As COVID-19 spread, the city and county of Los Angeles have responded with a declaration of the state of emergency. NPR reports:
Los Angeles declared a health emergency over the coronavirus Wednesday, citing the need to address the possibility of community transmission of the disease that has caused more than 3,200 deaths globally. The move comes after Los Angeles County confirmed six new cases of the coronavirus and seven overall, according to Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
“I have signed a declaration of local emergency for the City of Los Angeles,” Mayor Eric Garcetti announced via Facebook. “While there are only a few known active COVID-19 cases in the region, the declaration helps us access state and federal funding to strengthen and support our efforts to prepare our region and keep our communities safe.”
Los Angeles County mirrored the city’s move, in a step that the chair of the county’s board of supervisors, Kathryn Barger, said was a planned reaction to the virus…
One person has been hospitalized while five others are being monitored at home, Ferrer said. The county’s first patient, a Chinese national who was diagnosed in January, has recovered from the virus, she said.
“Three of the new cases were travelers who were traveling together in northern Italy,” Ferrer said at a news conference. Two others are relatives of a person who was infected with the coronavirus outside of the county, she said. The sixth case is a person who works in a field that exposes them to international travelers, Ferrer added.
CDC reports (as of March 4, at 1:30pm PST) that there have been 80 cases of COVID-19 and 9 deaths in the US.