As US tally raises to 5, travelers across the country increase prevention against deadly virus

BOSTON — The U.S. has five confirmed cases of the new virus from China, all among people who traveled to the city at the center of the outbreak, health officials said Sunday.

Two new cases were reported Sunday — one in Los Angeles County in California and the other in Maricopa County, Arizona. The latter case was someone with ties to Arizona State University who did not live in school housing and had a history of travel to Wuhan, China, state health officials said.

Officials with the Arizona Department of Health Services said the Maricopa County patient wasn't severely ill and was in isolation at home to keep the illness from spreading. The department said it would not release potentially identifying information on the person, including the gender and age, and declined to say whether the person was a student or faculty member.

The LA patient alerted authorities that he wasn't feeling well upon arriving at Los Angeles International Airport. The patient was taken by ambulance to a hospital, health officials said at a Sunday news conference.

"Everything worked as it should," said Dr. Sharon Balter with the LA County Department of Public Health. "The patient presented for care, the patient was immediately transported to a hospital, the patient has remained in the hospital.”

Officials did not provide details about the patient, except to say that the individual was a traveler from Wuhan, China.

The three previously reported cases were a patient in Orange County, California; a man in his 30s in Washington state; and a woman in her 60s from Chicago.

So far, no cases have been confirmed in Massachusetts, but over the weekend travelers at Boston Logan were seen wearing protective masks, as were flight attendants for Hainan Airlines, which offers the only non-stop service from Boston to Shanghai and Beijing.

Many said the masks were just a general precaution against the virus, but a group of Lebanese students said there were specifically told to wear them due to the high risk of coronavirus.

“The airport is somewhere kind of risky where you can catch it easily,” said Aya Khouzami. “So we’re kind of fearing catching it, so we’re just wearing the mask and taking precautions.”

“It didn’t spread to Lebanon yet and they said just to be on the safe side so just to wear the mask,” said Ahmad Farhat.

The virus can cause fever, coughing, wheezing and pneumonia. It is a member of the coronavirus family that's a close cousin to the deadly SARS and MERS viruses that have caused outbreaks in the past.

Dozens of people have died from the virus in China, which has issued massive travel bans in hard-hit sections of that country to try to stem spread of the virus. The U.S. consulate in Wuhan announced Sunday that it would evacuate its personnel and some private citizens aboard a charter flight.

The U.S. patients generally have been reported to be in good condition and were hospitalized in isolation for monitoring.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects many more Americans to be diagnosed with the newly discovered virus, which is believed to have an incubation period of about two weeks, as worldwide the number of confirmed cases nears 2,000. The CDC is screening passengers on direct and connecting flights from Wuhan at five major airports in Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

CDC officials noted Sunday that more than two dozen people who had been suspected of having the illness ended up testing negative.

Guidance from the CDC advises that people who have had casual contact with the patient are at “minimal risk” for developing infection.

China has since extended the Lunar New Year holiday as the new virus’ death toll rises. This comes as an effort to keep the public at home and avoid spreading infection.

The end of the Lunar New Year holiday, China’s busiest travel season, was pushed back to Sunday from Friday to “effectively reduce mass gatherings” and “block the spread of the epidemic,” a Cabinet statement said.

Travel agencies were ordered to cancel group tours nationwide following a warning the virus’s ability to spread was increasing. Hong Kong announced it would bar entry to visitors from the mainland province at the center of the outbreak.

Boston 25 News staff contributed to this report

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