◆ First coronavirus death in California pushes U.S. toll to 11.
Feds are investigating Washington nursing home where majority of victims contracted virus
SEATTLE — The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus climbed to 11 Wednesday with a patient succumbing in California — the first reported fatality outside Washington state — as federal authorities announced an investigation of the Seattle-area nursing home where most of the victims were stricken.
Officials in California’s Placer County, near Sacramento, said an elderly person who tested positive after returning from a San Francisco-to-Mexico cruise had died. The victim had underlying health problems, authorities said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency. Washington and Florida had already declared emergencies.
Washington also announced another death, bringing its total to 10. Most of those who died were residents of Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, a suburb east of Seattle. At least 39 cases have been reported in the Seattle area, where researchers say the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks.
Seema Verma, head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the agency is sending inspectors to Life Care along with experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to figure out what happened and determine whether the nursing home followed guidelines for preventing infections.
Last April, the state fined Life Care $67,000 over infection-control deficiencies following two flu outbreaks that affected 17 patients and staff. An unannounced follow-up inspection in June determined that Life Care had corrected the problems, Verma said.
Meanwhile, public officials in Washington came under pressure to take more aggressive steps against the outbreak, including closing schools and canceling large events. While the state and Seattle have declared emergencies, giving leaders broad powers to suspend activities, they have not issued any orders to do so.
“We have encouraged people who are responsible for large gatherings to give consideration whether it really makes sense to carry those on right now,” Gov. Jay Inslee said. “Right now, we are deferring to the judgment ... of these organizations.”
While some individual schools and businesses have shut down, the governor said large-scale school closings have not been ordered because “there are so many ramifications for families and businesses,” especially for health care workers who might not be able to go to work because of child care responsibilities.
Shortly before the California death was announced, Princess Cruise Lines notified passengers of its Grand Princess that federal health officials are investigating a “small cluster” of coronavirus cases connected to the ship’s mid-February voyage. It asked current passengers to stay in their cabins until cleared by medical staff and said those who had been on the previous voyage should contact their doctor if they develop fever or other symptoms.
The Grand Princess is at sea off Mexico and will return early to San Francisco, where CDC and company officials will meet to determine the course of action, the cruise line said.
In Los Angeles, a contract medical worker who was conducting screenings at the city’s main airport has tested positive for the virus. The person wore protective equipment while on the job so it was unclear how the worker contracted the virus, Homeland Security officials said.
In New York, health officials put hundreds of residents in self-quarantine after members of two families in the New York City suburb of New Rochelle were diagnosed with the virus. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the disease appeared to have spread from a lawyer to his wife, two children, a neighbor and two others.
The new results brought the number of confirmed cases in the state to 11.
With the virus present in more than 80 countries, governments around the world trying to curb the spread of the coronavirus are resorting to increasingly sweeping measures that transform the way people work, shop, pray and amuse themselves.
Italy closed all schools and universities and barred fans from all sporting events for the next few weeks. Saudi Arabia barred citizens from making the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Iran canceled Friday prayers for a second week, and leader after leader pleaded with citizens to put an end to that traditional symbol of mutual trust, the handshake.
Australia has banned travel from South Korea and will more thoroughly screen travelers from Italy in a bid to curb the disease’s spread.
The World Health Organization said about 3.4 percent of people infected with the COVID-19 virus globally have died, making it more lethal than the common flu. But that figure was met with skepticism, with scientists noting that large numbers of mild cases have probably gone undetected or unreported. A study last week in the New England Journal of Medicine of data from more than 30 Chinese provinces estimated the death rate at 1.4 percent.