Trump says ‘no reason to panic’ as US reports first coronavirus death
- Governor Jay Inslee of Washington state confirmed the first death on Saturday
- ‘Do not travel’ warning issued for areas of Italy and South Korea that have active Covid-19 cases
The United States reported on Saturday its first death from Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The death of the patient, in Washington state, follows confirmation by US health authorities of the first “community spread” Covid-19 cases in the US, meaning confirmed cases in individuals who have not recently travelled to countries hit by the illness or with known contact with a person known by health authorities to be infected. Two such cases were confirmed in California and one in Oregon.
Washington state’s governor Jay Inslee declared an emergency that directs all state agencies “to use all resources necessary to prepare for and respond to the outbreak”.
US President Donald Trump, who discussed the latest coronavirus developments in a White House press briefing on Saturday afternoon, said the person who died was a woman in her “late 50s”, who was a “medically high-risk patient” and there was “no reason to panic”.
He also complained that the virus threat was being overblown and that his political enemies were perpetuating a “hoax”.
“This is very serious stuff,” he said, but still insisted the criticism of his administration’s handling of the virus outbreak was a hoax.
Four other Covid-19 patients in the US are “very ill”, while the other 15 are recovering or fully recovered, said Trump, who was joined by Vice-President and newly appointed US coronavirus response coordinator Mike Pence, Anthony Fauci, director of the US’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, and Robert Redfield, director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.