US: Evacuees from Wuhan show no signs of coronavirus infection, say Health officials

None of the 195 US citizens who were evacuated on a chartered flight from Wuhan to California has shown any symptoms of infection, a senior US health official said on Wednesday. The deadly coronavirus has reportedly killed 170 and infected over 7,700 till now.

Isolated on a voluntary basis

Nancy Messonnier from the centre of Disease Control and Prevention said all the evacuees have been assigned quarters a military base in California where they will remain in isolation on a voluntary basis for 72 hours. While talking to international media she said that all of them have agreed to remain on base.

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All the passengers will undergo three days of testing and monitoring at the California military base to ensure there are no signs of the illness, US officials said on Wednesday. If any passengers decide they want to leave the base before full medical evaluations are completed, US officials would discuss their request. Officials could isolate any of those evacuated on a case-by-case basis if officials determine they need to do so.

If passengers from the chartered flight show no signs of Coronavirus and leave the base, they will continue to be monitored by public health officials at their destinations for the remainder of a period lasting 14 days. Symptoms of the virus include fever, cough and in more severe cases, shortness of breath or pneumonia.

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The period between exposure to novel coronavirus and the appearance of the first symptoms of the disease is 5.2 days on average, a new study found. According to one of the largest and comprehensive case study published on the mysterious coronavirus, the number of cases of the novel coronavirus doubled every 7.4 days since its first emergence. 

The report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), found that the median age of the first 425 patients with confirmed Novel Coronavirus - Infected Pneumonia (NCIP) was 59 years. Among those patients, 56 per cent were male while 55 per cent of the cases were linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, as compared with 8.6 per cent of the subsequent cases.