Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
U.S. death toll rises.
California declares state of emergency after man’s death
SEATTLE — The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus climbed to 11 Wednesday with a victim succumbing in California — the nation’s first reported fatality outside Washington state — as officials, schools and businesses came under pressure to respond more aggressively to the outbreak.
Officials in Placer County, near Sacramento, said an elderly person who tested positive for COVID-19 Tuesday 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 Wednesday due to threat of coronavirus, becoming the third state to do so — after Florida and Washington.
In the nation’s capital, the Democratic-controlled House passed an $8.3 billion measure Wednesday to battle the coronavirus outbreak, which is spreading rapidly and threatening a major shock to the economy and disruptions to everyday life in the country.
The sweeping 415-2 bipartisan vote came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi beat a tactical retreat on vaccine price guarantees and followed a debate that lasted only a few minutes.
The Senate is likely to pass the measure Thursday and send it to the White House for President Donald Trump’s expected signature.
The agreement came together after Pelosi, D-Calif., dropped a demand, opposed by Republicans and the drug industry, to guarantee that any vaccines and drug treatments developed with government-backed research — but manufactured by drug companies — be offered at “affordable” prices.
Instead, more than $3 billion would be dedicated to research and development on vaccines, medicines for treatment, and diagnostic tests, including $300 million for the government to purchase such drugs from manufacturers at “fair and reasonable” prices to distribute them to those who need it — which is the standard applied in earlier crises like the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak.
It also would provide more than $2 billion to help federal, state and local governments prepare for and respond to the coronavirus threat, including $300 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s rapid response fund. Another $1.3 billion would be used to help fight the virus overseas.
Almost $1 billion would provide medical supplies and other preparedness steps. It would devote $500 million to Medicare for remote “telehealth” consultations that would permit sick people to get treatment without visiting a doctor.
Washington state also announced another death, bringing its total to 10.
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.
Trump sought Wednesday to deflect criticism of his administration’s response to the coronavirus onto his predecessor, complaining that a federal agency decision under President Barack Obama had made it harder to quickly enact widespread testing for the virus.
“The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing, and we undid that decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place in a much more accurate and rapid fashion,” Trump said. “That was a decision we disagreed with. I don’t think we would have made it, but for some reason it was made. But we’ve undone that decision.”
It was not entirely clear what Trump was referring to.
Health experts and veterans of the government during Obama’s presidency said they were unaware of any policy or rule changes during the last administration that would have affected the way the Food and Drug Administration approved tests during the current crisis.
Moreover, if there were, Trump did not explain why his administration did not change the rules during its first three years in office.
Among other things, critics of the Trump administration’s response have pointed to the dismantling of a White House effort set up by President Obama to respond to global health emergencies. The officials involved have left and not been replaced over the past two years, a point made by Obama administration veterans in recent days.
Meanwhile, from religion to sports, countries around the globe were taking drastic and increasingly visible measures Wednesday to curb the new coronavirus that first emerged in China.
Saudi Arabia banned citizens from performing the Muslim pilgrimage in Mecca, Italy ordered schools to close nationwide and Iran canceled Friday prayers for a second week.
Deaths spiked in Iran and Italy, which along with South Korea account for 80% of the new cases outside China, according to the World Health Organization.
In the U.S., at least 152 patients with the illness had been treated in 16 states, according to a New York Times database.
In all, more than 94,000 people have contracted the virus worldwide, with more than 3,200 deaths.
South Korea reported 435 new infections Wednesday, far smaller than its high of 851 a day earlier. A total of 5,621 people in South Korea have contracted the virus and 32 have died.
Italy’s virus deaths rose to 107, the most of any country outside of China.
Iran reported 92 deaths among its 2,922 confirmed cases, although many fear the outbreak is far broader.