OXFORD, Ohio — Officials from the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) have concluded two students at Miami University in Oxford have tested negative for coronavirus.
The ODH was joined by representatives from Miami University, Butler County General Health, Middletown Health Department, and the Hamilton City Health Department at a 7 p.m. press conference Sunday. They said the students involved did everything they were supposed to do in this situation.
On Tuesday, ODH announced two possible cases of the coronavirus were under investigation. According to health officials in Butler County, both people who were tested recently traveled and returned from China. Both possible cases were not severely ill and were in isolation to keep the illness from spreading.
"We don't want fear," Dr. Amy Acton, Director of the Ohio Department of Health, said at the time. "We are much more likely to see a disease of contagion of fear, than the actual disease."
While administrators at Miami urged those on and around campus not to panic, the school did postpone its men's and women's basketball games scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday night, respectively. The number of confirmed cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus in the U.S. is at eight.
On Thursday, officials from ODH and the city of Cleveland confirmed that the patient with Chicago's second confirmed case of coronavirus recently traveled to Cleveland. The man is a Chicago resident in his 60s and was confirmed as having coronavirus on Jan. 28, according to the CDC. The city says the man traveled to Cleveland on January 14 for a day trip and was not infectious while in town.
RELATED: Chicago's 2nd coronavirus patient recently visited Cleveland, Ohio Department of Health confirms
The city adds that Cleveland Hopkins International Airport has been taking extra precautions such as increased surface sanitizing as the situation develops. Hopkins Airport is also following CDC guidelines.
The Philippines reported the first death from coronavirus outside of China on Saturday.
Meanwhile, China's news agency says six officials in the city of Huanggang, neighboring the epicenter of Wuhan in Hubei province, have been fired over poor performance in handling the outbreak.
The mayor complained the city lacks medical supplies.
The Associated Press reports that figures from the National Health Commission showed an increase of 45 in the death toll and 2,590 in the number of cases for a total of 14,380, well above the number of those infected in the 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, which happened southern China before spreading worldwide.
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