Officials in Santa Clara County, California, on Sunday confirmed its second case of coronavirus, the ninth overall in the U.S., the same day the first death outside of China was reported in the Philippines.
In China, there are at least 16,514 confirmed cases, with 360 deaths in that country, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). There are at least 16,660 confirmed cases worldwide, and the death in the Philippines is the only one outside China, the WHO said.
On Friday, U.S. officials declared a public health emergency. As a result, foreign nationals who have traveled to China in the last two weeks and aren’t immediate family members of U.S. citizens or permanent residents will be temporarily banned from entering the U.S., according to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. Azar also announced that anyone entering the U.S. who has been in China’s Hubei province in the last two weeks will be subject to a two-week quarantine.
On Friday, U.S. health officials issued a federal quarantine order for the 195 Americans evacuated from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. The group will remain at a military base in Southern California until mid-February, said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. The government hasn’t issued such a quarantine order in over 50 years, Messonnier said.
The State Department has warned Americans to avoid all travel to China due to the “rapidly spreading” outbreak. The decision came after the WHO designated the outbreak a global public health emergency.
As of Sunday, the flu-like virus had killed at least 304 people, all of them in China, according to the WHO.
