A 10-Month-Old Baby Quarantined in California is Tested for Coronavirus, Documents Show

A 10-month-old baby quarantined at a military base in California has been admitted to a local hospital to be tested for coronavirus, according to Defense Department documents obtained by Newsweek.

The documents, dated for Tuesday, did not identify the child and provided no further details on the severity of the child's condition, how long he or she had already been quarantined, whether the minor had arrived from Wuhan, China, or is suspected to have caught the virus in the United States.

According to the documents, an infant who was quarantined at the March Air Reserve Base was admitted to a local hospital for "observation, further testing and treatment of symptoms."

The documents obtained by Newsweek are marked unclassified and were created by U.S. Army North, the same military unit providing support to the Department of Homeland Security at the U.S.-Mexico border. The five pages of information were obtained by multiple U.S. officials who provided the documents on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the information. (You can read the documents at the bottom of this article).

Evacuations from Wuhan began on January 28. The 195 passengers on that flight were quarantined at March Air Reserve Base, which is about 450 miles south of the Travis base.

On Tuesday, U.S. Representative Mark Takano of California said in a statement that a minor who was being hosted at March Air Reserve Base had developed a fever and was taken to the Riverside University Health System-Medical Center for testing and observation. The minor, who was accompanied by a parent, was taken by ambulance on Monday evening "out of an abundance of caution."

Takano said that samples from the patient had been sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and that results were due later this week.

It is not clear whether the minor was the 10-month-old baby mentioned in the briefing documents obtained by Newsweek. Jose Arballo Jr., senior public information specialist for the Riverside University Healthy System-Public Health, would not confirm to Newsweek if the minor was the 10-month-old baby mentioned in the briefing documents.

However, those documents show that the child in question tested negative for influenza. The samples were sent to the CDC on Tuesday to determine whether the child has the new coronavirus strain from China. Currently, samples can be tested for the strain only at a CDC laboratory in Atlanta, where the national public health institute is headquartered.

If the results come back positive for the new coronavirus, a new, 14-day quarantine could start, according to the documents. This is the period of time the CDC recommends because it is thought to take between two and 14 days for symptoms to appear after a person is first infected.

The documents also show that on Wednesday, two flights from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, carrying 350 people landed at Travis Air Force Base in California. Passengers on the flight will be quarantined for up to 14 days, the maximum incubation period, to prevent the virus from spreading.

The day before the flights landed, the documents show, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Laura Richardson, commander of U.S. Army North, was briefed about that and two additional flights, which are expected to land in the United States on Friday.

One of the flights is scheduled to arrive Friday at Travis, continuing on to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, and the other will land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego. Some people on the flight to MCAS Miramar will continue to Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska, and be quarantined at Camp Ashland, about 30 miles southwest.

In her briefing, Richardson was told that roughly 789 personnel require evacuation from China but because of diplomatic challenges, American citizens departing Wuhan Tianhe International Airport may have March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, listed on their itinerary.

The new strain of coronavirus first came to the attention of health officials at the end of last year, after it sickened workers at a wholesale food market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

There are no specific treatments for the strain. Instead, health care workers must manage a patient's symptoms and help the person to recover. So far, the virus has killed 493 people, all but two in mainland China, in 24,562 cases across more than 25 countries and territories. There have been no reports of U.S. Defense Department personnel being infected.

Last Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declared a public health emergency in the U.S. over the emergence of the new coronavirus, the day after the World Health Organization made a similar announcement on an international scale.

President Donald Trump also signed a presidential proclamation last Friday blocking entry to the U.S. to those deemed a risk of spreading the coronavirus from China. The proclamation included stopping foreign nationals, other than immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have visited China within the past 14 days from entering the country. American citizens who have been in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, will be quarantined for up to 14 days on arrival, and those who visited other parts of mainland China will be subject to monitored self-quarantine.

The CDC is carrying out screenings at five U.S. airports where most travelers from Wuhan arrive, and the agency has boosted the capacity to respond to illness at 20 ports of entry.