Coronavirus: US state officials overruled expert advice on listing places visited by Patient 1

Emails reveal that Washington state health officials ignored an earlier plan by a senior epidemiologist to name locations

Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore have been credited with slowing the outbreak by disclosing details about the movements of infected patients

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Washington state Health Secretary John Wiesman gives an update on coronavirus in the state as Washington Governor Jay Inslee looks on. Photo: AP

Published: 8:00pm, 23 Mar 2020Updated: 12:33pm, 28 Mar 2020

Washington state health officials overruled expert advice calling for the public naming of locations visited by the first coronavirus patient in the United States before he tested positive on January 20, raising fresh questions about how US authorities responded to the outbreak during the crucial early days before it spiralled into a national emergency.

Washington state Secretary of Health John Wiesman made the decision not to reveal the locations despite the recommendations of a senior epidemiologist at the state health department, emails obtained by the South China Morning Post through a public records request reveal.

The internal discord in one of the worst-hit US states at the onset of the outbreak comes as federal authorities struggle to manage a rapidly escalating number of coronavirus cases nationwide amid partisan fighting over stimulus measures and looming shortages of intensive care beds and ventilators.

A health care worker wears a face mask as she leaves a nursing home at the centre of the outbreak in Washington state. Photo: AP

Washington state has confirmed nearly 2,000 cases of the virus that causes the respiratory disease Covid-19. Almost 100 people have died, including at least 35 patients at a single nursing home in Seattle’s eastern suburbs.

The number of confirmed cases in the US overall as of Monday stood at more than 32,000, including about 400 deaths, making it the country with the most known infections after China and Italy.

Coronavirus: US state officials overruled expert advice on listing places visited by Patient 1

Emails reveal that Washington state health officials ignored an earlier plan by a senior epidemiologist to name locations Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore have been credited with slowing the outbreak by disclosing details about the movements of infected patients

Emails reveal that Washington state health officials ignored an earlier plan by a senior epidemiologist to name locations

Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore have been credited with slowing the outbreak by disclosing details about the movements of infected patients