SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Ca (NBC 26)
A second and third coronavirus cases of unknown origin have been confirmed.
One woman from California did not travel to any coronavirus-affected areas or knowingly come into contact with an infected person. The infected person in Oregon worked at an elementary school.
The origin of that case is also unknown. The elementary school where the infected person worked will be closed for three days and will be cleaned by maintenance workers.
State health authorities plan to spend the weekend trying to find everyone the unidentified person, who was in a hospital, had been in contact with.
Health officials now say it's now time to shift how we respond to the coronavirus.
One thing they say is to avoid touching your face. A habit that's hard to break even for the director of Santa Clara county's public health department.
"Today we're reporting a new case of novel coronavirus in Santa Clara county. This is the third case to be identified in our county, but it's different from our other two cases in an important way.
Like the California case reported two days ago, our third case did not recently travel overseas or have any known contact with a recent traveler or an infected person.
The individual is an adult woman with chronic health conditions who was hospitalized for difficulty breathing," Dr. Sarah Cody the director of the Santa Clara county public health department.
For individuals, authorities recommend that you keep your hands clean, avoid touching your face, cover your coughs and sneezes by coughing or sneezing into your arm, and stay home when you are sick.
They also recommend people be prepared if they need to stay home for an extended period of time.
There are 8 public health labs that are able to conduct testing in California as of Friday.
