Who Coronavirus
who coronavirus, SOME HUMAN CORONAVIRUSES CAN LIVE ON SURFACES FOR 9 DAYS, STUDY FINDS Protect our older Americans Some of the highest fatality rates of SARS-2 now occur among individuals over the age of 60 and those with underlying chronic conditions such as diabetes or hypertension. When the first SARS virus hit China in 2003, there was a serious outbreak with deaths in a Hong Kong nursing facility. We should anticipate this possibility. CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER Get vaccinated! I have highlighted previously how if SARS-2 becomes a significant public health problem in the US in the coming weeks, it will coincide with our influenza epidemic, which has been especially severe this year and might last until late in the spring. In addition, measles could return in 2020 just as it did in 2019. Back when measles occurred regularly in the U.S., it often peaked in late winter and early spring. We simply cannot ask our healthcare workers and state and local public health agencies to fight a triple epidemic of SARS-2, measles, and influenza over the coming weeks. It is therefore imperative that Americans get their families vaccinated against flu and measles.
who coronavirus - State and local health agencies If SARS-2 transmission becomes significant, many Americans believe the CDC will lead our nation’s response locally. The truth is that the CDC typically takes on an important advisory role, so that it would most likely fall to state and local public health departments to respond and manage these outbreaks. We have some outstanding state, county, city and local health departments, for instance our Harris County and Houston city health departments where I live and work. But we learned during the 2016 Zika outbreaks in Texas and Florida, that there can be tremendous variability in the staffing and expertise among different county and local health departments. Therefore, we’ll need to be ready to assist health departments lacking depth and breadth in their capacity for managing serious infectious disease epidemics.
who coronavirus, CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Should President Trump appoint a “SARS Czar?” The President has put in place an outstanding team through our Department of Health and Human Service (DHHS) to fight this epidemic. I’ve met DHHS Secretary Azar previously and find him to be smart, committed and pragmatic. He has assembled an outstanding team of top public health physicians, including Drs. Robert Redfield and Nancy Messonnier at CDC. Previously, I also worked closely with Assistant Secretary of Health Brett Giroir when he led then-Governor Perry’s infectious disease task force to combat Ebola virus infection after it appeared in Dallas, Texas. And of course, Dr. Anthony Fauci is still at the helm at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The point is that this is an “A-team” and Americans should feel very good about its ability to respond to SARS-2. However, we have also seen how serious and widespread epidemics can sometimes require the help of agencies outside of the health sector. The most obvious example occurred in 2014 when Ebola virus infection was decimating the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leon. We ultimately needed to send in the 101st Army Airborne Division -- the “Screaming Eagles” -- to lead Operation United Assistance in order to provide a working health system to administer care and treatment. In addition, Ron Klain was appointed as “Ebola Czar” because of the complexity of our Ebola response, which involved numerous agencies of the federal government. He did an excellent job, and if SARS-2 becomes a significant public health threat in the U.S., our nation may require a similar coordinator to navigate activities across multiple federal agencies.
who coronavirus - New Technologies Finally, we are going to require improved biotechnologies to fight this epidemic. One of the problems faced by Chinese physicians was the lack of a sensitive and point-of-care diagnostic that could detect this virus in the early course of a patient’s illness. We’ll need such a diagnostic in order to give our nation’s healthcare workers the best chance to make good decisions on which patients require isolation during clinic visits or visits to hospital emergency rooms. We’ll need new antiviral drugs for severely ill patients, and we’ll need preventive vaccines, such as the ones we’re developing through support from the NIAID, NIH and other agencies. Through both the NIH and the creation of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), we have a running start on shaping these technologies. The U.S. hosts the finest research universities and institutes the world has ever seen, and I’m confident they will be up to the daunting task of accelerating new SARS-2 diagnostics, drugs and vaccines.
who coronavirus - The coronavirus outbreak postpones government operations, closes schools and prompts more travel restrictions; Jonathan Serrie has the latest. Health officials stressed on Monday that while Iran and Italy have reported a surge in coronavirus cases over the last several days and raced to cancel public events, the outbreak, which originated in China, has not yet met the criteria for a pandemic, although it “absolutely” has the potential to get there. “Using the term pandemic now, it doesn’t fit the facts, but it may cause fear,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press conference on Monday. “Now is not the time to focus on what word we use – it will not prevent a single infection or save a single life.”