“It’s Coming”: CDC Director Warns Coronavirus To Become Widespread Throughout United States, ‘Probably Beyond 2020’
The extremely virulent coronavirus which is sweeping through China’s Hubei province like wildfire will eventually gain a foothold in the United States – becoming a ‘community virus’ this year or next, according to CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield.
“We don’t know a lot about this virus,” Redfield told CNN‘s Dr. Sanjay Gupta. “This virus is probably with us beyond this season, beyond this year, and I think eventually the virus will find a foothold and we will get community-based transmission.”
“Right now we’re in an aggressive containment mode,” said Redfield.
As of Thursday, 15 cases have been confirmed in seven states; eight in California, two in Illinois and one in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Texas, according to CNN.
Community virus
Redfield says that while more research is needed, the CDC is focused on containment strategies to isolate and slow the progression of the novel coronavirus, buying time to develop a vaccine and antiviral drugs.
“The containment phase is really to give us more time. This virus will become a community virus at some point in time, this year or next year,” said Redfield. “We don’t have any evidence that this coronavirus is really embedded in the community at this time, but with that said, we want to intensify our surveillance so that we’re basing those conclusions based on data.”
The containment strategy refers to efforts to prevent widespread transmission of the coronavirus in the United States, including having people with confirmed cases stay in isolation and placing restrictions on travel between affected areas in the world. Such containment measures were used widely during the SARS global outbreak of 2003, during which 8,098 people worldwide became sick and of those, 774 died, according to the CDC. –CNN
Controversial travel restrictions
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