The coronavirus death toll in the US has now jumped to nine after test results for two people who died last week came back positive for the disease.
All nine deaths have occurred in Washington state with at least six of them linked to the senior living facility, Life Care Center, in Seattle.
Health officials revealed on Tuesday that one of those Life Care residents, a male in his 50s, died last Wednesday after being taken to a Seattle hospital. A woman in her 80s, who was a resident of Life Care but was never hospitalized, died at her family home that same day. Test results only just confirmed that they both had coronavirus.
Some staff may have been exposed to the virus while working in the intensive care unit where that patient was being treated but they don’t believe that other patients were exposed, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Officials have not yet determined how the senior living facility became the epicenter of where the majority of deadly cases have been linked to.
North Carolina announced its first case on Tuesday after a man traveled to Washington state and visited the Seattle care facility where the outbreak has occurred.
The jump in the death toll came as health officials promised to ramp up coronavirus testing across the US and vowed to test a million people by the end of the week. Officials have also revealed that at least a quarter of the cases across the country have been transferred through communities rather than travel.
An increase in testing for the coronavirus has started to shed light on how the illness has spread in the US with newly confirmed cases in New York, Georgia, Florida and New Hampshire pushing the tally to more than 100 across 15 states.
Dr Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that ‘what is happening now in the United States may be the beginning of what is happening abroad’.
Tensions over how to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus are also now escalating as lawmakers expressed doubts about the government’s ability to ramp up testing fast enough to deal with the crisis.
The coronavirus death toll in the US rose to six on Monday and there are now more than 100 confirmed cases across multiple states. Five of the six deaths – all of which occurred in Washington state – have been linked to a Seattle senior living facility (pictured above)
Medics wait to enter the Life Care Center in Seattle that has been linked to at least six of the nine coronavirus deaths in the US
- Increase in testing for the coronavirus began shedding light on Monday on how the illness has spread in the United States
- Death toll has risen to nine and newly confirmed cases pushed the tally to more than 100 across 15 states
- All nine deaths have occurred in Washington state with at least six of them linked to the senior living facility, LifeCare Centre, in Seattle
- Health officials said Tuesday that one of those patients living at LifeCare died last week but test results only just confirmed that they had coronavirus
- Officials expect to test more than one million people within the next week
- Georgia and New Hampshire have both reported its first cases with all being linked to recent travel to Italy
- New York announced its second confirmed case on Tuesday and Florida declared a public health emergency as it confirmed its first three cases
- Some schools across the country have closed for disinfection and officials in Washington state are buying a hotel to be used as a hospital for isolated patients
- Officials have said a vaccine may not be ready for at least a year, despite Trump pushing for one in the next few months
Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said he expects community-related cases to grow in the coming weeks.
‘My concern is as the next week or two or three go by, we’re going to see a lot more community-related cases,’ he said. ‘That’s of great concern.’
Despite this, the latest cases detected in both Georgia and New Hampshire on Monday – both firsts for each state – have been linked to travel in Italy. The two cases in Georgia involve people from the same Atlanta household, including a man who recently returned from Italy. The New Hampshire case involved a hospital worker who also recently returned from a trip to Italy.
New York announced on Tuesday its second confirmed case in a man in Westchester County. Florida also revealed it had detected its third case after a woman whose sister had previously been diagnosed was found to have contracted the disease.
The total number of cases in the US includes people who tested positive after returning from travel to outbreak areas in other parts of the world, their close contacts and infections that appear to be from community spread – people who did not travel or have known contact with other infected people.
Dr Fauci, who is the top coronavirus expert in the country, said community spread made it almost impossible to predict how many cases there will be.
‘The very fact that you have community spread… the source of these infections are not entirely known. People are cropping up with infections and you can’t trace where they got it,’ Dr Fauci said.
State and local authorities have been stepping up testing for the illness following a debacle with faulty kits from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that officials say delayed results.
In response to the faulty tests, the Food and Drug Administration over the weekend allowed state and local labs to develop their own tests for coronavirus. It will see an increase in tests being carried out, according to FDA Commissioner Dr Stephen Hahn, who said he expects more than 1 million people to be tested within the next week.
The CDC recently broadened its guidelines for who should be tested for the new virus to include people with symptoms but without a travel history to virus hot zones. More testing will bring more confirmed cases, experts said, but they cautioned that does not mean the virus is gaining speed. Instead, the testing is likely to reveal a picture of the virus’ spread that was previously invisible.
It comes after Dr Fauci told NBC News that the disease had likely reached ‘pandemic proportions’.
‘We’re dealing with an evolving situation. We’re dealing with clearly an emerging infectious disease that has now reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic proportions,’ Dr Fauci said. ‘If you look at, you know, by multiple definitions of what a pandemic is, the fact is this is multiple sustained transmissions of a highly infectious agent in multiple regions of the globe.
‘When you have a brand new virus, in which no one has had any experience before, that kind of gives the virus an open roadway to spread. If you look at the people who have just come to the attention of the health authorities, that’s 2 to 2.5 percent… But even if it goes down to 1 percent, that’s still very, very serious.’
Patrons with shopping carts loaded with tissue and water wait in checkout queues at a very busy Costco in Miami, Florida on Tuesday
This Costco in Miami, Florida put a limit of five water packs per customer on Tuesday following a panic buying spree
A woman stocks up on toilet paper, paper towels and cleaning products at a BJs in New Jersey on Monday
In efforts to try and control the outbreak, some schools across the country have closed for disinfection and officials in the Seattle area where the nine deaths occurred announced they were buying a hotel to be used as a hospital for patients who need to be isolated.
Homeland Security said that it had closed one of its Washington state facilities on Tuesday because an employee became ill after visiting a family member at the LifeCare Center linked to the deaths.
Acting U.S Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told Congress that employees of the DHS facility were told to work from home and the office will remain closed for 14 days. All employees have been directed to ‘self-quarantine’ during that time.
New York confirmed its second case on Tuesday with an attorney in his 50s – who lives in Westchester County and works in midtown Manhattan – contracting the disease. A day earlier, a female healthcare worker in Manhattan, aged in her 30s, was confirmed to be the state’s first case.
Florida declared a public health emergency after confirming three cases. A man in his 60s with no recent travel history was diagnosed on Sunday with coronavirus. A woman who had recently returned from Italy tested positive on Sunday before her sister became the third case on Tuesday.
In Texas, tension between U.S. and local officials brewed over the planned release of more than 120 ex-passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship in quarantine in San Antonio.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg declared a public safety emergency in an attempt to continue the quarantine. He and other officials in San Antonio called for more lab testing of the passengers after one woman tested positive after release. The CDC said its case count includes 45 infections among people who were on the cruise ship.
In the nation’s capital, officials moved on a number of fronts.
The Federal Reserve announced the biggest interest-rate cut in over a decade to try to fend off damage to the U.S. economy from the factory shutdowns, travel restrictions and other disruptions caused around the globe by the outbreak. On Wall Street, stocks briefly rallied on the news, then slumped badly.
On Capitol Hill, lawmakers expressed skepticism about U.S. health officials’ claims that testing for the new virus should be widely available by the end of the week. Authorities have said labs across the country should have the capacity to run as many as one million tests by then.
Donald Trump spars with top US coronavirus expert as he demands vaccine in a ‘couple of months’
President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet met at the White House on Monday with executives of 10 pharmaceutical companies to discuss ways to speed the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus.
Officials have said a vaccine may not be ready for at least a year, despite Trump pushing for one in the next few months.
During the meeting, officials noted the vaccine could be ready for human testing within months but stressed it would not be available widely for at least a year.
‘We’re working very hard to expedite the longer process of developing a vaccine. We’re also moving with maximum speed to develop a therapy so that we can help people recover as quickly as possible and a lot of recovery going on,’ Trump said.
He added that a vaccine would be available within ‘a couple of months’.
Dr Fauci, who is the top coronavirus expert in the country, interjected during the meeting, saying: ‘Like I’ve been telling you, a year to a year and a half.’
Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said he expects community-related cases to grow in the coming weeks
Dr Fauci speaks to President Trump on Tuesday during a tour of the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center
Trump, however, shrugged him off: ‘I like the sound of a couple of months better’.
‘I’ve heard, very quick numbers, a matter of months. Pretty much a year would be an outside number. So I think that’s not a bad,’ Trump said.
Dr Fauci responded: ‘When is it going to be deployable… That is going to be at the earliest a year to a year and a half, no matter how fast you go.’
The Trump administration said soon after the meeting that it had secured commitments from the top pharmaceutical companies to work together to develop a vaccine and treatments to fight the coronavirus.
The company leaders indicated a willingness to cooperate with one another, but did not lay out how that would happen.
The White House, which has clashed previously with the pharmaceutical industry over high drug prices and has been struggling in recent weeks to show it is on top of the virus response, saw the meeting as a victory.
‘This is all hands on deck. And the news out of this meeting that you’ve already formed a consortia… now we know they will be working together to create therapeutics and ultimately a new vaccine,’ Vice President Mike Pence said.
Vacation fears for millions of Americans as TSA warns of coronavirus travel restrictions to MORE countries in addition to China, Italy, Iran and South Korea
The Trump administration plans to implement further travel restrictions to ‘additional countries’ amid the quickly escalating number of coronavirus cases in the United States, according to a top transportation official.
Transportation Security Administration Administrator David Pekoske said Tuesday that further restrictions will soon be announced.
The countries to be targeted were not identified, with restrictions already in place and airlines suspending services to China, Iran, South Korea and Italy.
Vice President Mike Pence is set to meet with airline executives Wednesday to discuss the coronavirus spread as major airlines such as Delta, United and American Airlines begin to waive change fees to virus hotspots because of traveler concerns.
Airlines and the Trump administration are currently in a dispute over sharing information on international travelers.
The CDC issued a rule a few weeks ago as the coronavirus outbreak began to escalate globally, requiring airlines to provide certain information about international traveler.
They are still putting pressure for more informative passenger lists to be shared as the deaths in the United States reached nine people on Tuesday.
Airlines continue to fight the release of information claiming that a government-run project would provide better results.
New York transit workers to disinfect subway cars, stations and trains every 72 hours to prevent the spread of the disease
Subway cars, stations and trains within the New York City transit system will now be cleaned at least every 72 hours as part of a new policy to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
The policy was introduced as the state confirmed its first two cases of the disease.
On Monday night, crews began disinfecting the New York City Transit, MTA Bus, Access-A-Ride, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North as part of am ‘enhanced daily cleaning procedure’.
The MTA will be significantly increasing the frequency and intensity of its cleaning protocol to ensure that each of its stations and the full fleet is fully disinfected at least once ever 72 hours.
More frequently used surfaces including turnstiles, MetroCard and ticket vending machines and handrails will also be disinfected daily.
Subway cars, stations and trains within the New York City transit system will now be cleaned at least every 72 hours as part of a new policy to combat the spread of the coronavirus
On Monday night, crews began disinfecting the New York City Transit, MTA Bus, Access-A-Ride, Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North as part of am ‘enhanced daily cleaning procedure’
The new procedure will take effect on the whole system, including the 472 stations throughout the subway system, 21 stations along Staten Island Railway, the 124 stations and terminals along Long Island Rail Road and 101 stations throughout Metro-North’s New York territory.
The daily clean will also include 6,714 subway cars, Staten Island Railway’s 64 cars, and Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North’s over 1,100 cars as well as MTA’s 5,700 buses and fleet of 1,341 dedicated Access-A-Ride vans.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that bleach would also be used over disinfectant as he warned commuters they would probably notice the smell.
‘They will use a disinfectant, many will use bleach, which is a good protocol in the flu season anyway,’ he said. ‘So if people smell, it smells like bleach when you get on a bus or a child goes to school, it’s not bad cologne or perfume, it is bleach.’
The MTA is said to be working with the CDC as it stockpiles its hygiene and cleaning supplies.
Twitter ‘strongly encourages’ its American staff and 5,000 global employees to work from home as other big companies start enforcing rules to stop spread
Twitter is ‘strongly encouraging’ its staff in the US and across the world to work from home as the coronavirus death toll in the United States rose to six and more than 100 cases were confirmed.
The San Francisco-based social media giant urged its 5,000 staffers across the world to stay away from its various offices where possible in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
Workers in Twitter’s American offices have for now been strongly encouraged to work from home.
There is a mandatory ban on Twitter employees coming into offices in South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan.
‘We are strongly encouraging all employees globally to work from home if they’re able. Our goal is to lower the probability of the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus for us – and the world around us,’ Twitter HR chief Jennifer Christie wrote in a blog post on Monday.
‘We are operating out of an abundance of caution and the utmost dedication to keeping our Tweeps healthy.
‘We are working to make sure internal meetings, all hands, and other important tasks are optimized for remote participation. We recognize that working from home is not ideal for some job functions. For those employees who prefer or need to come into the offices, they will remain open for business.’
Twitter had already announced the suspension of ‘non-critical’ business travel and events last week.
Twitter is ‘strongly encouraging’ its staff in the US and across the world to work from home as the coronavirus death toll in the United States rose to six and more than 100 cases were confirmed. Pictured is the San Francisco office
The company said its CEO Jack Dorsey would no longer be appearing at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas later this month as a result of the coronavirus.
By Monday evening, Facebook had announced it will no longer attend the event as well.
Facebook has also banned non-business visitors to its offices and and discouraged all gatherings of more than 50 attendees.
Job candidates are on the list of visitors not allowed on campus with interviews being rescheduled as video conferences where possible, according to one source familiar with the plans.
The San Francisco-based social media giant and its CEO Jack Dorsey urged its 5,000 staffers across the world to stay away from its various offices where possible in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak
Facebook last week shelved its annual developer conference and has also restricted travel to China, South Korea and Italy.
Alphabet Inc’s Google on Monday scrapped its biggest conference for cloud computing customers, scheduled for next month in San Francisco, following the cancellation last Friday of two other events.
As news broke of more cases of coronavirus spreading across the United States, other big companies started enforcing rules in a bid to stop the disease from spreading.
T-Mobile had a novel response to the threat: fewer hugs, kisses or high-fives. The wireless provider, which is based in Washington state, said it is ‘encouraging personal distancing at work’ and has ‘all sorts of sanitation products readily available’.
In addition to banning travel to and from Asia and Italy, Home Depot also implemented a 14-day stay-at-home policy for employees who have returned from those regions within the past two weeks.
On Wall Street, at least two major banks are testing technologies and compliance systems in preparation for employees who may be asked to work from home or off-site locations in coming weeks.
In Hollywood, the coronavirus threat has already affected how films are being made and who gets to see them. Movie producers are being forced to delay film releases in China and parts of Italy where movie theaters are closed, and are looking at relocating movie shoots in areas with high numbers of coronavirus cases.
ViacomCBS Inc’s Paramount Pictures postponed a three-week-long shoot in Italy for Tom Cruise’s next ‘Mission Impossible’ film. Walt Disney Co executives are waiting to see when theaters will reopen in China so they can release ‘Mulan’ – an action epic about a Chinese heroine that is scheduled to hit other countries on March 27 and was expected to be the entertainment giant’s first billion-dollar box office hit of the year.