Washington/Sydney: The first person in the U.S. to die from the novel coronavirus was a man in Washington state, authorities confirmed, after President Donald Trump briefed the nation on his administration’s response and urged people not to panic.
Trump, at a press conference at the White House, described the victim was “a medically high-risk patient in her late 50s,” adding that she was “a wonderful woman.”
The state’s governor, Jay Inslee, had earlier identified the person as a man. The officer of public health for Seattle and King County said the fatality was a male patient at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “erroneously identified the patient as female,” its director, Robert Redfield, said on Twitter.
CDC erroneously identified the patient as a female in a briefing earlier today with the President and Vice President.
— Dr. Robert R. Redfield (@CDCDirector) February 29, 2020
The U.S. is expanding travel restrictions to include any foreign national who has visited Iran in the past two weeks, said Vice President Mike Pence, who heads Trump’s coronavirus task force. Americans will also be advised not to travel to the areas of Italy and South Korea that are most affected by the virus.
Trump and Pence spoke after a lengthy meeting of the White House coronavirus task force that was convened this week. Trump for days has talked down the risk of the virus amid a market selloff and rapidly rising global cases. In Italy, for example, confirmed cases exceeded 1,100 on Saturday. Iran has also been hard hit.
Separately, Inslee declared a state of emergency in Washington state over coronavirus. “This is a time to take common-sense, proactive measures to ensure the health and safety of those who live in Washington state,” he said in a statement.
Some 22 patients in the U.S. have coronavirus and more cases are expected, Trump said, flanked by officials including the Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, the CDC’s Redfield, and Jerome Adams, the U.S. Surgeon General.
Four ‘Very Ill’
Four other Americans with the virus are “very ill,” while others are recovered or recovering, Trump said. The person who died in Washington showed “no evidence of link to travel” to China or other affected regions, Redfield said, indicating that the fatality illustrates “community spread” of the virus.
“Additional cases in the United States are likely, but healthy individuals should be able to fully recover,” Trump said. Azar and Redfield said there’s no reason for Americans to avoid travel within the country, including to west-coast states dealing with many of the cases.
Trump’s coronavirus task force brought the president a range of options, Pence said; the new travel restrictions and advisory were the result. That move was “a basic containment strategy,” Azar said.
Trump also said the U.S. is considering restrictions on the border with Mexico, as has been reported. “Yes, we are thinking about the southern border,” he said. “We hope we won’t have to do it.” He later indicated he didn’t think that the southern border was a problem in containing the virus.
Pharma Meeting
Trump said he’d meet with pharmaceutical executives at the White House on Monday about progress toward a vaccine. The meeting was previously scheduled to discuss drug prices, which will remain on the agenda, Trump said.
“We’re going to continue to lean into this effort,” Pence said. Average Americans don’t need to rush out and buy surgical masks, he said.
At the start of the week, Trump and his top economic adviser Larry Kudlow encouraged investors to buy the stock market dip — but markets kept plunging. The benchmark S&P 500 index dropped 11% for the week, its most since October 2008, to hit a five-month low.
Trump, who regularly makes the level of the stock market a talking point, again downplayed concerns, saying American consumer sentiment remains strong. “The markets will all come back, the markets are very strong,” he said Saturday.
The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2020
Trump’s public statements have often been at odds with that of U.S. health officials, who’ve issued a series of warnings. Trump has blamed media for, in his view, over-stoking fears of the virus, and Democrats. “This is their new hoax,” he said of the Democratic Party at a rally in South Carolina on Friday night.
Asked twice about the comment on Saturday, Trump declined to back down. “Hoax was referring to the action” Democrats are taking to “try to pin this on somebody,” Trump said. “That was very clear if you read the words.”
Recent comments have raised concern that the Trump administration is unable to pivot from partisan fights like the recently-concluded impeachment investigation to provide reassurance to Americans as a whole.
Trump said on Friday he was considering expanded travel restrictions for a few countries, beyond those imposed a month ago on China. As Italy’s confirmed coronavirus infections climbed and China’s Xi Jinping scrapped a rare trip to Japan, a number of international meetings and sporting events have been cancelled.
In the U.S., the administration has loosened rules to accelerate testing, while the U.S. surgeon general asked people to stop buying masks. Azar has said the U.S. may need to buy millions of masks and pieces of personal protective equipment.
Azar said Friday he’s willing to use the Defense Production Act to fast-track manufacturing as needed; as of Friday, he said that wasn’t yet necessary. Trump said Saturday that the U.S. had 43 million masks on hand, while none of the officials mentioned whether they’d need to use DPA.
Also read: Coronavirus pandemic spreads to US West Coast as four new cases confirmed
Australia’s first virus death was Diamond Princess passenger
A 78-year-old man with coronavirus died in a Perth hospital, marking Australia’s first fatality, after returning from the Diamond Princess cruise ship off the coast of Japan last month.
The man was initially sent to the Howard Springs facility in northern Australia after becoming ill on the flight back from Japan and was then moved to the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth where he died Sunday morning. His 79-year-old wife, who also tested positive for the virus, remains isolated in the hospital in a stable condition and there is no risk to the community, said Andrew Robertson, Western Australia’s chief health officer.
Elsewhere in the country, two new cases emerged in recent days in Sydney and the Gold Coast after a man and a woman returned from trips to Iran. Australia over the weekend banned incoming travel from Iran for non-nationals, and Health Minister Greg Hunt said he has asked the deputy chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, to consider the appropriate level of travel advice for Italy. Restrictions on travel from mainland China were extended last week.
“Right from the outset, we’ve made it clear that we will take strong action, but that Australia is not immune,” Hunt said in Melbourne on Sunday. There are now 27 confirmed coronavirus cases in Australia, he said.
The death comes just days after the Australian government activated an emergency plan to deal with the outbreak, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the risk of a global pandemic is “very much upon us.” The epidemic saw the U.S. record its first fatality from the virus on Saturday and cases increased in France, Italy and South Korea.- Bloomberg
Also read: Two more Indians on board Japanese ship test positive for novel coronavirus