A woman in her 50s visiting Eagle County is among the six new presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 identified Friday in Colorado. The woman was exposed to COVID-19, the new coronavirus, during international travel.
The patient was not hospitalized and is recovering in isolation. The patient is working with public health officials in the ongoing investigation to identify people that may have had close exposure. The case is presumptive positive, which means test results haven’t yet been confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Eagle County Department of Public Health and Environment also announced Friday that a potential patient connected to Eagle County Schools returned a negative test.
On Wednesday, after Eagle County Schools learned that the CDC had changed its guidelines on travel from Italy, Iran, and South Korea, it alerted students and staff members from Battle Mountain High School who had traveled to Italy in February.
“Consequently, our students and staff who went on the trip to Italy will need to stay home for the remainder of their self-monitoring period, which ends at 6 am on Saturday, as long as they are symptom-free,” read an email sent to Battle Mountain students and parents. “These students have been complying with the prior CDC protocol of self-monitoring for symptoms. One of the symptoms is fever, a condition that requires students and staff to stay home until they have been fever-free for 24-hours without the aid of medication anyway. With that in mind, we believe asking them to remain at home for the next few days is a technical requirement and nothing for concern. Symptoms may still develop and we are prepared with a response plan should it be necessary.”
In a news release, Eagle County Schools Superintendent Phil Qualman wrote “the patient’s parent emailed several other parents and staff members this news, connecting the case to our school system. The results of other tests in the county, none related to our schools, are still pending.
“There are many people in Eagle County who traveled to/from countries that have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks in recent weeks. Some are students and teachers in our system. Those in our system have all followed the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Eagle County Department of Public Health (Public Health) to self-monitor for COVID19 symptoms, fever, cough, and difficulty breathing.”
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s state lab had six additional presumptive positive tests Friday, which includes the Eagle County patient, following the first two positives on Thursday. At least five of the cases had an international travel history. The state is coordinating with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on flights that may have had a COVID-19 case.
This story is from VailDaily.com.