WASHINGTON, March 8 (NNN-Xinhua) — The first case of the novel coronavirus has been confirmed in Washington D.C., said the city’s mayor Muriel Bowser.
Late Saturday afternoon, testing at the Public Health Lab at the DC Department of Forensic Sciences yielded its first presumptive positive COVID-19 case, Bowser told a press briefing.
The patient is a Washington D.C. resident in his 50s who showed symptoms in late February and was admitted into a hospital on March 5, she said.
The man had no international travel history, nor was he known to have contacted any confirmed case, said the mayor.
Also, a U.S. Marine assigned to Fort Belvoir of Virginia, near Washington D.C., tested positive on Saturday for COVID-19, said Jonathan Hoffman, assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, in a statement.
The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States have risen to 424 by Saturday evening with 17 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 213 cases and 11 fatalities as of 4 p.m. Friday. — NNN-XINHUA
