ROANOKE, Va. – UPDATE
The US has declared a public health emergency from the new virus and will bar entry of foreign nationals who pose transmission risk.
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This is a breaking news update. Please check back for more updates.
ORIGINAL STORY
The Virginia Department of Health announced Friday that one of two possible cases of corona virus in Virginia has tested negative.
The case, in the Northern Region of Virginia, is one of two cases that was being tested.
Currently, two tests remain pending, while three have come back negative.
So far, there are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Virginia.
According to the Virginia Dept. of Health, there is another possible case of the novel coronavirus in northern Virginia.
Over the weekend, health officials announced that they were looking at three potential cases of novel coronavirus in the commonwealth — two cases in central Virginia and one in northern Virginia. The two potential cases out of central Virginia came back negative.
On Thursday, the Virginia Dept. of Health announced a second possible case out of northern Virginia. The results for the two possible cases out of northern Virginia have not been released yet.
The virus has infected almost 10,000 people globally in just two months, a worrying sign of its spread among people that prompted the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a global emergency. So far, 213 have been reported dead as a result of the virus.
This comes as the first case to spread person-to-person was announced Thursday in Chicago. This is the sixth reported coronavirus case in the United States.
The Chicago woman, who is in her 60s, returned from central China on Jan. 13, then last week went to a hospital with symptoms and was diagnosed with the viral illness. She and her husband are hospitalized.
Experts have said they expected additional cases, and that at least some limited spread of the disease in the United States was likely. Health officials think the new virus spreads mainly from droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes, similar to how the flu spreads.
The virus can cause fever, coughing, wheezing and pneumonia. It is a member of the coronavirus family that's a close cousin to the SARS and MERS viruses that have caused outbreaks in the past. The new virus has sickened thousands, mostly in China, and killed about 170.
An international outbreak caused by the virus first emerged last month in China. Doctors there began seeing the new virus in people who got sick after spending time at a wholesale food market in Wuhan. Officials said the virus probably initially spread from animals to people, as did SARS and MERS.