SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — Three additional people have tested presumptive positive for COVID-19, the Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) announced Friday.
The new COVID-19 cases are:
- A man in his 40s who is hospitalized and in isolation and traveled to New York and Philadelphia.
- A man in his 30s who is in isolation at home and traveled to Chicago.
- A woman in her 70s who is at home in isolation.
To date, there have been 11 cases in San Diego County: eight of them local residents and three from the federal quarantine.
HHSA is aggressively working to find out where these patients were prior to developing symptoms and testing positive for COVID-19. Any contacts determined to be at risk will be placed under self-quarantine and monitored for possible symptoms of COVID-19.
Also, a San Diego State University student who was studying abroad in Italy tested positive for coronavirus. That student is now self-isolating at their home OUTSIDE of San Diego County. Because it's outside of the county, the student has not been counted as San Diego case and therefore not reflected in the case numbers above.
HHSA has confirmed that the risk to the campus community remains low.
When it comes to testing, the County is following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of Public Health. Hospital and commercial laboratories establish their own guidelines, but some doctors are consulting with County Public Health Services to determine if a patient should be tested.
While the public’s desire for testing is understandable, for now, testing is primarily through health care systems, which typically involve a visit with a provider. The public is urged to work within their individual health care programs. People who are not sick don’t need to be tested.
If you are sick and would not normally see a health care provider, stay home until you are no longer sick.
Here’s who should be tested:
- People returning from an impacted country who develop symptoms.
- People who have had contact with someone who tested positive with COVID-19.
- People who are experiencing severe respiratory illness.
Testing does not affect treatment as there is no treatment for COVID-19, except supportive care, such as fever or cough medications. Testing is used to help with very sick patients who are hospitalized.
The County has taken aggressive measures to stop or slow the spread of COVID-19, including:
- Banning gatherings of 250 or more people and requiring additional social distancing measures.
- Establishing strict visitor restrictions at hospitals, long-term and skilled-nursing facilities and other residential facilities.
- Increasing testing capacity at the County Public Health Lab and considering additional testing options.
- Placing handwashing stations throughout the region.
- Dispatching Homeless Outreach Teams with information and protocols for people who are homeless.
- Sending public health nurses to homeless shelters to monitor people for respiratory illness.
- Identifying hotel/motel rooms to house people without a home and who might need to be quarantined.
The County is actively monitoring all people under home isolation and quarantine to make sure they don’t develop symptoms of COVID-19.
“We check on these people daily and take appropriate actions when they develop symptoms,” Wooten said. “It’s important to remember that if you did not have close contact to the patient with COVID-19 or someone who’s traveled to an impacted country or region, the risk of infection is still low.”
If you have individual questions, please talk to your healthcare provider. For community resources, please call 2-1-1 San Diego or visit www.211sandiego.org. or www.coronavirus-sd.com.