Forget the Masks, The Hype: COVID-19 | Five Things To Know About the Novel Coronavirus
Washington State reported the first death in the United States from COVID-19 as well as the first reported case in a health care worker and the first possible outbreak in a skilled nursing facility. These reports from the state of Washington follow others of community-spread in Oregon and two places in California earlier this week. This brings to 22 the number of cases in the U.S. that have been detected by our public health system. We are still early in the investigations in California, Oregon and Washington. However, this preliminary information raises our level of concern about the immediate threat for COVID-19 for certain communities in the United States.
One thing that has not changed is that most people in the U.S. will have little immediate risk of exposure to the virus. However, some people will be at increased risk depending on their exposure. The greatest risk is to those who are close contacts with people with COVID-19. People with suspected or confirmed exposure should reach out to their health care provider. CDC is deploying a team to support the ongoing investigation in the state of Washington as well as another team to California to support their response. We are working hard to find and identify how the patients were exposed as well as doing extensive contact tracing of people who were exposed or who might have been exposed. I would like to turn the call over now to Dr. Kathy Lofy, the state of Washington — I’m sorry, the state of Washington state health officer to tell you more about the cases and the investigation being done.
So public health Seattle and King County has three new presumptive cases of COVID-19 including one person who died, and we all here are working on the public health response, we want to send our sincere condolences to the families and loved ones of the person who died. None of us want to see this although we understand it can be a severe disease. Two of the confirmed cases are associated with a long-term care facility called Life Care Kirkland in our County. One is a health care worker, a woman in her 40s, who is satisfactory condition at Overlake Hospital. She has no known travel outside the United States. The second case is a woman in her 70s, a resident of the long-term care facility and she is in serious condition at another one of our local hospitals, Evergreen Hospital. We are aware of a number of other individuals associated with the long-term care facility who are also reportedly ill with respiratory symptoms, and we are in the middle of an investigation to understand more about the situation, and we will continue to update our partners and the public as new information emerges over the coming days. We would not be surprised to find additional cases. The death occurred in a patient at Evergreen Health Hospital. This patient had underlying health conditions but was not associated with the long-term care facility. We’re currently working with the long-term care facility to provide care for the ill patients and try and prevent the spread to other patients in the facility. We’re very grateful for the support we’re receiving from our colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control who are sending a team to us tonight to help support our efforts to identify, isolate and test all of those who may be at risk because of these new cases. At this point I’m going to stop and turn the call over to my colleague, Kathy Lofy, the state health officer for Washington state.
SHOW MOREPublished on Feb 21, 2020
What are five things you need to know about novel (new) #coronavirus? Dr. Nancy Messonnier, Director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, answers important questions about #COVID19. Stay updated with the latest information at CDC.gov/covid19.