A second person who played in bridge tournaments in Tucson earlier this month has contracted COVID-19, Adobe Bridge Club President Barry Abrahams said on Friday.

Abrahams declined to identify the individual who developed symptoms in recent days, beginning with a high fever, because he did not have permission from the bridge player.

But Abrahams told The Arizona Republic that during two March bridge events the infected person had close contact with bridge player Doug Couchman, the first player from the tournaments to become ill with the new coronavirus.

"He said he had a conversation with Couchman, he interacted him with quite a bit," Abrahams told The Republic.

Bridge club leadership has attempted to contact all 700 bridge players they know of in Tucson and notify them that they might have been exposed to coronavirus.

“We have a responsibility to our bridge players in our club who have come in contact with someone who was infected,” Abrahams said.

But health authorities haven't made similar attempts to notify the players of their possible exposure and request that they limit their contact with others, The Republic reported this week.

A 79-year-old woman who played in a larger tournament, from March 2-8, and handled cards touched by Couchman was hospitalized with pneumonia and died within a week of the tournament.

Health officials have not linked her death to the virus.

Steve Reynolds, tournament chairman for the larger American Contract Bridge League tournament, said he spoke to the player who tested positive and said he is feeling better. "His fever broke two or three days ago," Reynolds said.

The player had mild symptoms and was tested after going to the doctor and testing negative for the seasonal flu, Reynolds said.

"He didn't think he had coronavirus at all," Reynolds said.

The player believes he contracted the virus at the Adobe Bridge Club card games rather than the larger regional tournament for several reasons, Reynolds said.

"He had direct interaction with Doug at the club," Reynolds said of the Adobe Bridge Club. "It's much more likely he got it directly from him at the club."

The symptoms came on about five days after interacting with Couchman at the club on March 10-11, Reynolds said, which seems to fit with the established timeline of coronavirus symptoms. Nobody can know for sure, Reynolds said.

Couchman, who went public with his diagnosis last week, said he is finally out of self-isolation at a Tucson hotel and feeling better. He had been holed up in the same hotel for two weeks with family members delivering meals to his hotel room door.

He checked into the hotel more than two weeks ago, as soon as he started showing symptoms, because his father has cancer and is immunocompromised.

"I did get out of isolation yesterday," Couchman said. "It feels good, although it's not like everyone else's life was back to normal."

He has started doing errands for family members.

"It's nice to be out," he said. "I am able to do things for my family and keep them safe so that makes me feel good."

He gave blood samples on Friday to University of Arizona researchers. Last week, he gave samples to a researcher sequencing the coronavirus genome to track its evolution. He is also trying to arrange a blood draw for researchers working on vaccinations with the National Institutes of Health.

"This obviously is not something I wanted to, like, get famous for," he said. "And it's not something that, you know, I ever anticipated doing. But here I'm in a position to help and I'm pleased that I've been able to."

Couchman said he has heard third hand that other bridge players are also sick. But he said he's happy no one in his family got sick and few of his friends did.

He self-isolated for longer than recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and said it is extremely unlikely he is still shedding the virus. But he said there is still a stigma.

"I am discovering that a lot of my friends don't want to be near me anyway," he said. "So what I'm finding is that there is at this point a fair amount of stigma attached to having had the virus. Now, I don't regret coming out publicly because people needed to know, but it's certainly going to make my life harder for a while."