Just hours after ACV Reports and other media outlets reported the coronavirus was beginning to look like over-hyped fear mongering, the Center for Disease Control walked back the statements of Dr. Nancy Messonnier from earlier in the week that were a likely catalyst for this week's 3,000-point drop on the New York Stock Exchange.
Meissonnier, the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director, had told the American public Tuesday to prepare for the worst and warned of an inevitable outbreak on U.S. soil.
ACV Reports Friday exposed the fact Messonnier is disgraced former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's sister, a fact that immediately raised questions over the hype surrounding COVID-19, the official name of the coronavirus infecting tens of thousands across the world. Many wonders if the virus is part of some Deep State alarmist hype aimed at damaging the economy and, at the same time, President Donald Trump.
Within hours of that report and others in various other media reporting the same information, Messonnier sang a different tune, downplaying the virus and asserting that the risk to the American public is contrary to media and public perception.
“The immediate risk to the general American public remains low,” Messonnier said during the conference call. “Our strategies have been largely successful. As a result, we have very few cases in the United States.”
Messonnier touted the CDC’s “aggressive containment strategy” along with a “border strategy” of screening incoming individuals as the key to keeping the coronavirus cases in the U.S. at low levels.
Interestingly, Messonnier said nothing about President Trump's order restricting travel from China and some of the rest of Southeast Asia. The travel restriction has been cited as being the the key to keeping the number affected by the virus so low in the U.S.
Only three cases of the 59 currently identified in the country cannot be traced to contact with one of the previously infected patients. It is likely that direct or indirect contact with someone infected with the virus are the source of their illnesses.
Friday, Messonnier it was revealed that two more U.S. citizens repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total to 44. Of the remaining 15, 12 individuals became infected after traveling to China, and three were infected in the U.S. through person-to-person spread.
Messonnier confirmed that two of the individuals infected from person-to-person transmission were spouses of individuals that became infected after traveling to China. The CDC and the California State Health Department have not been able to confirm the origin in which the third person was infected, calling it “unknown exposure in the community” which likely involved contact with an infected person.
Though the numbers of those infected in the U.S. remains low, reports arou9nd the world are not so encouraging. Croatia reported its first case earlier Saturday and six people have died who contracted the disease on board the Diamond Princess. The Trump Administration repatriated 44 U.S. citizens from the quarantined ship 10 days ago, and none of them have died.
Still, where the virus has spread outside of China, it has not been nearly as deadly has is in China. Even though South Korea has over 3,500 cases, only 17 have died, compared to 2,835 in China, where there have been a total of 79,257 cases. China has an almost ten-fold greater fatality rate than South Korea, the next-hardest-hit nation with reportable numbers.
In fact, worldwide, only 102 people outside of China have died among the 6,472 infections. Though, Iran is now reporting "tens of thousands" of cases with 43 dead, those numbers are considered by unreliable.
Where the CDC has now backed off panic mode, the World Health Organization continues to engage in fear-mongering with its media releases. It insists the worldwide risk from coronavirus is "very high" and is urging people to by face masks, hand sanitizer and change their travel and public interaction habits.
The numbers just don't support that kind of panic-inducing hype.
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