American tourist, US consulate visitor, among latest coronavirus patients
The patient is in moderate condition. She is suffering from viral pneumonia and has difficulty breathing.
By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMANMedical staff with protective clothing are seen inside a ward specialised in receiving any person who may have been infected with coronavirus, at the Rajiv Ghandhi Government General hospital in Chennai(photo credit: REUTERS)
An American tourist in Israel was diagnosed with the coronavirus on Thursday.The 70-year-old woman has COVID-19 disease and has been hospitalized in Baruch Padeh Medical Center in Poriya, near Tiberias, the hospital said. She was in moderate condition with viral pneumonia and difficulty breathing, it said.The woman had been traveling in Egypt and arrived at the hospital at noon Wednesday. She notified staff ahead of her arrival so that the admissions process could be done without putting others at risk of contracting the coronavirus.She is the second patient being treated at Baruch Padeh Medical Center. The first is an Arab-Israeli tour-bus driver who remains in serious condition, anesthetized and on a respirator, the hospital said Thursday morning.The bus driver was infected by a group of Greek pilgrims who had been visiting religious sites in Egypt, Israel and the West Bank. One of the tourists has since died.Also on Thursday, as the number of coronavirus patients across Israel exceeded 100, the US Embassy in Jerusalem said an individual who visited its Tel Aviv branch last week had tested positive for the coronavirus. The person was in the Embassy Branch Office Non-Immigrant Visa Section waiting room in Tel Aviv from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 5, the embassy said in a statement.The US Embassy and the Health Ministry recommended that anyone who was in the waiting room at the same time as that individual go into self-isolation.Among those infected with the coronavirus in recent days are several people who returned to Israel from the US. The Health Ministry on Thursday released the epidemiology of patients No. 89 and No. 90, two women in their 60s from central Israel. They recently took a round-trip flight from Tel Aviv to New York with a stopover in Moscow, the ministry said.Most recent reports indicate that in the US there are more than 1,000 people who have contracted the coronavirus and at least 33 who have died from COVID-19.
