2 health care workers in Northern California contract coronavirus

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

last updated 2 March 2020

Two health care workers in Solano County, California, contracted coronavirus after being exposed to a patient who was not immediately tested for the virus, officials said Sunday.

The patient was treated at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville, but was not tested for COVID-19 coronavirus because she did not fit the federal testing criteria at the time; the woman had not recently traveled overseas or had contact with anyone known to have coronavirus. The patient is now considered the first U.S. case of community spread, where the source of infection is unknown. She has been transferred to UC Davis Medical Center.

"Our two health care workers who tested positively have been in isolation at home since the day we learned they had contact with the patient who had contracted the virus," Aimee Brewer, president of the NorthBay HealthCare Group, said in a statement. "We took immediate and comprehensive measures intended to stop any further spread of the virus, including working with public health officials to trace the contacts the two workers may have had."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox