With a fifth person testing positive for the new coronavirus, the total number of people investigated for the virus in Illinois has grown to almost 200.
On Thursday, officials disclosed that a man in his 20s who had flown into O’Hare International Airport in March after being in Italy, where he is believed to have contracted the virus.
Earlier, a man, in his 70s, was being treated at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, while his wife, also in her 70s, was staying at home after also testing positive. Both were at home as of Thursday, and one of the cases had been confirmed by the CDC.
In January, a Chicago woman and her husband marked the first instance of the respiratory coronavirus spreading from one person to another in the United States. They since have been released from the hospital.
As of Wednesday, 99 people in the U.S. had tested positive for the coronavirus, according to numbers released Thursday by the CDC. An additional 49 people who had been repatriated to the U.S. had also tested positive for the illness. Nine people have died from it in Washington state.
The CDC is no longer reporting the total number of people under investigation in the U.S., as states are now testing and reporting results on their own, according to the agency. In Illinois, 197 people were under investigation, with 165 testing negative, as of Wednesday. Others are being monitored.
As of Thursday morning, more than 93,000 people worldwide had contracted the virus and almost 3,200 people had died, according to the World Health Organization.
The Chicago woman was diagnosed with the coronavirus Jan. 24, after returning from a trip to Wuhan, China.
On Feb. 16, more than 300 U.S. citizens were evacuated from a cruise ship docked at a port in Yokohama, Japan.
The first U.S. case was confirmed Jan. 21, in Washington state, after the outbreak began in December in Wuhan.
Here is what we know so far about the virus in Illinois:
The Rush hospital case
The fifth person to test positive for COVID-19 in Illinois is a man in his 20s who had traveled to Italy and returned to the Chicago area via O’Hare International Airport. He’s believed to have contracted the virus in Italy, and was being treated at Rush University Medical Center. People who were on an airplane with the man were being contacted and monitored, according to health officials.
The northwest suburban cases
A man in his 70s became the third presumed Illinois case and his wife, also in her 70s, the fourth, after they both tested positive for the coronavirus over the weekend. They both were at home by Thursday. It’s not been disclosed whether officials know how they caught the virus, and hospital officials declined on Monday to release additional information. One of the cases had been confirmed by the CDC by Thursday.
The Chicago cases
The Chicago woman, in her 60s, returned Jan. 13 from a trip to Wuhan, and a few days later began experiencing symptoms and was admitted to the hospital, where infection control measures were taken, according to the CDC. After getting information about where she had traveled recently, her doctor worked with the CDC to have the woman tested for the coronavirus.
The patient was hospitalized at Amita St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates in an isolated room, and her condition was stabilized.
Officials later confirmed that the virus had spread to the husband of the Chicago woman. The husband was placed in isolation Jan. 28 after he began experiencing symptoms. The next night, his test results came back positive for the coronavirus. This was the first reported case of the coronavirus spreading from person to person in the U.S.
The two have been released.
Airport screening, China travelers restrictions
The CDC began screening people returning from Wuhan via O’Hare International Airport in the fourth week of January. O’Hare is one of five airports in the U.S. where authorities were rolling out screening for travelers.
On Jan. 31, U.S. officials declared a public health emergency and barred foreign nationals, with the exception of immediate family of U.S. permanent residents and citizens, from entering the country if they had traveled to China within the last two weeks.
United, Delta and American Airlines announced they would suspend all flights to mainland China. This came a day after the U.S. government issued a “do not travel” warning for China and encouraged travelers in that country to consider departing.
Direct flights out of Wuhan were halted, but there were still a number of people who may have traveled through Wuhan working to get back to the U.S.
More to come, but risk still low in US
There will likely be more cases in the United States over the next days and weeks, according to the CDC. Still, the immediate risk of the virus to Americans is believed to be low.
At the end of January, U.S. health officials issued a 14-day quarantine for 195 Americans who were evacuated from Wuhan. This was the first federal quarantine since the 1960s. The group was held at a Southern California military base.
The Associated Press contributed.