UPDATE: Oregon coronavirus patient likely had little contact with students at Lake Oswego school

A Lake Oswego elementary school employee contracted Oregon’s first apparent case of coronavirus, causing the closure of the 430-student school as health officials try to figure out how many people may have been exposed.

The employee lives in Washington County and is isolated at Kaiser Permanente Westside Medical Center in Hillsboro in what state health officials described Friday as another case of an unexplained transmission of the disease.

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The patient hadn’t been under monitoring for coronavirus symptoms and doesn’t appear to have traveled to any of the countries with outbreaks or have associated with anyone who did, Oregon Health Authority officials said.

That means the person could have caught the disease from someone in the community.

The state did not disclose the person’s age, gender or condition, citing privacy reasons. Health officials didn’t indicate how widespread any exposure might be but noted that the person first showed symptoms nine days ago.

“Our first concern is for this individual, to make sure they’re being cared for and is able to recover,” said Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen. “Our next priority is finding out who this individual had contact with and make sure they know about their risks.”

The person works at Forest Hills Elementary School, now closed through Wednesday for a “deep cleaning,” school district spokeswoman Mary Kay Larson said. The school has 25 teachers and serves students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

All activities are canceled districtwide through the weekend, according to an email sent to district staff. Health officials will talk to Forest Hills employees and let families know their children could have been exposed.

It’s not clear who had contact with the infected person and who may need to be educated on what symptoms to watch out for, said Dr. Jennifer Vines, a family physician and lead health officer for the tri-county region. She didn’t say exactly how they would contact Forest Hills families and staff.

Dr. Dean Sidelinger, the state’s health officer, said no one is ready to jump to sweeping school closures yet, but those are “tools in the toolbox” if necessary.

“The reason we’re trying to identify who this person was in contact with is to try and draw a tight circle,” he said. “If we do notice a spread in the community, it’s certainly something we would consider on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

All schools in Lake Oswego except Forest Hills are expected to open Monday, district officials said.

Coronavirus is most dangerous for old people and those with underlying conditions. The vast majority of cases are mild. The virus is thought to be spread from person to person when in close contact – within about 6 feet – through droplets emitted when a person coughs or sneezes. It may also be possible to catch the virus by touching a surface that has the virus and then touching the mouth, nose or eyes.

The person who tested positive for coronavirus first had symptoms Feb. 19, the state health authority said in a statement. A sample was collected and sent to a laboratory Friday in Hillsboro, which used a test kit provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Oregon officials need the CDC to confirm the results of the test, which Allen said should happen in a matter of days. In the meantime, he called the case “presumptive.”

Gov. Kate Brown encouraged people to continue to go about their daily lives and wash their hands, cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue and stay home if sick. Brown said she learned of the case around 3 p.m. Friday, hours after she had announced that she had created a special group of state department heads to respond to any coronavirus cases in Oregon.

State officials also said that another person is under investigation for a potential case of COVID-19, as the disease is called, because they developed symptoms while under monitoring. This person isn’t connected to the presumptive case.

Federal health officials have said that the spread of the epidemic across the United States is all but inevitable. Most of the more than 60 confirmed cases in the U.S. are tied to people who were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan or people who otherwise traveled abroad.

Although there are only a handful of confirmed cases that have no known origin, the CDC said the public should expect more.

California has at least two possible cases of coronavirus linked neither to travel nor contact with sick people. If health officials don’t know how someone became ill, that means there could be other sick people they don’t know about.

As of Feb. 25, Oregon was monitoring 76 people who had traveled to China within the prior 14 days. Oregon counties had already finished monitoring 178 people. Before now, the state said it had tested two Oregonians for coronavirus because they developed symptoms while under monitoring but were not infected.

Oregon’s top health official told lawmakers Friday, before the announcement of the Oregon coronavirus case, that there is currently little risk to Oregonians of catching the virus.

More than 80,000 people worldwide have been infected with the virus and about 3,000 have died – most of them in China, where the epidemic started. There are at least 62 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S., with more presumptive cases announced Friday including two in Washington and one in California in addition to Oregon’s.

MORE CORONAVIRUS NEWS:

Oregon coronavirus patient likely had little contact with students at Lake Oswego school

Lake Oswego School District officials hold news conference

Coronavirus in Oregon: Some are calm, some definitely not

Man in Washington state first in US to die from new coronavirus

Coronavirus spreads to Washington nursing home

Jayati Ramakrishnan of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- Fedor Zarkhin

fzarkhin@oregonian.com

desk: 503-294-7674|cell: 971-373-2905|@fedorzarkhin

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