WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th February, 2020) San Francisco Mayor London Breed during a press conference announced that she is a declaring a local emergency over the novel coronavirus.
"With the continued rise of the coronavirus across the world, we need to allocate more resources to make sure that we are prepared... we need to take an official action, that's why today I'm proactively taking a step to strengthen our preparedness for what may come by declaring a local emergency for coronavirus," Breed said during the conference on Tuesday.
Breed pointed out that there are currently no coronavirus cases in San Francisco.
However, Director of the Department of Public Health in San Francisco, Grant Colfax, said there is a growing likelihood that the city will eventually see coronavirus cases due to the high volume of travel between the city and mainland China.
Earlier on Tuesday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat said the coronavirus outbreak is likely to become a global pandemic.
The CDC said the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States had risen to 53, from 14 earlier this month. The coronavirus has so far infected more than 80,000 people around the world, and killed at least 2,700, mostly in China.
On Monday, the Trump administration asked Congress for an additional $2.5 billion for developing a coronavirus vaccine and preparing for a widespread outbreak.
