YOLO COUNTY — A popular Northern California casino visited by customers from all over the state has issued a public health alert after Yolo County medical officials confirmed a case of tuberculosis tied to the casino.
The Cache Creek Casino Resort, a 659-room luxury hotel featuring legalized gambling in the unincorporated community of Brooks, issued the statement in collaboration with the Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency.
In the statement, officials said casino staff “are conducting contact tracing to identify and notify individuals who may have had close contact with the affected person. Health authorities define close contact as having a cumulative exposure of at least eight hours to the individual with (tuberculosis).”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the tuberculosis bacteria can be spread through coughing, sneezing or speaking with others nearby. Coughs that last three weeks or longer, chest pain, and coughing up blood all are symptoms of the infection, the agency said
Other symptoms include fatigue, weight loss, appetite loss, chills, fever and night sweats. The CDCP also said many people who catch the bacteria for tuberculosis never show symptoms and have an “inactive infection” that is not contagious.
The casino urged employees and those who have stayed at the resort in the past three months to contact their health care provider. They said that urgency is even more so for people with a compromised immune system.
Officials did not say how they came to find out about the exposure or when it happened. A message left for the casino on Thursday was not returned immediately.
The California Department of Public Health on its web site said 2,100 people caught tuberculosis in California last year, 10 fewer than in 2023. Twenty-six of those cases were children under 5 years old.
Overall, the state’s annual incidence-rate of 5.4 cases per 100,000 persons is nearly double the national rate, the agency said.