CDC ‘took FOUR DAYS to test patient in unknown origin coronavirus case because they hadn’t traveled abroad or been exposed to an infected patient as image reveals how the virus has taken over their body and hospital employees are told to isolate
Health officials confirmed the first case of coronavirus where origin of disease is unknown on Wednesday
CDC said patient hadn’t traveled from foreign country and wasn’t in contact with another confirmed case
Patient is being treated at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento; origin of patient’s infection is not known
Email from hospital officials said CDC took four days to test patient, despite requests from hospital staff
Some hospital staffers were also asked to go home, isolate themselves and monitor their temperatures
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By VALERIE EDWARDS and RACHEL SHARP
DAILYMAIL.COM
27 February 2020
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reportedly took four days to test a person with the first confirmed case of coronavirus where the origin of the disease is unknown because they ‘didn’t fit the criteria’.
Officials said the patient is being treated at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.
The patient, who is a resident of Solano County, was admitted into the hospital on February 19.
But questions are now being asked over the CDC’s handling of the case after an email from medical center officials to employees revealed that the CDC took four days to test the patient for the deadly disease despite requests from staff at the center.
The leaked memo also suggested medical center staff may have been unnecessarily put at risk after some have now been told to go into isolation and watch for symptoms.
According to the email, the CDC didn’t test the patient, who has not been identified, for coronavirus until February 23.
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According to the internal memo from UC Davis Medical Center obtained by CBS13, the patient was transferred from another Northern California hospital on February 19 and was already intubated and on a ventilator.
However, despite requests from medical center officials for the CDC to test the unknown individual, the patient was only tested for coronavirus on Sunday – four days after they were admitted to the hospital – because ‘the patient did not fit the existing CDC criteria for COVID-19’, the email said.
The email from the David Lubarsky, vice-chancellor of human health services, and Brad Simmons, interim CEO of UC Davis Medical Center, to the center employees confirmed that the test had come back positive Wednesday.
‘Upon admission, our team asked public health officials if this case could be COVID-19. We requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, since neither Sacramento County nor (the California Department of Public Health) is doing testing for coronavirus at this time. Since the patient did not fit the existing CDC criteria for COVID-19, a test was not immediately administered,’ said the email, which added that, ‘UC Davis Health does not control the testing process’.
The hospital has been treating one other confirmed case of coronavirus, though the other patient contracted the disease through travel after returning to the US from China on February 2.
‘This is not the first COVID-19 patient we have treated, and because of the precautions we have had in place since this patient’s arrival, we believe there has been minimal potential for exposure here at UC Davis Medical Center,’ the email said.
