Story has been updated to reflect recent changes.
Saturday March 14, Ventura County Public Health announced that the 8-year-old child previously announced to have the COVID-19 coronavirus had a new sample taken and was retested by Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, which returned negative for the virus. Ventura County Public Health also retested the original sample taken from the child, which also returned negative for COVID-19.
In response to the news, Ventura County Public Health Officer Doctor Robert Levin stated “Ventura County Public Health can no longer confirm a case of community transmission at this time. This is good news, it may put us further ahead on the curve of preventing the widespread outbreak of COVID-19 in Ventura County.”
Original story below.
On Friday March 13, Ventura County Public Health announced another two presumptive cases of the COVID-19 in Ventura County. The first case occurred in an individual who recently traveled from Egypt. Ventura County Public Health stated that the patient is now under home quarantine and had limited public interactions before becoming symptomatic.
The second case appeared in an 8-year-old child. When the child’s case was discovered, they hadn’t attended school within the past 14 days and had been treated a number of times over the past month for pre-existing condition. The child is currently receiving medical treatment at a hospital outside Ventura County.
Unlike the previous presumptively confirmed case, Ventura County Public Health did not state whether or not they believe these cases to be travel-related or community transmitted. If community-transmitted, these would represent the first known cases of COVID-19 in Ventura County to occur in such a way.
In regards to the child’s case, both the CDC and Ventura County Public Health state that children do not appear to be at a higher risk than adults in contracting COVID-19. Furthermore, the CDC emphasizes that the same sanitary practices recommended for adults will also help protect children, including washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, disinfecting frequently used surfaces, avoiding contact with people who are sick and wearing a face mask around individuals who are sick.
These two new presumptive cases follow Ventura County Public Health’s March 12 decision to declare a local health emergency in order to help combat the spread of COVID-19.
Both of these cases as well as the previously presumptively confirmed case involving a person who had returned from Italy are awaiting formal confirmation from the CDC. There is currently one CDC confirmed case in Ventura County and four presumptively confirmed cases awaiting official CDC confirmation according to Ventura County.
