California declares state of emergency over coronavirus

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a state of emergency over the coronavirus in the state, which now has 53 confirmed cases, Reuters reports.

The move came after health officials announced earlier in the day the first California death from the virus, an elderly person with underlying health conditions.

It was the first coronavirus fatality in the US outside of Washington state, where 10 have died.

Placer County’s public health department said in a statement that the patient tested presumptively positive on Tuesday at a California lab and was likely exposed between Feb. 11 and 21 on a Princess cruise ship to Mexico from San Francisco.

“Preliminary understanding from the contact investigation is that this patient had minimal community exposure between returning from the cruise and arriving at the hospital by ambulance on Feb. 27,” the statement said.

The person was the second confirmed case of the respiratory disease called COVID-19 in Placer County in Northern California.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles officials announced six new confirmed travel-related cases in Los Angeles County, including three people who had been to Northern Italy, one of the areas hardest hit in the global outbreak.

Of the six, only one has been hospitalized. The other five are recovering in home isolation.

Elsewhere, the total number of coronavirus cases climbed to 39 in the greater Seattle area, up from 27 cases and nine deaths a day earlier, the Washington State Health Department announced.

The Seattle area has the largest concentration of coronavirus cases detected to date in the United States. Several cases were connected to a long-term care facility for the elderly in the Pacific Northwest state.

In New York state, the number of cases rose to 10 on Wednesday. Three family members and a neighbor of a lawyer who was previously identified as infected tested positive.

The neighbor’s wife and three of his children have also contracted the virus, Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

About 1,000 people in the New York City suburb of Westchester County, where the two families live, were under self-quarantine orders because of possible exposure, Cuomo said.

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