FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — Allen County has its first two cases of the coronavirus, health officials confirmed late Thursday afternoon.

The Allen County Department of Health said in a news release that two county residents have confirmed cases of COVID-19. One is a young adult who’d recently traveled abroad, and the other is an older adult with underlying chronic health issues, the department said.

The patients are currently isolated.

The health department said it was working with the state health department to identify any close contacts of the patients who may have been exposed “to ensure appropriate precautions are taken in accordance with the latest CDC guidance.”

Allen County Health Commissioner Dr. Deborah McMahan, who has long said it was inevitable that Allen County have confirmed cases of the virus, said the cases underscore the need to stem the spread.

“The COVID-19 virus has been making its way around the world since late last year, so this should not come as a surprise,” said Allen County Health Commissioner Dr. Deborah McMahan. “These cases just confirm what we have been learning: this virus easily spreads from person-to-person, and the actions taken to slow its pace will allow our healthcare workers to continue to providing care to trauma, significant chronic conditions, acute issues like heart attacks in addition to respiratory infections like flu and COVID-19.”

The first patient confirmed Thursday was a young adult who had recently traveled abroad and began exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 shortly after returning to the U.S. The second patient also confirmed Thursday was an older adult with underlying chronic health conditions. No further information about the patients will be released due to privacy laws.

Excerpt from Allen County Health Department Media Teleconference with Health Commissioner Dr. Deborah McMahan

COVID-19 testing is still limited and the confirmation of positive cases in our community does not mean everyone needs to be tested, McMahan said. The community is strongly encouraged to follow the Department’s recommendations to call their doctor for further instruction if they have a fever 100 degrees F or higher and a cough. The more people who get tested with no symptoms could make it harder for people in need of immediate care to get the medications they need.

“We need tests results for people to get compassionate use of medication, to be able to get potentially life-saving medications and you can’t get that without a test result,” said McMahan. “So every person that really isn’t at risk for having this and either being critically ill and dying or being in a position to where they could go and infect somebody, I’m not sure how responsible that is to use nationally short materials.”

In Indiana, only the Indiana State Department of Health and commercial testing sites can process the tests so it can take a few days to get the results in. McMahan said part of the reason there is a shortage of test kits is that there is a shortage of the materials used to collect samples.

“We’re dealing with a novel virus for this pandemic that is not an influenza virus so there is no baseline model to tweak and manipulate and modify so that all of this stuff could be available much sooner.”

What the health department wants people to note is that the ages of the patients are at very different spots on the age spectrum.

“There is some evidence that’s starting to come out, not only from China but from our cases here in the U.S., that the young adults are actually being more impacted by this disease than what we previously thought,” said Dr. James Cameron, a member of the Exec. Board of Health. “[It] Definitely is a good idea that they pay attention to this as well and that they’re careful not to spread it to their friends because there is, I think it’s about 40 percent of the patients that are hospitalized right now are in that low-risk age group.”

McMahan said that they are waiting on the results of a “significant number” of tests and expect to see the number of confirmed cases in Allen County rise in the coming days.

The best thing to do if you are not showing symptoms is to self-monitor. That means tracking any sickness symptoms you may have and checking your temperature on the way as well as to try and minimize contact with others.