CDC: U.S. SHOULD PREPARE FOR VIRUS
Health officials in the U.S. warned Tuesdaythat the coronavirus is certain to reach the country at some point, even as their counterparts in Europe and Asia scrambled to contain new outbreaks. “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen — and how many people in this country will have severe illness,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Here’s the latest:
175 in Ohio under ‘self-quarantine’
A seventh person in Ohio has been tested for coronavirus sometime in the past five days, the state Department of Health announced Tuesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is analyzing a sample taken from the person for the COVID-19 virus, according to the Ohio Department of Health’s coronavirus website. No details about the person under investigation, including his or her location, are being released.
In addition, at least 175 individuals in Ohio are listed as being under “public health supervision,” a new category.
Dr. Amy Acton, director of the ODH, said Monday that officials have asked people who have
arrived in the Buckeye State from China to self-quarantine for 14 days, which includes staying in a place where they have their own bedroom and bathroom.
— Senators of both political parties questioned Tuesday whether the White House’s request for $2.5 billion is enough to prepare the United States for a possible coronavirus outbreak, even as President Donald Trump said the virus is “very well under control” here.
“If you low-ball some- thing like this, you’ll pay for it later,” Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., told Trump’s top health official, Health and Human Services Sec- retary Alex Azar. The two faced each other at a budget hearing that turned into a forum for assessing U.S. readiness in the face of a rapidly evolving international health threat.
Shelby said if the virus keeps spreading, “it could be an existential threat to a lot of people in this country.” He chairs the powerful Appropriations Committee, which sets spending levels for federal agencies.
Azar defended the government’s response, even as Trump hours earlier sought to minimize fears about the virus spreading throughout the U.S. “We have very few people with it,” the president said at a news confer- ence near the close of his two-day visit to India.
Trump said a “lot of talent” and a “lot of brainpower” were being tapped for the response to the new coronavirus. He said the $2.5 bil- lion request was to shore up defenses “in case something should happen” and to help other countries.
At the Senate hearing, Azar noted that nearly two months after the first alarms were raised, there’s no evidence the virus has spread here beyond patients infected overseas and a few close relatives. He credited travel con- trols and mandatory quar- antines, adding that govern- ment scientists are working to develop a vaccine and to perfect a test for detecting the virus.
“We cannot hermetically seal off the United States to a virus and we need to be realistic about that,” the health chief acknowledged. “We’ll have more cases in the United States, and we’ve been very transparent about that.” If it happens, “we’ll work to mitigate those.”
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said the administration’s handling of the crisis has been “unacceptable.”
“We cannot afford to plan on the cheap or at the last minute,” she said.
“I’m deeply concerned that we are way behind the eight-ball on this,” she added.
In an indication of the chal- lenges, Azar said the government currently has stock- piled 30 million special N95 respirator masks but 300 million would be needed to protect health care workers in an outbreak.
Azar told senators that U.S. cases currently total 57. That includes 14 who either trav- eled to China or were close relatives of travelers; three Americans repatriated from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak in China; and 40 passengers returned home from the cruise ship Dia- mond Princess.
The White House budget office said the $2.5 billion would be used for vaccine development, treatment and protective equipment, but Democrats immediately slammed the request as insuf- ficient.
Coronavirus fears were credited with Monday’s 1,000-plus-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the decline contin- ued Tuesday.
The rapid spread of the virus around the world and its threat to the global econ- omy has rocked financial markets, but Trump said China is getting the epidemic under control.
“They’ve had a rough patch and ... it looks like they’re getting it under control more and more,” Trump said. “They’re getting it more and more under control so I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away, but we lost almost 1,000 points yester- day on the (stock) market.”
Before the funding request, key government accounts were running low.
The W h i te House is requesting $1.25 billion in new funding and wants to transfer $535 million more from an Ebola preparedness account — a move opposed by Democrats. The administration anticipates shift- ing money from other HHS accounts and other agencies to complete the $2.5 billion response plan.
Some Democrats were dismissive.
“All of the warning lights are flashing bright red. We are staring down a potential pandemic, and the admin- istration has no plan,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Trump fired back in a tweet, accusing Schumer of “complaining, for pub- licity purposes only.”
The quickly spreading virus has slammed the economy of China, where the virus originated, and case- loads are rapidly increasing in countries such as South Korea, Iran and Italy. More than 80,000 people around the world have been infected, with more than 2,500 deaths, mostly in China.
Democrats aren’t the only ones complaining.
At another hearing, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf was pressed for answers.
Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, asked whether Wolf knew the projected number of cases in the U.S., among other pointed questions.
Wolf said the virus poses a “low” threat to the U.S. but couldn’t provide the answers sought by Kennedy.