Update: 1st U.S. coronavirus case of unknown origin being treated in Sacramento County, CDC says

A Solano County resident being treated for coronavirus in Sacramento is the nation’s first confirmed case of unknown origin, state health officials said Wednesday.

“The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County. The individual had no known exposure to the virus through travel or close contact with a known infected individual,” California Department of Public Health officials said in a news release. State public health officials in Sacramento, citing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the case is the first person-to-person transmission of the COVID-19 virus.

The patient is being treated at UC Davis Medical Center, according to an internal memo obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

Earlier cases of person-to-person transmission in Illinois and in San Benito County came “after close, prolonged interaction with a family member who returned from Wuhan, China, and had tested positive for COVID-19,” California Department of Public Health officials said in their Wednesday statement.

Dr. Sonia Angell, the state’s public health officer, called the outbreak an “evolving situation” that the state had been monitoring since the first cases in China late last year. but added “there is a lot we already know.”

“We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California,” Angell said in prepared remarks.

In such cases, public health officials trace the person’s contacts as they sleuth out where and how the person may have become infected and whether others have been exposed.

President Donald Trump briefed reporters Wednesday at the White House on the federal response to the outbreak. Vice President Mike Pence will lead the government’s response to the virus, Trump said.

To date, public health officials worldwide have reported 2,798 deaths resulting from the coronavirus, 94 percent of them in mainland China. More than 82,100 cases of the illness have confirmed globally. All but 3,332 of those cases have been in China.

How a doctor screened and helped Sacramento coronavirus patient get treatment

It’s time to prepare for a coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., CDC says. Here’s how

The news Wednesday came as San Francisco and Orange County each declared states of emergency as steps to address the virus. Orange County also backed Costa Mesa’s bid to block coronavirus patients from being housed in their city, announcing plans to file a friend of the court brief in U.S. District Court.

A federal judge this week extended an earlier temporary restraining order filed by city of Costa Mesa to block the possible transfer of dozens of people now housed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield to a former residential and care facility in the city about an hour south of Los Angeles.

Costa Mesa city leaders asked for the emergency order last week on word that the federal government was planning to bus as many as 50 people – many former passengers of the Yokohama, Japan-docked Diamond Princess – from Travis, as early as last weekend.

But the CDC’s Pauley told The Bee on Tuesday that it had no plans to send Travis evacuees to Orange County.

“There is no need for them to move” from the base, Pauley said.

»» Read more on this developing story here: First U.S. coronavirus case of unknown origin confirmed in Northern California, CDC says