LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK--Two more people have died of the new coronavirus in the United States, bringing the toll to 11, and the two most populous cities, New York and Los Angeles, reported new cases on Wednesday.
The first California death from the virus was announced by health officials as an elderly adult with underlying health conditions. It was the first coronavirus fatality in the United States 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. In the greater Seattle area, the total number of coronavirus cases climbed to 39, 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 neighbour of a lawyer who was previously identified as infected tested positive. The neighbour'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. "We are, if anything, being overcautious," he said.
