Coronavirus death toll rises to nine in US

WASHINGTON: The death toll from novel coronavirus in United States (US) climbed to nine on Wednesday as health officials reported the newest case from King County in Seattle. 

According to a statement by health officials, the patient, who is in her 80s, died at her family home on February 26.

Three more deaths from the coronavirus were reported by Washington state on Tuesday as the nation’s largest and only fatal outbreak of the respiratory disease reached beyond the Seattle area in what appeared to be the first known instance of coast-to-coast transmission.

A North Carolina resident tested positive after returning from a trip to Washington state, where the individual was exposed, and apparently infected, during a visit to a nursing facility at the center of a recent surge in cases in suburban Seattle.

The total number of people diagnosed with the coronavirus in the greater Seattle area rose to 27 on Tuesday, including nine deaths, up from 18 cases and six deaths tallied on Monday, the state Department of Health reported.

President Donald Trump told reporters his administration may cut off overseas travel from the United States to areas abroad with high rates of coronavirus, but said officials were not weighing any restrictions on domestic travel.

A multibillion-dollar funding bill was moving slowly through Congress after Democrats raised questions about the availability of testing for the new virus.

The US Federal Reserve cut interest rates in an emergency move designed to shield the world’s largest economy from the impact of the coronavirus as Group of Seven finance officials pledged all appropriate policy moves.

The North Carolina diagnosis, the first presumptive positive case announced in that state, was not part of the Seattle-area case cluster, which ranks as the largest concentration detected to date in the United States, and the only one yet to prove deadly.