US officials prepare for a coronavirus pandemic

US officials prepare for a coronavirus pandemic

But that doesn’t mean a pandemic is guaranteed or even likely.

As the coronavirus epidemic worsens in China and the virus trickles beyond the country’s borders, U.S. officials are taking precautions, just in case the virus becomes “the next pandemic.”

As a result, 195 Americans who were flown from Wuhan to the U.S. will be quarantined for 14 days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced today (Jan. 31) during a news conference. The last time the CDC ordered such a quarantine was over 50 years ago, for smallpox.

“While we recognize this is an unprecedented action, we are facing an unprecedented public health threat,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases said during the news conference. “We are preparing as if this were the next pandemic, but we’re hopeful still that this is not and will not be the case.”

The passengers will be held at a U.S. air base in Ontario, California, where medical staff will monitor their health, for two weeks Messonnier said. All of the passengers have so far tested negative for the virus — but a negative initial screening test does not guarantee that these people won’t later get sick, she said.

“The issue is that we don’t know the sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value of that test when we’re using it in people who aren’t yet sick,” she said. In other words, the tests might not be sensitive enough to detect the lower levels of virus that would be present in people who are infected but aren’t yet showing symptoms.

Meanwhile, the magnitude of the epidemic in China is increasing, with a 26% increase in infections since yesterday alone, Messonnier said. There are now nearly 213 deaths associated with the virus and 10,000 infections, mostly on mainland China.

It’s still unclear how severe the disease is but “the information that’s coming in from China suggests that there is significant mortality associated with this disease,” Messonnier said. That being said, it’s difficult to calculate the disease severity,  especially because more severe cases tend to be reported first, which throws off calculations, she added.

But it’s increasingly clear that the virus is capable of spreading between people. Yesterday, the CDC announced the first case of person-to-person spread in the U.S., between an Illinois resident who had traveled to Wuhan and her husband.

What’s more, scientists found that the virus can spread even when an infected person doesn’t yet have symptoms. A 33-year-old, otherwise healthy German businessman was infected with the virus when met with a business partner from China, and the virus hopped from him to his colleagues in Germany before he showed any symptoms, according to a new case report published today (Jan. 31) in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Yesterday, the World Health Organization announced that the new coronavirus outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern and the U.S. put a “level 4” travel advisory in place — the most extreme level that recommends not traveling to China at all. Three major airlines — United, American and Delta — announced today that they were canceling all flights to China.

“We would rather be remembered for overreacting than under reacting,” Messonnier said. But she noted that the virus is not spreading around the U.S. and they don’t currently recommend the use of face masks for the general American public.

“Please do not let fear or panic guide your actions,” Messonnier said. There are about 4 million Chinese Americans living in the U.S. so “please do not assume that just because someone is of Asian descent that they have this new coronavirus.”

Source:https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468

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