The experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention huddled in a room with Bela Matyas, health officer of Solano County, California. They had a raft of questions about a milestone case in the spread of the coronavirus: the first U.S. victim with no known connection to travel in Asia.
"Did she go to the spa?" they wanted to know late last week. "Did she go to church? Did she go to a playground?"
Now, the CDC is sending another team to Washington state, where the first U.S. virus death was reported Saturday after a potential outbreak at a King County health facility that cares for the elderly. The county reported a second death late Sunday, and there were at least two other confirmed cases in Washington, two in Florida, three in California and the first in New York and Rhode Island.