. Another 145 people are still quarantined at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Ninety Americans evacuated from Wuhan were released after finishing their quarantine without contracting the virus, said the CDC's Nancy Knight during a Thursday news conference in Austin led by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Meanwhile, state officials in Oregon announced the state's first "presumptive" case of the virus ("presumptive" since the CDC's strict protocols often delay - or prevent - testing in at-risk patients, as we discussed earlier, as well as in an update from last night).
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