(3 Mar 2020) US Vice President Mike Pence met with the nation's governors and President Donald Trump met with pharmaceutical companies to talk about progress toward a vaccine as the death toll from the novel coronavirus in the U.S. climbed to six.
"On behalf of the president and all of the American people, we extend our deepest condolences and sympathies to the families," Pence said at a late afternoon briefing at the White House.
Four of the dead were residents of a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, according to King County health authorities.
The nursing home cases especially troubled health care experts because of the vulnerability of sick and elderly people to the illness and existing problems in nursing facilities.
The Trump adminstration is reassuring governors that they will be reimbursed for at least some of the costs of responding to the spread of the coronavirus, as several states began setting aside millions of dollars to head off a public health crisis.
The CDC recently broadened its guidelines for who should be tested for the new virus to include people with symptoms but without a travel history to virus hot zones.
More testing will bring more confirmed cases, experts said, but they cautioned that does not mean the virus is gaining speed. Instead, the testing is likely to reveal a picture of the virus' spread that was previously invisible.
There are no proven treatments for COVID-19. In China, scientists have been testing a combination of HIV drugs against the new virus, as well as an experimental drug named remdesivir that was in development to fight Ebola.
It's not clear how quickly such studies will answer whether any of the drugs help. Many patients recover without needing any treatment. The biggest concern is how to help the fraction who become severely ill.
  
Pence, who also attended the Monday meeting, said other meetings are being arranged with leaders of airlines and cruise ship operations.

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