The number of coronavirus cases and deaths continues to rise in the United States, while Utah officials reported Friday evening that the state had its first confirmed case of COVID-19.
Utah officials said they believed the victim had been exposed to the virus on the Grand Princess cruise ship, which is currently just off the coast of San Francisco with dozens of passengers quarantined at edge.
As of Friday evening, 19 passengers on the ship are believed to have a coronavirus and 46 people have been tested, Vice President Mike Pence said Friday at a press conference.
The first two deaths from the East Coast coronavirus were reported on Friday. The number of coronavirus deaths in the United States now stands at 17, with at least 325 cases confirmed in 26 states.
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Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
In response to the growing concern over what the World Health Organization calls a global health emergency, many organizations, events and companies are canceling large group events to help contain the spread of the coronavirus epidemic.
ESPA, according to ESPN, has sent a memo to the teams telling them to prepare to play in front of empty arenas in the near future.
The memo, obtained by ESPN and WABC, a subsidiary of ABC New York, said that NBA teams were asked to develop a process and identify the actions required if they were to play games without fans present and with only essential personnel in the arena.
After Friday night’s victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James addressed the league note to the teams, warning that he could not play in an empty arena.
“I don’t play. If I don’t have fans in the crowd, that’s why I play. I play for my teammates, I play for the fans,” James told reporters in the locker room after the match. “That’s what this is about. If I show up in an arena, and there are no fans there? I don’t play. So they could do what they want. ”
As of Friday, the popular SXSW technology / culture / music festival in Austin, Texas was canceled due to the coronavirus.
“We are delighted to share this news with you.” The show must go on “is in our DNA and it is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place,” the event said in a statement on Friday.
Many schools and universities go online or cancel courses.
The University of Southern California and Stanford University have both moved all online classes in response to the coronavirus epidemic.
Stanford announced Friday that all classes will be moved online for the last two weeks of the quarter and USC announced that it will test the classes remotely for two days next week.
“Our university must be agile and flexible in case we need to make further changes to the semester,” said Charles F. Zukoski, USC Provost and senior vice president for academic affairs on Friday. “We have about 7,000 lectures this spring. We must test our technical capabilities to ensure academic continuity in an online environment in the event of a disruption. “
The West Coast, particularly around the Seattle area, has been hit hard by COVID-19. Of the 17 coronavirus-related deaths in the United States, 14 are from Washington State. The other death on the west coast took place in California.
Globally, at least 95,000 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed and at least 3,200 deaths have been reported, most of them in China, according to the WHO.
Erin Schumaker, Ella Torres and Morgan Winsor of ABC News contributed to this report.