President Trump on Tuesday ruled out domestic travel restrictions because of the coronavirus but said additional foreign bans are being considered.
‘We are watching Italy very closely, South Korea very closely, even Japan very closely and we will make at the right determination at the right time,’ the president told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before he left for a briefing at NIH on the coronavirus.
But he dismissed a question on if there would be any domestic travel restrictions in the United States.
‘There’s only one hot spot and that is in a home, in a nursing home,’ he said, referring to the outbreak in Washington state that appeared to be linked to a nursing facility, the Life Care Center of Kirkland, where about 50 residents and workers have reported feeling ill.
Seven people have died of the illness in Washington state.
President Donald Trump ruled out domestic travel restrictions because of the coronavirus
A woman wears a face mask at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Vice President Mike Pence announced Monday that there would be, ‘within the next 12 hours, 100 per cent screening on all direct flights from across Italy and South Korea’ for signs of the coronavirus, which would consist of multiple temperature checks on passengers before they boarded.
The president also said the NCAA should do what it needs to do for crowd protection amid fears of an outbreak.
The NCAA March Madness basketball tournament begins in less than two weeks and the association is establishing contingency plans in case they are affected by the coronavirus.
‘If you can think of it, it’s something that we’ve gone through an analysis around,’ Donald Remy, the NCAA’s chief operating officer, told Bloomberg News. ‘We’ve contingency planned for all circumstances.’
Spokane, nearly 300 miles away from the nursing home in Washington state, is scheduled to host first- and second-round games in the tournament on March 19 and 21.
An advocacy group for college athletes suggested holding the tournament without an audience present, which the president said would be a ‘tough move.’
‘But let them do what they want to do,’ Trump said.
The president on Monday – who has held two campaign rallies in the past week – defended holding a gathering of thousands amid concerns about the spreading of the disease, saying it was ‘safe.’
Coronavirus is spread via people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet) or through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Trump pointed out the Democratic presidential candidates are also campaigning.
‘They’re all having rallies. That’s what they’re doing. They’re campaigning,’ he said.
‘I think it’s very safe,’ he said.
An increase in testing for the coronavirus began shedding light on how the illness has spread in the U.S. with newly confirmed cases in New York, Georgia, Florida and New Hampshire pushing the tally to more than 100 across 15 states.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said he expects community-related cases to grow in the coming weeks.
‘My concern is as the next week or two or three go by, we’re going to see a lot more community-related cases,’ he said. ‘That’s of great concern.’
Roughly a quarter of the 113 cases in the US have likely been transmitted through local communities and are not travel-related, according to health officials.
The coronavirus death toll in the US rose to six on Monday and there are now more than 100 confirmed cases across multiple states. Five of the six deaths – all of which occurred in Washington state – have been linked to a Seattle senior living facility (pictured above)
- Increase in testing for the coronavirus began shedding light on Monday on how the illness has spread in the United States
- Death toll has risen to seven and newly confirmed cases pushed the tally to more than 100 across 15 states
- The seventh death occurred in Washington state last week but test results were only confirmed on Tuesday
- Health officials expect to test more than one million people within the next week
- Georgia and New Hampshire have both reported its first cases with all being linked to recent travel to Italy
- New York announced its second confirmed case on Tuesday and Florida declared a public health emergency as it confirmed its first three cases
- Some schools across the country have closed for disinfection and officials in Washington state are buying a hotel to be used as a hospital for isolated patients
- Officials have said a vaccine may not be ready for at least a year, despite Trump pushing for one in the next few months
Despite this, the latest cases detected in both Georgia and New Hampshire on Monday – both firsts for each state – have been linked to travel in Italy. The two cases in Georgia involve people from the same Atlanta household, including a man who recently returned from Italy. The New Hampshire case involved a hospital worker who also recently returned from a trip to Italy.
New York announced on Tuesday its second confirmed case in a man in Westchester County. Florida also revealed it had detected its third case after a woman whose sister had previously been diagnosed was found to have contracted the disease.
The total number of cases in the US includes people who tested positive after returning from travel to outbreak areas in other parts of the world, their close contacts and infections that appear to be from community spread – people who did not travel or have known contact with other infected people.
Dr Fauci said community spread made it almost impossible to predict how many cases there will be.
‘The very fact that you have community spread… the source of these infections are not entirely known. People are cropping up with infections and you can’t trace where they got it,’ Dr Fauci said.
State and local authorities have been stepping up testing for the illness following a debacle with faulty kits from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that officials say delayed results.
In response to the faulty tests, the Food and Drug Administration over the weekend allowed state and local labs to develop their own tests for coronavirus.
It will see an increase in tests being carried out, according to FDA Commissioner Dr Stephen Hahn, who said he expects more than 1 million people to be tested within the next week.
The CDC recently broadened its guidelines for who should be tested for the new virus to include people with symptoms but without a travel history to virus hot zones.
More testing will bring more confirmed cases, experts said, but they cautioned that does not mean the virus is gaining speed. Instead, the testing is likely to reveal a picture of the virus’ spread that was previously invisible.
It comes after Dr Fauci told NBC News that the disease had likely reached ‘pandemic proportions’.
‘We’re dealing with an evolving situation. We’re dealing with clearly an emerging infectious disease that has now reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic proportions,’ Dr Fauci said. ‘If you look at, you know, by multiple definitions of what a pandemic is, the fact is this is multiple sustained transmissions of a highly infectious agent in multiple regions of the globe.
‘When you have a brand new virus, in which no one has had any experience before, that kind of gives the virus an open roadway to spread.
‘If you look at the people who have just come to the attention of the health authorities, that’s 2 to 2.5 percent… But even if it goes down to 1 percent, that’s still very, very serious.’