An ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a new infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was first confirmed to have spread to the United States in January 2020. Cases have been confirmed in all fifty U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and all inhabited U.S. territories except American Samoa.[5] As of March 28, 2020, the U.S. has the most confirmed active cases in the world and ranks sixth in number of total deaths from the virus.[6] As of March 30, 2020, the number of US deaths (3,156)[6] surpassed the death toll of the September 11 attacks (2,977).[7]
The first known case of COVID-19 in the U.S. was confirmed on January 20, 2020, in a 35-year-old man who had returned from Wuhan, China, five days earlier.[2] The White House Coronavirus Task Force was established on January 29.[8] Two days later, most major airlines suspended flights between the U.S. and China,[9][10] and the Trump administration declared a public health emergency and announced restrictions on travelers arriving from China.[11] On February 26, the first case in the U.S. in a person with "no known exposure to the virus through travel or close contact with a known infected individual" was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in northern California.[12]
The United States got off to a slow start in COVID-19 testing.[13][14][15] Until the end of February, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) procedures forbade laboratories other than the CDC from releasing test results to patients, even if they followed internationally recognized test protocols. The CDC developed and distributed test kits of its own, but many of them were found to have a manufacturing flaw in a non-essential component, which made the kit illegal to use until the protocol was changed.[16][13][14] The FDA did not allow use of any test kits other than the CDC's until the end of February. On February 29 the FDA began allowing public health agencies, hospitals, and private companies to develop tests and perform testing, and by mid-March private companies were shipping hundreds of thousands of tests.[17] The FDA initially had very restrictive guidelines on who was allowed to be tested; on March 5 it said anyone with a doctor's order could be tested.[14] As of March 25, at least 418,000 tests had been conducted,[18] and by March 30 the number had reached 945,000.[19]
The CDC warned that widespread transmission of the disease may force large numbers of people to seek hospitalization and other healthcare, which may overload healthcare systems.[20] Since March 19, 2020, the Department of State has advised U.S. citizens to avoid all international travel.[21] On March 16 the White House advised against any gatherings of more than 10 people.[22] In mid-March 2020, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) told the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to plan to construct new facilities, including leased
