US confirms first case of coronavirus

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed Tuesday that a Washington state resident is the first confirmed US case of a novel coronavirus, a respiratory ailment that has killed nine people in Asia and sickened more than 400.

When the infected man who is in his 30s traveled from Wuhan to the Seattle-Tacoma airport on Jan 15, he didn't have symptoms, The Seattle Times reported. But on Sunday, he went to his doctor at a clinic in Snohomish County with pneumonia symptoms.

Specimens were collected and sent to the CDC for testing. The result was positive for coronavirus, and the patient was isolated and under observation at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett.

The patient is in good condition now and isn't considered a contagious threat to medical staff or the public, according to local media.

The virus, which was first identified last month in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, has so far infected 440 people in an outbreak including Japan, Thailand, South Korea and Taiwan.

According to webmd.com, coronaviruses were first identified in the 1960s and get their name from their crownlike shape. (Corona is Spanish for crown.)

Most coronaviruses are spread in a fashion similar to cold-causing viruses, through coughing and sneezing by those infected; by touching an infected person's hands or face; or by touching things such as doorknobs that infected people have touched, webmd.com says. If the virus spreads to the lower respiratory tract, there is a risk of pneumonia.

Officials are compiling a list of people whom the Washington state patient may have had contact with since his return to the United States. The virus can spread from person to person, but not nearly as easily as viruses such as measles or influenza.

"As our team of experts partner with infectious disease specialists locally, nationally and around the globe to learn more about the 2019 novel coronavirus, our first priority remains public safety," said Washington State Secretary of Health John Wiesman. "We believe the risk to the public is low ... and we will continue to communicate with the CDC, Snohomish County and the public."

The CDC also announced Tuesday that it will expand screenings for passengers flying directly or indirectly from Wuhan to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Chicago O'Hare International Airport.

On Jan 17, the CDC began screening passengers arriving from Wuhan to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York (JFK), followed by San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

JFK and SFO are the only US airports with nonstop flights from Wuhan. Los Angeles was included because it receives a lot of connecting passengers.

San Francisco has three nonstop flights from Wuhan, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. During the past 12 months, an average of 150 passengers arrived on those nonstop flights. The airport also expects about 10 to 25 connecting passengers at SFO per day to be subject to screening.

Judy Zhu, a multimedia reporter for China Daily in New York, said she traveled from Beijing to New York over the weekend, arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport at 4 am Sunday.

"It was my fourth time landing at JFK, and I felt the Customs process took much longer than usual," she said. "There was an insanely long line for international travelers to get into customs. All the passengers from my flight, mostly Chinese, were asked whether we had been to Wuhan recently.

"A Chinese woman in front didn't speak English," Zhu said. "The officer asked for a Mandarin translator to make sure she answered the question."

Zhu said that some Chinese passengers' names were called out by officers, and they were taken to another room for further inspection.

"I didn't know whether that was related to the coronavirus breakout or not," she said. "It took me almost three hours to get through Customs, and I finally got out of the airport by 7 am."

Heath Montgomery, spokesperson for the Los Angeles airport, said the screening started on Saturday, and it's taking place in the federal immigration facility at the Tom Bradley International Terminal (the primary international arrivals terminal), an area controlled by US Customs and Border Protection.

"We have 14 different markets that we have nonstop services to in China, Wuhan is not one of the nonstops, but we do have a substantial amount of people who travel between Wuhan and LAX on an annual basis. It's around 22,000 to 23,000 people a year that are actually traveling between Wuhan and LAX, indirectly," Montgomery said.

"I know that Chinese New Year (Saturday, Jan 25) is a big holiday, and we certainly do see increased travel globally during different holidays."

Vivian Miao of Shanghai, who was visiting her son in LA, said she did not notice any screening as she entered US Customs at LAX.

However, the staff at the Shanghai airport took passengers' temperatures before they boarded the flight to LA.

"Many Chinese people on our flight wore masks as a precaution," she said, adding that masks were nearly sold out in many stores in China recently because of the disease.

Jessica Zheng, who was also on the Shanghai flight, said she believed that the airport staff screened only people who were traveling from Wuhan, but because Shanghai is not the epicenter of the new coronavirus, they did not undergo screening at the airport.

A Chinese family that arrived at LAX on Tuesday after a connecting flight from Hong Kong said that they read about the screenings during the flight, but didn't undergo them at the airport.

"The flight was smooth, and not many people back home seem so worried about the virus," the mother of the family, who gave only her last name, Ma, told China Daily.

Liu Yinmeng in Los Angeles and Lia Zhu in San Francisco contributed to this story.