Coronavirus outbreak: San Francisco declares emergency over deadly epidemic

The city of San Francisco has declared a state of emergency over the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Recently, health officials in the United States warned that the spread of coronavirus across the United States was highly likely as per reports. The emergency was declared by the city's mayor, London Breed, on Tuesday.

Increase in level of preparedness

According to reports, Breed said that the virus has been spreading rapidly to new parts of the world and that steps were absolutely necessary in order to protect San Franciscans from harm. She added that in light of the rapidly changing situation surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, there needed to be an increase in the level of preparedness.

As per reports, there have been no reported cases of coronavirus in San Francisco yet, but the global tally of those infected by the virus has crossed 80,000. The majority of of these cases are in mainland China. 

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Reports have indicated that the mayor's declaration of emergency followed the announcement by US Centre of Disease Control, which claimed that the virus spreading in the United States was not a question of 'if' but 'when'. According to Nancy Messier, director of the CDC's National Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, it becomes harder and harder to contain the virus as it continues to spread to more nations.

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