The Coronavirus Outbreak in Washington State

A strategy of containment was supposed to protect Washington State from the coronavirus. It didn’t. So what led to the first major outbreak of the pathogen in the United States?

Guests: Mike Baker, a Pacific Northwest correspondent for The New York Times and Bridget Parkhill, a woman whose 77-year-old mother is on lockdown inside a coronavirus-affected nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Background reading:

• A cruise ship off San Francisco has 21 sick passengers on board and is linked to California’s first death from the virus. In the Seattle area, schools have closed • , tech workers have been told to work from home and a nursing facility is on lockdown • . Here are the latest updates • . • Officials in California, Oregon and Washington State have said that some patients tested positive for the coronavirus without a known explanation • for how they became ill, raising concerns that the virus may be spreading faster than previously thought. • We spoke to six Americans with coronavirus. Here’s what they said • about their experience while sick.

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