Residents 'Self Quarantined' In Riverside County: Coronavirus

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — Since mid-January, more than 50 people in Riverside County who recently visited mainland China have been told by health officials to self-quarantine at their homes amid concerns over COVID-19, according to reports.

Those in self quarantine are allowed into the public for brief periods — for essential needs, such as food — but otherwise are told to stay home, Riverside County Public Health department Disease Control Branch Chief Barbara Cole told The Press-Enterprise. Information on which Riverside County cities currently have people under self quarantine has not been made public.

The situation in Riverside County is the protocol recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For travelers arriving in the United States from parts of China outside Hubei Province (the disease epicenter), and who show no signs of infection during airport screenings, they are told to stay at home for 14 days, monitor their health and limit their interactions with others, according to the CDC.

The airport screenings involve taking an arriving passenger's temperature and checking for disease symptoms. Anyone with signs of illness undergoes further screening that can include COVID-19 testing. Travelers from the Hubei Province who show no signs of the illness are automatically placed into a mandatory 14-day quarantine, according to the CDC.

Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea have the highest rates of confirmed COVID-19 cases outside of China, and President Trump on Wednesday said his administration is considering the possibility of screening people arriving from these other countries.

"At a right time we might do that," he said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday said 8,400 people are being monitored in 49 jurisdictions in the state for symptoms of the disease. More than 800 of those people came to California on repatriation flights from overseas and that thousands more arrived from "points of concern and potential points of contact, particularly Asia."

The governor said the state's top priority will be point-of-contact diagnostic testing, and the CDC is sending more testing kits. The state currently has just 200 kits on hand, Newsom said.

During a news briefing call Friday, the CDC's Dr. Nancy Messonnier said, "We are working as quickly as we can to get CDC test kits to state and local public health authorities.

"Our goal is to have every state and local health department online doing their own testing by the end of next weekend and doing everything we can to continue that," she said.

During Friday's call, Messonnier also confirmed California has been hardest hit by COVID-19.

"By far the majority of cases have been in California," she said. As of Thursday, there was a total of 33 positive cases in the state, but then news came Friday that California has a second COVID-19 case of unknown origin. The patient, an older woman, lives in Santa Clara County and has not traveled to any of the countries that have had widespread COVID-19 outbreaks.

While California and the country grapple with the illness, COVID-19 case counts in China are decreasing.

"We’re watching that closely and we hope that is a trend that continues both for the good of the citizens in China who have been through quite an outbreak, and also in the hopes that it will help us learn what we can better do in the United States to continue to control it right here, Messonnier said."