Coronavirus kills two Florida residents in the first East Coast deaths attributed to outbreak 

Two Florida residents have died of coronavirus, the first deaths in the state attributed to the outbreak, bringing the U.S. death toll to 17.

The Florida Department of Health confirmed the deaths on Friday night. The state also said three new cases had tested positive in the state, bringing the total cases to seven, plus five who were repatriated from abroad. 

One of the fatalities was a man in his 70s who had been sick in Santa Rosa County in the Panhandle, and the other was a man in his 70s in Lee County on the Gulf Coast. Both men had reportedly traveled internationally. 

The new presumptive positive cases included two men in Broward County, ages 65 and 75, who are currently in isolation under medical supervision. The third new positive test was the man who died in Lee County.  

Florida also has 278 residents under public health monitoring, meaning they are at risk of having been exposed to to the virus and are monitoring their health under the supervision of public health officials. 

The latest deaths bring the outbreak’s U.S. death toll to 17, and they are the first fatalities on the East Coast.

The other deaths occurred in California and Washington state, which has become the biggest viral hot zone in the nation. 

President Donald Trump is spending at least part of the weekend in his resort in Palm Beach, Florida, after landing on Friday night in Air Force One.

On Friday night Trump is scheduled to host Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro at Mar-a-Lago. 

 The deaths in Florida came on a day of fast-moving developments, including:

Confirmed cases were reported for the first time in Kentucky and Indiana 

Twenty-one people aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship tested positive 

Trump signed an $8.3 billion measure to combat the coronavirus outbreak Friday

The president said ‘anyone who wants a test can get a test’ – despite shortages 

New York state confirmed 11 new cases Friday, taking its total to 44 

Silicon Valley continues to close its doors as major tech hubs of California and Seattle increasingly become virus hotspots 

Apple told all 12,000 employees at its headquarters Apple Park to remain home Friday, following similar guidance from Facebook and Microsoft 

Amazon and Facebook both have employees with the disease in Seattle 

Officials in Austin announced that South by Southwest festival will be canceled 

Most US cases have been linked to the Life Care Center nursing facility in Kirkland, near Seattle, where nine residents have died

It emerged that three days before the first cases were confirmed, the facility held a ‘germ-fest’ party meaning the spread could be far wider than thought

In San Francisco, 21 people aboard a mammoth cruise ship off the California coast tested positive for the new coronavirus and 19 of them are crew members.

Vice President Mike Pence announced the test results on Friday, amid evidence the vessel was the breeding ground for a deadly cluster of more than 10 cases during its previous voyage.

He said federal officials were working with California authorities around-the-clock to bring the Grand Princess, with more than 3,500 on board, to a non-commercial port over the weekend and test everyone for the virus. There was no immediate word on where the vessel will dock.

‘Those that will need to be quarantined will be quarantined. Those who will require medical help will receive it,’ Pence said.

In the meantime, everyone on the ship remained holed up in their rooms as they await word about the fate of the ship.

President Donald Trump, speaking at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said he would have preferred not to let the passengers disembark onto American soil but will defer to the recommendations of medical experts.

‘I don´t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault,’ he said. ‘And it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship either. Okay? It wasn’t their fault either. And they are mostly Americans.’

Meanwhile, two federal health screeners at Los Angeles International Airport have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an email sent to their colleagues today and seen by Reuters.

The CDC employees were conducting secondary screenings of passengers arriving from overseas, including from China, and have been directed to self-quarantine until March 17, the email said.

‘At this time, we cannot confirm where these two screeners were exposed,’ said the email, which was sent by a senior CDC official. ‘Let us keep our colleagues in our thoughts during this period.’ 

TRUMP CLAIMS ‘ANYBODY WHO WANTS A TEST CAN GET A TEST’ AS HE COMMITS $8.3 BILLION TO TACKLING CRISIS   

President Donald Trump plunged coronavirus testing into chaos Friday when he announced that ‘anybody who wants a test can get a test’ during a rambling press conference Friday.

The president brushed off concerns about the limited number of coronavirus test kits during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta Friday.

He left officials scrambling to explain how such a commitment could happen after free-wheeling press availability where he publicly disagreed with his own government’s approach to the cruise ship, referenced impeachment, asked about TV ratings, and called a Democratic government ‘a snake.’

‘The tests are beautiful,’ Trump added after meeting with top U.S. scientists amid the coronavirus outbreak.

‘Anybody who right now and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test,’ Trump said.

Trump praised his own administration’s response amid concerns that the million test kits promised had yet to materialize.

‘We’ve done a tremendous job at keeping it down,’ he said.

And Trump shared his misgivings about providing on-shore medical treatment to passengers of a Princess cruise liner off the coast of San Francisco. He raised concerns it would spike the numbers of infected Americans.

‘I like the numbers where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship. That wasn’t our fault,’ Trump said.

The president during his trip to the CDC called Washington State Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee a ‘snake.’ He also appeared to criticize Pence’s approach.

‘Oh I told Mike not to be complimentary … that governor is a snake. I said if you’re nice to him he will take advantage,’ Trump said. ‘We have a lot of problems with the governor, the governor of Washington,’ he said, adding: ‘Mike may be happy with him but I’m not.’

Inslee, who ran for president this year and is overseeing an outbreak in his state, had tweeted last week that he told Pence their work would be more successful if the administration ‘stuck to the science and told the truth.” 

Trump submitted to a series of questions from reporters at the CDC, where his comments veered to his appearance Thursday night at a Fox News town hall. He brought up his appearance on ‘a very fine network known as Fox News. How was the show last night? Did it get good ratings, by the way?’ he asked.

Trump, who wore his signature red ‘Make America Great’ hat during the briefing about the response to the potential pandemic, swerved between the coronavirus issue and his political grievances.

He also invoked his own uncle, Dr. John Trump, in explaining his aptitude for dealing with the issue. ‘I like this stuff. I really get it,’ Trump said.

‘The general risk to the American public remains low,’ Pence told reporters in the White House briefing room.

‘It is a good time for any American who is elderly … and has a serious underlying health condition to think carefully about travel,’ he said.

BLOW FOR WORLD’S BIGGEST TECH FIRMS AS SILICON VALLEY SHUTS ITS DOORS AND SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST FESTIVAL IS AXED 

The world’s tech giants have been dealt a major blow from the coronavirus crisis as Silicon Valley continues to shut its doors and South by Southwest Festival is cancelled.

On Friday, Apple became the latest Silicon Valley firm to advise its workers to stay away in coronavirus-hit California.

Apple advised all 12,000 employees at its Cupertino headquarters to work from home amid heightened coronavirus concerns as the death toll in the US continued to rise.

In a memo seen by DailyMail.com and issued to all staff at the Santa Clara Valley offices named Apple Park, employees were told that the precaution was being taken following recent guidance from public health officials. 

Staff were advised that offices would remain open but that they were ‘encouraging team members’ to stay away despite only sending the email when many would already be traveling to work.

Apple joined Facebook and Microsoft in introducing new policies to stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus this week.

An estimated 83,000 workers are affected by the closures and work-from-home policies within these three companies alone.

Facebook also told employees in its San Francisco Bay offices to stay at home on Friday and cancel all business trips due to the virus. The company is believed to have around 14,000 employees in the Bay Area.

The social network is also cancelling any events in the Bay Area.

Facebook already announced Wednesday night that it has closed its Seattle office after a contractor there was discovered to have contracted the virus. Between the San Francisco and Seattle closures, around 17,000 employee of the company are estimated to be working from home.

The office will be closed until at least Monday, March 9, and the company is encouraging its employees to work from home for the remainder of the month.

Amazon confirmed late Tuesday that one of its employees in Seattle had tested positive for coronavirus after going home sick from work on February 25. An Amazon spokeperson told DailyMail.com: ‘We’re supporting the affected employee who is in quarantine.’

Amazon has more than 50,000 employees in Seattle and more than 275,000 full-time workers across the U.S. Last week, Amazon became one of the first U.S. companies to crack down on employee travel due to the outbreak, banning all ‘non-essential’ work trips.

Meanwhile, Google is asking employees in Washington state who can work from home to do so. It has more than 4,500 employees in Seattle.

Microsoft has already asked its employees in its San Francisco Bay and Seattle HQ offices to work from home if they can do so to restrict the spread of the virus.

The company has over 80,000 employees in the US, 54,000 of whom are based in the Washington state Redmond campus.

The company has committed to continue to pay its workers who are paid by the hour during the outbreak even if they can’t come to work. 

NY GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO BLASTS CDC AND ‘BAD GOVERNMENT’ AS NY CASES RISE TO 44

The number of people who have tested positive for coronavirus in New York state has risen to 44 as at least 4,000 people have been urged to self-quarantine to prevent the spread of the disease.

In a press conference on Friday, Governer Andrew Cuomo said that ‘most’ of the cases are linked to a Manhattan lawyer who tested positive earlier in the week.

There are now 33 cases in Westchester County, five in New York City, four in Nassau County and two in Rockland County.

Details of all the new cases were not immediately clear, but Cuomo said there were ‘a number of young people’ and he suspects ‘they are related to existing cases.

At least five people have been hospitalized across the state.

Cuomo blasted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Trump administration over their mixed messages regarding coronvirus testing.

Cuomo cited the contradictory statements issued by the federal health agency and Vice President Mike Pence.

‘I don’t understand CDC’s instructions, they say anyone can get tested if they want…but Pence says we don’t have enough tests,’ Cuomo told reporters.

‘How can you bring in more people into the pipeline than you can address at the end of the pipeline?’ he said.

‘That is not only bad government and poor planning, it will increase the fear.’

It comes just hours after Dr Anthony Fauci, a top official at the NIH, said he can’t make any promises about when enough test kits will be made available. 

Cuomo argued that people will be fearful because they won’t understand why doctors don’t have the capacity to test them.

‘Their position is absurd and nonsensical,’ the governor said.

‘I think the anxiety and the fear is a bigger problem than the virus.’

Cuomo also lamented that CDC and FDA were slow in approving New York’s use of private labs as well as giving New York State’s Wadsworth Lab And NYC’s Public-Health Lab permission to test for the virus.

His comments came hours after Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the goal in the next few weeks to have more than a million tests ready but that he couldn’t guarantee it.

It echoed comments made by Vice President Mike Pence at a press conference on Thursday admitted that there is a shortage of test kits, which currently cannot meet demand.

‘I can’t guarantee that, that’s an issue that would have to go through the FDA and the companies to see if that’s available,’ Dr Fauci told TODAY.

‘So I cannot promise it but that’s what the goal is – within the next couple of weeks – to get the million plus [out].’

It is believed one of the chemicals used in the test did not work properly, resulting in the test needing to be remanufactured.

Another issue was that the CDC initially set narrow criteria on who could be tested.

At first, only those with a travel history to China – where the outbreak emerged – or those who had been exposed to a confirmed coronavirus patient were tested.

That changed after the first patient of ‘unknown diagnosis’ was confirmed in California, believed to be of so-called community spread.

‘There were certainly some missteps in the beginning regarding getting tests out, some technical issues that slowed down the process,’ Dr Fauci told TODAY.

‘The Vice President was absolutely correct. There has been a delay and we didn’t have enough right now but, hopefully, in the near future hopefully we will.’

The CDC and other health officials have come under fire for how slowly Americans are being tested.

‘I’m not happy about the lack of the appropriate number of test kits – that’s for sure – but other areas of the response, I think, are going well,’ Dr Fauci said.

Heath and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar explained on Thursday the three steps that stand in the way to broader, faster testing.

He said that even when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself developed a test, it had to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before distributing it.

That request was submitted February 3 and approved February 4. The CDC didn’t start shipping its first batch of tests until February 6.

Dr Fauci said he’s also frustrated at the lack of screenings at US airports.

In a press conference on Monday evening, Pence said there will be 100 percent screening at all airports with direct flights from Italy and South Korea over the next 12 hours.

However, Vice News producer Julia Lindau said she did not undergo any health screenings or additional questioning after landing at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York from Italy on Thursday night.

‘I just landed at JFK after reporting on #coronavirus in Milan and Lombardy – the epicenter of Italy’s outbreak – for @vicenews,’ she tweeted.

‘I walked right through US customs. They didn’t ask me where in Italy I went or if I came into contact with sick people. They didn’t ask me anything.’