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Ailing SD County Resident Tests Negative For Coronavirus

Hospital staff wash the emergency entrance of Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, where patients infected with a new virus are being treated, in Wuhan, China, on Wednesday.
Dake Kang AP
Hospital staff wash the emergency entrance of Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, where patients infected with a new virus are being treated, in Wuhan, China, on Wednesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Thursday that a San Diego County resident who developed a respiratory illness after traveling to Wuhan, China, has tested negative for the coronavirus that has killed more than 200 people.

County Health and Human Services Agency officials said earlier the patient went to a hospital, where a specimen was taken and sent to the CDC for testing. The patient was in isolation at home while the test results were pending, health officials said.

With that person being cleared, San Diego County has no other patients under investigation for the coronavirus, according to the HHSA.

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RELATED: As Coronavirus Global Death Toll Rises, Flu Still A Bigger Threat To Americans, Health Officials Say

As of Thursday evening, there were six confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States, including one each in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

According to the CDC, the symptoms of coronavirus are fever, cough and a shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. The incubation period is hard to pin down, with health officials saying symptoms can show up in infected individuals in a few as two days or as many as 14 days after exposure.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses usually seen in other mammals. Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, and severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS, are other types of coronaviruses.

More than 9,100 cases have been reported, and 213 deaths.