Delft woman now the 7th coronavirus patient in Netherlands

A resident of the Zuid-Holland city of Delft tested positive for the Covid-19 strain of coronavirus, health authorities in the Netherlands said Saturday night. She was the first person in that province and the seventh person in the country to be diagnosed with the virus.

The Delft woman is in quarantine at home. "The patient, who has no connection with the previously-discovered patients, was in Lombardy, Italy last week," health agency RIVM said in a statement. Three other patients returned from the northern Italian province in the past two weeks.

The Haaglanden regional division of public health service GGD began investigating everyone the Delft woman came into contact with recently. Those contacts are required to record their temperature twice daily while they are monitored for fever and respiratory complaints.

"If these contacts receive complaints that are compatible with Covid-19, they will also be placed in isolation and tested for the new coronavirus," the RIVM said.

An Amsterdam mother, father, and their toddler son temporarily living in nearby Diemen tested positive on Friday and Saturday. Their two other children tested negative. The adult man and woman had recently returned from the Lombardy province.

Three members of a family in Loon op Zand, Noord-Brabant were also diagnosed with the virus. The man became the country's first coronavirus patient when he went to a hospital in Tilburg on Wednesday with health complaints after returning from Lombardy. He has been in quarantine there since.

His wife and their daughter also tested positive for the virus, becoming the fifth and sixth known cases in the Netherlands. Their results were announced on Saturday.

As of Saturday, some 888 people in the Lombardy province were known carriers of Covid-19 coronavirus. Of those patients, 21 people have died, Reuters reported on Saturday.

Dozens of people in the Netherlands have been tested for the virus. The RIVM said it is only necessary to be tested if a patient has both a fever and respiratory ailments, like coughing or shortness of breath. The patient must also either have been in contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus, or have traveled in the past two weeks to areas hard hit by the Covid-19 viral strain. Those areas include China, Hong Kong, Iran, four provinces of Italy, Singapore and South Korea.

The national government launched a helpline that Netherlands residents can call with questions about the coronavirus. The number is 0800-1351.