US health authorities warn on coronavirus spread

A new assessment from US health authorities predicting a wider spread of the coronavirus across America helped send Wall Street tumbling again.

US federal health authorities say they now expect a wider spread of the new coronavirus in the US and are preparing for a potential pandemic, though they still are unsure about how severe the health threat could be.

Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Tuesday the agency expects a sustained spread and called for businesses, schools and communities to brace themselves for potential outbreaks.

“We expect we will see community spread in this country,” said Dr Messonnier. “It’s more of a question of when.” In the US, there have been 14 confirmed locally diagnosed cases, with an additional three cases among Americans who returned from China aboard US-chartered flights and 40 from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Asia.

So far, US public-health systems have sought to contain the virus by isolating confirmed cases while monitoring close contacts of the patients for signs of infection. This strategy is most effective when the case count is relatively low and each case can be epidemiologically linked to each other and traced back to an original source, public-health authorities say.

That is the current situation, since the confirmed US cases are among people who either recently travelled to China, were a close contact of an infected person or were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

But if the virus spreads more widely in the US, it might become difficult or impossible to contain it with the current methods, experts say. Instead, the efforts would shift to strategies such as closing schools, cancelling mass gatherings and requiring employees to work from home.

The revised outlook for the helped send US sharemarkets tumbling for the second day this week. Stocks recorded one of their biggest back-to-back losses on Tuesday as the COVID-19 outbreak rattled investors that fear the impact of the virus is spreading rapidly outside of China. The S&P 500 slid 3 per cent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 879 points, or 3.1 per cent, booking its biggest two-day point drop in history, after falling 1031.61 points on Monday. Meanwhile the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite retreated 2.8 per cent. More analysts now projecting a first-quarter economic hit to the US, as companies warn that disrupted supply chains and shrinking consumer demand in China could weigh on their profits and ability to deliver goods.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar speaks about the coronavirus at the Department of Health and Human Services headquarters in Washington DC

“The disruption of daily life might be severe,” Dr. Messonnier said. Meantime, the Trump administration’s response to the virus was challenged Tuesday in Congress.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who heads the US coronavirus taskforce, was questioned about whether his agency is doing enough, especially in light of its request for $US2.5 billion in emergency funding — less than what was granted to fight earlier threats of pandemics.

“It seems to me at the outset that this request for the money … is lowballing it,” said Senator Richard Shelby, the committee’s chairman. “You can’t afford to do that.” Democrats at the hearing pushed back on recent upbeat assurances about the virus by President Trump on Twitter. “We are disregarding scientific evidence and relying on tweets,” said Senator Patty Murray. “I’m deeply concerned we are way behind the eight ball on this.” Mr Trump this month said the coronavirus could go away with warm weather. But the CDC’s Dr Messonnier said in a February 12 media call that she would caution “overinterpreting that hypothesis.” Mr Azar said his agency is requesting what funding it needs, adding the administration will work with traditional public health tools to mitigate a sustained spread if it occurs and praising the president’s approach.

Health authorities have tested 426 people in the US for the virus, not including those who have been repatriated. But many state and local health departments lack the test kits they need to rapidly diagnose coronavirus infections because federal health authorities are still working out kinks in the testing.

Fears about the impact of the coronavirus have sent US markets tumbling this week. Picture: AFP

The limited availability of the tests could hamstring local efforts to handle the anticipated rise in the number of US cases, public-health and hospital officials said.

Testing for the virus has been relatively slow because most local health officials must ship patient samples to the CDC in Atlanta and isolate these patients while waiting for the results. That can take days. To speed up diagnoses, the CDC wants to send test kits to state and local health departments.

But the rollout stalled earlier this month after the kits produced inconclusive results during verification testing at state and local health departments.

“We still do not know when the CDC kit replacements will come out, and our members are pretty anxious about it,” said Scott Becker, chief executive officer of the Association of Public Health Laboratories. “It doesn’t feel like a good place to be.” The CDC said it is working to remanufacture the reagent, the substance used in a chemical reaction in the tests, that is suspected to be at fault for the inconclusive results. Once that is done it will send out replacements.

Twelve states and localities are now testing for the virus themselves. The CDC also said it hopes commercial tests might be available soon to augment the ability of local health departments and hospitals to do their own testing beyond using the CDC test.

Tests are needed, especially if cases expand, because the symptoms of the coronavirus, such as a fever and a dry cough, are similar to those of the flu and other viral infections, said David Weber, medical director at the University of North Carolina Hospitals’ Departments of Hospital Epidemiology.

A delay in testing adds to the burdens of hospitals that need to keep patients while they wait for the results.

“US hospitals are not set up to have a huge number of extra beds that are just sitting vacant, including those with quarantine capacity,” said Michael Mina, an associate medical director in clinical microbiology and pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The Wall Street Journal