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Fewer than five Fresno County residents have been tested for coronavirus

March 03, 2020 03:33 PM,

Fewer than five people have been tested for coronavirus in Fresno County, but all tested negative, health officials said Tuesday.

Those tests were administered by the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention before Friday, according to Fresno County Interim Health Director Rais Vohra. That’s when testing kits were sent to California. Tests are now being administered in 13 labs across the state.

Tulare County is administering some tests for the San Joaquin Valley, but Vohra said Fresno samples may be sent to other labs, too. So far, the Tulare lab has tested one patient from Tulare and two from Kings County. All three tested negative.

Tulare County has one COVID-19 testing kit. According to county officials, the kit can test between 200 and 250 people. The CDC continues to send out additional kits to laboratories as they become available, according to state officials.

Tests are only administered if the CDC approves it. In order to qualify, an individual needs to display the symptoms and have either traveled to China or one of five other high-risk countries or been in contact with someone who has traveled.

On Tuesday, a total of 15 individuals in Fresno County who traveled to high-risk areas were self-monitoring at home for a two-week period. In February, the Fresno Bee reported at least 55 people were told to self-monitor. That means checking their fever twice a day, using their own bathroom and staying a certain distance from other people within their home.

Vohra said his office is “thinking about” contingencies for public events.

“We haven’t really gone to the stage where we need to cancel any public events right now. We don’t have a COVID case in our county right now. We want people to be mindful of these basic precautions, but there is no reason to cancel anything locally at this time.”

He said coronavirus could be thought of as the “super flu.”

“So all of the things that we are doing to really warn people about influenza, and we push this message out year after year, those are the same messages we really need to internalize and take into heart. And that means washing your hands obsessively, covering cough and sneeze, and staying home if you’re sick,” Vohra said.

As of Tuesday, 43 people tested positive in California. Governor Gavin Newsom requested $20 million in emergency action from the legislature to help the state respond to COVID-19.

The U.S. death toll for the virus is at nine people, all of them from Washington state, state officials confirmed Tuesday. The global mortality rate exceeds 3,000.