The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has declared Wednesday the state of emergency for the coronavirus in the State, hours after confirming the first death by the outbreak, a 71-year-old man who had traveled aboard a cruise to Mexico. The ship, the Grand Princess, He interrupted his next trip to Hawaii and returned to San Francisco after several passengers and crew showed symptoms of Covid-19, the disease caused by the pathogen, but was held overnight on the coast of California with thousands of people on board Waiting for tests. The number of confirmed cases in the United States exceeds 150, a third of them in California. Another 10 people have died from the virus in the country, all in the State of Washington.
“The proclamation (of the state of emergency) comes from the increase in the number of positive cases in California and after the first official death by Covid-19,” explains a statement distributed by the Newsom office. The measure aims to “make additional resources available” to the authorities, “formalize emergency actions that are already underway … and help the State prepare for a wider dissemination” of the coronavirus, the text adds. The declaration of the state of emergency includes provisions that protect consumers against rising prices, allows health workers to arrive in the region to help in health centers and provide these “flexibility” to adapt to incoming patients . “It will help the State to prepare our communities and our health system if it expands more widely,” said the governor.
The deceased in California had previous pathologies, and died in a hospital in Sacramento, the state capital. Authorities delayed the robbery of the ship in which he had traveled, to allow “a greater timeframe” to carry out the analyzes on “a number of passengers and crew members who have shown symptoms,” the governor said at a conference Press Eleven passengers and 10 crew members were possibly sick, he said.
A total of 62 passengers who remained on board after the previous trip to Mexico were isolated in their cabins until the exams were carried out, the company that owns the ship, Princess Cruises, told France Presse, without specifying whether any of them have shown symptoms . “As a precaution, these passengers and other possible contacts with the crew were asked to remain in their cabins until they are examined by our medical team.” According to Newsom, some 2,500 passengers plus the crew were on board when the ship traveled to Mexico. According to the company, the crew consists of 1,150 people. Princess Cruises is the same company that operated the Diamond Princess, the ship infected by the virus who left Japan last month and in which more than 700 people on board tested positive. At least six people who were hospitalized after being evacuated from the ship died.
The main US health agencies, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Health, already warned a few days ago that the arrival of the coronavirus was “inevitable” and that citizens must be prepared for the consequences of this crisis, which, at the very least, will lead to daily problems.
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