Samples from all three patients must first be tested at a laboratory in Atlanta that is run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine whether any of the patients do in fact have the new coronavirus.
The turnaround time for receiving the results is usually at least 36 hours, but often longer. Local health departments are not yet able to test for the new illness themselves.
But based on a number of factors — the type of symptoms, the patients’ recent travel in China and the exclusion of influenza and some other common illnesses through testing — New York City health authorities are taking quite seriously the possibility that these patients may have the virus.
The new virus is believed to have originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, and it has now spread to at least 23 other countries. More than 17,000 people have been infected — the vast majority in China — and the death toll has passed 360.
For the past two weeks, New York City has been bracing for the arrival of the new illness as isolated cases began appearing elsewhere in the country — first out west, and then in Illinois and Massachusetts.
The sight of people wearing surgical masks as they ride the subway has grown more common. Children have shown up to school with masks. Lunar New Year celebrations across the city’s Chinatowns have been more sparsely attended than in past years or in some cases outright canceled.
New York City health authorities have released little information about the three patients. While authorities have said that each one has recently been in “mainland China,” authorities have not indicated exactly where in China.
The first patient has been described as a woman who was staying alone in a hotel in New York City. She fell ill about two days after arriving in the United States. Late Friday night, she was brought by ambulance to Bellevue Medical Center on Manhattan’s East Side. The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said the woman’s symptoms included a fever, cough and runny nose.
The woman was the first patient in New York City to have samples sent to the CDC for testing. The city’s public health authorities announced her case Saturday evening and have been referring to her as “a patient under investigation.” Authorities have cautioned that she may not have the new virus.
On Sunday evening, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced two more possible cases. Both patients are older than 60, authorities said. One is currently at Flushing Hospital Medical Center. The other is at NewYork-Presbyterian Queens. Both hospitals are in Queens.
Over the last two weeks, New York City’s Health Department has sought to reassure the public and encourage people to continue with their daily routine. Those who recently traveled from Wuhan or elsewhere in China were told that there was no need to self-quarantine so long as they felt fine and were symptom-free.
But the federal government has issued new restrictions, including a quarantine policy that went into effect at 5 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday.
That policy bars most foreign nationals who have been in mainland China in the past 14 days from entering the United States. U.S. citizens who have been to Hubei province — Wuhan is the capital city in Hubei — will be taken into mandatory quarantine upon entry into the United States or directly to a hospital if they are found to be “symptomatic,” said Rick Cotton, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Kennedy International, La Guardia and Newark Liberty International Airports.
U.S. citizens who are returning from elsewhere in China will be required to self-monitor their health and “subject to restrictions on movements outside their homes,” Cotton said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times .