California is monitoring at least 8,400 people for the coronavirus

Multiple news portals in the US have reported that California is monitoring 8,400 people for coronavirus.

The US state Governor Gavin Newsom revealed Thursday that 33 people have tested positive for COVID-19.

“This is a fluid situation right now and I want to emphasize the risk to the American public remains low,” the CNBC.com quoted the California Department of Public Health Director and State Health Officer Dr. Sonia Y. Angell.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also investigating how a new patient who lives in Solano County got infected.

The CDC said Wednesday that the patient now under quarantine in Sacramento County did not have a relevant travel history nor was he exposed to another patient who has contracted the virus.

Health officials are even more worried because the patient was moving out and about in her community before she was diagnosed.

“We are currently in deep partnership with CDC on one overriding protocol that drives our principle focus right now and that’s testing, and the importance to increase our testing protocols and to have point of contact diagnostic testing as our top priority not just in the state of California but I imagine all across the United States,” Newsom said at a press conference.

California health officials have also called for more kits for testing, surveillance, and diagnostics.

As at press conference time Thursday, officials said they had 200 testing kits.

“We have just a few hundred testing kits and that’s surveillance testing as well as diagnostic testing. That’s simply inadequate to do justice to the kind of testing that is required to address this issue head on,” Newsom said.

In late January, some 195 California residents arrived from Wuhan in China, the epicenter of the epidemic.

They were quarantined at an Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, an Air Force Base in Solano County and an Air Station near San Diego.

All of them were released in early February.

“We coordinated those first flights, that first flight in particular, in January, late January down into Riverside at March,” Newsom said. “Over 800 people have come in on those flights, but that’s a small part of the overall picture. Thousands and thousands of other people have come in on more traditional flights through the state of California.”

Earlier in February, a mistake in a lab resulted in the release of an infected coronavirus patient from the hospital. That patient was part of a quarantined group near San Diego.

The patient was later held for quarantine after testing positive, CDC official have said.

Another evacuee quarantined at one of the bases also tested positive for the virus.