Man hospitalized in Arlington Heights with coronavirus had not traveled abroad recently

A man hospitalized in Arlington Heights who tested positive for coronavirus did not get it from traveling abroad, health officials said Wednesday.

© Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune/TNS Exterior photos of Northwest Community Hospital on Monday, March 2, 2020 in Arlington Heights. The hospital is treating a patient who tested positive for coronavirus.

The man, who was the third person to test positive for the virus in Illinois, had not recently traveled out of the country, said Melaney Arnold, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Public Health. She declined to say where the man may have caught the sickness, saying only that health officials are still investigating. He’s being hospitalized at Northwest Community Hospital.

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The man’s wife also tested positive for the illness, and is quarantined at home, health officials have said. Illinois is still waiting on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to confirm the test result. They have said the couple is in good condition.

The man and wife were the third and fourth people in the state to test positive for the virus. The first two were a couple who were hospitalized in Hoffman Estates but have since been released and have fully recovered.

The health department had tested 102 people in Illinois for the virus as of Monday, and it has said that it’s monitoring about 250 people for symptoms.

Nationally, 108 people had tested positive for the virus as of Monday afternoon, and nine people have died. Of those people, 22 caught it through travel, 11 caught it from a person with a confirmed case, and the causes of 27 other cases are under investigation. The rest of the cases were among Americans who were repatriated from abroad.

As of Tuesday, more than 90,000 people worldwide had the virus, and more than 3,100 had died from it, according to the World Health Organization. Health officials have said most people who get the virus don’t get severely ill, and people who are older and have underlying medical conditions are more susceptible to developing severe cases.

The state has a hotline people can call with questions or to report suspected cases, 800-889-3931. They can call the Office of Consumer Health Insurance at 877-527-9431 about their insurance coverage.

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