Coronavirus now in Yolo County: ‘Older woman’ likely infected from community transmission
The first case of the new coronavirus was reported Friday in Yolo County, marking the further spread of a growing outbreak across the Sacramento region.
An “older female with underlying health conditions” is currently hospitalized and isolated but has been “improving,” according to a county news release Thursday. Public officials say that the Yolo County resident likely got the virus through community transmission — meaning the patient did not recently travel or have close contact with someone who did.
“Given the rapid spread of COVID-19 around the world, I am not surprised that the virus is in our county,” Yolo County Public Health Officer Dr. Ron Chapman said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation driving fear in our communities. We will continue to provide COVID-19 education, support, and advice to the community while using appropriate measures to protect the public’s health.”
The county also declared a state of emergency, following dozens of other cities and counties in California that have done so, to speed some government functions and to help free up funding.
Chapman wouldn’t say where the woman is from, when she was hospitalized, or which hospital she was being treated at, but said the patient had started displaying symptoms about 10 days ago.
“Once the person was hospitalized then the decision was made to test for a variety of infections,” he said during a Friday news conference. “You typically test for the flu and other types of infections, and if those are all negative and you don’t know what’s causing it then you’ll test for something like coronavirus — and that’s when we found out about the infection.”
“At this point we don’t know how it was picked up in the community,” he added.
Medical facilities swamped
Family members of this patient are now under quarantine and the public health department says its working to find how many people may have “close exposure” and for how long. Chapman said medical staffers who have been in contact with the woman were wearing protective gear and have not been told to self-isolated, as has been the case with other coronavirus patients in the region.
Chapman said the county’s hospitals and health care providers have been swamped with people with mild symptoms worried they may have picked up the virus.
“It’s not necessary for someone with a mild cough and a runny nose to go in to their doctor and get swabbed and tested,” he said. “Those folks need to stay home. There’s no clinical or public health reason for those folks to be tested.”
Coronavirus is spread through contact between people within six feet of each other, especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby. The CDC says it’s possible to catch the disease COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”
Symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath, which may occur two days to two weeks after exposure. Most develop only mild symptoms, but some people develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal. The disease is especially dangerous to the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.
West Sacramento church closed
Meanwhile, the United Methodist Church staff offices in West Sacramento have been closed after officials said they believed a member of the office staff may have have been been exposed to the coronavirus, Bishop Minerva Carcaño’s office said Friday.
“While the case is not confirmed, Bishop Carcaño insisted that every possible precaution be taken,” the conference said in a statement posted on its website.
“The California-Nevada Conference office has developed and distributed several precaution documents over the past week to help (ensure) local church families remain healthy. The office closure is yet another step in this series of precautions to put people first as we navigate the implications of the virus.”
Workers in the office were told of the possible infection Wednesday morning, and a professional cleaning team was brought in to scrub the facility on Halyard Drive.
A UMC spokeswoman said no additional details were available Friday, and could not say whether the suspected case was related to the announcement earlier Friday that Yolo County had detected its first coronavirus case.
California cases now over 60
So far, more than 100,000 cases have been reported worldwide, with about 3,300 deaths, the vast majority of them in China. In the U.S., 230 cases have been reported, including 14 deaths in Washington state out of 70 confirmed cases.
In California, which has reported more than 60 positive tests, the first death tied to COVID-19 was announced Wednesday in Placer County. That patient, an elderly man who had “underlying health conditions,” had apparently caught the virus while on a Grand Princess cruise ship during a February roundtrip voyage from San Francisco to Mexico. Sonoma County officials reported two other coronavirus case that originated from the same cruise ship earlier this week.
Princess Cruise, the company that owns the ship, announced Thursday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now investigating a “small cluster” of COVID-19 cases connected to the ship. The Grand Princess, which had sailed back out to sea since the Mexico trip for different 15-day trip, returned early to the California coast Thursday amid growing concern about exposure to the virus.
Test kits were airlifted by helicopter Thursday to the isolated cruise ship holding nearly 2,500 passengers, as public health officials scramble to determine how many passengers and crew members might have COVID-19.
On the same day, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to free up resources to contain the rapidly spreading outbreak, which has been reported now in at least 13 counties.
At a White House signing ceremony Friday morning for $8.3 billion in emergency funds to combat the coronavirus, President Donald Trump told reporters that he had spoken with Newsom regarding the cruise ship off the coast, and said that a decision would soon have to be made on whether it should dock.
“We have big news on the ship,” Trump told reporters. “A lot of things are happening on the ship. People are being tested right now and I just spoke to the governor of California, Gavin Newsom – we had a good conversation, we’re both working on the ship together.”
“You have a ship with a lot of Americans on it, it’s 5,000 people on it, it’s a massive ship and they want to come in,” Trump continued. “So we have to make a decision.”
Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, who is part of a coronavirus task force led by Vice President Mike Pence, said that California and Washington state had received all the tests “that they’ve asked for” and “completely on schedule.”
This story was originally published March 6, 2020 at 10:16 AM.