Child Among 195 Evacuated From China Amid Coronavirus Outbreak Taken To Hospital With Fever

MORENO VALLEY (CBSLA) — Riverside County health officials say a child who was part of the group that was evacuated from the center of the coronavirus outbreak in China and taken to March Air Reserve Base was taken to a hospital Monday night after developing a fever.

The child, who was accompanied by a parent, was taken to Riverside University Health System-Medical Center for testing and observation, according to Riverside County Public Health. The two were among the 195 passengers who were flown out of China last week and placed under a two-week federal quarantine.

County health officials say testing samples will be submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with results expected later this week.

There are six confirmed cases of coronavirus in California, with one in Los Angeles County and another in Orange County. The other cases are in Northern California counties. There are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Riverside County.

But fears of the outbreak continue to mount, as the death toll rises to 427 and 20,500 confirmed cases worldwide. There are increasing reports of xenophobia surrounding the disease, and an online petition with more than 13,000 signatures is calling for all schools in the Alhambra Unified School District – which has a majority of Chinese students – to be closed until the outbreak ends.

Riverside County public health officials also said another person who arrived at LAX on a flight from China Monday has also been placed under federal quarantine and transferred to March Air Reserve Base. The new traveler has no symptoms, but was taken to March "out of an abundance of caution and because of their travel history," officials said.

The new traveler will be kept away from the 195 others who arrived last week until at least Feb. 6.

The extra precautions for the newly quarantined traveler are in line with stringent travel restrictions that went into effect Sunday night. Those restrictions include denying entry to foreign nationals who recently visited China and a mandatory quarantine for U.S. citizens who have been to China's Hubei province, where the outbreak originated, in the two weeks before returning to the U.S. U.S. citizens returning from the rest of mainland China will undergo health screenings at selected ports of entry and face up to two weeks of self-monitored quarantine.