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Nebraska’s first coronavirus disease patient — a 36-year-old Omaha woman who recently returned from the United Kingdom — was transferred to the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit on Friday evening.

The woman, who is “very seriously ill,” had been at Methodist Hospital in Omaha before being taken by ambulance to the biocontainment unit, which is on the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus.

Earlier Friday, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts and health officials announced that the woman is the state’s first confirmed case of a person with the coronavirus disease, COVID-19.

The woman, who had traveled with her father to England from Feb. 18 to 27, became ill Feb. 25, said Dr. Robert Penn, an infectious disease specialist at Methodist. She returned to Omaha on Feb. 27. Her symptoms remained relatively mild until Thursday, he said. A chest CT scan has shown that the disease is evolving into acute respiratory distress syndrome, Penn said.

Dr. Gary Anthone, Nebraska’s chief medical officer, said epidemiologists were arriving in Omaha to begin tracing the woman’s movements and her contacts. Where she might have gone and with whom she might have been in contact were unclear.

“We don’t know those answers right now, I’m afraid,” he said.