Coronavirus updates: No UC Davis employees test positive, Placer reports 1st case, NBA issues memo
Sacramento public health officials received good news Monday morning.
The first test results are back, and none of the estimated two dozen University of California Davis Medical Center employees who were exposed to the virus has tested positive.
Not all tests are in, Sacramento County Health chief Peter Beilenson said, but most have been concluded, and none of the workers who dealt with a coronavirus patient at the Sacramento facility last week have become sick.
Beilenson declined to say how many more of the workers, who have been ordered to stay at home under quarantine, have yet to get test results back.
But the early findings are positive. “This is very good,” he said. “This is a real positive.”
Beilenson said it may suggest that the virus, which is a new strain, is less contagious than thought. But, he warned, the coronavirus patient that the hospital workers dealt with was intubated, which makes her far less likely to cough, thus reducing the exposure level of those around her.
Beilenson said the county now has authorization from federal health officials to conduct tests at its local labs, and also has the OK to widen the number and type of sick people who can be tested. Health care patients in Sacramento with serious pneumonia of unknown cause now are being tested.
Placer County reports first coronavirus case
Placer County reported its first case of coronavirus on Monday, saying that one of the health care workers who treated a patient at a Solano County hospital has been diagnosed with the respiratory illness.
The worker was an employee at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital. The Solano County patient was not tested for coronavirus until after she arrived Feb. 19 for care at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.
Coronavirus can cause coughing, shortness of breath and fever. While 80 percent of people have no symptoms or mild symptoms, others can develop pneumonia. Globally, three to four out of every 100 people confirmed to have the illness have died.
“We have expected to see cases of COVID-19 in Placer County and have been planning and preparing accordingly,” said Placer County Health Officer Dr. Aimee Sisson. “Given recent evidence of community spread occurring elsewhere in California, we are now encouraging the public to prepare for the likelihood of local community spread here as well, unrelated to this case.”
NBA issues memo on coronavirus
Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox and other players were seen signing autographs and high-fiving fans as they came off the court after pregame warmups prior to Sunday’s win over the Detroit Pistons at Golden 1 Center.
Players might curtail those practices based on recommendations handed down by NBA medical experts in response to the recent outbreak of COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus. Players are being advised to offer fist bumps instead of high-fives and avoid taking items such as balls and jerseys to autograph for fans, according to a memo obtained Monday by The Sacramento Bee.
NBA Director of Sports Medicine John DiFiori and NBA Players Association Chief Medical Officer Joe Rogowski issued the memo to the league office, general managers, team physicians and athletic trainers.
Sacramento transit precautions
The Sacramento Regional Transit District on Monday announced it was taking additional precautions in response to the increasing number of coronavirus cases.
SacRT is sanitizing its buses and light rail vehicles every night, officials said in a news release. Trains and buses are fogged with chlorine dioxide to sanitize every couple of weeks during the flu season. Now, that’s being done every five days because of the coronavirus, knowing viruses can spread in confined spaces similar to the flu, officials said.
SacRT employees were provided with guidelines from the CDC, state, county and city public health officials. The employees who work with the public – such as operators, transit ambassadors and customer service representatives – have been given hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes and disposable gloves.
Sonoma County declares emergency after second case
Public health officials are declaring a local emergency after confirming a presumptive positive case of coronavirus from a resident who had recently traveled to Mexico, as reported by the Press Democrat.
“This recent presumptive positive case of COVID-19 is a cause for concern, and the county is declaring these emergencies to activate and deploy its resources to adequately respond to an increase of cases,” Sonoma County Public Health Officer Celeste Philip said, the Press Democrat reported.
The patient had recently returned from a cruise that traveled from San Francisco to Mexico, and was tested positive by the California Department of Public Health.
The patient marks the second in Sonoma County with the virus. The first had been confirmed by the county as being transferred from Travis Air Force Base to an unidentified hospital within the county after being evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
San Mateo County confirms case of unknown origin
San Mateo County public health officials on Monday morning said a presumptive coronavirus-positive patient, awaiting official CDC testing, is in isolation.
The patient has had no known contact with recent travelers, so the source of exposure is unknown, according to a statement from San Mateo County Health.
2 more cases in Santa Clara County
The Santa Clara County Public Health Department in a statement Monday confirmed two more cases of COVID-19, in addition to three disclosed Sunday, bringing the official count in the county to nine.
The statement said the eighth case is a “household contact” of a confirmed case in a different, undisclosed county, and the ninth is a contact of a previously confirmed Santa Clara County case. Both are men of undisclosed age.
“An increase in cases is not unexpected,” the public health department update said.
Diamond Princess passengers leave Travis
More than 100 American passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship who had been under 14-day quarantine at on-base lodging for Travis Air Force Base are being released Monday, the CDC confirmed.
Those being released tested negative for COVID-19 after multiple tests, the CDC said.
Bracing for more cases
With the worldwide infection total approaching 90,000 as of Monday morning, the Sacramento region is bracing this week for the possibility of more confirmed cases of the coronavirus.
Last week, Northern California took the national center stage in the developing COVID-19 outbreak, as it emerged that a Solano County woman had become the first in the United States to contract the illness without known contact with someone who had traveled to a “hot zone,” such as the coronavirus epicenter near Wuhan, China.
That patient was transported from a Vacaville hospital to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento on Feb. 19, where leaders in the health system say it took four days for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct a test. The federal agency has disputed that claim.
On Sunday, Solano County and Alameda County public health officials jointly announced that two health care workers who had treated the woman at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital also tested positive for the coronavirus, according to preliminary tests by a State of California lab, which forwarded the tests to the CDC for official confirmation.
“The best guess is that there are people who are not showing symptoms, but, are, nevertheless, infected,” Solano County Health Officer Dr. Bela Matyas said Friday. “That’s a very normal way for diseases to spread.”
What’s the situation at UC Davis Medical Center?
Beilenson, the health services director for Sacramento County, said on Friday that he expected a few UC Davis Medical Center employees who were exposed to the coronavirus last week to test positive in the coming days. Health workers there and at NorthBay VacaValley were tested late last week for coronavirus, with results typically taking three to four days.
As of Monday morning, there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 among UC Davis Medical Center health workers, with union officials saying that 124 nurses and other workers who treated the patient there have been placed in isolation.
The health system, though, has said that the research hospital is otherwise proceeding with business as usual.
UC Davis student tests negative
The university confirmed Saturday evening in a statement that the student who was quarantined and tested after showing mild symptoms returned negative results for COVID-19.
That student and his two roommates, living in a freshman dorm on the UC Davis main campus, were allowed to return from isolation.
University officials had said the student who was tested had a runny nose, a cough and had potentially been exposed to someone with coronavirus, and was in isolation at a home off of campus.
The news put some students on edge, with several at the campus telling The Sacramento Bee that they would avoid communal dining areas and large crowds for fear of contracting the potentially deadly illness. Others were not too concerned.
4 community college students exposed, no confirmed cases yet
The Los Rios Community College District in announcements last week said that a total of four students from three of its four Sacramento-area campuses had been exposed to the patient treated at UC Davis Medical Center while working in their professional medical roles.
Two students from Sacramento City College and one each from American River College and Cosumnes River College had contact with the patient and were instructed late last week to self-quarantine for 14 days, the junior college system said.
Los Rios did not indicate whether any of those four students had shown symptoms or had lab tests performed, but reiterated in statements Friday that the district continued to “have zero confirmed cases of the virus.”
The district also said that the two exposed students from Sacramento City College had returned to that campus after exposure, while the students from the two other schools did not. Still, Los Rios says that based on guidance from county public health officials, Sacramento City College will “proceed with regular class and work schedules at this time.”
3 new cases in Santa Clara
Santa Clara County on Sunday confirmed three new cases of COVID-19, bringing that county’s total to seven.
Health officials said Friday that the second known case of the novel coronavirus for which an origin could not be traced, also known as community spread, had been confirmed in Santa Clara County.
The three most recent cases are composed of a woman in her 50s with chronic medical conditions, plus a married couple who recently traveled to Egypt, according to a report from Channel 4 KRON-TV.
What are the U.S., worldwide coronavirus totals?
A map of confirmed coronavirus cases maintained by Johns Hopkins University now shows 91 cases in the United States, up from 62 last Friday.
At least 44 of the U.S. cases are repatriated passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, according to the CDC.
The worldwide total has passed 90,000, with just over 80,000 of those cases reported in mainland China, according to Johns Hopkins. The next highest totals are in South Korea, with more than 4,300 infected, and Iran, with close to 1,700.
The Johns Hopkins map shows the death toll has just surpassed 3,000, with a vast majority of those deaths (more than 2,800) in the Hubei province of China, where Wuhan is located.
The United States has six reported coronavirus deaths as of midday Monday, all in Washington state, with five in King County and another in Snohomish County, public health officials said Monday.
This story was originally published March 2, 2020 at 9:52 AM.
