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MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico’s assistant health secretary says the country now has two confirmed cases of the new coronavirus.

Hugo Lopez-Gatell said Friday, Feb. 28, that one of the patients is in Mexico City and the other in the state of Sinaloa, and neither is seriously ill.

At least five family contacts have been placed in isolation. He said that one of the men had contact with someone who had traveled to the northern Italian region where that country has seen a local outbreak.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appeared to downplay the seriousness of the Covid-19 virus, saying “it isn’t even equivalent to influenza.”

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