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- Second case of community spread of COVID-19 found in Santa Clara County, California, officials announced on Friday.
- An older woman with a previous health conditioned tested positive for the virus without any relevant travel history or contact with an infected individual.
- This is the third coronavirus case in Santa Clara county.
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Santa Clara County confirmed the second case of "community spread" of the new coronavirus in the United States, on Friday.
It is also the third novel coronavirus case in the county - and officials said it is not tied to the other two cases.
The individual tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. They had no contact with a known infected person and did not have any relevant travel history.
Santa Clara health officials said in a press statement on Friday that the patient was an older woman with a chronic health condition.
During the press conference Sara Cody, director of the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department, said an infectious disease professional asked to have the woman tested after her symptoms appeared to similar to COVID-19.
"This new case indicates that there is evidence of community transmission but the extent is still not clear," Cody said.
The first case of community spread was reported just a day prior on Thursday in Solano County. The patient was transferred to the University of California, Davis Medical Center for treatment from NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville, California.
Business Insider reported that the UC Davis patient also did not have a relevant travel history or have any contact with known infected people. A leaked internal memo showed that the woman was transferred to UC Davis on February 19, but initial efforts to have her tested for COVID-19 were rejected because she did not meet the previous CDC requirements.
In the wake of these two cases of community spread, Charity Dean, the deputy director of California Department of Public Health, announced that California now has eight facilities that can test for the coronavirus. The facilities are located in Richmond, Alameda, Santa Clara, Tulare, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties.
In the Solano case, authorities are searching for people who may have come into contact with the infected woman. While officials said infectious disease protocol were taken, the CDC has sent 10 staffers to find all the people she might have had contact with, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The Times reported that in Vacaville, hospital authorities were looking through security footage to find everyone who had contact with her. At UC Davis, medical personnel who had contact with her were asked to stay home and monitor their temperatures.
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