Coronavirus US news: Five dead in Washington state as New York governor says outbreak spreading across the state is 'inevitable'
Face mask sales surge despite top doctor’s plea
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The US reported at least six deaths from the coronavirus on Monday as officials warned of a “substantial outbreak” in the state of Washington and states of emergency were declared in various parts of the country.
Both patients were being treated at the same health centre in Kirkland, east of Seattle, where six of the state’s 12 cases have now been confirmed and 50 others are being tested for the virus. As the number of nationwide cases approaches 100, sales of face masks have surged among the general population.
Meanwhile, at least one patient was mistakenly released by the CDC and later tested positive for the deadly Wuhan coronavirus, with the mayor of San Antonio describing the development as “unacceptable” in a statement.
Health officials in Washington state meanwhile said on Sunday night that a second person had died from the coronavirus — a man in his 70s from a nursing facility near Seattle where dozens of people were sick and had been tested for the virus.
Researchers said earlier the virus may have been circulating for weeks undetected in Washington state.
In a statement, Public Health—Seattle & King County said the man died Saturday. On Friday, health officials said a man in his 50s died of coronavirus, the first death from the virus in the US.
Both had underlying health conditions, and both were being treated at a hospital in Kirkland, Washington, east of Seattle.
Washington state now has at least 13 confirmed cases.
State and local authorities stepped up testing for the illness as the number of new cases grew nationwide, with new infections announced in California, Florida, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York and Washington state.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press
'Progress being made!'
Donald Trump has tweeted that "progress [is] being made" on the development of a coronavirus vaccine.
The US president said he would be meeting with "major pharmaceutical companies" at the White House today to discuss a cure for the virus.
According to reports, researchers have already developed vaccines and are starting to test them on animals. The next stage after that will be human trials later in the year.
However, it is unlikely that a safe vaccine, one that can be mass produced, will be available to the public until mid-way through next year at best.
Latest worldwide updates:
- As of Monday, there have been over 89,000 cases of the virus globally, the majority in China. Outside of China, it has spread to 66 countries, with more than 8,800 cases and 130 deaths. Globally, the illness has killed over 3,000 people.
- Chinese city of Wuhan closed the first of 16 specially built hospitals after it discharged its last recovered patients, as Hubei province reported 196 new cases on Sunday, sharply down from 570 cases a day earlier.
- Andorra, Armenia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Iceland and Indonesia confirmed their first cases on Monday.
- South Korea postponed the start of all schools by two weeks as 599 new cases were reported on Monday, taking the national tally to 4,335 while the death toll rose to 26.
- The Italian government prepared to boost spending to help the fragile economy as the country's death toll rose to 34 on Sunday and confirmed cases to almost 1,700.
- Iran's death toll reached 54 on Sunday, the highest number outside of China, with the number of those infected rising to 978.
(Masked commuters at Shinagawa Station, Tokyo)
- Lebanon said three more people had tested positive for coronavirus after arriving from Iran, bringing the total in the country to 10. Iraq and Bahrain reported six new cases each, bringing the total tally to 19 and 47 respectively.
- Five more cases were confirmed in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on Monday, taking the island's total tally to 77, days after it declared a state of emergency. Japan also raised its infectious disease advisory levels for parts of South Korea and Italy.
- France's confirmed cases rose to 130 on Sunday, up from 100 a day earlier, while Britain announced 13 new infections, taking the total to 36.
- A conference on the world economy due to take place in Italy later this month with Pope Francis taking part has been postponed until November because of the coronavirus outbreak, organizers said on Sunday.
- G7 finance ministers will discuss by phone this week how to best to limit the impact of the outbreak on economic growth, French Finance Minister Le Maire said on Monday.
- World stocks markets regained a measure of calm on Monday as hopes for a raft of global interest rate cuts to soften the economic blow of the coronavirus steadied nerves and drove US Treasury yields close to 1 per cent.
Coronavirus taking toll on northern Italy's health services
The Covid-19 outbreak in northern Italy has so overwhelmed the public health system there that officials are taking extraordinary measures to care for the sick, seeking to bring doctors out of retirement and accelerate graduation dates for nursing students.
The region of Lombardy has been the epicentre of Italy's outbreak, registering the first positive test and now counting 984 of Italy's 1,694 cases.
Most alarmingly, 10 per cent of Lombardy's doctors and nurses are out of commission, because they tested positive for the virus and are in quarantine, said the region's top health official, Giulio Gallera.
(A masked tourist in Piazza del Duomo in central Milan)
With officials saying they expect Italy's numbers to continue rising for at least another week, until containment measures begin to take effect, the health care emergency in Lombardy has reached a crisis point.
Already, hospitals in hard-hit Lodi and Cremona were overwhelmed at times last week, with more patients arriving than could be accepted.
"Effectively some of the hospitals in Lombardy are under a stress that is much heavier than what this area can support and has trained for for years, to face this type of emergency," Dr Massimo Galli, head of infectious disease at Milan's Sacco Hospital, told Sky TG24.
"This epidemic is on a scale that is larger than anyone could have thought, imagined or prevented."
Good morning and welcome to another day of live coverage on the deadly coronavirus. I’m Chris Riotta, a US reporter for The Independent based in New York, and I’ll be guiding you through the day’s developments.
The Wuhan coronavirus has reached at least 12 states, CBS News reported on Monday, after multiple cases were confirmed across the country and at least two Americans died as a result of the virus, according to the CDC.
At least one patient was mistakenly released by the CDC, the mayor of San Antonio tweeted, calling the news “unacceptable” -
Meanwhile, fears continue to grow of a potential pandemic as health officials in Florida say at least two patients have "presumptive positive" results from tests for the coronavirus.
Some analysts are meanwhile predicting the impact to the US economy could be detrimental as the Wuhan coronavirus continues spreading around the world, with critics of the president deriding him for already having "depleted the policy tools to face the coming coronavirus supply shock to the economy" -
ICYMI: A woman in her late thirties who recently travelled to Iran has been confirmed as New York's first coronavirus case.
A statement from Governor Andrew Cuomo's office confirmed the case on Sunday night but did not reveal the exact location of the woman.
However, The New York Times reported the woman is being quarantined in her home in Manhattan raising fears the epidemic will take hold of the city.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has tweeted the following statement concerning Italy and South America's "efforts to combat the COVID-19 outbreak" -
Meanwhile on the other side of the pond, the number of coronavirus cases has shot up to 40 as fears of a potential global pandemic continue to grow:
Here's the latest from The Independent's Phil Thomas:
A second person has died from the coronavirus in King County, near Seattle, Washington, authorities have confirmed.
The victim was a man in his 70s with an underlying health condition who was being treated at Evergreen Health hospital in Kirkland, the same facility at which a man in his 50s died late on Friday.
Meanwhile, authorities have said three more people in Washington have tested positive for Covid-19, a man in his 70s, a woman in her 80s and another woman in her 90s.
A patient who was released from a facility in San Antonio, Texas operated by the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) later tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus, according to a statement from the mayor.
Ron Nirenberg, the mayor of San Antonio, suggested the development may have caused the public to be exposed to the mysterious virus in a tweet on Sunday.
“Today we learned that the CDC mistakenly released a patient from the Texas Center for Infectious Disease who later returned a positive COVID-19 reading”, the mayor wrote.
He added: “The fact that the CDC allowed the public to be exposed to a patient with a positive COVID-19 reading is unacceptable.”
The new coronavirus was reportedly responsible for at least two deaths in the US and more than 3,000 worldwide — the majority of those occurring in China, where the virus was believed to have originated at a market in Wuhan.
Story to come....
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