About 200 American evacuees from China are taken off of a Kalitta Air Boeing 747-400 freighter and shuttled onto waiting busses (R) at the March Air Reserve Base on Jan. 29, 2020. File photo by Etienne Laurent/EPA-EFE
Feb. 5 (UPI) -- The 12th confirmed 2019 novel coronavirus case in the United States was identified in an adult in Wisconsin, public health officials in the state revealed Monday, as U.S. officials work to evacuate more Americans from China, where the outbreak has been centered.
The person is believed to have been exposed to the virus after coming into contact with an infected individual while traveling to China, the Wisconsin Department of health and CDC confirmed in a press release.
So far, officials said, the person seems to have contracted a mild form of the disease, and has not required hospitalization. Currently, the patient remains in isolation at home.
Wisconsin is now the fifth state with at least one confirmed case of 2019-nCoV, joining California, which has six, Illinois, which has two, and Arizona, Massachusetts and Washington, which have one confirmed case.
Overall, 206 people screened for the virus have tested negative, and another 76 have tests pending, with some currently in transit to CDC labs.
The CDC said it has started to distributed test kits to 100 labs around the U.S., and another 200 to labs in partner countries, to speed testing up and prevent samples from having to be sent to the its lab in Atlanta. Each of the kits can process 700 to 800 test samples.
"We expect to see additional cases among returning travelers and their close contacts," Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a press briefing on Wednesday, adding that "current risk to the American public remains low."
Flights carrying additional American citizens trapped in Wuhan, China -- ground zero for the ongoing 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak -- have also started to arrive at various military bases across the country.
Two planes, both with more than 100 passengers, already arrived Wednesday morning at Travis Air Force Base in Sacramento, U.S. officials said.
Additional flights, chartered by the U.S. State Department, are expected to land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Neb. over the next few days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.
All arriving flights have been and will be met by a team of CDC personnel deployed to assess the health of the passengers, the agency said. Passengers are also screened, monitored and evaluated by medical and public health personnel before takeoff and during the flights.
Once on the ground in the U.S., CDC staff will conduct risk assessments to ensure the health of each traveler, including temperature checks and observing for respiratory symptoms.
As with the charter that arrived at March Air Reserve Base in Ontario, Calif. last week, passengers on all new flights will be issued quarantine orders upon arrival. This legal order is intended to protect the travelers, their families, and the community, the CDC said, and will begin on the day each flight left Wuhan and will continue for up to 14 days after arrival in the U.S.
Messonnier said evacuees already quarantined at March Air Reserve Base who have tested negative for 2019-nCoV can expected to be released on or about February 11.
There will be no restrictions on their travel or other movement, she said.
CDC staff will work with the state and local public health departments to transport any passenger exhibiting symptoms to a hospital for further evaluation, the agency said.
