Coronavirus: US announces 12th case; patient in Wisconsin had direct contact with infected Wuhan family members
- Patient had recently met family members from Wuhan in Beijing and is now in isolation at home, officials say
- All US cases have direct or indirect trail to Wuhan
The 12th coronavirus case in the United States was confirmed by federal health officials on Thursday.
The patient is a woman in Wisconsin who had recently travelled to Beijing and had close contact with family members from Wuhan, where the outbreak started, said Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Centre for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The case represents “a direct link back to the large, ongoing outbreak in Wuhan”, Messonnier said, adding that all cases in the US can be traced back, directly or indirectly, to the central mainland Chinese city of 11 million people.
The US government has been “preparing for an outbreak like this for years”, she said, adding that “this is the beginning of what could be a long response”.
At a news conference on Wednesday in the Wisconsin capital of Madison, local officials said the sick woman had gone straight from the Madison airport to the University of Wisconsin Hospital for testing and has been in isolation at home ever since, Associated Press reported.