State and federal officials on Thursday said 10 people who have tested positive for the new coronavirus are under observation in a San Antonio facility.
The details were shared during a briefing at the State Operations Center in North Austin in which Gov. Greg Abbott went over the different measures state officials are taking in preparation for the possibility of an outbreak of the virus in Texas.
Health officials have said the threat of a Texas outbreak remains low, but Abbott said the state is preparing for all possible outcomes.
“Planning includes different scenarios ranging from the status quo to extreme pandemic so we can be prepared for anything that may happen,” he said.
Abbott and other officials said all of the patients in the San Antonio treatment facility are either evacuees from Wuhan, China, or were passengers aboard a cruise ship where a coronavirus outbreak had occurred in Japan earlier this month.
The individuals infected with the virus were quarantined immediately after arriving in the United States and haven’t had contact with other Texas residents, said Nancy Knight, director of the Division of Global Health Protection at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Knight said eight of the 10 patients in the San Antonio facility were among the 145 U.S. citizens evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. The two other patients had been in Wuhan and were also quarantined immediately after arriving in the U.S. They are all in isolation and in various stages of recovery, Knight said.
The Texas Department of State Health Services set up 22 negative pressure rooms, sealed off from the rest of the facility, to treat the patients at the Texas Center for Infectious Disease in San Antonio.
The new coronavirus has caused a global health scare with more than 81,000 cases confirmed internationally. Illnesses linked to the virus first broke out in the industrial city of Wuhan in China’s Hubei province. Travelers from Wuhan entering the United States have been placed under mandatory federal quarantine.
The CDC on Thursday confirmed 871 new cases globally within a 24-hour period.
In the United States, the CDC said they confirmed 14 cases of the virus. Of those, 12 cases were travel-related while two infections were spread person-to-person.
The CDC has tested 445 people in the U.S. for the disease so far, according to data updated Thursday.
Abbott said Texas officials are checking in regularly with the White House and the CDC to provide updates on those infected in Texas.
Abbott said the Texas Department of State Health Services is the lead agency responding to the new coronavirus and is working closely with other agencies to coordinate and plan for the state’s response to the global health scare.
Health officials are also working to inform the community about signs and symptoms of the virus, so residents know when to notify their local health departments if their symptoms match those of COVID-19. They are also in contact with commercial travelers returning from China to report their temperatures and other symptoms daily, Abbott said.
The Department of State Health Services is also working to ensure high-risk populations, like children, elderly people and those in health care facilities, know how to mitigate coronavirus and complete proper disinfectant measures.
“Long story short, there is a tremendous amount of work at all these state agencies, health leaders and emergency response leaders, have put in for well over a month now to be extremely well organized,” Abbott said. “We have an extremely robust, well informed, activated force prepared for any potential outcome that we may have to deal with.”
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