Senators warned virus will spread in U.S.

WASHINGTON — Trump administration health officials urged the public Tuesday to prepare for the “inevitable” spread of the coronavirus within the U.S., escalating warnings about a growing threat from the virus to Americans’ everyday lives.

The warnings from officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies contrasted sharply with assessments from President Donald Trump and other White House officials, who have largely dismissed concerns about the virus.

The mixed messages continued Tuesday, as dire warnings issued to senators and the media early in the day gave way to a more positive assessment after the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 3.4%, bringing the two-day loss to 1,900 points — the biggest in two years.

“We believe the immediate risk here in the United States remains low and we’re working hard to keep that risk low,” Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director, said during a hastily convened afternoon media briefing.

Earlier in the day, CDC officials and others sounded a more pressing alarm.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in the United States. It’s not a question of if this will happen, but when this will happen, and how many people in this country will have severe illnesses,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, during a morning briefing with reporters.

Ms. Messonnier said the rapid surge in cases in new locations outside mainland China in the past several days prompted the change in official warnings.

Meanwhile, the first clinical trial in the U.S. of a possible

coronavirus treatment is underway in Nebraska and is eventually expected to include 400 patients at 50 locations around the world, officials said Tuesday.

Half of the patients in the international study will receive the antiviral medicine remdesivir while the other half will receive a placebo. Several other studies, including one looking at the same drug, are already underway internationally.

There is growing evidence that efforts to contain the spread of the virus outside of China have failed. There are now almost 1,000 cases in South Korea; at least 15 people have died in Iran; and new cases were reported for the first time in Switzerland, in Austria and at a luxury resort in Spain. In the U.S., there are now 57 people with the virus, all but 14 of them evacuees from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

Ms. Messonnier noted the spread of new cases without a known source of exposure in multiple nations. Evidence of what’s called “community spread,” she said, is triggering new strategies to confront the respiratory virus, including urging businesses, health care facilities and even schools to plan now for ways to limit the impact of the illness when it spreads in the community.

Health leaders voiced similar warnings in a closeddoor briefing Tuesday morning for senators. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said officials had cautioned them that there was a “very strong chance of an extremely serious outbreak of the coronavirus here in the United States.”

Not long thereafter, though, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow went on TV to try to assuage concerns over the coronavirus and its impact on the U.S. economy. “We have contained this. I won’t say [it’s] airtight, but it’s pretty close to airtight,” Mr. Kudlow told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on “The Exchange.”

Even top GOP lawmakers struggled to explain the inconsistent messages: “I can’t comment on what the White House has been saying on this, because the people who work for the White House are not saying that,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

The chaotic messaging threatened to obscure urgent public health advice coming from the CDC early Tuesday, when officials said the agency would be focusing on containing the spread of the virus in the U.S., as well as warning people to prepare.

Some senators who attended Tuesday’s closeddoor briefing downplayed any alarmist tone from health officials. However, Sen. Lamar Alexander, RTenn., said senators were told the number of cases in the United States would inevitably grow.

“What we heard was that it’s inevitable that we’ll have more than 14 cases as time goes on,” Mr. Alexander said. “And what we’ll have to try to do is the same thing we’ve already done through quarantining and monitoring through our public health system to limit that as much as possible.”

Sen. John Neely Kennedy, R-La., criticized the lawmaker briefing, because he said that while issuing dire warnings, officials could not answer his basic questions.

“I thought a lot of the briefing was [expletive],” Mr. Kennedy said. “They would answer the question but dodge, bob and weave. I understand there’s a lot they don’t know. I get that. But they need to answer the questions straight-up.”