New York: US President Donald Trump said he is considering tightening travel restrictions as the coronavirus or COVID-19 outbreak continues to claim more American lives, taking the US death toll to nine and spreading across major urban areas including New York on Tuesday.
The second confirmed case in New York is that of a lawyer in his 50s who had an underlying respiratory illness and is now at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in “serious condition”.
New infections in New York, California and Georgia have no connections to international travel and have set off alarm bells across the country.
Five states – California, Washington, Texas, Nebraska and Illinois, have nearly a 100 cases just between them.
As the US death toll from the coronavirus climbed to nine, the CDC said it has “heightened” concerns and urged local communities to begin thinking about ways to stop the virus from spreading.
“As more areas see community spread, local communities may start employing tools that encourage social distancing,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a Tuesday news conference. “The goal of social distancing is to limit exposure by reducing face-to-face contact and preventing spread among people in community settings.”
There are now at least 130 known coronavirus cases across 13 states. Nine people have died — all in Washington State and eight from the same county. Five of the dead had ties to Life Care Center, a long-term nursing home in a Seattle suburb.
At least 50 residents and staff members of the nursing home were experiencing symptoms and were tested for the virus, King County health officer Jeffrey Duchin said Monday.
This nursing home has become the US epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, but patients’ family members say they are left in the dark
This nursing home has become the US epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, but patients’ family members say they are left in the dark
The center’s outbreak and a series of new cases over the past few days in states including Florida, Georgia and Rhode Island “have heightened our concern for certain communities in the US,” Messonnier said.
“What is happening now in the United States may be the beginning of what is happening abroad,” she said. “We will continue to maintain for as long as practical an aggressive national posture of containment.”
“That said, you might see some local communities taking specific actions to mitigate the disease,” she added.
Governments, businesses and religious organizations in the states with the largest outbreaks have already taken steps to do so, canceling large events and encouraging people to avoid touching one another.
Earlier this week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said the state was looking at ways “we can prevent the spread through large groups.”
“We have numerous groups, non-profits and others that are starting to think about whether it makes sense to carry on with some of the larger get-togethers,” he said Monday.
In Seattle, the Catholic Archdiocese urged anyone feeling sick to “stay home from Mass” and told church-goers to “avoid hand-to-hand contact during Our Father.”
“Our response to this spreading virus must reflect how we, as disciples of Jesus, express our love of God and neighbor,” Seattle’s Catholic Archbishop Paul Etienne wrote in a March 2 letter to parish leaders.
Etienne also urged that “holy water should be removed from fonts.”
There have been 27 cases of coronavirus reported in Washington state.
The same number of cases have been reported in California, where Santa Clara County officials urged higher-risk residents Tuesday to avoid “mass gatherings such as parades, sporting events and concerts where large numbers of people are within arm’s length of one another.”
The 189 members of the International Monetary Fund pledged Wednesday to bring all available resources to bear to help countries combat the impact of the new coronavirus epidemic.
Following an unusual conference call of the IMF’s governing body, the members said they were united in addressing the challenges posed by COVID-19.
“We have called upon the IMF to use all its available financing instruments to help member countries in need,” the statement said.
