Trump signs $8.3 billion bill to fight coronavirus

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump signed a bill on Friday allocating $8.3 billion to bolster the country’s capacity to test for the novel coronavirus and fund other measures to stem a global outbreak.

The death toll reached 14 by Friday morning with more than 230 cases in at least 17 states. Worldwide more than 3,400 people have died and 100,000 have been infected with the virus, most of them in China.

“We’re doing very well,” the president said. “But it’s an unforeseen problem … came out of nowhere but we’re taking care of it.”

Trump said he had spoken to California Governor about a cruise ship barred from docking in San Francisco after at least 35 people developed flu-like symptoms. The ship has been linked to two confirmed cases of the illness.

After Trump signed the spending bill, White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said he would travel to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

The trip had been called off earlier in the day because a CDC staff member was suspected to have the virus but was later  tested negative.

More than $3 billion included in the spending bill is intended for research and development into vaccines, test kits and treatments. There are no so far no approved vaccines or treatments for the illness which began in China and has spread to about 90 countries.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who was present at Trump’s bill signing, said the CDC had already sent tests with the capacity to test 75,000 people for the virus to public health labs around the country.

He said a private contractor was working with the CDC to send kits capable of testing 400,000 people to private hospitals and labs nationwide.

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci earlier acknowledged issues that slowed distribution of coronavirus tests but said the overall response was going well.

US Vice President Mike Pence, tasked by Trump to lead the coronavirus response has said there were not yet enough tests to meet demand going forward.

The virus spread to four more US states on Thursday – Colorado, Maryland, Tennessee and Texas – and the number of cases in New York doubled to 22, eight of which were connected to a Manhattan lawyer who lives in Westchester County, north of the city.

Washington’s King County, where 12 of the US fatalities have been recorded, remains the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States. At least six of those deaths were people at a nursing facility in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland.