Public Health: Guam still low risk for Coronavirus, be prepared anyway

Calling it a "rapidly evolving situation," Public health officials held a briefing today on the new Coronavirus outbreak. It was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, which has since been placed on lockdown, but cases have now been reported in Thailand and Japan.

"I think everybody should be very concerned," Department of Public Health and Social Services Director Linda Denorcey said. "Anytime you have a virus that's very new and novel I don't think we should ignore it."

She said it's still considered low risk for Guam, so airport arrival screening is not yet being implemented, but if a passenger exhibits symptoms of infection, they will be ready.

"We do have our plans in place, our protocols, of the past. We have had exercises before," Denorcey said. "As you know we had Mers and we also had the severe acute respiratory syndrome and so this is nothing new, the plan is in place. In the past when we used to have it way way back with the SARS we had public health staff on duty at the airport. and that was because it was a pandemic at that point, global. And when that time comes then we will activate our nurses at the site."

The virus can be passed from person-to-person, likely through coughing. Symptoms are similar to common respiratory infections such as a sore throat or runny nose. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Janna Manglona said the virus is so new there is no vaccine yet.

"This is an emerging rapidly evolving virus," she said. "It's brand new, everything we're getting is from the CDC, lot of questions and they're trying to answer it and study to get those pieces of the puzzle to help us solve it and determine what risk. And we don't even know easily transmitted it is. You know viruses are on a spectrum. Some are rapidly transmitted like measles. Some aren't."

In the mainland U.S., the Centers for Disease Control announced it's implementing entry health screening at three ports of entry: San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.

On Guam:

-They are closely monitoring the situation along with colleagues from the Center for Disease Control
-The have and are continuing to issue alerts to all healthcare providers to increase awareness to detect possible case on Guam
-Public Health has also established specimen shipping protocols to the CDC to maximize the speed that test results are returned on suspected cases
-and they are reviewing the existing protocols for respiratory illness outbreaks


As mentioned in the press conference this is a new virus and although Guam is at low risk this can change at any minute.

As for what you can do, it's the same thing you would normally do prevent getting the flu or other respiratory type illnesses. For example: Make sure that your hands are clean and wash them often. Avoid touching your mouth, eyes or nose if you haven't washed them. Stay away from people who are sick, and stay home if you feel under the weather. It's also a good idea to get a flu shot.