U.S. death reported from virus
Trump seeks to reassure the public, issues new travel bans
WASHINGTON — Hours after officials confirmed the first death in the country from the coronavirus, President Donald Trump on Saturday moved to calm public fears and demonstrate aggressive action against the illness, including by issuing new travel restrictions.
Presiding over a news conference in the White House briefing room and flanked by top public health officials, Trump warned that additional coronavirus cases in the United States are “likely,” but added that “healthy individuals should be able to fully recover.”
He appealed to “the media and politicians and everybody else involved not do anything to incite a panic, because there’s no reason to panic at all.”
“Our country is prepared for any circumstance,” Trump added. “We hope it’s not going to be a major circumstance, it’ll be a smaller circumstance. But whatever the circumstances, we’re prepared.”
Joining Trump at the briefing, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the administration was issuing its highest-level warning, known as a “do not travel” warning, for areas of Italy and South Korea most affected by the virus. Pence said the U.S. was also banning all travel from Iran, and barring entry to any foreign citizen who has visited that country in the
last 14 days.
The president also said he would be meeting with pharmaceutical companies at the White House on Monday to discuss efforts to develop a vaccine to counter the virus.
In the Northwest, especially, health officials were putting in place new precautions.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency and directed state agencies to use “all resources necessary” to prepare for and respond to the coronavirus outbreak. The proclamation allows the use of the Washington National Guard, if necessary.
The man who died had been a patient at EvergreenHealth hospital in Kirkland, Wash., according to its spokeswoman. In a news conference, Trump described the patient as “medically high risk” in his late 50s. More than 50 people in a nursing facility there are sick and being tested for the virus.
Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there was no evidence that the patient had traveled recently or had contact with someone known to have the virus, adding to growing signs that the virus may be spreading in the United States.
The death and indications of possible spread signaled a new, urgent phase in the response to the virus in the U.S., where 65 cases had previously been reported, none of them fatal. Most of the cases could be explained by overseas travel or contact with someone who had been ill.
Fear of exposure to children
This past week, though, four new cases, in California, Oregon and Washington, were the first in the U.S. where the cause was mysterious and unknown — a sign, experts warned, that the virus, which has killed more than 2,800 people worldwide and sickened tens of thousands, might now be spreading in the U.S.
Officials in Washington state were already discussing the possibility that they may recommend cancellations of public events, including sports and entertainment, to limit the spread. They began warning that life in the coming weeks may change drastically.
Washington state leaders, who had for weeks reiterated that the risk to the general public was low, issued a more insistent message.
“We really believe that the risk at this point is increasing,” said Dr. Kathy Lofy, a health officer for the state.
In Oregon, where officials say that an elementary school employee was among the new, unexplained cases, concerns were raised that children may have been exposed. District officials announced they would shut down school until Wednesday and conduct a deep cleaning of the building.
Dr. Dean Sidelinger, Oregon’s state health officer, said a broader closure of schools is an option the state could pursue at some point.
“If we do notice spread in our community or multiple cases, that is certainly something we would consider on a case-by-case basis,” Sidelinger said.
Health officials in Washington state announced the country’s first case of coronavirus nearly six weeks ago. That person, a man who had traveled in China, has since recovered. As dozens of other cases were diagnosed across the U.S., no others were announced in Washington until this past week.
On Friday night, health officials there announced that a teenage boy and a woman in her 50s had tested positive for coronavirus. The woman had recently spent time in South Korea. The boy, a high school student, had not traveled to any high-risk areas. The student’s high school will not reopen until Tuesday, and some peers who were in contact with the infected student will be kept out of school for at least 14 days, officials said.
Across the country, educators, businesses and local officials are beginning to confront the logistics of enduring a possible pandemic: school closings that could force millions of children to remain at home, emergency plans that would require employees to work remotely, communities scrambling to build up supplies.
In plausible worst-case-scenarios given the pattern of the outbreak thus far, the country could experience acute shortages of ventilators; health workers to operate them and care for patients; hospital beds; and masks and other protective equipment. Keeping health workers safe requires protective equipment, much of it made in China and already in short supply. Panicked buying of masks by regular consumers is exacerbating the problem. On Saturday the U.S. Surgeon General tweeted, “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!”
“Even during mild flu pandemics, most of our ICUs are filled to the brim with severely ill patients on mechanical ventilation,” said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an expert on health care preparedness. “I hope and pray COVID-19 turns out to be a moderate pandemic, but if not, we’re in serious trouble,” he said, referring to the name given the disease caused by the virus.
Resources are concentrated in the most populous and wealthiest cities, leaving rural areas and other neglected communities exposed to greater risk. And public health experts worry that efforts to contain an outbreak could be hamstrung by budget cuts that have weakened state health departments.
‘Very dangerous situation’
Health officials are working to confine outbreaks to small geographic clusters, which would limit the impact on the nation’s health care system and buy time for the development of a vaccine, an effort that could take a year or longer. But flawed test kits distributed to states by the CDC and strict criteria initially used for identifying potential cases may have slowed detection of the virus spreading within communities across the country.
“The Chinese bought us a month of time to prepare ourselves by imposing these astonishing and draconian measures,” said J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and Studies, which last year issued a report that identified flaws in the nation’s health security. “Unfortunately, we didn’t make good use of that time and now we’re heading into a very dangerous situation.”
Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon said that she expects more cases and that her state may take more aggressive action if the outbreak gets more severe. But, in the meantime, she said people do not need to take drastic action.
“I’m wanting to convey to Oregonians, and frankly folks on the entire West Coast: Stay calm, continue on your daily lives, and follow public health precautions,” Brown said.
Most infections result in mild symptoms, including coughing and fever, though some can become more serious and lead to pneumonia. Older people, especially those with chronic illnesses such as heart or lung disease, are especially vulnerable. Health officials think it spreads mainly from droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes, similar to how the flu spreads.
To achieve more rapid testing capacity, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an accelerated policy Saturday enabling laboratories to use tests they develop. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said his agency is “rapidly responding and adapting to this dynamic and evolving situation.”