Coronavirus outbreak in the United States now inevitable, health official warns

San Francisco has declared a public emergency as coronavirus continues to spread around the globe, the city’s mayor announced.

The mayor of San Francisco has declared a coronavirus emergency amid fears the global outbreak is spreading.

Mayor London Breed made the announcement, effective immediately, which will be in place for at least seven days, the LA Times reported.

“Although there are still zero confirmed cases in San Francisco residents, the global picture is changing rapidly, and we need to step up preparedness,” the mayor said in a statement Tuesday (US time).

“We see the virus spreading in new parts of the world every day, and we are taking the necessary steps to protect San Franciscans from harm.”

The decree means the city will be able to allocate resources for coronavirus mitigation efforts.

Three patients have been treated for COVID-19 in San Francisco hospitals.

Santa Clara and San Diego counties have also issued emergency declarations.

$2.5 TRILLION VIRUS MELTDOWN

The Dow Jones has plunged more than 3 per cent after a top health official warned a coronavirus outbreak in the United States was inevitable.

More than $2.5 trillion (US$1.7 trillion) has been wiped off US stock markets in the past two days alone, CNBC reports.

Nancy Messonnier of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned an outbreak would result in a “disruption to everyday life”.

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“We expect we will see community spread in this country,” she said.

“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen any more, but the rather more correct question to be asking is, ‘When this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness?

“We will maintain, for as long as practical, a dual approach [in which] we continue measures to contain this disease but also employ strategies to minimise the impact on our communities.

“The data over the last week in the spread in other countries has certainly raised our level of concern and raised our level of expectation that we are going to have community spread here.”

The Dow Jones plunged 900 points on the remarks from the CDC.

The ASX today followed suit, sliding 1.9 per cent in early trade. It's the third day of straight losses for Australian stocks.

More than $190 billion was wiped off the UK’s FTSE over growing fears of a pandemic.

Japan’s Nikkei has lost 3.3 per cent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged 0.2 per cent slightly higher.

“We are finally starting to see the markets react to the coronavirus,” Nicole Tanenbaum, chief investment strategist at Chequers Financial Management, told the Washington Post.

The White House on Monday sent politicians an urgent US$2.5 billion plan to address the deadly coronavirus outbreak, whose rapid spread and threat to the global economy rocked financial markets.

The White House budget office said the funds are for vaccines, treatment and protective equipment. The request was immediately slammed by Democrats as insufficient.

US Senator Richard Blumenthal warned the country was inadequately prepared to deal with the virus.

The Dow Jones is continuing to dive. Picture: Supplied

A top health official has warned a coronavirus outbreak in the United States is now inevitable. (Photo by Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images)

It comes as fears of a pandemic have risen sharply after multiple cases of the virus were detected without any clear source of infection in South Korea and Iran.

There is now a total of 80,382 cases of coronavirus around the world, with 2710 deaths.

In the US, there are over 50 infections, including 39 from people who were brought home from Wuhan or the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

Cities across the world have been plunged into lockdown, with borders closed and airports thoroughly checking travellers for fevers or flu-like symptoms.

But Dr Simon Clarke, a specialist in cellular microbiology at England’s University of Reading, said the virus was proving “extremely difficult to track”.

“It seems that the virus can pass from person to person without symptoms, making it extremely difficult to track, regardless of what health authorities do,” he said.

Even the best screening measures could be missing “more than half of infected people”, a global team of researchers from US and UK universities said on Monday.

Fears of a pandemic have risen sharply after multiple cases of the virus were detected without any clear source of infection in South Korea and Iran. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, the head of a joint World Health Organisation (WHO) China mission of experts said the world is “simply not ready” to rein in the new coronavirus outbreak

“You have to be ready to manage this at a larger scale … and it has to be done fast,” Bruce Aylward told reporters in Geneva, insisting countries everywhere have to “be ready as if this hits us tomorrow”.

While it is still too early to call the outbreak a pandemic — when an infectious disease spreads easily across the world — countries should remain vigilant, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Monday.

“For the moment we are not witnessing the uncontained global spread of this virus and we are not witnessing large scale severe disease or deaths,” he said.

“Does this virus have pandemic potential? Absolutely, it has. Are we there yet? From our assessment, not yet.”

"Using the word pandemic now does not fit the facts, but it may certainly cause fear.

We do not live in a binary, black-and-white world.

It’s not either-or.

We must focus on containment, while doing everything we can to prepare for a potential pandemic"-@DrTedros #COVID19

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) February 24, 2020

— with Alle McMahon