The US Has Its First ‘Community Spread’ Coronavirus Case

During the press conference where President Trump announced that Vice President Mike Pence would be taking charge of domestic efforts to combat SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus spreading internationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also announced that the outbreak had entered a new phase in the US. The agency reported the first patient infected via “community spread”—which is to say, the patient hadn’t traveled to places where the virus is common and had no known exposure to anyone with Covid-19. WIRED has learned that the patient has been in a northern California hospital for a week, but went undiagnosed until Sunday.

The CDC specified only that the patient was in California; the California Department of Public Health announced that the patient was a resident of Solano County—which, as other reports have pointed out, is the location of one of the Air Force bases being used for quarantines of people who’ve returned to the US from countries with the disease.

A microbiologist at UC Davis posted to Twitter on Wednesday evening that his university’s hospital had that patient. (He later deleted the tweet.) A letter circulated at UC Davis (signed by David Lubarsky, vice chancellor of human health sciences and CEO of UC Davis Health and Brad Simmons, interim CEO and COO of UC Davis Medical Center) says that the patient has been at the university’s medical center since February 19—a full week ago—and was only diagnosed with Covid-19 on Sunday, February 23. The hospital admitted the patient intubated and on a ventilator, and since health care workers suspected a viral infection they implemented “droplet protection,” keeping on guard against coming into contact with the stuff that comes up in coughing or sneezing.