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Resident at UCI campus housing tests positive for COVID-19 after returning from international trip

A sign that reads University of California Irvine appears in an image posted on the school's Flickr page on Nov. 23, 2016. (Steve Zylius/UC Irvine)

A resident at the University of California Irvine’s graduate student housing has tested positive for COVID-19, officials said Saturday.

The patient, who’s not a student, returned from an international trip with symptoms, according to a community statement from University of California Irvine officials. That person has been “resting comfortably in good condition,” the message said.


The university said it could not disclose the patient’s identity or any further personal information about the individual.

UCI police, which first announced the case, described the patient as a university “affiliate” who lives in graduate student housing.

University officials emphasized that the risk to students and staffers remains low, and that they were working with the Orange County Health Care Agency to reach out to anyone who may have been in contact with the patient.

Earlier in March, the university in Orange County canceled its spring graduation ceremony to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The O.C. Health Care Agency as of Saturday had reported a total of 78 COVID-19 cases in the county, 35 of them travel-related. Eight patients contracted the coronavirus through contact with an infected person, and 29 cases involved people who did not travel or had no known contact to another patient, according to the agency.