San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
WASHINGTON STATE REPORTS 1ST U.S. CORONAVIRUS DEATH
President Trump seeks to reassure Americans as new travel warnings and restrictions are issued
Concerns about the coronavirus intensified Saturday as the U.S. reported its first death from the global outbreak, and federal authorities announced new restrictions on foreign travel.
A man in his 50s from the Seattle area died and two new cases emerged inside a nursing care facility in Kirkland, Wash., where dozens of other people were reported to be feeling sick. The man who died had been a patient at Evergreenhealth hospital, according to a spokeswoman.
Dr. Robert 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.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency, and said officials were considering canceling sporting events, closing schools and taking any other steps needed to slow the spread of the virus. “If — and this is a big if — there is a social distancing strategy that becomes necessary, the emergency declaration would give us some legal authority,” he said.
At two schools that have had ties to cases, in Oregon and Washington, officials announced that they were shuttering buildings for several days, and ordering deep cleanings.
And in Kirkland, where a health
care worker in her 40s at the Life Care Center, a long-term nursing facility, and a resident of the center, in her 70s, were reported Saturday to have tested positive for the virus, health officials expressed alarm at the possibility of more cases. Among 288 residents and workers at Life Care, more than 50 people — 25 health workers and 27 residents — have shown symptoms of respiratory illness or have been hospitalized for pneumonia, local health officials said.
“We are very concerned about an outbreak in a setting where there are many older people,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, the health officer for Public Health Seattle & King County. A team of federal health workers was dispatched to Kirkland to assist local workers, and many more coronavirus tests were expected to be conducted in the coming days.
In California, the Santa Clara County Public Health Department announced Saturday the case of a fourth person in the county infected with coronavirus. The case is of a woman who is a “household contact” of a person who is hospitalized with the virus, the health department said in a news release.
There have been 70 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S.
Hours after Washington state officials confirmed the death, President Donald Trump moved to calm public fears and demonstrate aggressive action against the illness, including by issuing new restrictions on foreign travel.
Presiding over a news conference in the White House briefing room and flanked by top public health officials, Trump, who has drawn criticism for his response to the virus, warned that additional coronavirus cases in the United States are “likely” but added that “healthy individuals should be able to fully recover.”
Trump, who has blamed his political enemies for exaggerating the threat of the virus, appealed to “the media and politicians and everybody else involved,” asking that they “not do anything to incite a panic, because there’s no reason to panic at all.”
He said that he would be meeting Monday with pharmaceutical executives to discuss how a vaccine could be developed “very quickly” and that the United States had adequate supplies to confront a spread of the illness, including 43 million surgical masks, with more on the way.
“Our country is prepared for any circumstance,” the president 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.”
The Food and Drug Administration announced that it was authorizing American laboratories to develop their own coronavirus tests, which should significantly increase the country’s testing capacity.
The president’s news conference suggested that officials were bracing for many more cases in the days ahead, and the public alarm they are sure to inspire.
Joining Trump at the briefing, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the State Department would issue its highest-level warning, known as a “do not travel” alert, for areas of Italy and South Korea most affected by the virus. Pence said the United States was also banning all travel from Iran and barring entry to any foreign citizen who has visited that country in the past 14 days.
Authorities reported Saturday that Italy’s total confirmed cases grew to 1,128, a 27 percent increase from 24 hours earlier. The vast majority are in three northern regions, all economically productive and among the most visited in the country: Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna. The death toll climbed to 29.
In South Korea, officials have recorded more than 3,150 confirmed cases and 17 deaths.
Iran, meanwhile, is preparing for the possibility of “tens of thousands” of people getting tested for the new coronavirus as the number of confirmed cases spiked again Saturday, an official said, underscoring the fear both at home and abroad over the outbreak in the Islamic Republic.
The virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes have killed 43 people out of 593 confirmed cases in Iran, Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said. He disputed a report citing anonymous medical officials in Iran putting the death toll at over four times as much.
Ireland and Ecuador were among the countries reporting their first cases Saturday. More than 85,000 people worldwide have contracted the virus, with deaths topping 2,900.
China recorded 573 new virus cases and 35 more deaths in the 24 hours through midnight Saturday, according to the National Health Commission. That raised the total for the country where the disease emerged in December to 2,870 deaths and 79,834 cases.