California monitoring 8,400 people after coronavirus case of unknown origin raises fears of community transmission
- Woman from Solona county tests positive for Covid-19 despite having no history of travel to China or contact with known carriers
- State governor Gavin Newsom warns that it only has 200 testing kits but that number would be ‘exponentially expanded’
California is monitoring 8,400 people for Covid-19 after a case of unknown origin, but the governor warned there was a shortage of testing kits.
A woman from Solano county in northern California tested positive for the coronavirus that causes the disease on Wednesday, a week after she was hospitalised and put on ventilator.
She had no history of travel to China or contact with people known to be infected, making her the first American case of unknown origin – a potential sign of community transmission.
Governor Gavin Newsom told a press conference on Thursday that the risk of contracting the virus remained low, but noted that the state currently has only 200 testing kits.
“That is simply inadequate to do justice to the kind of testing we need,” said Newsom, and promised the number of available kits from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would be “exponentially expanded” starting on Thursday afternoon.