Customers look at sanitizing wipes on the shelves of a pharmacy in New York. File/AP

Florida health authorities confirmed Friday two deaths from the new coronavirus, the first US fatalities outside the west coast states of Washington and California.

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Both had traveled abroad, Florida Department of Health said in a statement announcing the two deaths and a total of 12 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the southeast state.

They brought the US death toll to 16, including 14 reported earlier, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Research Center.

Ambulances are seen in a staging area at the North Kirkland Community Center in Kirkland, Washington. File/Reuters

More than 200 people have contracted the virus in the United States.

The Florida deaths were the first coronavirus fatalities on the east coast.

Worldwide, more than 3,000 people have died from the fast-spreading virus that has infected over 100,000 people in some 92 countries and territories.

Agenence France-Presse