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The 2019 Novel Coronavirus, or the Wuhan coronavirus, has spread from China to 14 countries, including the United States, France, and Japan.
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Travel Restrictions Possible
Restricting travel is a possible future response to the evolving coronavirus outbreak, Health Secretary Alex Azar told reporters on Jan. 28.
“It’s important to not take anything off the table with a rapidly emerging novel infectious disease,” Azar said.
“All steps have to be on the table, including travel restrictions.”
There were no restrictions announced at the press conference.
Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department have advised Americans against nonessential travel to China.
Passengers wear masks to protect against the spread of the Coronavirus as they arrive at the Los Angeles International Airport, California, on Jan. 22, 2020. (Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)Warren Releases Infectious Disease Plan
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a Democratic presidential candidate, unveiled an infectious disease plan this week amid a worldwide coronavirus outbreak.
Warren’s plan would “fully fund” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which runs pandemic prevention and response programs; increase funding for the Public Health Emergency Preparedness cooperative agreement that helps health departments prepare for outbreaks and other situations; and invest over $100 billion to try to reduce transmission of infectious disease in America.
Warren also linked her Medicare for All plan, which would feature the government taking over the entire healthcare industry, to diseases, stating: “When people can’t access basic health care, infectious diseases are more likely to spread and cause severe, lasting health effects.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden, another Democratic presidential nominee, penned an op-ed on Jan. 27 in which he said he would, if elected president, “reassert U.S. leadership in global health security.”
He said he would ask Congress to add to the Public Health Emergency Fund and give him the power to use the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to declare a disaster if an infectious disease threat merits it. He would also renew funding for the nationwide network of hospitals that can isolate and treat people with infectious diseases, and fully fund the Global Health Security Agenda.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) speaks during a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Jan. 26, 2020. (Matt Rourke/AP Photo)CDC Tells Americans Not to Travel to China
Americans should avoid all nonessential travel to China, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an statement published on Jan. 28.
The agency raised its level 3 warning for the entirety of China after previously advising only against traveling to Wuhan, where the virus originated.
The new coronavirus can spread between people, the agency emphasized. “Sustained person-to-person community spread with this virus is reportedly occurring in China,” it said.
“A number of travel-associated cases of 2019-nCoV infection also have been identified in other locations, including the United States.”
The warning came after the State Department urged Americans to consider not traveling to China.
Employees in scrubs talk next to the ambulance entrance at Providence Regional Medical Center after a spokesman from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a traveler from China has been the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with the Wuhan coronavirus, in Everett, Washington, on Jan. 21, 2020. (Lindsey Wasson/Reuters)Human-to-Human Transmissions Reported in Japan, Taiwan
Human-to-human transmissions were confirmed in two more places after German authorities said the first confirmed case in the country was transmitted by a Chinese woman to her male colleague.
Health officials in Japan and Taiwan said new cases came from human-to-human transmission.
The new patient in Japan, a male bus driver in his 60s, drove tour groups that included people from Wuhan, officials said, the Japan Times reported. The bus driver did not travel to China himself but was infected by one of the tourists.
Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center, meanwhile, said that the eighth confirmed coronavirus case in the country was the first case of transmission on the island.
The patient, a man in his 50s from central Taiwan, was infected by his wife after she returned from a work trip to China, the center said.
Taiwanese authorities are now telling people not to travel to any parts of China bar Hong Kong and Macau after previously only warning against going to Hubei province, which includes Wuhan.
Passengers wearing protective face masks commute on a subway train in Tokyo on Jan. 28, 2020. (Behrouz Mehri/AFP via Getty Images)Japan Sends Charter Plane to Virus-Hit Wuhan
Japan has sent a plane to evacuate its citizens from virus-hit Wuhan in China on Tuesday, according to the Japanese foreign minister.
Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters Tuesday that the chartered plane will also provide protective suits and masks to Wuhan before carrying about 200 people to Tokyo on Wednesday morning.
Japan “decided to provide emergency relief goods through the Japan International Cooperation Agency” to China in response to a request to deal with the outbreak, according to the foreign ministry’s website.
Motegi said approximately 650 Japanese nationals have expressed a desire to return to Japan. Tokyo will make arrangements to provide more chartered flights to Wuhan to evacuate nationals.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) speaks with people at a supermarket in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province on Jan. 27, 2020. (Li Tao/Xinhua via AP)Details About First Super Spreader Made Known
Details were finally made public about the first known super spreader of the Wuhan coronavirus.
Zhao Junshi, 69, underwent surgery to remove a pituitary tumor at Wuhan Union Hospital’s neurosurgery department on Jan. 7. No one was aware that he had Wuhan pneumonia.
On Jan. 11, he suddenly developed a fever. CT scanning indicated infection in both lungs. The doctor in charge immediately reported Zhao’s case to the contagious diseases department, asking experts from the department to help diagnose the cause of the illness.
Doctors concluded that Zhao was infected with “an unknown type of pneumonia.” There was no kit to test for Wuhan pneumonia yet.
The next day, Zhao’s condition became very serious. His chest scan showed “multiple lung shadows.” Then, some of the medical personnel taking care of him developed a fever, one after another. That’s when Zhao was put in an isolation ward.
On Jan. 15, Zhao was confirmed to be infected with the new coronavirus and transferred to Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital, a contagious disease facility. The affected medical staff were also sent to Union Hospital for isolation and treatment.
People walk toward the main entrance of Klinikum Schwabing, after Germany declared its first confirmed case of the deadly coronavirus that broke out in China, in Munich, Germany, on Jan. 28, 2020. (Ayhan Uyanik/Reuters)German Coronavirus Patient Got Virus From Human Transmission
German health officials said the country’s first coronavirus patient got the virus through human transmission.
The 33-year-old man, who lives near Starnberg, just south of Munich, caught the Wuhan coronavirus from a work colleague. They traveled together to a company training in the state of Bavaria last week.
The colleague, a woman from Shanghai, “started to feel sick on the flight home” on Jan. 23, Andreas Zapf, head of the Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety, said at a Jan. 28 press conference, reported Deutsche Welle. The woman had been visited in Shanghai recently by her parents, who live in the Wuhan area.
The man caught the coronavirus from the woman in what appears to be the first known case outside of China of the infection spreading between people who aren’t related. Multiple cases in different countries have cropped up from transmission between family members, including a man in Singapore who flew in from China and infected his son.
A medical worker in a protective suit checks the body temperature of a driver at a checkpoint outside the city of Yueyang, Hunan province, China, on Jan. 28, 2020. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)China Underreporting True Scale of Virus Outbreak: Expert
The Chinese regime is likely underreporting the true scale of the coronavirus outbreak, according to a Harvard epidemiologist.
“I would say there is a very high pandemic risk,” said Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, citing conclusions in a Chinese CDC report.
Guangdong’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Jan. 25 put the reproduction number of the virus at 2.9, saying the disease “may have a higher pandemic risk than SARS”—a large outbreak originating from southern China from 2002 to 2003, which officially killed about 800 worldwide.
Feigl-Ding said the risk was exacerbated as a result of asymptomatic patients spreading the virus unknowingly.
Medical staff members wearing protective clothing to help stop the spread of a deadly virus which began in the city, arrive with a patient at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 25, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)Wuhan Mayor Admits Wrongdoing, Blames Beijing
The mayor of Wuhan city, ground zero for the new coronavirus outbreak, sat down for a rare television interview in which he indirectly called out his higher-ups for mismanaging the crisis.
During a news program that aired on state broadcaster CCTV on Jan. 27, Zhou Xianwang said that the central government made the decision to withhold information about the outbreak.
He admitted that the city government did not publish information in time, and failed to properly contain the virus.
“Disclosures about the outbreak were not timely… As the leader of a local government, I could only publish information after I receive permission from the authorities [central government],” Zhou said during the interview.
Nicole Hao, Eva Fu, Olivia Li, Isabel Van Brugen, Jack Phillips, and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
This article is from the Internet:Coronavirus Live Updates: US Not Taking Travel Restrictions Off the Table
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