PHOENIX (AP) - Two people from the same Pinal County household as a woman already diagnosed with the new coronavirus also have been diagnosed with the disease, raising the state’s total to five, officials announced Saturday.
The diagnoses of the Pinal County woman, who is in her 40s and who is a health care worker in Maricopa County, was announced Friday.
Pinal County is located between Phoenix and Tucson and contains rural areas as well as fast-growing suburbs on the southern outskirts of metro Phoenix.
Two people in metro Phoenix were diagnosed previously, and officials said they’d both had traveled to areas with virus outbreaks.
The Pinal County woman was the first virus patient in Arizona attributed to so-called “community spread” because officials said neither she nor any of her “close contacts” had recently traveled to a country with widespread cases.
State Department of Health Health Services spokesman Chris Minnick said Saturday that officials for medical privacy reasons wouldn’t elaborate on the woman’s relationships with the two household members.
The virus spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. The symptoms are thought to appear between two and 14 days after exposure.
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