Four more people die from coronavirus – including three elderly women from Washington State nursing home – as US death toll climbs to 26
- Three people in Washington and one person in California died on Monday
- The women in Washington were all over 70 and lived at Life Care Center
- The woman in California was in her 60s and had been hospitalized for weeks
- Now, 26 people have died in the US and there are more than 618 cases
- A seven-year-old girl in the Bronx has the virus, as does the head of New York’s airports
Four people were confirmed to have died from coronavirus in the US on Monday, bringing the total number of deaths to 26.
The new victims are yet to be named but they include a woman in her 60s in California, and three women, all over 70, in Washington State.
The women in Washington were all residents at the Life Care Center nursing home, one of the worst hit places in the country.
The global death toll now stands at over 3,800. There are more than 110,000 cases of the virus worldwide.
A patient is loaded onto an ambulance at Life Care Center in Washington State on Monday. Three residents from the home died on Monday
There are now more than 671 cases of the virus in the US including 26 deaths
In a statement about the woman’s death in California, Dr. Sara Cody, the health officer for Santa Clara County, said: ‘This is a tragic development. The Public Health Department is taking necessary, carefully considered steps to slow down the spread of the disease and to protect those at greatest risk.
‘We are facing a historic public health challenge and know this is a very difficult time. Our top priority continues to be protecting the health of our community.’
Among the new cases is a seven-year-old girl in the Bronx, New York – the youngest person to be diagnosed with the virus in the US to date.
Also diagnosed is the head of New York and New Jersey’s Port Authority, Rick Cotton.
Governor Andrew Cuomo said Cotton had been on the ground at airports as he oversaw the Port Authority’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. The Port Authority is in charge of all five airports in New York and New Jersey, including JFK, Newark and LaGuardia.
Officials in California preparing to receive thousands of people from the Grand Princess after it docked Monday
The markets took a heavy hit on Monday and the Dow closed down more than 2000 points, its largest single-day point drop ever
Members of Cotton’s team and senior officials at the Port Authority who may have come into contact with him are now also being tested and are currently in self-quarantine.
Cuomo admitted he could have been in contact with Cotton but said he hadn’t been tested because he is an ‘improbable positive’, which means he is unlikely to have the virus.
The governor implied that Cotton may have been infected at JFK Airport.
‘He has been at the airports, obviously, when many people were coming back with the virus,’ Cuomo said, adding that it ‘was one of the main airports for people coming in on those overseas flights’.
Elsewhere in the tri-state area, New Jersey now has 11 cases and Connecticut has reported one case.
Thousands of people from a cruise ship that was docked off the coast of Oakland after an outbreak on-board are also yet to be cleared.
They are due to begin coming to shore over the next few days.
Aside from that, the panic caused by the outbreak has wreaked havoc on the stock market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Index dropped by more than 2,000 points on Monday, its biggest single-day point drop ever.