Sen. Rick Scott is asking the CDC to “take swift action” against a deadly cross-border outbreak of a new strain of the coronavirus, which started its human-to-human transmission in central China.
Florida's Republican U.S. @SenRickScott warns CDC director to not trust China to be truthful about outbreak of deadly coronavirus, and calls for high alert. https://t.co/Z5A8WKXtcb via @ScottFist #FlaPol pic.twitter.com/lmKw07heJv
— Florida Politics (@Fla_Pol) January 22, 2020
Scott sent CDC Director Robert Redfield a letter expressing his concern over the accuracy of the information that Chinese health officials have released since the cluster of respiratory infections was linked to animals at a market in Wuhan. There is no vaccine or specific treatment for the virus, which officials said has already spread to Washington State, Thailand, Japan, Macao and South Korea. Sen. Scott is asking the CDC for more information. “China is rarely forthcoming,” Scott wrote on Twitter.
Today, I’m urging the @CDCgov to take swift action to combat the threat of the #coronavirus & protect the health of Americans.
China is rarely forthcoming, & I'm extremely concerned about the outbreak, which has already infected hundreds, including at least one person in the US. pic.twitter.com/abhbHIODpV
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) January 22, 2020
The World Health Organization is holding off on declaring the coronavirus a global health emergency. The WHO held an emergency meeting yesterday in Switzerland and plans to meet again today on the matter and are closely monitoring the “public health event.” Scott also asked Redfield to release more information about the federal government’s public health measures against the virus in coordination with state and local health officials. China’s most recent release of information places the death toll at 17, and reports doctors are treating 544 cases. Virologists are concerned there could be more unreported cases since some of the people infected only show mild symptoms. According to the CDC’s Tuesday report, the coronavirus patient in the U.S. is a man in his 30s who had returned to Seattle from Wuhan and remained in isolation at the Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett. Chinese officials will start a quarantine in Wuhan on Thursday.