Coronavirus 2020 Outbreak: Latest Updates

What is the latest news?

The CDC is reporting the first case of infection in the U.S. of unknown origin.

The person, who is in California, had not recently traveled to China or another country where the infection is spreading. They have no known exposure to another patient with COVID-19.

The person’s case was detected by doctors who were alert to the signs and symptoms of the disease, the CDC said. Disease detectives are now tracing the person’s recent contacts to see how they were exposed and also if there’s a larger chain of infections associated with them.

“It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement.

The new COVID-19 case was reported just hours after President Donald Trump sought to reassure the public that the U.S. public health system is prepared for the new virus. It could signal wider community spread of the infection—something infectious disease experts have become increasingly worried about as U.S. testing capacity has lagged. Trump also announced that he was putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the U.S response.

The White House has said it would use $2.5 billion in funds to help with the effort, according to media reports.

The U.S. has 60 total cases of COVID-19. The majority – 42 – are in evacuated passengers from the Japanese cruise ship Diamond Princess.

Also Wednesday, the U.S. Army has announced an American service member in South Korea has been diagnosed with the disease.

Meanwhile, San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency for her city.

Despite there being zero confirmed cases in the city, Breed said in a statement that “the global picture is changing rapidly, and we need to step-up preparedness. We see the virus spread in new parts of the world every day and we are taking the necessary steps to protect San Francisco from harm.”

The declaration allows the city to mobilize resources, speed up emergency planning, coordinate with other cities agencies and to raise awareness.

Those developments came after the CDC urged people to prepare for spread of the coronavirus,a warning that was likely to become more common in the U.S.

“Disruption to everyday life might be severe,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

As outbreaks pop up in areas beyond China, the CDC says cases are likely to spread here, as well.

“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen in this country anymore but a question of when this will happen,” Messonnier said.

“We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad.”

Public health officials said that while it’s not time to panic, it is time to prepare. Messonnier said that parents should ask their children’s schools about any plans to close. Businesses should consider whether they can offer alternate work options, such as telecommuting.

Worldwide the number of cases has passed 81,000, the majority of them in China, and the number of deaths is now 2,763, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

The U.S. State Department has advised against travel to China, issuing a Level 4 advisory. It’s also asking people to reconsider travel on any cruises that go to or within Asia. The CDC issued a Level 2 travel advisory for Japan and South Korea. Level 2 means that older people and people with chronic conditions should consider postponing non-essential travel. It has issued Level 1 advisories for these countries: Iran, Italy and Hong Kong. Level 1 means to use precautions during travel.

How many people have been diagnosed with the virus, and how many have died?

According to the European CDC, the majority of the confirmed cases — more than 81,000 – are in China. More than 2,800 are confirmed outside of China in more than two dozen countries. These include: Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Russia, Finland, Spain, Sweden, United States, Canada,  Australia, Belgium, Macau, Iran, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Brazil, Alegeria, Oman, Bahrain, Switzerland and Iraq. South Korea, Italy, and Japan are the countries with the most cases outside of China.

Three passengers on the Diamond Princess from Japan have died of COVID-19. Two were a  husband and wife from Japan in their 80s.

The newest outbreaks have come in South Korea, Italy and Iran, while the addition of Brazil to the list of countries with confirmed cases means coronavirus is now on every contintent except Antarctica.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in raised the country’s alert to the highest level after cases spiked, and he ordered public health officials to take unprecedented steps to fight the virus, according to media reports. The country has more than 1,100 cases, including 11 deaths.

In Italy, authorities are reporting a cluster of cases in Lombardy and other nearby regions. The outbreak there, which includes 322 cases and 11 deaths, are not linked to travel. Authorities took a number of steps to contain the outbreak, including travel bans to the affected areas and shutting down public events.

A spike of COVID-19 cases in Iran also occurred locally, not from travel, officials with the World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday. The country has 95 cases of the disease and 15 deaths.

On Tuesday, the director of one of Wuhan’s leading hospitals died from COVID-19, according to media reports. Liu Zhiming, 51, was the head of the Wuchang Hospital and is among nine medical personnel in China who have died so far during the outbreak.

More than 1,700 health care workers in China have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and six of them have died, according to media reports. Most of the cases were in Hubei, the province at the center of the outbreak.

Among those who died is a Chinese doctor, Li Wenliang, who was silenced by authorities when he was one of the first to sound the alarm about the coronavirus, The New York Times reported.

How many cases of COVID-19 are in the United States?

There are a total of 60  cases in the U.S. of COVID-19, including the 42 evacuated cruise ship passengers. The U.S. evacuated more than 300 passengers from the ship last week. Some of those passengers are receiving medical care at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine. Only a few are showing symptoms, officials said.

The U.S. cases are in:

• Nebraska: 12 (evacuated cruise ship passengers)
• California: 26  (includes 15 evacuated passengers)
• Illinois: 2
• Arizona: 1
• Massachusetts: 1
• Texas: 9 (includes 8 evacuated passengers)
• Wisconsin: 1
• Washington: 5 (includes 4 evacuated passengers)
• Not known: 1 (a cruise ship passenger who tested positive in Japan but was negative before returning home)
• Not known: 2 cruise ship passengers

The CDC has tested 445 people for the virus.

Other recent cases include:

• A person in northern California whose case is not associated with travel.
• A person in Humboldt County in northern California.
• Three people under a quarantine who recently returned to the country from China on State Department-chartered flights. One is housed in Texas at JBSA-Lackland. The patient is in isolation at a nearby hospital. Two are at a base in California. The CDC says there’s no connection between the two in California as they came on different planes and were staying in separate facilities.
• A man in Wisconsin. Health officials there say the man has a history of travel to Beijing and was recently exposed to other known coronavirus patients while in China. The patient is isolated at home, and is doing well, Wisconsin officials say.
• A husband and wife diagnosed in San Benito County, California. The husband had recently traveled from Wuhan, China, although the wife did not. She caught the virus from him, county officials said. They are both 57 and in the hospital.
• A person who had recently traveled to Wuhan and then to Santa Clara County. The person is in isolation.
• A man in his 20s from Boston who had just returned from Wuhan, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. He will remain in isolation until cleared by health officials.
• A man from Santa Clara County who recently returned from Wuhan and was never sick enough to need hospitalization, health officials said. He was “self-isolating” at home but has since been released from isolation. His case is not related to the other one in Santa Clara County.
• A husband and wife in their 60s from Chicago. The man in Illinois became the first case of person-to-person transmission of the virus in the U.S, the CDC said. He is the husband of a Chicago woman diagnosed with the virus after returning from Wuhan. Both were hospitalized but have since been released, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health.
• California has three others: one in Los Angeles County, one in Orange County and the most recent case in San Diego. The patient from Orange County is a man in his 50s. He is in a local hospital in isolation and is in good condition, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency. Los Angeles County officials did not provide additional details about the patient there.
• Arizona’s Department of Health Services said its patient is a Maricopa County resident and member of the Arizona State University community who did not live in student housing. The patient is not severely ill and is being kept in isolation.
• The first man diagnosed with coronavirus in the U.S. has been released from the hospital, according to news reports. The Washington state resident, who had recently traveled to Wuhan, said he was continuing to recover at home. He was released from Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett.

The CDC is prioritizing the testing based on a person’s risk.

What more do we know about the U.S. passengers on the cruise ship?

Twelve passengers are at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Nebraska Medicine.

“Most of our guests aren’t showing symptoms of the disease, however several others are exhibiting minor symptoms,” the center said in an email.

Another 15 are getting care around Travis AFB in California, 8 around Lackland AFB in Texas, and 4 in Spokane, Washington, the CDC said. The rest of the passengers will be kept in quarantine for 14 days, either at Travis AFB in California or Joint Base San Antonio.

During the evacuation, some passengers who had the virus rode home in the plane mixed in with the other passengers.

The Washington Post reported on Feb. 20 that 14 people who had tested positive for the virus rode on chartered flights with uninfected passengers. That happened even though the State Department had promised that no one with the infection would be allowed to board the planes.

Though the 14 people weren’t showing any symptoms, the Post reports that they flew home behind 10-foot-high plastic partitions that separated them from the other passengers.

The CDC said it expected to have more cases from passengers on the ship.

What are public officials doing to contain the virus?

The WHO declared on Jan. 30 that the 2019-nCoV outbreak is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, or PHEIC.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus said the agency had already released $9 million in reserve funding to help poorer countries prepare for a pandemic. The agency is also sending hundreds of thousands of masks, gloves and respirators to areas in need.

“We are only as strong as the weakest link,” Tedros said.

He also stressed, though, that much more money would be needed to fund a global response — an estimated $675 million for just the next 3 months.

“It’s a lot of money, but it’s much less than the bill we will face if we don’t invest in preparedness now,” he said.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already donated $100 million to the effort.

The U.S. has also declared the crisis a public health emergency.

“The actions we have taken and continue to take compliment the work of China and the World Health Organization to contain the outbreak within China,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said.

“This is a significant global situation, but I want to emphasize at this time that the risk to the American public is low,” said CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD.

These are the first federal quarantine orders issued in 50 years, the last coming in the 1960s for smallpox evaluations, CDC officials said.

Last week, the first group of Americans who had been quarantined were released.

Public health officials kept the 195 evacuees at March Air Reserve Base for 14 days to monitor them for symptoms of the coronarvirus. None of them tested positive for the virus in that time, officials said, and they pose no health risk to the public.

The State Department has issued a level 4 travel advisory telling people not to travel to China because of the outbreak.

Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the strict precautions are warranted because of “the issue now with this is that there are a lot of unknowns.”

He pointed out that the number of cases “has steeply inclined each and every day.”

We now know for certain that a person without symptoms can transmit the disease, Fauci said.

Health officials also clarified the distinctions between isolation and quarantine. Isolation is used to keep a person who’s already sick from infecting others. Quarantines restrict the movement of someone who is exposed, but not yet sick.

In the U.S., the number of airports that will screen passengers from China for symptoms has expanded to 20.

When did the outbreak start?

China first reported the outbreak in Wuhan on Dec. 30, 2019.

Is the virus seasonal, like the flu?

Will the coronavirus die out once warmer weather hits? It’s possible, but we don’t know enough about the virus yet to know for sure, said Messonnier.

Messonnier urged caution with that hypothesis during a CDC press briefing Wednesday. Most respiratory viruses, like flu, are seasonal. Coronavirus may behave like flu and we’ll see cases go down in spring and summer, she said. “But it’s premature to assume that,” Messonnier said. The agency continues to take aggressive action because it can’t count on that.

What are the symptoms, and how is the virus diagnosed?

China created a test for the virus and shared that information with other countries. The CDC has developed its own test.

Symptoms include a fever, coughing, and shortness of breath. They may appear 2 to 14 days after you’re exposed to the virus.

What is the source of the virus, and how is it spread?

Health officials are not sure of the source of the virus yet or how easily it can spread.

The virus can spread from person to person. A new case report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, describes how a woman from China infected 4 co-workers at a German company before she showed any symptoms of the disease herself.

The CDC believes that severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), two other types of coronavirus, are spread through droplets when someone coughs or sneezes.

Coronaviruses are found in many different animals, including camels, cattle, cats, and bats. One research paper also suggested snakes as a possible source. The new virus may be linked to a seafood and live animal market in Wuhan that has since been closed.

Is there a vaccine?

There is no vaccine, but the National Institutes of Health is working on one and hopes to begin testing in several months. That testing would be for safety. If it’s safe, there would be testing to see how well it works.

How is it treated?

There is no specific treatment for the virus. Patients are generally given supportive care for their symptoms, such a fluids and pain relievers. Hospitalized patients may need support with breathing.

Is travel to China safe?

The U.S. State Department issued a level 4 travel advisory telling people not to travel to China because of the outbreak. Some cities in China, such as Wuhan, are closed to travelers.

Several airlines, including Delta, United and American, have announced they are ending service to China until the outbreak wanes.

But, commercial flights continue to come and go between the U.S. and China, and the CDC said it was currently evaluating whether or not to restrict the movement of passengers coming in on those flights.

“At this point we’re evaluating the appropriate strategy in light of the new information. There’s really nothing new to share at this point,” said Martin Cetron, MD, Director for the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine at CDC.

Travelers who do go should:

• Avoid contact with sick people.
• Avoid animals, animal markets, and products that come from animals.
• Wash their hands often with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based sanitizer if that’s not available.
• Seek medical care right away for a fever, cough, or difficulty breathing. Tell a health care professional about any travel.

Source: https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200124/coronavirus-2020-outbreak-latest-updates