After President Trump claimed corona virus a hoax. US reports first death, virus now spreading

The US has reported its first death from COVID-19, the deadly coronavirus sweeping the world.

The patient - a woman in her 50s - was in Washington state, in the country's northwest.

Earlier, US public health officials said they had identified four "presumptive" coronavirus cases believed to have emerged from community transmission of the infection, signaling a turning point in efforts to contain the disease in the United States.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a statement on Friday (US time) citing three such cases newly diagnosed by state public health authorities - one each in California, Oregon and Washington state.

If confirmed by the CDC, together with a previous case of unknown origin announced on Wednesday in California, that would bring to four the number of diagnosed individuals in the United States with no history of travel to a country where the virus is circulating and no close contact with an infected person.

The three latest patients were diagnosed based on results obtained in their respective states from CDC-supplied test kits and are considered "presumptive positive" cases pending CDC confirmatory testing, the US agency said.

A fourth presumptive positive was also announced in Washington state on Friday, but that one is "likely travel-related," the CDC said.

Still, the three latest cases of apparent community transmission, plus the one identified earlier this week in California, are a sign the virus is now spreading within at least four separate locations up and down the US West Coast.

They span nearly 1500km from California's Silicon Valley region in Santa Clara County north to the Puget Sound near Seattle.

"What we know now is that the virus is here, present at some level, but we still don't know to what degree," said Dr Sara Cody, the chief public health officer for Santa Clara County, speaking of the newly diagnosed case there, the latest of three in her county and the 10th statewide.

Even as confirmation was pending there, the CDC sent a team to assist local authorities in tracing close contacts the patient had with others in a bid to curb transmission.

Until this week, the CDC had counted 15 confirmed cases in six states as having been detected through the US public health system since Jan. 21, none fatal. Most were contracted by individuals while travelling in China, where the outbreak originated. Only two person-to-person transmissions were documented among them, both between married couples.

An additional 47 cases have been confirmed among people recently repatriated from abroad, either from the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan or from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, according to the CDC.

Reuters / Newshub.