13th Case Of Coronavirus In United States Confirmed; Experts Worry About Overreaction From Germ-Phobic Trump

Reuters: Coronavirus Case Confirmed In California, Takes U.S. Total To 13
The 13th case of coronavirus in the United States was detected in California in a person under federal quarantine after returning from Wuhan, China, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Monday. The adult patient was among U.S. nationals evacuated from Wuhan, the epicenter of the disease, who were under mandatory quarantine for 14 days at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, near San Diego, the CDC said in a statement. (2/10)

ABC News: 13th American Diagnosed With Coronavirus As Death Toll Tops 1,000 In China
Four patients under observation, who had previously tested negative, were taken for further testing Monday morning, with one now testing positive, according to the CDC. Another patient taken to UC San Diego Health still has test results pending. Both patients were "doing well and have minimal symptoms," the CDC said. (Winsor and Schumaker, 2/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Live Updates: CDC Confirms New Coronavirus Case In San Diego, 13th Case In U.S.
The Santa Clara Board of Supervisors passed a formal proclamation of a local health emergency at its meeting Monday. The move is meant to help rally resources to help contain the new coronavirus and prevent it from spreading beyond the two cases already reported. Public health officials stressed that a local health emergency does not mean that there is an increased threat to county residents. (Allday and Bauman, 2/10)

The Associated Press: Nearly 200 Evacuees To Leave Coronavirus Quarantine In US
Nearly 200 evacuees prepared Tuesday to end their two-week quarantine at a Southern California military base where they have been living since flying out of China during a deadly viral outbreak. None of those who flew into March Air Reserve Base have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, health authorities said, although one evacuee at another base had been found to have the highly infectious virus and was in hospital isolation. (2/11)

CNN: First US Evacuee Infected With Coronavirus Was Mistakenly Released From Hospital
The first US evacuee from China known to be infected with the Wuhan coronavirus was mistakenly released from a San Diego hospital after an initial test found the person had not been infected, local health officials said Monday. The patient arrived in the US last week at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar on a State Department flight from Wuhan, China, and was hospitalized with three others after showing possible symptoms of the virus. After an initial CDC test showed all four patients did not have the novel coronavirus, they were released Sunday and returned to the 14-day federal quarantine at Miramar, the University of California, San Diego Health said in a statement. "This morning, CDC officials advised San Diego Public Health that further testing revealed that one of the four patients tested positive for (novel coronavirus)," UC San Diego Health said in a statement. "The confirmed positive patient was returned to UC San Diego Health for observation and isolation until cleared by the CDC for release." (Passantino, 2/11)

The New York Times: Some Experts Worry As A Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts A Growing Epidemic
When an outbreak of the Ebola virus touched the United States’ shores in mid-2014, Donald J. Trump was still a private citizen. But he had strong opinions about how America should act. Mr. Trump, who has spoken openly about his phobia of germs, closely followed the epidemic, and offered angry commentary about what he said was the Obama administration’s dangerous response. He demanded draconian measures like canceling flights, forcing quarantines and even denying the return of American medical workers who had contracted the disease in Africa. (Crowley, 2/10)

NBC News: Coronavirus Quarantine: As Some Americans Prepare To Leave, Workers On Air Force Base Face Harassment
But those who work at March Air Reserve Base have been harassed both in person and online by Riverside County residents who fear that the coronavirus — most cases of which have been in China — might take hold in the United States. Officials in Riverside County sent a letter to residents Monday, urging people to stop targeting base employees with "hurtful" statements online or in person. A few base workers have been "accosted in uniform," the letter read. "This is not acceptable, and needs to stop." According to the letter, those who work on the base have had no exposure to anyone who has been in quarantine. (Edwards, 2/10)

CNN: Families Trying To Adopt From China Are Facing Indefinite Delays Due To Coronavirus 
The Andersons are one of several American families whose adoption plans have been disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak in China. On January 30, the State Department advised all US citizens, including adoptive families, not to travel to China at this time, though adoption cases are still being processed. The department advised parents to contact their adoption service providers to discuss future plans, though it said services to US citizens and adoptive families would be "prioritized to the extent possible." Americans adopt more children from China than any other country, though US adoptions from China have declined significantly in the past two decades. In the 2018 fiscal year, the most recent year for which State Department data is available, Americans adopted 1,475 children from China. (Kaur, Chen and Cartaya, 2/10)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Misinformation Is Spreading Faster Than The Outbreak. The Problem Is Part Bad-Faith Actors, And Part Human Nature.
Meghan May, a university professor who researches emerging diseases, seemed an unlikely person to contribute to misinformation about the novel coronavirus. Yet last week, May shared a mea culpa on Twitter, owning up to unwittingly retweeting information that had origins in a Russian misinformation campaign. The story that managed to evade her typically discerning sensors: a claim that a Chinese Internet company had accidentally released death and infection totals — ones that exceeded official estimates — before quickly scrubbing evidence of them online. (Bellware, 2/10)

Kaiser Health News: When It Comes To The New Coronavirus, Just Who Is A ‘Close Contact’?
Even as U.S. authorities have taken the drastic steps of quarantining residents returning from China, and temporarily banning foreign visitors who recently traveled to affected Chinese regions, they have urged the vast majority of U.S. residents to go about their regular activities. But there are exceptions. People who returned from China on or after Feb. 3 have been formally quarantined or asked to stay home. And behind the scenes, local public health officials have launched painstaking efforts to reach “close contacts” of people with confirmed cases of the virus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, asking them to self-quarantine and submit to ongoing monitoring. (Barry-Jester, 2/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: ‘Huge Shortage’: Bay Area Clinics Seek Supplies Of Masks For Coronavirus
In late January, as the coronavirus continued spreading across the globe, the Foothill Community Health Center in San Jose had a problem. The center, a nonprofit network of medical and dental clinics, was running low on N95 masks — the respirator mask that officials recommend health care workers wear when coming in contact with patients who may have coronavirus. (Ho, 2/10)

Marketplace: What Employers Need To Know About The Coronavirus
As efforts to contain the coronavirus continue around the world, companies are thinking about how to reduce the risk to their workforce.It’s a good time for employers to be diligent about addressing illness prevention in the workplace, according to Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. (Brancaccio and Conlon, 2/10)