Health officials across the globe were scrambling to contain the coronavirus epidemic Friday, and grasping to better understand it. At least 98,000 people in almost 90 countries have caught the new COVID-19 disease that emerged late last year in China.
It has killed almost 3,300 people, but according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins, more than 55,000 patients have recovered from the flu-like illness. Chinese officials have confirmed more than 50,000 people have recovered in that country alone. While it’s clear the vast majority infected get only mild cases, authorities have been unable to say definitively how many of those who catch COVID-19 are likely to die from it.
To get the data needed to answer that question, and to understand how easily the virus spreads and how best to stop it, the World Health Organization issued a plea Thursday for every country to pull out “all the stops” to test large numbers of people, and to aggressively control outbreaks where they do pop up.
There have been 12 deaths in the United States — 11 in Washington state and one in California, which has declared a state of emergency as it tests passengers on a cruise ship quarantined off the San Francisco coast. There were at least 230 confirmed cases in 21 states, including Nevada and Colorado which reported their first cases on Thursday.
The Trump administration has faced criticism over the availability of test kits in the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has said any American would be able to get tested for the disease — but he acknowledged Thursday, as the government raced to distribute tests, that the capacity wasn’t there yet.
President Trump was expected to sign an $8 billion dollar emergency spending bill Friday to help fund work on a vaccine, and to help the U.S. catch up to other nations with testing.
