NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. officials planned to warn Americans not to travel outside the country due to the coronavirus pandemic, a federal official said on Thursday, as health authorities nationwide scrambled to step up testing for the disease.
The fast-spreading respiratory illness has disrupted life across the country, shuttering schools and businesses and leaving millions to work from home or out of work, hammering the economy and disrupting travel.
The travel warning would also advise Americans currently abroad to come home or to shelter in place, the official said.
New York State tested more than 7,500 patients overnight and ordered three-quarters of state employees to work from home, while the governor of neighboring New Jersey warned that he expected the number of cases in the state to spiral into the thousands.
A new drive-through testing site is due to open on Friday at a community college in New Jersey’s Bergen County with the capacity to collect 2,500 specimens per week, significantly ramping up the state’s ability to test its residents.
New Jersey health commissioner Judy Persichilli said she expected the number of cases to “rise exponentially” in step with wider testing, and said officials may not be able ultimately to reduce the number of people who become infected.
The goal, she said, was to spread the cases out “so that fewer people need to seek treatment at any given time,” lightening the load on hospitals and healthcare workers and giving the system more time to respond.
More than 10,000 people across the United States have been diagnosed with the illness called COVID-19 and mor