People walk through a nearly empty terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) on Jan. 31, 2020 in New York City. As fears grow around the globe over the coronavirus, airlines and other travel industries are bracing for a sharp loss of business as people cut back on travel.
(Spencer Platt/Getty Images)- At least 259 people have died from the coronavirus.
- The U.S. State Department issued a red, do not travel, alert for Americans thinking of traveling to China.
- The alert also urges Americans already in China to "consider departing."
- The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. is now 7.
- All flights to the U.S. from China will be funneled through seven major airports.
The U.S. has declared a public health emergency over the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 250 people and sickened nearly 12,000, including a seventh confirmed case in the U.S. on Friday.
Nearly all of those infected with the virus are in China, but infections have been confirmed in at least 19 other countries, including Britain most recently. No deaths have been reported outside of China.
In addition, U.S. officials announced Friday that travelers coming from the central China province at the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak will be quarantined for 14 days under a federal order issued by the Department of Health and Human Services.
This includes the nearly 200 Americans who left Wuhan, China, earlier this week on a flight chartered by the U.S. State Department.
The passengers, who are at March Air Reserve Base in California, were notified on Friday that they were being quarantined, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said in a press conference.
It's the first time the U.S. has made such a move in more than 50 years, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, Director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said.
Officials continue to assure the American public there is no need for alarm, and at the same time say they are working aggressively to prevent further spread of the disease.
"While we recognize this is an unprecedented action, we are facing an unprecedented public health threat," Messonnier said.
"While we understand this action may seem drastic, our goal today, tomorrow, and always continues to be the safety of the American public," she said. "We would rather be remembered for overreacting than underreacting."
The last time an American traveler was quarantined due to disease was during a smallpox outbreak in 1963 when a woman returning from Sweden couldn't prove she had been vaccinated, according to The Associated Press.
Travelers arriving from China on commercial flights will be funneled through seven major airports they will be screened for the virus.
“The risk of infection for Americans remains low and with these and our previous actions we are working to keep the risk low,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said, according to The Associated Press.
"It is likely that we will continue to see more cases in the United States in the coming days and weeks, including some limited person-to-person transmissions."
Officials also announced that foreign nationals believed to be at risk of transmitting the virus would be barred from entering the U.S. starting Sunday.
Major airlines, meanwhile, continued to cut back on or eliminate flights to and from China altogether. Delta and American became the first U.S. airlines to announce they are suspending all fights between the U.S. and China. United Airlines is suspending flights to Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu but will continue service to Hong Kong.
The American Airlines changes went into effect Friday and are scheduled to run through March 27, the AP reported. Delta will suspend flights starting Feb. 6 and continue through April 30.
Several international airlines have made similar moves.
(MORE: What You Should Know About the Coronavirus)
Public health officials in Santa Clara, California, said a man in the San Francisco Bay area who recently returned from the Chinese city of Wuhan has tested positive for the virus. That brings the total number of cases in the U.S. to seven. The other cases are in Los Angeles County and Orange County in California; Maricopa County, Arizona; Snohomish County, Washington; and a husband and wife in Chicago.
Novel coronavirus deaths and infections rose once again on Friday in China as the U.S. State Department warned Americans to not travel to the country and to consider leaving if they were already there.
Chinese authorities said the death toll from the virus stood at 259, with nearly 2,000 new infections. The total number of infections now stands at 11,800.
On Thursday, the World Health Organization declared a global emergency over the virus. That move, plus the growing number of cases, prompted the U.S. State Department to issue a Red Alert warning Americans not in China to avoid travel there, and Americans in China to "consider departing using commercial means."
WHO executive director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency decided to declare the global emergency over the growing number of cases in other countries.
"Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it," Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
A WHO official said the few cases of human-to-human spread of the virus outside China — in Japan, Germany, Vietnam and the U.S. — were of “great concern” and were part of the reason the U.N. health agency’s director-general reconvened the committee of experts, according to the AP.
The WHO declaration is officially called a "public health emergency of international concern." Criteria for the designation includes international spread of disease and the need for a coordinated international response, according to the WHO website.
WHO is recommending the illness be called 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease.
Tens of millions of people remain on lockdown and travel is prohibited in much of central China around Wuhan, where the outbreak is thought to have begun.
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Students line up to sanitize their hands to avoid the contact of coronavirus before their morning class at a hight school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020. China on Tuesday reported 25 more deaths from a new viral disease, as the U.S. government prepared to fly Americans out of the city at the center of the outbreak. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
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