California health officials on Friday confirmed the second case of novel coronavirus in the United States believed to have been transmitted to a person who didn’t travel internationally or come in close contact with anyone who had it. Health officials in San Jose said the patient was an older adult woman with chronic health conditions who does not have a travel history or any known contact with a traveler or infected person. It comes a day after state officials said a woman hospitalized at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento had contracted the illness after no known contact. “This new case indicates that there is evidence of community transmission, but the extent is still not clear,” said Dr. Sara Cody, health officer for Santa Clara County and director of the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department. Officials were able to get quick confirmation because the test was done by the Santa Clara County Public Health Laboratory with test kits received from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials submitted the woman’s specimens for testing Thursday and received the results Thursday night. The California Department of Public Health said Friday that the state will receive enough kits from the CDC to test up to 1,200 people, a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom complained to federal health officials that the state had already exhausted its initial 200 test kits. State official also said the federal government decided it will not need to use the Fairview Developmental Center in Orange County to isolate passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. That’s because of the imminent end of the isolation period for those passengers and the relatively small number of persons who ended up testing positive, officials said. The CDC had originally estimated that as many as half the passengers would test positive. But the state said the actual number has been “substantially lower.” A federal judge had granted officials in Costa Mesa a temporary restraining order blocking the transfers during the time when state officials said the facility had been “critically needed.” Cody said the newly confirmed case in Santa Clara County is not linked to two previous cases in that county, nor to others in the state. The Santa Clara County resident was treated at a local hospital and is not known to have traveled to Solano County, where public health officials have identified dozens of people — but less than 100 — who had close contact with the case announced Thursday. They are quarantined in their homes. and a few who have shown symptoms are in isolation, officials said. At UC Davis Medical Center, at least 124 registered nurses and other health care workers were sent home for “self-quarantine” after the woman with the virus was admitted, National Nurses United, a nationwide union representing RNs, said Friday. “Despite University of California medical facilities being generally better prepared and equipped to treat challenging medical cases, the … case highlights the vulnerability of the nation’s hospitals to this virus,” the union said. The case of the infected women marks an escalation of the worldwide outbreak in the U.S. because it means the virus could spread beyond the reach of preventative measures like quarantines, though state health officials said that was inevitable and that the risk of widespread transmission remains low. […]

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