(CNN) — West Virginia became the 50th state to report a case of the deadly novel coronavirus when Gov. Jim Justice announced the first positive test result Tuesday.
Justice said the case was in the eastern panhandle of the state, but he gave no other details.
The announcement comes just after the death toll from the virus in the United States passed 100, according to a CNN tally of data from state heath officials.
Illinois reported its first death Tuesday, becoming one of 18 states to report the death of a resident who died from the virus in the pandemic.
The grim milestone comes as health officials tout a consistent message: Limit your interactions now or overwhelm the health systems meant to take care of you. And get used to it, this won’t be over soon.
Tuesday at the White House, a reporter asked when the number of US cases could peak if the public adheres to social distancing.
“It probably would be several weeks or maybe longer before we know whether we had an effect,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said. “And maybe, at the end of the day, we’ll see a curve that would’ve been way, way up.”
Fauci said persuading younger people — who researchers say may be less likely to show symptoms but might pass the virus to more vulnerable people — to stay out of gathering places such as bars and restaurants was key.
He hopes to say sooner rather than later that “we’ve seen that inflection and we’re coming down,” Fauci said.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House task force response coordinator, also urged people Tuesday to cancel elective surgeries to ease strains on physicians and hospitals.
As local measures are taking hold, the Trump administration is exploring ways to send money directly to Americans, possibly within two weeks, in a bid to curb the economic fallout, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Tuesday.
While the White House has suggested limiting gatherings to 10 people or fewer, state and local officials are giving orders for an altered American reality as the number of coronavirus cases across the United States surpasses 5,700.
One of the new cases announced Tuesday is a person who was staying at a homeless shelter in New York. The person is now hospitalized, Department of Social Services spokesman Isaac McGinn said.
Another is that of a 46-year-old member of the Navajo Nation who had returned to Arizona from traveling.
Among the measures:
• Dallas said it was closing playgrounds, golf courses and tennis centers after Tuesday.
• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said restaurants can only serve pickup orders or deliver food beginning at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
• New Jersey’s indoor shopping malls, amusement parks and amusement centers have closed “until the current emergency ends,” according to Gov. Phil Murphy.
• New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city’s 8.4 million residents should prepare for a shelter in place order. The “very, very difficult decision” should be made in the next 48 hours. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose approval would be required for such a move, downplayed the possibility during an interview with CNN. “I don’t think shelter in place works for one locality,” he said.
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday the state was allowing no more than 10 people to gather on beaches statewide.
Public health officials say the US has reached a tipping point — warning that if residents don’t take the call to action seriously, the country may approach the situation in Italy, which went on lockdown last week and where hospitals have been overwhelmed with more than 31,000 cases.
The faster the disease spreads, the faster physicians will get sick, leading to a difficult scenario, Dr. Carlos Del Rio, a professor at Atlanta’s Emory University School of Medicine, told CNN on Tuesday.
“I’m really worried about … having the worst possible combination: too many patients; too (few) doctors, nurses … to take care of them.”
“Stay home. Do not leave,” Del Rio said. “The economic pain is going to be significant, but we can stand it as a nation. We can do it for a month and stand it.”
The situation is stressing some health departments. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said the state is reaching out to retired nurses, to request they assist with patients.
In Washington, Mnuchin expressed some support for an idea gaining backing among lawmakers: sending $1,000 checks to Americans. It will be discussed in Capitol Hill meetings, he said.
“I think it’s clear we don’t need to send (checks to) people who make $1 million a year … but that’s one of the ideas we like,” Mnuchin said in a news conference with President Trump and other officials.
Later, in a meeting with GOP senators, Mnuchin warned that a lack of action could drive unemployment to 20%, a Republican senate source told CNN.
Stock indices were up Tuesday, a day after the Dow saw its worst one-day point drop in history.
And while more large events are being moved — the Kentucky Derby is being postponed from May 2 to September 5 — and the credit agency S&P Global says the world economy is in a recession, Amazon says it is hiring 100,000 more workers to keep up with online shopping surges.
Pence: Defense Department could help expand medical capacity
After New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week called on the Army Corps of Engineers to potentially help New York expand its hospital capacity, Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday the Defense Department could help in two ways.
First, the Defense Department could help establish field hospitals. Second, Pence said, the Army Corps of Engineers could retrofit existing buildings.
President Trump said Tuesday this administration was “starting the process” of examining the Army Corps of Engineers’ potential role.
Trump also said the Food and Drug Administration was introducing “groundbreaking new policies to further increase testing,” Trump said.
Source: Not enough medical equipment is stockpiled
Department of Health and Human Services officials said in a call with medical professionals Monday there isn’t enough stockpiled medical equipment such as masks, gowns and gloves in the national stockpile to fill in the gaps that states and local communities may see, a source on the call told CNN.
Tuesday, Pence urged construction companies to donate construction-grade N95 masks to local hospitals and forego additional orders as the nation’s hospitals work to procure masks for health care workers.
“Those industrial masks that they use on construction sites are perfectly acceptable for health care workers to be protected from a respiratory disease,” Pence said.
HHS officials said the government didn’t yet have a solution for possible equipment shortfalls but was working on one.
“We have been transparent that more supplies are needed — hence the request to Congress for additional funding so we could procure more and scale up production,” an HHS spokesperson said in a statement to CNN.
One Georgia hospital ripped through months’ worth of supplies while tending to coronavirus patients, its president has told CNN.
Scott Steiner, president and CEO of Phoebe Putney Health Systems, told CNN that despite being well prepared in terms of protective gear — with six months’ worth of inventory stockpiled — the system has gone through five months’ worth of that inventory in just six days.
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.