ORANGE COUNTY, CA — Orange County supervisors were scheduled to review a new protocol for the response to new coronavirus outbreaks on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the county healthcare agency is following three active cases of presumptive coronavirus, according to the Orange County Healthcare Agency's website.

Two men were officially confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 this week. One of them is fully recovered, according to the Orange County Healthcare Agency. The status of the second man is not known as of this report. Three other cases which locally tested positive for COVID-19 include a man in his 60s and a woman in her 30s who had recently traveled to countries with widespread outbreaks. A third man, between 18-49 years old, reported on Monday, was considered to have contracted the virus through "person to person" contact.

All three are waiting for federal test results to confirm the diagnoses, and there was no other information available about those patients as of this report. Clinical laboratories will soon start testing for the new virus, often referred to as COVID-19, an OC Healthcare spokesperson wrote in a recent update.



One week ago, the supervisors—led by Michelle Steel and Andrew Do—directed staff to draw up a plan for responding in case there is a widespread outbreak of the virus, officially known as COVID-19. Though test kits are becoming available, the board of supervisors together with the Orange County Healthcare Agency worked to develop a plan of action for testing and dealing with the virus and potential for outbreak within the county. Meanwhile, Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner questioned the level of concern.

"I'm trying to put the real risk to some perspective," Wagner said. "I'm hearing from chambers of commerce in my district that businesses are cutting back on travel to Orange County. We're seeing tourism down. We're seeing conventions get canceled, and I guess my question is from a public health standpoint, is that an appropriate response?"

Wagner said it appears some people go undiagnosed because it feels as if they have a cold only.

"Is this a disaster in waiting?" Wagner asked. Dr. Nichole Quick, the county's chief health officer, replied that, "The flu is a much greater risk than coronavirus. Now, that being said, part of people's fear related to this is we simply don't know what this is going to look like. We don't have wide enough testing to know how many people are infected across the country."