WHO Declares Wuhan Coronavirus Global Health Emergency After First Person-to-Person U.S. Case Reported
Meanwhile, CNN complains Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force isn’t diverse enough!
As of today, there are now over 8200 cases of those with the Wuhan Coronavirus officially reported worldwide, and 170 deaths attributed to the pathogen. Finland is now reporting its first case, which brings the total of nations that have Wuhan Coronavirus cases to 18.
In the United States, the first case of the coronavirus spreading from one person to another has happened in Chicago. The spouse of a woman who caught the disease while tending to a sick relative in China now has the disease.
The woman, who is in her 60s, traveled to Wuhan, China, in late December and returned to Chicago on Jan. 13. Her spouse, who had not traveled to China, is the second Illinois case and first instance of person-to-person spread in the U.S., the Illinois Department of Public Health said.
He is also in his 60s and has underlying medical conditions, health officials said. He’s in the hospital and is in stable condition. He was placed into isolation two days ago. His wife also remains hospitalized but is “doing quite well,” said Dr. Jennifer Layden, chief medical officer and state epidemiologist at the Illinois Department of Public Health.
She said the woman remains hospitalized “primarily for isolation.” It’s believed that he was exposed to the virus while his wife w
Health officials said the man has not attended any mass gatherings or taken the “L” train recently.
Cases of human-to-human transmission have been reported from China, Germany, Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
In light of the continuing outbreak in China, and the spread of the virus to 17 other nations already, the World Health Organization now deems the situation an international public health emergency.
The World Health Organization declared coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern at a news conference Thursday in Geneva.
This is only the sixth time such an emergency has been declared, with past examples including the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Zika virus.
The WHO reserves the designation for “extraordinary events” that poses a public health risk by threatening to spread internationally.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has established a Task Force to address the continuing outbreak.
Led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and coordinated through the National Security Council, the task force is made up of subject matter experts from across the federal government and has been meeting daily since Monday. Members of the 12-member group include National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield, and the National Institutes of Health’s Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“The task force will lead the administration’s efforts to monitor, contain and mitigate the spread of the virus, while ensuring that the American people have the most accurate and up-to-date health and travel information,” the White House said.
Just received a briefing on the Coronavirus in China from all of our GREAT agencies, who are also working closely with China. We will continue to monitor the ongoing developments. We have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7! pic.twitter.com/rrtF1Stk78
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2020
Of course, CNN has found something to complain about Trump’s team: It is not diverse enough.
It’s a statement that’s as predictable as it is infuriating: President Donald Trump’s administration lacks diversity.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted photos of a briefing he’d received on the new coronavirus spreading out of China.“We will continue to monitor the ongoing developments,” the President said in his post. “We have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7!”
Who are these experts? They’re largely the same sort of white men (and a couple women on the sidelines) who’ve dominated the Trump administration from the very beginning.
I had a chance to review the Wuhan Virus outbreak and its impact on this country with Silvio Canto, Jr., today on his show, Canto Talk. We also talked about the impeachment hearings, and the despicable CNN panel mocking Trump supporters as uneducated rubes.
On the podcast, I remind everyone of the Legal Insurrection Reader Reception at 7 pm, Sunday, February 9, at The Milky Way (which, given my love of Star Trek, is a perfect spot). I hope to see you there!
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Comments
What is this podcast thing? All I get is goofy music. And no way to skip ahead to see if that stuff ever ends. No thanks.
“CNN complains Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force isn’t diverse enough!”
Screw diversity, most certainly with something like this the team should be picked solely based on their ability to produce.
Diversity, affirmative BS has introduced staggering inefficiencies in our economy.
It is a Talk Show…so there is about 1 minute of intro music before the show begins.
Does anyone know anything about the comments that the Communist Chinese government was working on weaponizing viruses in Wuhan?
I’ve been seeing those comments for 2 or more weeks I believe.
They do BW research in Wuhan, the comments are true. But there has been no evidence to suggest that this pathogen was created, released or otherwise connected to those facilities.
The Chi-coms claim it is connected to market food, snake I think. While I have no reason to believe them, the statement is plausible
Coronaviruses can transmit on that vector – and with a shortage of pork because of the last round of Chinese virus issues, people have been eating any kind of animal for protein. China’s health issues, sanitary issues, and animal handling lapses make it ripe for creating these things without any help from a bioweapons lab. The bioweapons lab is probably safer than most of these markets …
They will never tell us the truth regardless.
Thanks.
Anyone posting here does not have first hand knowledge of that, nor second.
My summary and guesstimate from reading here and there:
There are two biolabs near Wuhan city (not downtown). The virus is unlikely to be a bioweapon, it’s a lousy weapon and doesn’t kill or incapacitate many soldiering-age adults, but it does spread well and so would eventually blow back to whoever launches it. So, useless. That makes sense. 2. Supposedly its molecular fingerprints point to an animal origin, I’ll take their word for it. There would be no reason to synthesize such a thing that I can think of. 3. Could it have been originally found in Nature, isolated, researched in a lab and then accidentally let loose? I’ve seen no expert opinions on that one, I guess it’s possible.
Was it stolen from Canada? China is as adept as stealing intel and tech as we are at allowing anyone/everyone to steal sensitive data. See: A.Q Khan. But this isn’t the sort of thing that would happen in China, you don’t have people eating every d-mn thing that walks crawls or flies. Plus a lab in Canada is going to be interested in it compared to the high-priority items that are already known. So, unlikely.
My thought: Previous similar virii have been of natural origin – Nature is much bigger than us, has been in business 1000000x longer and has gawd-knows-how-many virii circulating in animals and even plants. Handle enough live and recently killed wild animals of various types with nearly zero respect for modern hygene and you’ve just built a zoonotic disease lab: You. China has hundreds of such markets and millions of person/animal contacts, so when an animal-only disease mutates just a bit (virii do lots of that) it can jump to a nice warm human. Sooner or later it becomes able to replicate in said human and spread to another one. Then, Boom
TL:DR. China has both biolabs and bio-espionage, but this is almost certainly a product of Nature’s vast arsenal combined with unsanitary animal/human contact.
It appears I mangled that comment. I agree with PrincetonAl here; it’s probably natural, but we aren’t going to know everything with certainty.
Thanks.
“ Who are these experts? They’re largely the same sort of white men (and a couple women on the sidelines) who’ve dominated the Trump administration from the very beginning.”
Experts largely from CDC and other agencies who have been in their role over multiple administrations.
But screw the facts – it’s narrative time!
CNN places color before competence.
It is not just CNN, everyone should be judged solely, at every stage of their life, on their abilities and competence.
don lemon being exhibit 1.
Look, this is simply the latest media scare story. Less than a year ago, we were all going to die, if we weren’t vaccinated against measles. Before that it was SARS, Ebola, the Swine Flu, etc. The media lives to terrify their audience, so people will tune in.
So far, China is reporting that there is an approximate death rate of 2%. Now, one has to look at the difference in Chinese medical care and services and those in the US. The US has far better medical care than China. So, it reasonable to expect that the current corona virus will end up producing a death rate roughly equivalent to the common flu, in the USA. This is a nothing burger. Humanity has been getting sick for its entire history. People contract a viral disease, survive and develop immunity to that disease. A certain percentage die from the disease. But, most of these deaths, in the US, is confined to the very elderly and infirm, the very, very young and those with other dangerous health conditions. This is another medial hoax in the US.
Now the WHO should be very concerned about the current corona virus. As the medical care is almost non-existent in the 3rd world and very limited in the 2nd world countries. This could lead to a far higher death rate due to this virus, if it expands far enough.
Screw media, I mostly agree with you, but at the same time I think it is prudent to watch closely and take preventive measures so that I can deal with this if it goes south.
No problem. I say we put Kermit Gosnell as cnn’s one and only medical doctor for any diseases they contract including coronavirus.
Gosnell has plenty of diversity for them I’m sure.