(AP/CNN) — Officials in the state of Washington reported the number of deaths due to coronavirus had risen to nine, with tensions rising over how to contain the outbreak.
The number of infections in the U.S. overall climbed past 100, scattered across at least 15 states.
A House vote is expected Wednesday on a $7.5 billion emergency bill to fund the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Lawmakers hope to clear the measure through Congress by week’s end.
The $7.5 billion package would triple President Donald Trump’s request for money, but it’s expected to be supported by the White House and Trump’s GOP allies on Capitol Hill.
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer says “there is no reason to be penny-wise and pound-foolish” when it comes to Americans’ health.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has announced the biggest interest-rate cut in over a decade to try to fend off damage to the economy.
The virus may impact political conventions scheduled for the summer. Officials from the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee are monitoring the spread of the coronavirus and how it could impact their conventions, CNN reports.
Health officials are trying to ease shortages of face masks by giving the OK to medical workers to use industrial-grade ones.
A total of 127 people completed their 14-day coronavirus quarantine Tuesday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. The group included 125 passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
Fifteen other people remain in quarantine or local medical care because of their contact with a confirmed case.
This decision comes after the City of San Antonio filed a lawsuit Monday against the federal government.
The city wanted a temporary restraining order because one patient with a positive test had been released Saturday.
A judge denied that motion, but Tuesday the city is pleased with changes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made in response. Mayor Ron Nirenberg said he is comfortable with the revised plan.
Several buses were used to transport those being released from Lackland air base. The people released from quarantine went to the airport or to get rental cars to drive home.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news conference Tuesday that there are two cases so far in the state: a 39-year-old health care worker who recently returned from Iran and a man in New Rochelle who works in Manhattan.
The man, who has an underlying respiratory illness, is hospitalized.
“That’s juxtaposed with the case we talked about yesterday, which was a 39-year-old health care worker who is positive, but she’s at home,” Cuomo said. "She’s not even hospitalized. And they said, ‘Why isn’t she hospitalized?’ Because she has mild symptoms.”
There are more than 100 confirmed cases in the U.S., the Associated Press reported.
Lawmakers are expressing skepticism about U.S. health officials’ claims that long-overdue testing for the new coronavirus would be widely available by the end of the week.
Health officials say labs should have the capacity to run as many as 1 million tests by the end of the week.
The questions were raised at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Sen. Patty Murray said testing has become a huge concern in her home state of Washington.
Acting U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf says the agency closed a facility in King County, Washington state, because an employee became ill after visiting a family member at the LifeCare Center in Kirkland.
Wolf told Congress that employees of the DHS facility were told to work from home and the office will remain closed for 14 days. All employees have been directed to "self-quarantine" during that time.
Wolf praised the employee for not going to work after becoming ill and said the office was being closed "out of an abundance of caution."
He did not specify the type of DHS facility or say how many employees work there as he spoke Tuesday to the House Homeland Security Committee. The agency did not immediately provide further details.
The U.S. Army is beginning increased health screenings for all new soldier recruits arriving at the four basic training centers around the country in order to detect the new coronavirus.
Army Gen. Paul Funk, head of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, says personnel at the bases spent Monday rehearsing the new screening, learning how to spot symptoms and interview recruits.
The enhanced screening will affect as many at 1,000 recruits a week for the Army’s active duty, National Guard and Reserve for the near future. That number will grow later this spring and summer as the number of new soldiers entering the service increases.
Google says its annual Google I/O developer conference is off.
It was slated for May 12 to May 14 at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
The company says it has canceled the “physical” event. Google is considering other ways to engage with its developers suggesting the conference may go on in some sort of virtual format.
Google says it will still refund tickets and automatically re-register attendees for next year’s event.
Other tech companies like Facebook are also canceling conferences due to concerns over the disease.
China has seen another slight drop in new cases of the virus that has sickened tens of thousands of people.
Authorities Wednesday reported 119 new cases, a drop from 125 the day before. Another 38 deaths from COVID-19 were announced, bringing mainland China's total in the outbreak to 2,981.
China has far and away the most cases in the world, with 80,270.
The epicenter of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in December, accounted for 114 of the new cases and 31 of the new deaths.
Another 1,859 people in the city were declared cured and released from hospitals into a further two-week quarantine. With those being released far outnumbering new admissions, health authorities in surrounding Hubei province said they were planning to close some of the field hospitals set up in recent weeks to handle the overflow of patients.
Copyright 2020 Associated Press and CNN. All rights reserved. Gray Media Group, Inc., contributed to this report.