due to their frequent use as points of arrival for international travelers. These locations were designated as three of twenty CDC Quarantine Stations across the U.S. The CDC later implemented COVID-19 screenings at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, and El Paso International Airport, with screenings beginning "on a rolling basis" according to Nancy Messonnier of the CDC. While the CDC did not initially designate Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to carry out "enhanced screening" of passengers for COVID-19, the airport began coordinating with local hospitals and health departments in late-January. Hospital protocols were updated to isolate patients presenting to emergency rooms with COVID-19 symptoms and with recent travel to Wuhan. Paramedics in the Metroplex increased usage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and adjusted their screening procedures for respiratory illnesses. The Tarrant County Health Department activated its operations center on January 24. ![]() Over the next four days, Texas health officials identified another three suspected cases of COVID-19 meeting testing criteria, including a student at Baylor University all four tested negative for the virus after samples were delivered to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, leaving no confirmed cases in Texas. Medical supply stores in the Brazos Valley experienced medical mask shortages as demand increased in response to the first suspected case. ![]() They were the first person in Texas contemporaneously identified as potentially contracting SARS-CoV-2. On January 23, a student at Texas A&M University was isolated and monitored by the Brazos County Health District after returning from Wuhan, China, and presenting with a respiratory illness at the time, there was only one known case of COVID-19 in the United States. KWKT-TV in Waco reported that the virus was "no cause of concern in Central Texas" according to local doctors amid the ongoing flu season. The infection risk of COVID-19 in Texas was initially expected to be low in mid-January, with risks limited to travelers recently returning from China. ![]() In one specific case, Bastrop County judge Paul Pape reported symptoms starting February 9. While the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) attributed 41 of these deaths to COVID-19, USA Today reported that doctors believed additional COVID-19 deaths may not have been accounted for due to limited testing early in the pandemic. In January, February, and March 2020, 1,473 more Texans died compared to the January–March average for 2014–2019. The initial spread of COVID-19 in Texas may have begun prior to the first contemporaneously confirmed case, very likely as early as September 2019 in Houston. The first case in the United States was reported in Snohomish County, Washington, on January 20, and the Trump administration declared a public health emergency on January 31, 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30 and evaluated it as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. ![]() receiving diverted flights from China after February 3.Ī pandemic involving the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began in 2019 with the outbreak first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport one of eleven airports in the U.S.
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