Kansas officials still waiting for results of possible coronavirus case in Lawrence
Kansas health officials are still waiting for test results to reveal whether a patient in isolation in a Lawrence hospital has the novel coronavirus.
The unidentified patient at LMH Health (formerly Lawrence Memorial Hospital) returned to the United States within the last two weeks after traveling from Wuhan City, China, state health officials said earlier this week.
“We hope to have the results soon and will share the results with the public,” Kristi Zears, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said Friday afternoon. Earlier, officials had said they hoped to have the results by the end of this week.
Also on Friday, the United States declared a public health emergency because of the virus and announced strict restrictions for anyone entering the country from China, where the virus originated.
“It is likely that we will continue to see more cases in the United States in the coming days and weeks, including some limited person-to-person transmissions,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in announcing the emergency.
Nearly 10,000 people have been infected with the virus, and more than 200 have died, all of them in China, The Associated Press reported.
Kansas health officials alerted the public Tuesday that they and federal authorities were investigating the possibility that the unidentified patient in Lawrence had been exposed. It is the only possible case reported so far in Kansas or Missouri.
“While we have no confirmed cases in Missouri to date, we are continuously monitoring and preparing should this status change for our state,” the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said in a statement Friday.
Missouri’s health department is providing daily updates on its website.
As of Friday there are six cases in the United States, and 191 people are being monitored, CDC officials told the Associated Press.
Kansas City hospitals and local health officials are working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health departments to stay on top of developments they say are coming quickly.
“Based on all the information we have received from the CDC, the risk to the general public remains low,” Saint Luke’s Health System said in a statement.
“While this virus may be new, preventing the spread of infection and infection control is something we do every day. We are currently in the middle of flu season, so many of these steps and protocols are things we already have in place and are already doing.”
There’s a lot that health care professionals don’t know about the new virus, said Dana Hawkinson, infectious disease specialist with the University of Kansas Health System.
The hospital system has had procedures in place for two weeks to “appropriately and efficiently” screen patients who might have symptoms identified with the virus, said Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control.
“We don’t know a lot about the virus itself, about the severity of illness it causes and the people it affects, and there are still common cold and influenza viruses that are in the height of the season,” Hawkinson said.
“In the U.S. there have been 15 million influenza infections that people don’t necessarily hear about or know, but worldwide there’s probably only been 9,000 infected with the new coronavirus.”
Hawkinson advises people to get a flu shot, and take precautions already recommended for the flu season.
“Proper hand hygiene with frequent hand washing or alcohol gel … and try to protect yourself by keeping your hands out of your eyes, nose and mouth, a major way a lot of these illnesses are spread,” Hawkinson said.
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