SEATTLE (AP) — A second person has died from the coronavirus in Washington state, health officials said Sunday night — a man in his 70s from a nursing facility near Seattle where dozens of people were sick and have been tested for the virus.
Researchers said the virus may have been circulating for weeks undetected in Washington.
In a statement, Public Health — Seattle & King County said the man died Saturday. On Friday, health officials said a man in his 50s died of coronavirus, the first death from the virus in the U.S. Both had underlying health conditions, and both were being treated at a hospital in Kirkland, Washington, east of Seattle.
Washington state now has 12 confirmed cases.
State and local authorities stepped up testing for the illness as the number of new cases grew nationwide, with new infections announced in California, Florida, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York and Washington state.
Authorities in the Seattle area reported four new cases Sunday night, including the man who died. Two health-care workers in California were also diagnosed. Of the new Washington state cases, two were women, one in her 80s and another in her 90s. Both were in critical condition. A man in his 70s was also in critical condition. All three were from the LifeCare nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington, where health officials said 50 people are sick and being tested for the virus.
On Sunday night, the International Association of Fire Fighters said 25 members who responded to calls for help at the nursing facility are being quarantined.
The first U.S. case was a Washington state man who had visited China, where the virus emerged, but several recent cases in the U.S. have had no known connection to travelers.
In California, two health-care workers in the San Francisco Bay Area who cared for an earlier coronavirus patient were diagnosed with the virus on Sunday, Alameda and Solano counties said in a joint statement.
The health-care workers are both employed at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville, and were exposed to a patient treated there before being transferred to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. That patient was the first person in the U.S. discovered to have contracted the coronavirus with no known overseas travel.
Alameda County declared a state of emergency on Sunday.
In Oregon, the state Health Authority said Sunday that a second person in the state tested positive for the virus. The person is an adult in household contact with the first Oregonian to test positive and does not need medical attention, the authority said.
Elsewhere, authorities on Sunday announced a third case in Illinois, a second in Rhode Island and a first case in New York as worried Americans swarmed stores to stock up on basic goods such as bottled water, canned foods and toilet paper.
The patients in Rhode Island were on a school trip to Italy in February. A third person from the trip is being tested, and the school is shutting down for the week.
In New York, officials confirmed on Sunday that a woman in her late 30s contracted the virus while traveling in Iran. She has been quarantined in her home in Manhattan.