Mobile County health officials don’t currently see port traffic as a big source of concern in an emerging coronavirus outbreak. They also caution that testing will be extremely limited and that they don’t see stocking up on filter masks as a practical defense measure.

State officials held a press conference Monday morning to address the state’s footing with regard to Covid-19, a potentially lethal respiratory virus that has not yet been detected in Mobile, but which is rapidly spreading worldwide. As they did so, representatives of Mobile County municipal governments, hospitals and public health agencies gathered at the county’s new Emergency Operations Center to take in the state message and add a few details of their own.

In southwest Alabama, scattered concerns have been raised on social media about goods from China, the source of the outbreak, arriving at the Port of Mobile. Rendi Murphree, an epidemiologist who is the director of the Mobile County Health Department’s Bureau of Disease Surveillance and Environmental Services, said the MCHD had been communication closely with port officials and other agencies such as the U.S. Coast Guard since the beginning of the outbreak.

“We dealt with this really early on,” said Murphree. “For a container vessel to leave mainland China and come here would take, I think, 22 to 24 days or something of that nature. So the fact that it’s past the 14-day incubation period gave us a lot of comfort that it’s not going to be coming in in a container.” The virus’ ability to survive on a surface is even shorter than its incubation period in people, she said.

Judith Adams of the Alabama State Port Authority confirmed that communications had been ongoing since mid-January. Depending on their ports of origin, ships coming to Mobile can take 30 to 45 days to arrive, she said. “Cargo is not a carrier,” she said.

“The risk is rather low that COVID19 would enter through the port,” Adams said. “All inbound vessels have to declare port of origin, crew, crew origin, if any crew is ill or has been ill during voyage, etc. ... The USCG screens and clears vessels prior to entry into the port. They have a process offshore that they work through the CDC and local health officials if someone is ill. If someone is ill, they don’t allow the vessel to enter as a rule. If there is someone in a life threatening condition, then response is coordinated at the federal levels on a case by case basis. To date, we’ve not encountered ill crew.”

Adams said port officials are wary of a secondary impact on markets. Supply chains already are backing up overseas, and isolationist measures could further hamper the manufacture and movement of goods. Ultimately this could mean fewer consumer goods on shelves and other problems for domestic businesses.

As for more immediate concerns about the arrival of the virus via shipping, “We’ve felt pretty good about that since the beginning,” Murphree said. She added that because the global spread of the virus continues, health and port officials continue to communicate and be vigilant.

Murphree said that generally, south Alabama’s coastal climate doesn’t create special concern. “There’s nothing about this virus that we know of that would make it more severe in south Alabama [or] less severe in south Alabama,” she said.

Murphree reiterated state officials’ guidance for returning travelers who show common signs of illness, such as coughing or fever. Those people should self-isolate themselves, staying home until the symptoms pass or become severe. Anyone seeking to be tested for Covid-19 is bound to be disappointed: Murphree said that current guidance on testing, as set by the Centers for Disease Control, is that only people ill enough to be hospitalized will be considered for testing.

Furthermore, Alabama has only one lab authorized to process Covid-19 tests, a Montgomery facility operated by the state Department of Public Health. Large research hospitals may eventually be able to conduct testing, she said, but it’s hard to say when.

Again echoing state officials, Murphree said that the best defensive measures are the same ones encouraged for flu. People should wash their hands often, stay home if sick and clean household surfaces with common disinfectants and cleaners. Nothing special is required to kill Covid-19 on an exposed surface, she said.

Murphree said that hospital-style masks are best saved for sick people, because they do help keep them from spreading a virus by coughing. Hoarding them just makes it harder for hospitals to maintain their supplies.

“I think right now the biggest thing we’re trying to battle is, everybody feels like they need to run out and buy a box of N95 masks,” she said. “We’re trying to tell people not to do that, because we want to make sure what PPE [personal protective equipment] we have available is available to our health care institutions. If you’re sick, we want you wearing a mask so you’re not coughing out things. But if you’re not sick, a mask is really not going to do you any good in a community outbreak setting.”