LOS ANGELES _ Health officials said Monday there is still time to contain the coronavirus as the death toll in America rose to two in Washington and the virus spread in California.
"I think we have a common enemy," said World Health Organization director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "We have to stand together in unison to fight it, and these early signs are very encouraging."
WHO officials declined to declare COVID-19 a pandemic, saying 90% of the cases have been in China.
Of the 3,000 deaths from the virus, 2,803 have been in China's Hubei province, where the outbreak began. "Our message to all countries is this is not a one-way street _ we can push this back," Tedros said.
"Our actions now will determine the course of this outbreak." he added. "Containment is possible in all countries that are affected, and that should be number one."
In the United States, there have been approximately 80 cases of the virus.
Of the 62 countries affected by COVID-19, 55 have fewer than 100 cases. Only four countries have more than 1,000 cases, Tedros said.
WHO officials said it is rare to see a respiratory pathogen like this virus that can spread widely in the community but can also be contained. The flu cannot be as easily contained, officials said.
"That offers us a glimmer, a chink of life that this virus can be suppressed and contained," Mike Ryan, who runs the agency's emergencies program, said in a briefing Monday.
While more cases were reported around the country, the focus remained on Washington state and Northern California, where health officials say the virus has spread through community contact. Officials are continuing to search for people who came in contact with the original patients to isolate them and get them tested.
Alameda County reported its first case Sunday, prompting the declaration of a local public health emergency. Still, officials urged residents to stay calm.
"This news is not unexpected in the Bay Area, and we are ready for cases here," Dr. Erica Pan, health officer for the Alameda County Public Health Department, said in a statement. "This is not the time to panic; now is the time for all of us to work together."
In Washington state, the second person to die was a man described as being in his 70s and suffering from preexisting health problems. He died at EvergreenHealth Medical Center in Kirkland, a suburb of Seattle, state health officials said. Four additional cases were confirmed in King County _ all in elderly patients _ bringing the total number of cases there to 10.
Of the new cases reported in Washington, two involved men in their 60s with underlying health conditions. One was in critical but stable condition at Valley Medical Center in Renton; the second was in critical condition at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. It wasn't immediately clear whether the cases were thought to be related to the long-term care facility, Life Care Center of Kirkland, where officials announced Saturday that one resident and one staffer had been diagnosed with the coronavirus and more than 50 others had developed symptoms.
The news came hours after two health care workers at a hospital in California's Solano County were reported to have contracted COVID-19 after being exposed to a patient who was initially admitted there, and three more people were diagnosed with the virus in Santa Clara County, officials announced Sunday.
The two health care workers were exposed to the virus from a patient who was being treated at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville, officials said. The female patient has since been transferred to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento and is considered the nation's first announced case of "community spread," meaning the source of infection is unknown.
That woman was not immediately tested for the virus because she did not fit federal testing criteria at the time. Officials had already expressed concern that she could have infected others.
The case led to 124 nurses and healthcare workers being asked to self-quarantine, according to the California Nurses Association.
"Our two healthcare workers who tested positive have been in isolation at home since the day we learned they had contact with the patient who had contracted the virus," Aimee Brewer, president of NorthBay HealthCare Group, said in a statement. "We took immediate and comprehensive measures intended to stop any further spread of the virus, including working with public health officials to trace the contacts the two workers may have had."
One of the infected healthcare workers is a Solano County resident, and the other lives in Alameda County, officials said. They are both in isolation at home.
Meanwhile, three more people were diagnosed with COVID-19 in Santa Clara County on Sunday, health officials said.
One is an adult woman with chronic health conditions. An investigation into how she acquired the infection was just launched, the Santa Clara County Public Health Department said Sunday evening.
The other two patients are a husband and wife who had recently traveled to Egypt.
All three are hospitalized, officials said. Additional information about their condition was not immediately available.
The Public Health Department was working to identify all those who had come into contact with the three patients and said it would also conduct community surveillance "to determine the extent of possible disease spread in our community."
In California, at least 40 cases have been reported. Twenty-four people who have caught the virus either were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship or in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak was first reported, and were then repatriated to the U.S. and quarantined at California military bases. An additional 16 cases have been discovered in returning travelers or, in at least five instances, people who contracted the virus in their community.
