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Lebanon native quarantines self after returning from China

Josh Ketcham, who is a government contractor, says he feels ‘very fortunate’ to have avoided the coronavirus

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EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is from the Feb. 19 edition of the Laclede County Record. It is included in its entirety here for everyone to get a picture of the coronavirus story in Laclede County and the surrounding area as it develops. Lebanon native Josh Ketcham, who is a government contract worker in China, left Wuhan, just before the coronavirus breakout made international headlines. Upon his return, Ketcham spent 15 days isolated from the public. However, his quarantine was a bit different from most. “I was actually not in a designated quarantine,” Ketcham said. Instead, he stayed isolated in his Lebanon home after returning from working in Wuhan, the capitol city of Hubei province in central China. He left Wuhan when leaving without being officially quarantined was still an option. “I left Wuhan just the day before the city shut down. I made it by about 11 hours,” Ketcham said. “I quarantined myself just out of general consciousness of safety,” Ketcham said. Ketchum has worked as a government contractor for more than 12 years and has seen a lot of the world. “I’ve worked in about 18 or 19 countries so far,” Ketcham said. He ended his quarantine after spending one day longer in self-imposed isolation than official quarantines last. “There’s no symptoms or signs of anything, so I’m free to roam around,” Ketcham said. Had he stayed in Wuhan a day longer, a mandatory quarantine might have placed him in with people who actually had the coronavirus. He said trying to gauge the danger factor the coronavirus brought to China while he was there was made harder because of the Chinese government. “It’s kind of difficult because of the Chinese government and how secretive they are. It’s kind of hard to get an accurate report. You never know which report to believe, but it’s definitely worse than what the Chinese government is reporting,” Ketcham said. In fact, the Chinese government had the doctor who first reported the outbreak sign a statement saying his warning had been incorrect. The doctor later died from coronavirus. Ketchum said the word was out before the news began reporting on it. “I heard about it really early on. I heard about it actually before it was being reported on the news or anything, so I kind of did my due diligence and just basically went to work and went back to the hotel and stayed out of public places and crowds and what not,” Ketcham said. The rush to build hospitals for coronavirus victims began after he left China. He said he wore a mask to and from work as a precaution. “I wouldn’t say that I was scared. I was cautious, but it was evolving so quickly that what I would hear on Monday I would hear something vastly different on Tuesday. It seemed to progress fairly quickly,” Ketcham said. As of Feb. 6, the death toll in China rose over 600 with 3,100 new cases had popped up in a 24-hour period bringing the total number of cases at that time to 31,161. The majority of cases have happened in Hubei Province. Worldwide, the number of cases on Feb. 13 stood at approximately 60,000, according to NBCDFW’s website, with a spike of 15,152 new cases due in part to a new methodology in the categorization of cases. By Feb. 18, China reported 1,886 new cases for a total of 72,436 confirmed cases, according to the Washington Post. Aljazeera.com reported that 242 people died from the virus on Feb. 12, raising the death toll to 1,367. CBS News relayed some potentially good news on its website on Feb. 18. Chinese officials have noticed a decline in the number of new coronavirus cases. CBS News also reported that only around two percent of those affected with coronavirus die from it. However the Center for Disease Control shows that influenza with its much smaller percentage of fatal cases, less than one percent, saw 36,000 deaths from the 29 million cases it reported in the 2016-2017 flu season. Consequently, containment is key. As of Feb. 15 the Center for Disease Control had reported only 15 cases of coronavirus in the U.S. Ketcham is thankful that he made it home without the coronavirus. “I am very fortunate to work for a very proactive company, surrounded by hard working and concerned team members, that went to great efforts to ensure the safety of my team and myself.  Members of my home office, members of the site team on the ground, and members of the U.S. government worked tirelessly to confirm and protect the health of my team and many others,” Ketcham said.