Reach of virus seen as shifting
China cases fall; U.S. deaths at 6
NEW YORK — The coronavirus spread to more countries and world capitals Monday — and the U.S. death toll climbed to six — even as new cases in China dropped to their lowest level in more than a month.
A shift in the outbreak appeared to be taking shape: Hundreds of patients were released from hospitals at the epicenter of the virus in China, while the World Health Organization reported that nine times as many new infections were recorded outside the country as inside it over the previous 24 hours.
Clusters of illness continued to swell in South Korea, Italy and Iran. The virus turned up for the first time in New York, Moscow and Berlin, as well as Latvia, Indonesia, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Jordan and Portugal. The
worldwide death toll topped 3,000, and the number of those infected rose to about 89,000 in 70 countries. Cas- es have been seen on every continent except Antarctica.
New diagnoses in several states pushed the tally of covid-19 cases in the U.S. past 100, and New Hampshire report- ed its first case, raising the total of affected states to 11. Seattle officials announced four more deaths, bringing the total in the U.S. to six.
Global health officials sought to reassure the public that the virus remains a manageable threat.
“Containment is feasible and must remain the top priority for all countries,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Around the world, the virus has reshaped the daily routines of millions of people.
Across Japan, children stayed home after the government announced the closure of schools until April. In Paris, the galleries of the Louvre Museum were off limits. With Israel holding a national election, special voting booths were set up for those under quarantine. And in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel was rebuffed by her interior minister when she extended her hand to greet him.
At the United Nations, officials said they were postponing a major conference on women that had been expected to draw as many as 12,000 people from its 193 member countries to New York next week.
U.S. CASES
Health officials in Washington state, where a cluster of cases surfaced at a nursing home outside Seattle, said four more people had died from the coronavirus. All of the deaths reported in the U.S. have happened in Washington.
In Seattle, King County Executive Dow Constantine declared an emergency and said the county is buying a hotel to be used as a hospital for patients who need to be isolated.
“We have moved to a new stage in the fight,” he said.
Four of the dead were residents of a nursing home in Kirkland, Wash., according to King County health authorities. The nursing home cases especially troubled health care experts because of the vulnerability of sick and elderly people to the illness and because of existing problems in nursing facilities.
Vice President Mike Pence met with the nation’s governors and pledged to continue updating them weekly by teleconference. President Donald Trump met with pharmaceutical companies to talk about progress toward a vaccine.
In Texas, the top two governing officials of the San Antonio area on Monday blocked the release of quarantined cruise ship evacuees, declaring a public health emergency after a woman allowed to leave quarantine later tested positive for the coronavirus.
Declarations by Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County chief Nelson Wolff of a local state of disaster and public safety emergency effectively puts the more than 120 passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in limbo, unaware of how long they will be held in seclusion at Lackland Air Force Base to prevent the further spread of covid-19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said its case count includes 45 infections among people who were on the cruise ship, one more than previously reported. The count 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 — involving people who did not travel or have known contact with other infected people.
The CDC recently broadened its guidelines for who should be tested for the new virus to include people with symptoms but without a history of travel 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’s spread that was previously invisible.
Thousands of test kits were on their way to state and local labs, and new guidelines intended to expand screening were put in place.
“In this situation, the facts defeat fear because the reality is reassuring. It is deep-breath time,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
TRANSMISSION ABROAD
The message was echoed by global health officials, who said they were encouraged that even in some countries that had taken far less aggressive measures than China’s, the virus remains largely in check.
Because the virus is not transmitted as easily as the flu, “it offers us a glimmer … that this virus can be suppressed and contained,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, the WHO’s emergencies chief.
China reported only 125 new cases today, its lowest daily count since Jan. 21, and the city at the heart of the outbreak, Wuhan, said 2,570 patients were released. At the largest of 16 temporary hospitals that were rapidly built in Wuhan in response to the outbreak, worries over the availability of supplies and protective gear eased, along with the pressure on the medical staff.
Another 31 deaths were reported by China today, all of them in the hardest-hit province of Hubei. The figures bring China’s total number of cases to 80,151, with 2,943 deaths.
Dr. Zhang Junjian, who leads a temporary hospital in Wuhan with a staff of 1,260, said optimism is high that the facility will no longer be needed in the coming weeks.
But in other places, problems continued to multiply.
South Korea, with the worst outbreak outside China, reported 477 new cases today, bringing the total to 4,812. The death toll rose to 28.
In Iran, a confidant of Iran’s supreme leader died from the virus. The Islamic Republic confirmed 1,501 cases and 66 deaths, but many believe the true number is higher. Its reported caseload surged more than 250% in just 24 hours.
Italy’s caseload rose to 2,036, with 52 deaths. Officials said it could take up to two weeks before they know whether recent measures, including quarantining 11 towns in northern Italy, are slowing the spread of the virus. FUNDING BILL Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, negotiations on a bipartisan $7 billion to $8 billion measure to battle the virus are almost complete, according to both Democratic and GOP aides. The measure appears on track to be unveiled as early as today, and the hope is to speed it quickly through both the House and Senate by the end of the week.
Negotiators worked through the weekend to try to finalize the spending bill, working with a sense of urgency as the virus spreads inside the U.S. and worldwide.
The figure being negotiated on Capitol Hill dwarfs the $1.25 billion request the White House sent Congress last week. The White House proposed redirecting an additional $1.25 billion from other programs and using it for the coronavirus response.
The new congressional spending bill will contain all new money, whereas the administration’s proposal was split between new money and spending taken from other accounts, including a fund to address Ebola.
Included will be money for vaccine development and for procuring protective and medical equipment, and aid to state and local governments that have contended with the virus.
Information for this article was contributed by Adam Geller, Carla K. Johnson, Josh Funk, Chris Grygiel, Carley Petesch, Edith M. Lederer, Matt Sedensky, Dake Kang, Aniruddha Ghosal, Kim Tong-Hyung, Nasser Karimi, Jon Gambrell, Thomas Adamson, Lori Hinnant, Mari Yamaguchi, Nicole Winfield, Frances D’Emilio, Colleen Barry, Aron Heller, Kevin Freking, Lauran Neergaard, Terry Wallace, Dave Collins and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Erica Werner of The Washington Post.