Betsy

The first nine coronavirus deaths in the United States show the biggest risks aren’t traveling abroad, or riding mass transit, or attending crowded events. The riskiest place to be is in a rehab or nursing home. The second most dangerous is a hospital.

Five residents of the Life Care Center, a nursing facility in Kirkland, Wash., have died and some 50 other residents and staff members there reportedly have coronavirus symptoms.

Be on the alert for more deadly outbreaks in nursing homes wherever coronavirus spreads. Nursing homes are infection cauldrons.

Most nursing facilities ignore precautions like separating infected residents and disinfecting rooms and medical equipment. Even without coronavirus, these facilities are dangerous. Last year, regulators cited Kirkland’s Life Care for shoddy infection control.

Generally, someone with coronavirus will pass it to two other people, data show. But not in nursing homes. There, one infected person can lead to carnage.

The feds and state health officials, including the New York Department of Health, should focus on getting nursing homes ready. Some 2.2 million Americans live full time in these facilities, and hundreds of thousands more go for rehab after hospitalization. The Committee to Reduce ­Infection Deaths, the nonprofit I lead, announced guidelines Monday on what nursing homes should do to curb coronavirus.

Few children become seriously ill from coronavirus. But the elderly struggle, and in many nursing homes they won’t stand a chance.

She laid out what governments at all levels would do. The broad contours are first, preparing hospitals and doctors to treat infected patients and identifying their contacts who may also be infected. Secondly, closing schools (which Japanese officials did this week) and encouraging people to stay home. School closures helped stopped the spread of H1N1 flu here and in Canada and Mexico in 2009. Thirdly, disinfecting public spaces. Think subways, busses, arenas and airports.

Also in the virus’ crosshairs are health-care workers and hospital patients. When an infected patient went to VacaValley Hospital, near Sacramento, for care in February, three health-care workers there contracted it.

Doctors and nurses need training in the use of N95 masks, goggles and protective gear when treating suspected cases. A staggering 41 percent of coronavirus patients at a Wuhan, China, hospital contracted the virus in the hospital. Across China, some 3,400 health workers became infected. Now in Europe, they are bearing the brunt.

When federal officials assessed New York City hospitals for readiness to contain a contagion like measles or coronavirus, fewer than three-quarters of health-care workers put on the necessary protective gear, such as goggles, before entering an infected patient’s room. Hospitals were drilled twice, and 39 percent failed at least once.

President Trump’s initial ­response to the coronavirus was to limit travel. That bought America time. Now federal officials are rolling out their pandemic battle plan. The broad contours are providing medical care and developing tests, treatments and vaccines. Second, closing school and encouraging people to stay home. Third, disinfecting public spaces.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo says we’ll be smelling bleach from public cleanup. Good. Also, the Port ­Authority should ­install hand hygiene dispensers in every jetway and check-in area at our airports.

Coughing and sneezing spray ­viral droplets, but the droplets only reach six feet. More significant is the danger of touching an object, such as a check-in touch screen or railing, after an infected person. The virus can live on hard surfaces for as long as 9 days. MIT researchers estimate that improving hand cleanliness at airports could reduce viral spread by double digits.

What should the rest of us do? Go about our routines, but sanitize our hands frequently, especially after touching elevator buttons and escalator handrails, riding in taxis and taking mass transit.

Avoid going to an emergency room unless it’s a real emergency. You don’t want to be waiting next to someone infected.

Finally, keep your perspective. Worldwide, just more than 3,000 people are known to have died. Compare that to the 18,000 deaths from ordinary flu in the United States alone so far this season.

Even worse is the enormous death toll every year here from health-care infections with names we’ve come to fear, such as Staph and C. diff. Improving infection prevention to battle the new virus will save many lives in hospitals and nursing homes, whether coronavirus explodes or peters out.

Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York, is chairwoman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.