Mystery coronavirus cases raises fears in US

And in Washington State, officials suggested that people needed to prepare for the possibility of schools closing and businesses keeping workers home. In Oregon, a state that had not reported any previous cases of coronavirus, officials said an employee of Forest Hills Elementary School in Lake Oswego appeared to have contracted the virus more than a week ago. In California, a woman from Santa Clara County with chronic health conditions who was hospitalized for a respiratory illness was reported on Friday to have tested positive for infection with the virus. “This has become very real for everyone in our community,” Sam Liccardo, the mayor of San Jose, said on Friday evening as he prepared to meet with city staff about the implications. “We are going to need to take every reasonable precaution without resorting to panic or finger-pointing.” For weeks, local and state health departments across the country have been stretched thin by the coronavirus outbreak, and the cases of unknown origin signaled a new front in their efforts. Migrants rescued in the Mediterranean sea disembark from the Sea Watch NGO's ship on Feb. 27 in the port of Messina, Sicily.  Life inside a red zone: A protective mask has been put on the face of a statue of Italy's patron saint, St. Francis, in San Fiorano, one of the towns on lockdown, in this picture taken by schoolteacher Marzio Toniolo in San Fiorano, Italy, on Feb. 27. The ultrastructural morphology exhibited by the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China, is seen in an illustration released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, on Jan. 29. “This case does signal to us that it’s now time to shift how we respond to the novel coronavirus,” Dr. Sara Cody, the public health director for Santa Clara County, said. In Solano County, where the first U.S. case of unexplained origin was announced earlier in the week, local officials have fielded calls from scores of concerned residents. “I’m middling alarmed,” said Rick Lodwick, as he tossed a jumbo pack of sanitizing wipes into the back of his car in the parking of a big box store in Vacaville. Solano County, northeast of San Francisco, is a place of cattle ranches, biotechnology research facilities, a military base and vineyards. Dr. Bela T. Matyas, the public health officer in Solano County, said officials had begun monitoring dozens of people with whom the woman who fell ill there had interacted in recent weeks — including relatives, co-workers and others she might have had contact with through her job — and had asked them to quarantine themselves at home. Reporting was contributed by Julie Checkoway from Sacramento, Joe Purtell from Vacaville and Amy Harmon, Roni Caryn Rabin, Reed Abelson, Knvul Sheikh and Dana Goldstein from New York.

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