Coronavirus Update: Death Toll Increases, U.S. Government Takes Action

 

The novel coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19 continues to spread and has now been diagnosed in more than 50 countries. There are more than 83,000 confirmed cases, most in mainland China, although the fastest-growing areas of the outbreak are now South Korea, Italy and Iran. The death toll is now higher than 2,850 people. Most recently the first case was confirmed in Nigeria, the first case in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the U.S., at least 60 people are being treated for COVID-19 as of yesterday, most recently returning from Asia. One case, a woman in California, is believed to be the first “community spread” case in the country, meaning she acquired it from in the U.S., not having recently traveled to Asia.

The Trump Administration, after offering plenty of misinformation about the coronavirus, appointed Vice President Mike Pence to lead the coronavirus response. This was a somewhat controversial decision, given Pence’s fumbled attempts at handling HIV outbreaks in Indiana when he was governor, as well as his noted anti-science stances on the environment, smoking and HIV.

In an action that was met mostly with praise, Pence put Ambassador Debbie Birx in charge of the activities. Birx has acted as the U.S. government’s leader for combating HIV/AIDS globally on behalf of the U.S. State Department. A State Department ambassador-at-large, Birx directed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s global HIV/AIDS division before she took on the ambassador role in 2014.  The only real criticism of Birx’s appointment is it adds yet another layer of top responders.

Pence is also charged with controlling all messaging from the federal government concerning the coronavirus outbreak. This has tended to be viewed as the Trump Administration gagging the voices of notable experts, such as Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Their statements have contradicted President Trump’s or Steven Mnuchin’s, Secretary of the Treasury.

Ned Price, a National Security Council aide under the Obama Administration, tweeted yesterday, “During the Ebola outbreak, we couldn’t get enough of @NIH’s Dr. Fauci because no one knew more or could deliver it with more authority or experience. Muzzling Dr. Fauci is an effort to muzzle fact and science when it’s needed most.”

Ronald Klain, who led Obama’s 2014 Ebola response, stated, “Presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama trusted Tony Fauci to be their top adviser on infectious disease, and the nation’s most trusted communicator to the public. If Trump is changing that, it is a threat to public health and safety.”

Meanwhile, CNN’s health and science correspondent and physician Sanjay Gupta did some fact-checking on President Trump’s recent press conference about the coronavirus, delicately pointing out that the president did not seem to understand influenza or the coronavirus, misstating the coronavirus’s lethality rate by a factor of 20.

“First of all, the president earlier was talking about the similarities between this coronavirus and the flu and how it spreads. There are similarities there, these are both very contagious pathogens. We have been talking about how flu kills tens of thousands of people each year, and apparently he [Trump] did not know that until right before this briefing, he was told this by Dr. Fauci ahead of time. Then in the midst of our exchange, all of a sudden, he said flu mortality rates are higher than coronavirus. I don’t know why he said that, where he got that. It’s not true.”

Gupta went on to say, “Here’s the concern: if you have two transmissible pathogens, flu and coronavirus, both are pretty transmissible, flu mortality rates are about 0.1%, so 0.1% of people who get an infection with the flu will die of it. With coronavirus, so far, studies show the number is close to 2%. That’s a 20-fold difference. So, if you have the same transmissibility but one is 20-times more lethal, it is clear why public health officials are concerned about this. I was a little worried. In an effort to assure people, I’m not sure the president understood that particular point, at least in our exchange.”