A top federal scientist sounded the alarm about what he feared was contamination in an Atlanta lab where the government made test kits for the coronavirus, according to sources familiar with the situation in Atlanta.
Driving the news: The Trump administration has ordered an independent investigation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab, and manufacturing of the virus test kits has been moved, the sources said.
Twitter on Sunday announced that it will suspend all "non-critical business travel events," including CEO Jack Dorsey's planned keynote interview this month at the South by Southwest conference in Texas, due to coronavirus.
Why it matters: South by Southwest is one of the world's largest annual tech conferences, and so far has resisted calls to cancel.
We still don't know a lot about the coronavirus, and those unknowns make even the best contingency planning a lot harder.
The big picture: We don't know how widely the virus is spreading undetected, which makes it more important for leaders to map out worst-case scenarios. But experts say we're also not at a place where closing schools, requiring telecommuting or canceling public events are imminent or practical.
President Trump would "respect any decisions that are made at the state and local level" on actions to combat the novel coronavirus, including school shutdowns, Vice President Mike Pence told NBC in an interview airing Sunday.
Why it matters: COVID-19 is a major challenge for the Trump administration, with 66 infections and one death from the virus in the U.S., per a CDC statement Saturday. A poor response could be "politically devastating" for them, Axios' Alayna Treene and Sam Baker note.
A patient in Washington state has died after contracting the novel coronavirus, state health officials told reporters in call with the CDC on Saturday.
The latest: Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, public health officer for Seattle and King County, said the deceased patient was "a man in his 50s who had underlying health conditions." State officials reported two new patients who are presumed to have contracted the coronavirus: a 70-year-old woman who is a resident of a long-term care facility and a 40-year-old female health care worker from the same facility with no known travel outside of the U.S.
As more people are buying out Clorox wipes, sprays and bleach, CVS is handling temporary shortages of hand sanitizer and fitted N95 face masks that began earlier this month, CVS spokesperson Joe Goode told Axios.
Driving the news: Health officials in California, Oregon and Washington announced Friday that four patients are presumed to have the novel coronavirus. Three of them were infected by unknown means, per the CDC, while the fourth case is likely travel related.
A new case of the novel coronavirus in California was announced on Friday after Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that 33 people had tested positive for the virus, noting the risk to the public remains low.
What's new: An adult woman with chronic health conditions in Santa Clara County who "did not recently travel overseas" or come into contact with anyone known to be ill was confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus on Friday by CDC and California Department of Public Health officials.
Next month's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco became the latest tech event to be cancelled or postponed amid growing concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The big picture: A growing number of events are being scrapped, including Mobile World Congress and Facebook's F8 developer conference. Some, like the giant SXSW event in Austin, insist they are moving forward.
