COVID-19 Update: New coronavirus cases reported in Washington and Oregon

Chances are, COVID-19 is on your mind as we head into the last day of Feb­ru­ary. It’s dom­i­nat­ing the news, said to be the cat­a­lyst of one of the worst stock mar­ket slumps in his­to­ry, and result­ing in the can­cel­la­tion of many pub­lic gath­er­ings and cor­po­rate trav­el plans. At NPI, we believe it’s always best to have accu­rate, up to date, and sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly vet­ted infor­ma­tion read­i­ly accessible.

So, here’s a roundup of news from today per­tain­ing to new cas­es of the nov­el coro­n­avirus and what states are doing to com­bat the disease.

We begin with some break­ing news from pub­lic health author­i­ties. The fol­low­ing is a news release from the State Depart­ment of Health.

For con­text, we’re run­ning it in its entirety.

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON – The Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Health, Pub­lic Health – Seat­tle & King Coun­ty, and Sno­homish Health Dis­trict, are announc­ing two new cas­es of COVID-19, cur­rent­ly clas­si­fied as “pre­sump­tive positives.”

A pre­sump­tive pos­i­tive is a test that comes back pos­i­tive at the Pub­lic Health Lab­o­ra­to­ry and is pend­ing con­fir­ma­tion at the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC.)

The indi­vid­u­als reside in both King and Sno­homish Coun­ties. In King Coun­ty, a woman in her 50s with con­firmed trav­el to Daegu, South Korea is a pre­sump­tive pos­i­tive. She is cur­rent­ly in home isolation.

In Sno­homish Coun­ty, a per­son under the age of eigh­teen with no trav­el his­to­ry is also a pre­sump­tive pos­i­tive. He is cur­rent­ly in home iso­la­tion as well. That patient vis­it­ed Seat­tle Children’s North Clin­ic on Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 24th, 2020.

Sno­homish Coun­ty Health Dis­trict is work­ing along­side the Everett Pub­lic Schools to ensure the safe­ty of stu­dents and staff at Jack­son High School, where this stu­dent attends. Everett Pub­lic Schools is tak­ing this very seri­ous­ly and in an abun­dance of cau­tion, the super­in­ten­dent has decid­ed to close Jack­son High School on Mon­day to allow three days for deep cleaning.

While the King Coun­ty case is believed to be trav­el-relat­ed, we don’t know how or where the new Sno­homish Coun­ty case was infect­ed. We are work­ing hard to find and iden­ti­fy how the patients were exposed as well as trac­ing peo­ple who might have been exposed to this patient.

“Now that we are able to expe­dite test results here at the Pub­lic Health Lab in Shore­line, we’re get­ting results on sus­pect­ed local cas­es a lot faster,” said State Health Offi­cer Dr. Kathy Lofy.

“Giv­en the extent of glob­al spread, we expect to iden­ti­fy more indi­vid­u­als with COVID-19 in Wash­ing­ton. We want to empha­size the impor­tance of prac­tic­ing good health habits.”

COVID-19 has the poten­tial to be a seri­ous health risk in our coun­try. Health depart­ments at the fed­er­al, state, and local lev­el are work­ing togeth­er and with oth­er part­ners to prepare.

Health­care sys­tems are get­ting ready to poten­tial­ly see more patients than usu­al. Schools are receiv­ing updat­ed guid­ance on what to do to stay safe if they have cas­es, and what pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures they should take if they do not.

How can you pre­vent the spread of COVID-19?

• Pre­ven­tion starts with prac­tic­ing good per­son­al health habits: Wash your hands often with soap and water,
• Stay home when you’re sick,
• Cov­er your coughs and sneezes with a tissue,
• Clean fre­quent­ly touched sur­faces and objects.
• Get­ting plen­ty of rest, drink­ing flu­ids, eat­ing healthy foods, and man­ag­ing your stress can help you pre­vent get­ting COVID-19 and recov­er from it if you do.

DOH has estab­lished a call cen­ter to address ques­tions from the pub­lic. If you have ques­tions about what is hap­pen­ing in Wash­ing­ton state please call 1–800-525‑0127 and press #.

Want to watch the news con­fer­ence? The video is avail­able.

Now on to Ore­gon, where a coro­n­avirus case was report­ed in Lake Oswego:

A per­son in Ore­gon is sick with the first pre­sump­tive case of the new coro­n­avirus in the state, Ore­gon health offi­cials said Fri­day. The news con­fer­ence is hap­pen­ing now.

Offi­cials say the patient, an adult, is employed at a school in Clacka­mas Coun­ty and may have exposed stu­dents and staff there. The school district’s plan­ning to close the school to allow pub­lic health offi­cials to com­plete their inves­ti­ga­tion, includ­ing con­tact­ing employ­ees there and fam­i­ly of chil­dren to inform them of their expo­sure and let them know next steps.

If you’d like to watch a video of the news con­fer­ence, it’s avail­able on Face­book.

Both the Ore­gon case announced ear­li­er today and one of the new Wash­ing­ton cas­es of COVID-19 con­cern indi­vid­u­als who are believed to have been exposed to the dis­ease here in the Pacif­ic North­west, as opposed to abroad.

Pri­or to the announce­ment of the Ore­gon case, Ore­gon Gov­er­nor Kate Brown announced the for­ma­tion of a statewide response team to mobi­lize the full resources of the Beaver State against COVID-19.

Gov­er­nor Brown’s news release detail­ing this effort is repro­duced below.

SALEM, OREGON — Gov­er­nor Kate Brown today con­vened a Coro­n­avirus Response Team tasked with coor­di­nat­ing state and local agen­cies and health author­i­ties in prepa­ra­tion for response to the coro­n­avirus, also known as COVID-19.

The team will build on the work of the Ore­gon Health Authority’s (OHA) coro­n­avirus inci­dent man­age­ment team to pre­pare Ore­gon to respond to any poten­tial out­breaks of the disease.

“Let me be clear, as of today there are zero con­firmed cas­es of coro­n­avirus in Ore­gon, and the risk to Ore­go­ni­ans of con­tract­ing the coro­n­avirus remains low,” said Gov­er­nor Brown.

“How­ev­er, in an esca­lat­ing glob­al health cri­sis, we must make sure we are as ready and informed as we can be.”

“The pur­pose of the Coro­n­avirus Response Team is to ensure we are tak­ing every pre­cau­tion nec­es­sary, in coor­di­na­tion with local health author­i­ties, hos­pi­tals, com­mu­ni­ty health part­ners, and school dis­tricts, to make sure that Ore­gon is ful­ly pre­pared to respond to any out­breaks of the coro­n­avirus and that Ore­go­ni­ans know how they can keep their fam­i­lies safe.”

The Coro­n­avirus Response Team will meet reg­u­lar­ly to coor­di­nate coro­n­avirus response and prepa­ra­tion, to update the Gov­er­nor as the inter­na­tion­al sit­u­a­tion devel­ops, and make rec­om­men­da­tions to the Gov­er­nor to safe­guard pub­lic health.

Since the first report­ed cas­es of COVID-19 over­seas, state agen­cies have tak­en a num­ber of actions to pre­pare in Oregon:State agen­cies are review­ing readi­ness plans to ensure state gov­ern­ment is able to main­tain a con­ti­nu­ity of oper­a­tions and ser­vices in the event that coro­n­avirus impacts agency operations.

State, coun­ty, and trib­al health offi­cials are mon­i­tor­ing peo­ple who may have come into con­tact with the dis­ease or trav­eled to main­land Chi­na for symp­toms like cough­ing or fever dur­ing the two weeks after they return, pro­vid­ing health edu­ca­tion, and are pre­pared to link peo­ple with appro­pri­ate health care if symp­toms develop.

Start­ing this week, OHA is pro­vid­ing week­ly pub­lic updates about how many peo­ple are being mon­i­tored in Ore­gon, as well as shar­ing updates about how Ore­gon fam­i­lies can help pre­vent the spread of coro­n­avirus on OHA’s COVID-19 website.

Ore­gon hos­pi­tals and health providers have scaled up their pre­pared­ness efforts, and OHA is con­duct­ing ongo­ing out­reach to health facil­i­ties to sup­port train­ing and pre­pared­ness, as well as mon­i­tor­ing health care avail­abil­i­ty and needs.

“Ore­gon has proven its resilien­cy in prepar­ing for and respond­ing to Ebo­la, H1N1 influen­za, Zika, and oth­er glob­al pub­lic health threats,” said OHA Direc­tor Pat Allen.

“Each time, Oregon’s pub­lic health and health care sys­tems and their part­ners have found ways to strength­en our col­lec­tive response. If the coro­n­avirus comes to Ore­gon, we will be ready.”

Pub­lic aware­ness is key to pre­vent­ing the spread of coro­n­avirus. Just as with flu sea­son, con­tain­ing coro­n­avirus starts with every­one –– at home, in the work­place, and at school –– prac­tic­ing good hygiene through reg­u­lar hand­wash­ing, prop­er cov­er­ing of coughs and sneezes, rou­tine clean­ing of work­spaces, kitchens, and bath­rooms, and stay­ing home when sick or symptomatic.

Tips for pre­vent­ing the spread of the coro­n­avirus include:

• Cov­er your coughs and sneezes with a tis­sue and then throw the tis­sue in the trash.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water or an alco­hol-based hand sanitizer.
• Avoid close con­tact with peo­ple who are sick. Avoid touch­ing your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands.
• Clean and dis­in­fect sur­faces peo­ple often touch.
• Con­sult trav­el advi­sories if you plan to trav­el out­side of the U.S.
• Take care of your health over­all. Stay­ing cur­rent on your vac­ci­na­tions, includ­ing flu vac­cine, eat­ing well and exer­cis­ing all help your body stay resilient.

As with earth­quakes and oth­er nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, it’s impor­tant for all Ore­gon­ian fam­i­lies to be Two Weeks Ready, with an ample sup­ply of food, water, pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tions, pet food, san­i­ta­tion sup­plies, and any­thing else they would need to shel­ter in place for an extend­ed peri­od of time if it becomes necessary.

Pub­lic health author­i­ties stress that peo­ple ought to fol­low their reg­u­lar sched­ules and rou­tines to the extent pos­si­ble. There is no need to panic.

How­ev­er, every­one should adopt a strin­gent hand­wash­ing reg­i­men and get into the habit of reg­u­lar­ly wip­ing down sur­faces, includ­ing elec­tron­ic devices.