US coronavirus deaths rise to 11, with California reporting its first
By Christina Maxouris and Jason Hanna, CNN
Updated 3:00 PM ET, Wed March 4, 2020
(CNN)The US death toll from the coronavirus climbed to 11 Wednesday as officials around the country urged local communities to think about ways to stop the virus from spreading.
Two new deaths -- one in California's Placer County, and one in Washington state's King County -- were reported by health officials Wednesday. The California patient is the first in the United States to die of the disease outside Washington state.
There are now at least 149 known coronavirus cases across 13 states, including 39 in Washington state and at least 33 in California.
The California patient, whose name wasn't released, was elderly and had underlying health conditions, and probably was exposed to the virus on a February cruise between San Francisco and Mexico, Placer County health officials said.
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"This tragic death underscores the urgent need for us to take extra steps to protect residents who are particularly vulnerable to developing more serious illness, including elderly persons and those with underlying health conditions," Placer County Health Officer Dr. Aimee Sisson said,.
Details about the latest Washington death weren't available. Nine of Washington's 10 deaths happened in King County, officials say. At least five of the dead had ties to Life Care Center, a long-term nursing home in a Seattle suburb.
The nursing home'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," Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a Tuesday news conference.
"As more areas see community spread, local communities may start employing tools that encourage social distancing," Messonnier said Tuesday. "The goal of social distancing is to limit exposure by reducing face-to-face contact and preventing spread among people in community settings."
"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.
Communities begin working to curb spread of virus
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.
Thirty-three cases have been reported in California, including six new cases announced Wednesday in Los Angeles County.
Following the example of other governments, the county and three cities -- Los Angeles, Pasadena and Long Beach -- declared local emergencies Wednesday, in part so that they can be reimbursed by the state and federal governments for money they spend to prepare for the disease's spread.
Los Angeles County health department Director Barbara Ferrer urged people Wednesday to consider social distancing -- including by greeting people verbally instead of shaking hands, and keeping 6 feet of distance from strangers at large events.
She also urged businesses to allow employees to stay home if they're feeling ill, without the risk of being penalized, financially or otherwise.
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."
Last week, Google announced it was canceling its upcoming Google News Initiative Global Summit -- its biggest event of the year -- "due to concerns around the coronavirus."
The two-day event, held in Google's Sunnyvale, California, office, would have brought together hundreds of people in the media industry.
In New York, where the number of reported cases rose to six Wednesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he was recalling about 300 college students and faculty from study-abroad programs in countries with significant outbreaks: China, South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy.
The order affects only State University of New York and City University of New York students. They will come back on charter planes, and will be quarantined for 14 days in dormitory facilities upon return, Cuomo said.
Five of New York's cases are connected: a 50-year-old Westchester County man who works as a lawyer in Manhattan; his wife; his 20-year-old son, who is a Yeshiva University student; his 14-year-old daughter; and a neighbor who drove the man to a hospital, Cuomo said.
About 1,000 people have been asked to self-quarantine because of the Westchester County cases, Cuomo said. Yeshiva University canceled all classes on its Wilf Campus on Wednesday as a precaution. The school that the daughter attends, SAR Academy and High School in the Bronx, will be closed through Friday.
Any American with a doctor's order can now be tested
The 149 coronavirus cases across the US include both confirmed cases and presumptive positives: cases that tested positive in public health labs but are still awaiting confirmation from the CDC.
The number also includes 46 repatriated citizens from the Diamond Princess cruise ship -- which docked in Japan last month after an outbreak and quarantine -- as well as three people repatriated from Wuhan, China.
The number of US cases has continued to rise since health officials allowed more labs to conduct tests for the virus.
The CDC said Tuesday, public health labs across the country using CDC test kits were expected to test up to 75,000 people by the end of the week. That's on top of the nearly 1 million people expected to be tested through commercial labs that were approved for testing by the US Food and Drug Administration over the weekend.
Last week, health officials also loosened the guidelines on who should be tested for the virus. The change came after the first confirmed coronavirus case of unknown origin, a patient who wasn't initially tested because they didn't meet existing CDC testing guidelines.
On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence announced that any American, with a doctor's order, can now be tested.
The new CDC criteria calls for "Americans (to) be tested (for coronavirus), no restrictions, subject to doctors' orders," Pence said Tuesday describing the new policy.
CNN's Kerry Flynn, Kristina Sgueglia, Cheri Mossburg and Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.
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