Hollianne Bruce, the sole epidemiologist responsible for infectious disease control at Snohomish County Medical Center, Washington state, USA immediately took action.

Bruce told the 35-year-old he knew he wasn’t feeling well and was sorry to bother him, but she stressed he could save lives by sharing information about where he had been and who he had been in contact with over the past few days.

Staff meet to discuss ways to control the coronavirus at the Snohomish County Health Department, Washington state.

The man agreed to help Bruce.

Bruce wanted the male patient to recount the period of 6 days before he returned to the US after visiting family in Wuhan, capital of Hubei, China, where the pneumonia epidemic caused by the new coronavirus (nCoV) began.

Bruce was relieved to learn that the patient lived alone, often took the stairs instead of the elevator at work and did not work in open spaces.

In the US, preventing the spread of the virus is the responsibility of each locality.

At Snohomish County Medical Center, 113 employees have spent a total of 1,000 hours trying to control the virus since the 35-year-old man’s sample was sent to the CDC.

`All virus response activities are handled by the county itself. What happened in Snohomish shows that we need to improve and enhance our ability to respond to the virus that first appeared in the US,` said Dr.

The virus response over the past two weeks at Snohomish County Medical Center, where offices are filled with messages like `Immunity: Your best defense system!`

The coronavirus causing the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic seemed to be far away from the United States until the night of January 19, when Dr. Chris Spitters, Snohomish County health official, received notice that a clinic had just sent the CDC a sample of the disease.

Because he had left Snohomish for the weekend, Dr. Spitters asked assistant director in charge of epidemic prevention Katie Curtis to check on the condition of the male patient, who had previously agreed to quarantine at home until test results were available.

Symptoms of the disease are relatively mild, but medical staff still want to monitor his fever and ensure that there are enough necessities in the house to avoid having to go out.

The first text message sent by this patient to Curtis was a few minutes later and there were no concerns.

`We have your test results,` Curtis told the male patient.

Coronavirus testing facility in Lynnwood city, Washington state.

Anxiety and anger were the reactions of dozens of people who had contact with the patient.

Only one of them seemed unwilling to be examined by medical staff.

`This is a request from the district health center to check symptoms of you and your loved ones. Please answer 1 if you have no symptoms and 2 if someone in your home is sick,` the message read.

At the same time, Bruce’s colleagues in King County also took similar actions with people who had contact with the patient on the flight or in the same car from the airport.

Responding to the coronavirus is familiar to health workers, who regularly work to prevent and control diseases such as acute diarrhea, measles, tuberculosis and HIV.

In a season when nearly everyone is susceptible to sore throats, it’s hard to know who among the people they monitor should be tested and be considered a `PUI,` a person under investigation.

Bruce was really worried when he couldn’t reach a person on the watch list until January 25.

The patient in Snohomish was discharged from the hospital and was asked by Dr. Spitters to continue to quarantine at home.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee (center) holds a press conference about the first case of coronavirus last week.