DOVER, Del. (AP) - A state of emergency took effect in Delaware on Friday because of the new coronavirus as Gov. John Carney also ordered all public schools in the state to be closed for the next two weeks.
In a news release Friday evening, Carney directed public schools to be closed through March 27. He said officials should have schools thoroughly cleaned during that time.
Carney had declared a state of emergency Thursday, which makes it easier for state agencies to coordinate and mobilize state resources in response to the virus. It also prohibits price gouging and encourages the cancellation of “nonessential” public gatherings of 100 people or more, giving state officials authority to cancel such gathering for public health reasons. Businesses and state offices remain open.
The emergency declaration also bans out-of-state travel for state employees and allows state agencies to conduct public meetings electronically. State lawmakers had already postponed next week’s legislative session.
“We will continue to respond aggressively to this situation in close coordination with state and federal public health experts,” Carney said in a prepared statement.
Meanwhile, state public health officials are providing less information, not more, about the coronavirus situation in Delaware.
The Division of Public Health’s coronavirus website had previously included a county-by-county breakdown of “people under investigation,” meaning they had been tested but the results had not been received. Officials are now providing county-specific lists only of the number of positive test results.
Officials also failed to list three new cases of coronavirus as being under investigation before announcing Thursday that test results had come back positive. Those cases involve two graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Delaware who had close contact at a social event last month with a faculty member who became Delaware’s first positive coronavirus case on Wednesday.
State officials knew of the first positive case by Wednesday morning but did not publicly announce it until late Wednesday afternoon, after arranging a news conference and alerting members of Delaware’s congressional delegation.
“Out of courtesy, we gave the congressional delegation a few minutes heads-up,” Hofman said in an email Friday.
Hofman said that while public health officials may know of a positive test result, they have to follow certain steps, including letting the individual know, before releasing information to the public. She could not say when officials alerted the individuals at the University of Delaware that they had tested positive.
Asked why the three new UD cases had not been listed as “people under investigation” Hofman said only that “PUIs are constantly in flux as the tests are completed so they were not in the log when the data had been put on the website.”
Most people with the disease called COVID-19 have only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of those infected get well. Recovery takes about two weeks for people with mild symptoms but can take three to six weeks for those with more severe illness, according to the World Health Organization.
Meanwhile, university officials announced Friday that they will close all university-owned or operated student housing through the end of the semester. The school announced earlier in the week that it was canceling classes Thursday and Friday and moving up the start of spring break from March 28 to Saturday. All courses will be conducted online when classes resume March 23.
With Friday’s announcement, students who had planned to remain on campus during spring break must move out by 10 p.m. Tuesday. All other resident students must move out by 10 p.m. Sunday, March 22. Officials said they will make special on-campus housing arrangements for students who can’t return home because of international travel restrictions or serious personal reasons. Students will be issued pro rata refunds for housing and dining fees at the end of the semester.
In other virus-related developments, a Delaware judge on Friday postponed a trial in a lawsuit filed by shareholders of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Inc. against CEO Elon Musk, who was scheduled to testify Monday as the first witness. The lawsuit alleges that Musk breached his fiduciary duties to Tesla shareholders in orchestrating the company’s $2 billion acquisition of SolarCity in 2016. Musk was the largest shareholder of the struggling solar panel company at the time of the deal. The plaintiffs argue that the deal improperly benefited Musk, his cousins who co-founded the company, and Tesla directors who owned stakes in SolarCity.
Meanwhile the Delaware Republican Party has been forced to postpone its scheduled April 25 state convention because the planned venue, the Rehoboth Convention Center, has closed through the end of April.
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