Officials in the Pacific Northwest are scrambling to isolate and contain the nation’s first incident of the potentially deadly coronavirus after revealing a man who recently travelled to China and fell ill on his return had been positively diagnosed.
Authorities in Washington state confirmed that a man aged in his 30s had contacted his doctor after visiting the city of Wuhan, and developing flu-like symptoms a few days later.
As health officials said the man, being treated in isolation at the Providence Regional Medical Centre in Everett, was comfortable, they were also racing to trace people he may have come into contact with, both in China and on his return to Washington state.
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This meant authorities were liaising with airlines and federal disease experts, as well as talking to the man about his trip, and the flights he took. It is known he did not fly directly to Wuhan from Seattle.
“We have asked for his ticket information, and the details of how he got here, but we don’t have that yet,” Scott Lindquist, Washington state epidemiologist for communicable diseases, told reporters on Tuesday, after officials detailed the nation’s first confirmed incidence of the Wuhan coronavirus, also called 2019-nCoV.
Officials in Everett said they were also contacting “the small number of staff and patients who may have come into contact” with the man at one of their clinics. They were also implementing a screening system in their electronic records to “identify patients at risk”.
In China, officials have said they had detected 300 cases and that six people have died so far. Reports have linked the disease to the central city of Wuhan.
Experts say that number is likely to grow, with the US becoming the fifth nation to report the virus after Thailand, Japan, and South Korea.
Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Centre for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases, said having last week predicted it was possible a case would be reported in the US, it was now likely there would be more. “Information is rapidly evolving. We hope over the coming days the situation will become clear,” she said.
Five international airports in the US have implemented screening for individuals likeliest to have travelled to Wuhan, but Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is not among them.
The town of Everett, which has a population of around 110,000 people and is located around 20 miles north of Seattle, is best known for being home to Boeing’s assembly point, as well as being a jumping off point for the Puget Sound.
On Tuesday, as dark skies threatened rain, a number of residents voiced concern about news of the coronavirus. Bruce Tipton, whose wife was being treated for lung cancer in the hospital, said it was only right that the man who fell ill be properly treated as well.
“I’m not surprised given all the world travel there is,” he told The Independent. “And the way these viruses mutate is very unpredictable.”
Heaven Nation, a 30-year-old woman who was walking into the hospital to seek help for a sore throat, said she was concerned about the virus spreading. She said she had two children, along with nephews and nieces.
“I don’t like to listen to the news,” she said, explaining why she had not heard of the coronavirus. “It’s always just about people tearing each other apart.”
It was reported that stocks of four US airlines that fly to China fell as news of the virus outbreak emerged. None fly directly to Wuhan, which has a population of 11m and is located in Hubei province, but because some of their Chinese partners do, passengers transfer from Chinese carriers to American ones.
Officials said the man had travelled to China, from where he had moved to the US, alone. They said he was in a comfortable condition in the hospital, and had asked to use a phone to call his parents. It is not known if his parents live in China, but officials said the man, who has not been identified, was a US resident.
In a sign of the mounting concern about the virus, the World Health Organisation is to meet on Wednesday to decide whether to declare the outbreak an international public health emergency.
“No one wants to be the first in the nation in these types of situations, but these are the types of situations that public health and its partners train and prepare for,” said Chris Spitters, a senior official with Snohomish Health District.
“Because of this, everything has been going along quite smoothly.”
