LAKEWOOD, Colo. — A patient with a respiratory illness admitted into St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood Friday tested negative for the coronavirus, hospital officials announced Sunday.
Hospital staff was concerned that the Lakewood patient might have been exposed to the virus due to the patient’s history of travel to Wuhan, the Chinese city that is the center of the outbreak. St. Anthony Hospital received results of the novel coronavirus test from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Sunday.
State health officials had previously been concerned with a second patient in northern Colorado who had recently traveled to the same Chinese city. However, tests came back negative for the viral illness as well.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said Friday there were no cases in Colorado of the virus, whose strain is called 2019-novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).
“Though Colorado has no cases of the 2019-novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), we’re taking it very seriously, closely monitoring the outbreak and developing Colorado’s response,” said Deanna Herbert, a spokesperson for CDPHE’s Division of Disease Control and Public Health Response.
Herbert said CDPHE was putting together teams to start working on infection control, case investigation, contact and communications plans in the event a case is confirmed in Colorado. And she said the department was “working closely with health care providers and local public health agencies across the state, sharing reporting, testing and infection control guidance.”
There are now five confirmed cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus in the United States, the CDC announced Sunday evening. The viral illness has caused 80 deaths in China.