Published 11:47 IST, February 26th 2020
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. The US CDC has claimed that an outbreak is imminent.
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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.
In order for SF to be as prepared as possible for COVID-19 (novel coronavirus), today I made an emergency declaration to strengthen SF's response in the case of an outbreak. To be clear, there remain no known cases originating in SF--this is about preparedness.
— London Breed (@LondonBreed) February 25, 2020
This declaration allows us to mobilize City resources, accelerate emergency planning, streamline staffing, coordinate agencies across the city, and raise awareness throughout SF about how everyone can prepare in the event that COVID-19 appears in our community.
— London Breed (@LondonBreed) February 25, 2020
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.
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.
11:47 IST, February 26th 2020