Officials around the United States raced to assess the risk to schools, medical centers and businesses on Monday, as the country recorded five coronavirus deaths over three days.
All five people who died were residents of Washington State. One had been a resident of a nursing home in Kirkland, near Seattle, that has become the focal point of fears that the virus may have been spreading for weeks undetected. The number of cases nationwide climbed to 96.
The new cases included a woman in Manhattan who contracted the virus while traveling in Iran, and a Florida man with no known contact with affected countries or people. After that man and another person tested positive, Florida declared a public health emergency on Sunday — even as Vice President Mike Pence, tapped to lead the federal response to the crisis, sought to calm the public’s nerves.
Leaders in the Seattle area said that they intend to open isolation centers in Washington State in an effort to contain the outbreak.
Infected patients have been treated in 13 states.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott urged federal health officials to effectively delay the release of more than 120 people whose 14-day quarantine at a San Antonio military base was scheduled to end on Monday. They noted that an infected person who had been isolated, then tested negative twice after treatment, was released in the San Antonio area and later tested positive.
Mr. Abbott and the commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services called on the C.D.C. to provide the state with an explanation of what went wrong, and with a written rationale for releasing the people, who had been evacuated from the Diamond Princess luxury cruise ship in Japan.