California ramps up coronavirus fight after Sacramento case points to slow CDC response

Nationwide concern for the ongoing coronavirus outbreak centered on California’s capital Thursday, a day after public health officials disclosed that the first virus case in the U.S. of unknown origin was being treated in the city, while an internal memo pointed to a slow federal response.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a news conference that there are now 28 people who have tested positive for the coronavirus currently in the state, and an additional five who tested positive but then moved out of the state. About 8,400 more are being monitored due to recent travel, Newsom said.

The California Department of Public Health announced Wednesday that a resident of Solano County in Northern California was receiving treatment in adjacent Sacramento County for a confirmed case of coronavirus, the origin of which was not known.

It emerged late Wednesday, in an internal memo obtained by The Sacramento Bee, that the patient had been receiving treatment for a week at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, one of California’s top research hospitals.

The patient was admitted to UC Davis on Feb. 19 but went four days before being tested for the disease, which has been deadly in its most severe cases, the memo said. Reports surfaced later that the patient, identified only as a woman who lives in Solano County, was hospitalized in Vacaville for four days before being transferred.

Nation’s first ‘community exposure’

Solano County lies on the northernmost fringe of the San Francisco Bay area, about 40 miles west of the capital. Home to several cities and Travis Air Force Base, the county has an estimated population of 446,610, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

About 200 U.S. citizens evacuated from Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, were housed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield for a 14-day quarantine, The Bee previously reported. The Sacramento Bee reported.

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The revelations marked the first U.S. case of coronavirus being transmitted through “community exposure” out of at least 60 that have been confirmed so far. Health officials at all levels of the government said they could not trace the infection to either international travel or to someone who had made direct contact with a person who recently traveled.

The belief, then, is that the patient currently cared for in Sacramento contracted the novel coronavirus — which causes the COVID-19 disease — from person-to-person exposure.

Delayed diagnosis and ‘a turning point’

Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, called this latest diagnosis a “turning point” for coronavirus spread in the U.S. She said at the news conference that the patient had not been in contact with those quarantined at a nearby air force base, which had been home to 250 evacuees from the virus’ hotspot in China and from the Diamond Princess cruise liner where an outbreak occurred this month.

The latest disclosures come as global totals have surpassed 82,000 confirmed cases worldwide, more than 78,000 of them in mainland China. The apparent epicenter of the novel coronavirus is Wuhan and the surrounding Hubei province, which has suffered over 2,600 of the more than 2,800 deaths reported as of Thursday.

Newsom said Thursday he does not think declaring a statewide emergency is necessary at this time. However, Newsom also said California has access to “just a few hundred” coronavirus test kits, an amount the governor called “simply inadequate” for a state with a population near 40 million.

Echoing his remarks, Angell said that the risk to the general public in the state “remains low.”

“In the event that changes, we will communicate that with you,” Angell said.

UC Davis Medical Center officials asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct lab testing upon the Solano patient’s Feb. 19 admission into the hospital, but these tests were not immediately performed because the patient “did not fit the existing criteria for COVID-19,” according to the memo sent to staffers by David Lubarsky, the head of the hospital and UC Davis Health’s vice chancellor of human health services, and Brad Simmons, the health system’s interim CEO.

CDC tested the patient Sunday, and staff learned Wednesday that the patient had tested positive for COVID-19.

More testing kits being deployed

Newsom was quick to tamp down criticism that federal officials did not act fast enough to recognize the situation, and said that the federal response, being led by Vice President Mike Pence, would ramp up.

“The CDC is assuring us that testing protocols will be enhanced with urgency. The CDC is moving expeditiously on this,” Newsom said. “New protocols are being advanced and it can’t happen soon enough. We have been assured that we will exponentially increase our ability to test.”

Newsom said the state had but 200 kits at one point, calling the number “simply inadequate” for a statewide effort.

“There is nothing more important than point-of-contact testing,” Newsom said. “It’s our top priority.”

The CDC said more kits are on the way and should arrive in a matter of days, Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly said.

Still, officials emphasized that Californians’ risk of contracting COVID-19 remains extremely low.

“It’s natural to feel concerned about the novel coronavirus, but I want Californians to know that we have rigorously planned for this public health event,” Ghaly said.

Infection’s possible spread

In the UC Davis memo, officials called the exposure to its workers was “minimal” but told several workers to stay home and monitor temperatures. The self-isolation prompted two junior colleges in the area to announce that the campuses may have been exposed to students who treated the patient in their jobs at UC Davis.

Education systems across the Sacramento region began to inform the community on how to take extra precautions to protect themselves and their children, including at UC Davis’ main campus, 20 miles west of the hospital in the town of Davis, where a student was being tested for the virus, and area school districts, which told parents that student absences due to illness will be excused.

The total of 33 cases confirmed in California, stated by Newsom, would represent more than half of a nationwide total of 60 reported this week, but California’s figure also includes 24 people who were brought to the state from overseas, according to Angell.

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The remaining nine currently in California are made up of seven cases believed to be travel-related, one that was transmitted by a spouse and the Solano County patient for which the origin is unknown, according to the Department of Public Health.

“We’re meeting this moment,” Newsom said. “We have history and expertise in this space.”

Several Sacramento-area sellers say masks to protect people from the coronavirus are sold out. Global fear of the COVID-19 disease has led to production shortages and online price gouging, even though disease experts have been reluctant to recommend the use of masks, because even N95 respirators used by health officials only work when worn properly.

Masks might not be enough to protect someone who is not already sick. A Sacramento County Department of Public Health spokeswoman said common surgical masks block droplets coming out of sick person from getting out in the air, but they’re tight enough to block what’s already in the air from getting in.

Sacramento Bee writers Cathie Anderson, Darrell Smith, Alex Yoon-Hendricks, Tony Bizjak, Sawsan Morrar, Jason Pohl, Theresa Clift, Theodora Yu, Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler contributed to this report.