Whatcom County tests its first patient for the coronavirus
One person in Whatcom County has been tested for the new coronavirus as part of ongoing efforts to track an outbreak that has spread from its initial discovery in Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province.
That test came back negative, according to Melissa Morin, representative for the Whatcom County Health Department.
Morin declined to provide additional information about the person who was tested, citing federal privacy laws on personal health information.
The Whatcom County Health Department is part of a national and statewide network of public health officials that are monitoring the illness, which had not been seen in human beings before the outbreak’s start in December.
The first case of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. was confirmed in a Snohomish County man earlier this month.
The new type of coronavirus causes respiratory illness and possibly pneumonia. Symptoms of the illness include fever, cough and shortness of breath.
Public health official say the risk to the general public is low.
Western Washington University sent an email to students and employees about the virus earlier this week, saying there were no cases at Western and adding that its Student Health Center was in communication with the Whatcom County Health Department.
Amid reports that airlines were stopping travel to China and Americans were being evacuated from Wuhan, WWU spokesman Paul Cocke told The Bellingham Herald that a Western student also was leaving China because her program has been suspended.
“Western only has one student that we are aware of now studying in China,” Cocke stated in an email interview with The Herald. ”She is in the Sichuan Province, not in the province where Wuhan is. She is leaving China presently because her sponsoring study abroad organization suspended the program out of an abundance of caution, even though she is not in the Hubei Province. Officials in Western’s Institute for Global Engagement are in communication with her.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 12:05 PM.
