(22 Jan 2020) Major U.S. airports are screening passengers arriving from the central Chinese city where the outbreak of a new, potentially deadly virus began.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff are taking temperatures and questioning passengers arriving from the Wuhan, China at the San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City's Kennedy airports.
On Tuesday, CDC officials announced the agency would add Chicago's O'Hare airport and Atlanta's airport to the mix later this week.
What's more, officials also will begin forcing all passengers from Wuhan to go to one of those five airports if they wish to enter the U.S.
The U.S. on Tuesday reported its first case of coronavirus, saying a Washington state resident who returned last week from the Wuhan area was hospitalized near Seattle.
The man, identified as a Snohomish County resident is in his 30s, was in good condition and wasn't considered a threat to medical staff or the public, health officials said.
U.S. officials stressed that they believe the virus' overall risk to the American public remained low.
The newly discovered virus has infected about 300 people, all of whom had been in China, and killed six. The virus can cause coughing, fever, breathing difficulty and pneumonia. The U.S. joins a growing list of places outside mainland China reporting cases, following Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
Airports around the world have stepped up monitoring, checking passengers from China for signs of illness in hopes of containing the virus during the busy Lunar New Year travel season.
The hospitalized U.S. resident had no symptoms when he arrived at the Seattle-Tacoma airport last Wednesday, but he started feeling ill on Thursday and went to a doctor on Sunday with a fever and a cough, officials said. Lab testing on Monday confirmed he had the virus.
Health authorities are keen to avoid a repeat of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which started in southern China in late 2002 and spread to more than two dozen countries, killing nearly 800 people.
At least a half-dozen countries in Asia also have started screening incoming airline passengers from central China.
The list includes Thailand and Japan, which both have reported cases of the disease in people who had come from Wuhan.
Travel is unusually heavy right now as people take trips to and from China to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
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