Coronavirus: California declares state of emergency as US virus death toll rises

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California has declared a state of emergency after a cruise ship passenger became the first person in the state to die from coronavirus.

The 71-year-old man, who had underlying health conditions, died in a hospital in Placer County, near Sacramento.

His brings the death toll to 11 in the US, where there are now at least 150 cases across 16 states, including 53 in California.

Health officials say the man was one of two passengers who likely caught the illness on board the Grand Princess cruise liner during a trip between San Francisco and Mexico last month.

The ship later went on to Hawaii and returned to its home port of San Francisco on Wednesday after 20 people fell ill on board.

California governor Gavin Newsom said the cruise liner, which is carrying thousands of travellers, will remain at sea until passengers and crew complaining of symptoms can be tested for coronavirus.

He added that state health authorities are working alongside the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to contact some 2,500 passengers who were on the earlier voyage.

Mr Newsom declared a state-wide emergency in response to the coronavirus outbreak after health authorities confirmed 53 cases of coronavirus in California — the most of any single US state.

The death of the former cruise passenger in California marked the first coronavirus fatality in the US outside of Washington, where 10 people have died in a cluster of at least 39 infections in the Seattle area.

Washington and Florida both declared states of emergency over the weekend, and Hawaii also joined them Wednesday.

The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved $8.3bn (about £6.4bn) to combat the spread of the coronavirus and develop vaccines on Wednesday. It will now need to be approved by the Senate.

There are now more than 95,300 cases worldwide and more than 3,200 people have died.

Italy shut all of its schools and universities from Thursday, until 15 March. The death toll there has risen to 107 while cases total almost 3,090.

Scientists in China studying the disease caused by the new coronavirus, named Covid-19, say they have found two main strains of the virus are circulating in humans and causing infections.

They said they found a more aggressive strain of the virus, associated with the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which accounted for about 70 per cent of analysed cases, while 30 per cent were linked to a less aggressive type.

The researchers, from Peking University’s School of Life Sciences and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, cautioned they had studied limited data and follow-up studies of larger data sets would be needed to better understand the virus’s evolution.

Additional reporting by Reuters.