Growing list of schools closing doors as coronavirus outbreak spreads

Multiple states and major cities shuttered their public school systems on Friday as government officials responded to the outbreak of coronavirus by sending students home - and facing the difficult choice of limiting critical services for families.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice on Friday announced his state's K-12 schools would close down, hours after District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser said the same for D.C. Later in the day, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced that all the state's K-12 schools would be closed for at least two weeks, beginning Monday.

"I'm closing the schools. That's all there is to it," Justice told reporters. He did not set an end date and said it would last for "as long as we have to close the schools."