The number of coronavirus cases and deaths continue to increase in the U.S. as officials in Utah reported late Friday night that the state had its first confirmed COVID-19 case.
Utah officials said they believe the victim was exposed to the virus on the Grand Princess cruise ship, which is currently just off the San Francisco coast with dozens of passengers quarantined onboard.
As of Friday night, 19 passengers on the ship are confirmed to have coronavirus and 46 people have been tested, Vice President Mike Pence said at a press conference Friday.
The first two East Coast coronavirus-related deaths were reported in Florida Friday. The U.S. coronavirus death toll now stands at 17, with at least 325 cases confirmed in 26 states.
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The states reporting cases are Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
In response to the growing concern of what the World Health Organization calls a global health emergency, many organizations, events and companies are canceling large group events to help contain the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.
The NBA, according to ESPN, sent a memo to teams telling them to prepare to play in front of empty arenas in the near future.
The memo, obtained by ESPN and ABC New York affiliate WABC, said NBA teams were asked to develop a process and identify actions required if they had to play games without fans in attendance and with only essential staff at the arena.
Following Friday night’s win over the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James addressed the league’s memo to teams, warning he might not play in an empty arena.
“I ain’t playing. If I ain’t got the fans in the crowd, that’s what I play for. I play for my teammates, I play for the fans,” James told reporters in the locker room following the game. “That’s what it’s all about. If I show up to an arena, and there ain’t no fans there? I ain’t playing. So, they could do what they want to do.”
Previously Friday, the popular technology/culture/music festival SXSW in Austin, Texas, was canceled because of the coronavirus.
“We are devastated to share this news with you. ‘The show must go on’ is in our DNA and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place,” the event said in a statement Friday.
Many schools and universities are going remote or canceling classes.
The University of Southern California and Stanford University both moved all classes online in response to the Coronavirus outbreak.
Stanford announced Friday that all classes would be moved online for the final two weeks of the quarter and USC said it is going to test remote classes for two days next week.
“Our university must be nimble and flexible in the event that we need to make any further changes to the semester,” Charles F. Zukoski, USC Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, said in a statement Friday. “We have about 7,000 lecture classes this spring. We need to test our technical capabilities to ensure academic continuity in an online environment should there be a disruption.”
The West Coast, particularly around the Seattle region, has been hit hard by COVID-19. Of the 17 coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S., 14 are from the state of Washington. The other West Coast death was in California.
Globally at least 95,000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed with at least 3,200 deaths reported, most of which are in China, according to the WHO.
ABC News’ Erin Schumaker, Ella Torres and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
