02/25/2020 - 16:50
- Clarín.com
- World
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States said Tuesday that the COVID-19 coronavirus will spread throughout the country and that families should prepare for a loss of income and changes in daily life.
"It's not about whether the coronavirus will spread throughout the United States, but when and how many people will have a serious illness ," Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, of the CDC said in a teleconference.
The latest official figures suggest that there are 53 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the United States, of which 36 correspond to passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was anchored in Japan and were repatriated last week.
Meanwhile, China, the epicenter of the disease, already accounts for more than 77,000 cases and more than 2,600 deaths, while the number of infections and deaths continues to grow in other countries such as South Korea, Iran and Italy.
The more than 80,000 cases globally led the World Health Organization (WHO) to warn countries to prepare for a potential pandemic.
The CDC agreed that the disease is expanding and evolving rapidly, so it is inevitable that it will spread throughout the country, and urged US families. to prepare for a possible loss of economic income.
In addition, they recommended making plans because the foreseeable spread of the COVID-19 virus through the country means a significant disruption of daily life due, for example, to the closure of schools and kindergartens .
Messonnier explained to reporters that she herself had sat down this morning with her family to talk about prevention measures and how to be prepared in case educational centers are closed.
To try to alleviate this situation, the Medical Center of the University of Nebraska (UNMC) in Omaha, initiated a clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of an antiviral in hospitalized adults after being diagnosed with COVID-19, the Institutes reported Tuesday National Health.
The first patient of this first clinical trial in the United States is a patient who was repatriated after being quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise and volunteered to participate in the study.
Of the total cases of coronavirus in the US, in addition to the 36 that were on board the Diamond Princess, another 3 were also repatriated but in this case from the Chinese province of Wuhan, epicenter of this epidemic.
The remaining 14 cases correspond to people diagnosed on American soil , eight of whom identified in California and two in Illinois. Massachusetts, Arizona, Wisconsin and the state of Washington have a case each.
Among the cases located in the US Two cases of local infections were diagnosed, one in California and one in Illinois.