Журнал. World association for medical law. The COVID-19 pandemic. Volume 39 2

373 Medicine and Law On January 8, the CDC issued an official health advisory via its Health Alert Network (HAN) and established an Incident Management Structure to coordinate domestic and international public health actions; on January 17, the CDC noted that person to person spread was not confirmed, but was still a possibility; and on January 20, it activated its Emergency Operation Center (EOC) to further respond to the outbreak in China. The earliest known US death from COVID-19 occurred, in the State of California, on February 6 in Santa Clara County, a 57-year-old woman who died from complications caused by coronavirus which apparently led to a ruptured heart. This case was only confirmed months later, posthumously from tissue samples taken by the county coroner and sent to the CDC for testing, with the infection estimated to have occurred several weeks earlier, what has now been established as an untraceable community-based spread of COVID-19. *****On May 20 2020, the John Hopkins University coronavirus database reported the following numbers of infected and death cases by U.S State: State Infected Deaths - New York (state) 356,458 28,724 - New Jersey 150,399 10,747 - Illinois 100,418 4,525 - Massachusetts 88,970 6,066 - California 84,057 3,436 - Pennsylvania 64,412 4,767 - Michigan 53,009 5,060 - Texas 51,323 28,234 - (3). John Hopkins University Covina virus data base (www.coronavirus.jhu.edu ) Since the coronavirus was initially detected in the US, NYC has been critically impacted with a high volume of Covid-19 cases, overwhelming its health care system. During March 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo requested federal agency assistance in providing additional hospital beds and personnel. The US military provided support and converted a large convention center into a shelter. US Navy Hospital ships were also sent to ease overcrowding in local hospitals. The USNS Mercy arrived in Los Angeles on March 27, just a few days before her sister ship, USNS Comfort, arrived in NYC. The two