Two new cases of virus in D.C. region

Also Saturday, the U.S. military reported a Marine was hospitalized with the virus in Fairfax County, and organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference said a person who attended their event at National Harbor in late February had been infected.

Bowser said the District man being treated for the virus was not believed to have traveled outside the United States or been in close contact with anyone else infected with the virus. He was admitted to a District hospital on Thursday; his infection was confirmed by the city's public health lab late Saturday afternoon.

The mayor said the other person developed symptoms of covid-19 while visiting the District, then went to a hospital in Maryland for testing. She said the person is still hospitalized in Maryland.

The Marine who tested positive for coronavirus is the first infection reported in Virginia. The patient, assigned to Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, returned recently from "official business" overseas, tweeted Jonathan Rath Hoffman, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs. Rath Hoffman said the Marine is being treated at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital. 

The Virginia Department of Health said the state government is working with officials at the hospital. They said there has been no evidence of coronavirus spreading in the state, and the risk to the general public remains low. 

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said state officials had discussed the CPAC-related infection with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the state health agency in New Jersey, where the person was reportedly hospitalized.

Hogan, a Republican, urged people who attended the conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland, to take their temperature twice a day and notify their health-care provider and local health department if the temperature exceeds 100.4 or if they develop a cough, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Anyone with those symptoms should remain at home until they receive instructions about next steps from their health-care provider or local health department, Hogan said in a statement. 

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both attended the conference. White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in a statement that the White House is aware of the patient and added that "at this time there is no indication" that either Trump or Pence "met with or were in close proximity to the attendee."

Maryland lawmakers who went to CPAC said they spent Saturday evening texting friends to check their health after learning a conference attendee had been diagnosed with coronavirus."None of us are sick," said Del. Lauren Arikan, R-Harford. But Arikan, who is 24 weeks pregnant, said she is now second-guessing her decision to attend the event.

"I almost didn't go because . . . of the virus, but I didn't want to be one of those nutty people staying in," she said. "I didn't want to overreact, but now I feel like I underreacted."

Arikan said she spent the majority of her time in the main hall. The infected person was not in that area, according to an email CPAC organizers sent to attendees.

"We were obsessively washing our hands. Going to the bathroom, washing our hands," she said, noting that they weren't allowed to carry purses where her hand sanitizer is kept. "But now I think about it, the bathroom is where sick people are." Del. Matthew Morgan, R-St. Mary's, attended the conference with his wife and daughters. None are showing any symptoms, he said, and he thinks there is little chance his family was exposed. 

"We were all there for a short amount of time. . . . It wasn't like we were shaking hands," he said. 

Del. Sid Saab, R-Anne Arundel, said he received the email from conference organizers on Saturday afternoon. The email said to "remain calm and to listen to health providers," he said. "I feel fine," Saab said, adding that he is not anxious because he has sat in on briefings with the state health department. "I've been washing my hands."

Meanwhile, officials said no residents or staff members have tested positive for or exhibited symptoms of coronavirus at The Village of Rockville, a sprawling retirement community that was visited on Feb. 28 by a Montgomery County woman who had been infected.

Allison Combs, a spokeswoman from The Village, said the facility had been screening residents and employees for symptoms associated with coronavirus even before Hogan announced Friday night that the woman who tested positive had been there.

Staffers at the Village are now working to identify the individuals who were with her at the Feb. 28 post-funeral reception for a former resident. Those individuals would then undergo more frequent screening. It is unclear how many Village residents were there.

The Maryland Health Department has not recommended that attendees of the Feb. 28 event be quarantined, Combs said. Out of an abundance of caution, the Village has reduced visiting hours and postponed all gatherings and public events.

Hogan said Friday that three Montgomery County residents - a husband and wife in their 70s and an unrelated woman in her 50s - contracted the virus while on a Nile River cruise in Egypt. All three are recovering from flu-like symptoms in good condition. Their names have been withheld to protect their privacy.

About a week after the three Montgomery County residents returned home, one of them paid a condolence call to the family of a former resident of The Village, a 27-acre retirement community that houses about 300 people. The former resident's funeral was that morning.

A grandson of the former resident, who was at the event known as "sitting shiva" in Jewish tradition, said there were about 70 to 100 people present. Most of them were friends and relatives of his grandfather, not Village residents. The individual who tested positive for covid-19 was a friend of a family member, said the grandson, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his family's privacy.

Hogan said attendees of the event should contact health officials and watch for symptoms. On Friday, the grandson called a phone number provided by the state and was told he did not need to be tested because he was not showing flu-like symptoms.

"It has made it a lot more real," the grandson said. "Honestly, the past week or so, I grew sick of the name, 'coronavirus.' But it has driven it a lot closer to home, knowing that the event in question was my grandfather's shiva."

Adam Kurland, 36, said he was "shocked" to learn on social media of possible exposure at the Village, where his 96-year-old grandmother is a resident. He and his family spent most of Friday night trying to get in touch with staff at the Village but were not able to contact anyone via phone.

"I'm trying to remain calm, but I'm kind of angry that they haven't given us more information yet," Kurland said Friday night. "We're essentially totally in the dark right now."

Combs said they have sent out information to all family members who provided their emails to the Village.

Peggy Shelly of New York City said she has not received information or been able to get in contact with her 96-year-old mother at The Village, which used to be called the National Lutheran Home and is located on Veirs Drive, about two miles west of Interstate 270.

"I'm a little bit surprised that the management at the Village haven't reached out to us," she said Saturday. "The only information I have is pulled from Twitter."

Shelley, who visited her mother at the facility last week, said she is also paying attention to her own health.

Rockville, a city of 68,000, does not have its own health department and "is not equipped" to lead the contact tracing or containment effort that has been launched by the state and county governments, said Mayor Bridget Newton.

Instead, city leaders are working to serve as a "conduit" between residents and state and county officials.