Lake Oswego coronavirus: The latest news on Oregon’s case

A Lake Oswego elementary school employee came down with Oregon’s first apparent case of coronavirus. The school, Forest Hills Elementary School, is now closed through Wednesday for a “deep cleaning,” a school district spokeswoman said.

© Jayati Ramakrishnan | The Oregonian/OregonLive/Jayati Ramakrishnan/oregonlive.com/TNS Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen, Governor Kate Brown and Dr. Jennifer Vines speak about the first presumptive case of coronavirus in Oregon, which was discovered on Friday

The school has 430 students and 25 teachers. It serves students in kindergarten through fifth grade. News of the diagnosis spread quickly across the metro area, canceling numerous activities for school-age children in its wake, particularly in Lake Oswego, a suburb to the south of Portland. The patient lives in Washington County and is hospitalized in isolation at a Hillsboro medical center, Kaiser Permanente Westside Medical Center.

© NIAID-RML via AP /AP/oregonlive.com/TNS This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus causes COVID-19. The sample was isolated from a patient in the U.S.

Before the case was confirmed Friday, Oregon’s top health officials said the immediate coronavirus risk to Oregonians is low but people still should use their understandable concerns about the global outbreak to take precautions.

That means planning for a two-week stay at home in case a quarantine becomes necessary, having an adequate store of food and supplies and practicing good hygiene, said Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen.

“The bottom line is, make sure you and your family are prepared,” Allen said after briefing to lawmakers on the House Committee on Health Care in Salem.

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The new coronavirus is spreading rapidly around the world, and federal officials said this week the disease is bound to proliferate in the United States, as well.

The patient hadn’t been under monitoring for coronavirus symptoms and doesn’t appear to have traveled to any of the countries with outbreaks or have associated with anyone who did, Oregon Health Authority officials said.

That means the person could have caught the disease from someone in the community.

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