U.S. death toll from coronavirus rises

Tensions escalate as more deaths in Washington state are attributed to COVID-19.

SEATTLE » Tensions over how to contain the coronavirus escalated Tuesday in the United States as the death toll climbed to nine and lawmakers expressed doubts about the government’s ability to ramp up testing fast enough to deal with the crisis.

All of the deaths have occurred in Washington state, and most were residents of a nursing home in suburban Seattle. The number of infections in the U.S. overall climbed past 100, scattered across at least 15 states, with 27 cases in Washington alone.

“What is happening now in the United States may be the beginning of what is happening abroad,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noting that in China, where the outbreak began more than two months ago, older and sicker people are about twice as likely to become seriously ill as those who are younger and healthier.

The nursing home outbreak apparently seeded the first case in North Carolina, authorities said. A Wake County resident who had visited the Washington state nursing home tested positive but is in isolation at home and is doing well, according to the North Carolina governor’s office.

In the nation’s capital, officials moved on a number of fronts.

A bipartisan $7.5 billion emergency bill to fund the government’s response to the outbreak worked its way through Congress.

The Federal Reserve announced the biggest interestrate 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 around the globe. On Wall Street, stocks rallied briefly on the news, then went into another steep slide, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 785 points on the day, or 2.9%.

“We have seen a broader spread of the virus. So, we saw a risk to the economy and we chose to act,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said.

Also, the Food and Drug and Administration sought to ease a shortage of face masks by giving health care workers the OK to use an industrial type of respirator mask designed to protect construction crews from dust and debris.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill expressed skepticism about U.S. health officials’ claims that testing for the new virus should be widely available soon. CDC test kits delivered to states and cities in January proved faulty.

Authorities have said labs across the country should have the capacity to run as many as 1 million tests by the end of the week.

But testing so far has faced delays and missteps, and “I’m hearing from health professionals that’s unrealistic,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state said at a Senate hearing.

The chief of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said the FDA has been working with a private company to get as many as 2,500 test kits out to labs by the end of the week. Each kit should enable a lab to run about 500 tests, he said. But health officials were careful about making promises.

“I am optimistic, but I want to remain humble,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC.

In Washington state, researchers believe the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks. That has raised fears that there could be hundreds of undiagnosed cases in the area.

But some people who want to be tested for the virus in the state are encountering confusion, a lack of testing options and other problems as health authorities scramble to deal with the crisis.

ASSOCIATED PRESS A worker at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., near Seattle, wears a mask as she leaves the building, March 2. Several of the people who have died in Washington state from the COVID-19coronavirus were tied to the long-term care facility, where dozens of residents were sick.