With no new virus hotspots, debate rages on when to reopen

BANGKOK (AP) — A lack of new hotspots in the coronavirus pandemic appeared to be holding Tuesday, fueling a debate about how soon authorities could start scaling back social restrictions and reopen economies.

While concerns remained over the virus’ fresh spread in places like Japan and Indonesia, nowhere was currently undergoing the explosion in hospitalizations and deaths that were seen earlier in China, southern Europe and parts of the United States.

Even in New York — where deaths passed 10,000 on Monday — Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared the “worst is over if we can continue to be smart.”

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“I believe we can now start on the path to normalcy,” he said.

The number of people hospitalized with the virus in New York has almost flattened at just under 19,000, once discharges and deaths are taken into account. That’s a relief after weeks of increases raised fears New York City hospitals would be overwhelmed.

Dr. Sebastian Johnston, a professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, said it appeared that COVID-19 illnesses had peaked in much of Europe, including France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Britain.

While the death toll in Britain climbed past 11,300, the 717 deaths reported were the third daily decline in row, though it was unclear if that might in part be because of delays in reporting over the Easter holiday.

With social distancing and lockdowns in place across a large portion of the world, grim projections that the virus that would spread with equal ferocity to other corners the world have yet to materialize. But questions remain about what could happen once those measures are eased.

Health authorities have warned that easing up too soon could undo the hard-earned progress and lead to new outbreaks.

Still, there were signs countries were looking in that direction. Spain permitted some workers to return to their jobs, while a hard-hit region of Italy loosened its lockdown restrictions.

Governors on both coasts of the U.S. announced that they would join forces to come up with a coordinated reopening at some point, setting the stage for potential conflict with President Donald Trump, who asserted that he is the ultimate decision-maker for determining how and when to reopen.

Trump continued those assertions during an afternoon White House briefing, pushing back against reporters’ questions about whether the president or governors have the authority to ease the restrictions. He said “the federal government has absolute power” in that decision-making process if it chooses to exercise it.

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The Constitution largely gives states the authority to regulate their own affairs.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would announce a detailed plan Tuesday for lifting virus restrictions. He cautioned people can expect an “incremental release of the stay-at-home orders” that will use “science to guide our decision-making and not political pressure.”

In some European countries, officials pointed to positive signs as they began prepping for the reopening of largely shuttered economies and industries.

Italy’s day-to-day increase in infections was one of the lowest in weeks, bolstering a generally downward trend. Slightly eased restrictions were about to take effect in some sectors of the country, such as allowing stores selling necessities for newborns to reopen.

In hard-hit Spain, workers were permitted to return to some factory and construction jobs as the government looked to restart manufacturing. Retail stores and services were still required to stay closed, and the government required office workers to keep working from home.

Some health experts and politicians argue that it’s premature to ease the lockdown in a nation that has suffered more than 17,750 deaths and reported more than 170,000 infections, second only to the United States’ more than 582,000 cases.

Health Minister Salvador Illa said he would proceed with “the utmost caution and prudence ... and always based on scientific evidence.”

Johnston, the Imperial College professor, said he worried the virus might take off across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. He also expressed concern about Russia.

The infection rate remains relatively low in areas of the developing world that have poor or nonexistent health care infrastructure. The rapid spread of the coronavirus beyond cities to more rural areas often depends on travel and social connections, said Dr. Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief.

But he noted that rural areas often have less sophisticated health surveillance systems to pick up potential disease clusters, prompting the question, “Is it that it’s not there, or is it that we’re not detecting the disease when it is there?”

Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, has seen a worrying increase in cases in the past few weeks even though it has conducted fewer than 30,000 tests among its 270 million people. It has confirmed 4,557 cases with 399 deaths, the highest number of recorded fatalities in Asia after China.

After weeks of delays, the capital, Jakarta, finally put in place legally enforceable social distancing regulations last Friday. President Joko Widodo, meanwhile, pledged to be more transparent after admitting he deliberately withheld some information on COVID-19 cases to prevent panic.

Japan, with the world’s oldest population, has also seen a worrying growth in cases since the decision was made to postpone this summer’s Tokyo Olympics until next year. It reported another 390 new cases Tuesday.

And tiny Singapore, which had been lauded for its early success in containing the virus, reported its biggest daily jump in new coronavirus infections Tuesday, most of them linked to foreign workers living in crowded dormitories.

More than 200,000 migrant workers live in 43 registered dormitories that house up to 20 men per room, with shared toilets, cooking and other facilities.

More than 1.9 million infections have been reported and over 119,000 people have died worldwide, according to count kept by Johns Hopkins University. The figures certainly understate the true size and toll of the pandemic, due to limited testing, uneven counting of the dead and some governments’ desire to play down the extent of outbreaks.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older people and the infirm, it can cause severe symptoms and lead to death.

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Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

Taiwan releases December email to WHO showing unheeded warning about coronavirus

The World Health Organization (WHO) is under fire after Taiwan released the contents of a December email inquiring about the person to person spread of COVID-19, saying it was instead ignored by WHO and denied adequate information to fight the virus.
Taiwan is accusing WHO of downplaying the severity and spread of the coronavirus in an attempt to pander to China even after Taiwan sounded the alarm about at least seven cases of atypical pneumonia that they were aware of in Wuhan where the virus originated.
When asked about the cases by the media, Taiwan said China's health authorities said "the cases were believed not SARS; however samples are still under examination, and cases have been isolated for treatment," according to the contents of an email sent by Taiwan's Center for Disease Control and Prevention to the WHO on Dec. 31.
"I would greatly appreciate it if you have relevant information to share with us," the email said.
Taiwan is located about 80 miles off China's coast but has declared itself an independent nation for over 70 years. China, however, has refused to acknowledge Taiwan's sovereignty and consistently fights to bring them back under Beijing's control.
As a result, China has successfully persuaded WHO to exclude Taiwan from the organization.
WHO denied that Taiwan ever alerted them to the potential person-to-person spread of the virus, but Taiwan's CDC said that because they specifically mentioned "atypical pneumonia"-- reminiscent of SARS, which is transmitted between human contact-- "public health professionals could discern from this wording that there was a real possibility of human-to-human transmission of the disease," they said in a press release.
"However, because at the time there were as yet no cases of the disease in Taiwan, we could not state directly and conclusively that there had been human-to-human transmission," Taiwan's CDC said.
Taiwan said that the WHO and the Chinese CDC both refused to provide adequate information that could have potentially prepared the government for the impact of the virus sooner.
WHO ignored warnings from Taiwan and continued to reiterate China's false talking points -- that "there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission" of the novel pathogen even as late as Jan 14.
In addition, the WHO failed to mandate that Chinese officials share the viral strains that would have allowed diagnostic tests to have been produced significantly earlier worldwide.
Tensions between Taiwan and the WHO have caused President Trump to consider pulling funding from the U.N. agency, which receives the bulk of its money from U.S taxpayers' dollars.
Trump said Monday during the White House's coronavirus task force briefing that he expects to reach a decision by the end of the week -- days after he vowed that his administration would be "looking into" WHO's operations.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has accused the U.S. of "politicizing" its handling of the virus and said that doing so would result in "more body bags."
Currently, the coronavirus pandemic has killed 118,854 people in the world and infected over 2 million others.
Fox News' Rich Edson contributed to this report.

Stock futures rise ahead of bank earnings

U.S. equity futures are pointing to a higher open as the nation's biggest banks kickoff earnings season.
The major futures indexes are indicating a rise of 1.2 percent or about 270 Dow points when trading begins on Tuesday.
Wall Street began the week with the S&P 500 losing 1 percent after cutting early losses by more than half toward the end of the day. The benchmark index surged 12 percent last week, its best gain since 1974.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
I:DJI	DOW JONES AVERAGES	23390.77	-328.60	-1.39%
SP500	S&P 500	2761.63	-28.19	-1.01%
I:COMP	NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX	8192.42471	+38.85	+0.48%

The S&P lost 28.19 points to 2,761.63. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.4 percent. The Nasdaq rose 0.5 percent.
China's exports fell 6.6 percent in March from a year earlier, while imports shrank 0.9 percent, a better than expected outcome as factories restarted production, though the global coronavirus health crisis looks set to keep trade under pressure over coming months.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 added 3.1 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.6 percent and China's Shanghai Composite added 1.6 percent.
In Europe, London's FTSE slipped 0.5 percent, Germany's DAX gained 1 percent and France's CAC added 0.3 percent.
This week, stocks could be in for more volatility as companies report results for the first quarter, though analysts will be focused primarily on what management teams have to say about what the rest of the year looks like.
JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo will report quarterly earnings on Monday.
Analysts predict that earnings for all the companies in the S&P 500 will be down 9 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to FactSet. That would be the biggest annual decline in earnings for the index since the third quarter of 2009 when earnings slumped nearly 16 percent.
The closure of businesses and mandates for people to stay home to combat the coronavirus pandemic have forced a record number of Americans out of work and raised the possibility that many businesses could end up bankrupt. That has many investors anticipating what may be the worst recession since the Great Depression.
There are more than 1.86 million confirmed cases worldwide, led by the United States with more than 557,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
U.S. benchmark crude slipped 45 cents to $21.95 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent, the international standard, fell 36 cents to $31.38 a barrel.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Trump talks about reopening US amid coronavirus fight after virus takes toll on economy, way of life

A few weeks ago, President Trump took to Twitter and—in all caps—wrote, “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.”
The president was apparently referring to the dramatic steps that the U.S. and other countries around the world were taking to defend their citizens against the new coronavirus.
The pandemic was unfamiliar territory for federal, state and local governments. U.S. officials relied on data from epidemiologists to prevent the country from spiraling into a more severe health crisis. A famous saying in the early days of the crackdown was: better to overreact than to underreact.
But after weeks of adhering to strict social distancing guidelines that were praised by health experts, the country is experiencing some dramatic side effects. The economy has ground to a halt and some Americans claim that their civil liberties were another casualty of the disease.
Trump told a White House press briefing Monday that he has “total” authority on when to reopen the U.S. and said he believes that the economy will "boom" once he gives it the green light.
He said he has a new task force that will be focused solely on that task. He said that he has been holding discussions with senior aides on how to roll back federal social distancing recommendations that are set to expire at the end of the month. He stressed that he wants Americans to be “very, very safe.”
Health officials are still learning about the coronavirus’ transmission and — since its early days in the U.S. — have stressed that the most effective way to protect yourself from the virus is to practice social distancing and proper hygiene, like frequent handwashing.
Until there is herd immunity, a cure or a vaccine, the threat to the public will likely remain.
Little has changed from the federal government’s 100-page response plan last month that warned that the coronavirus will last for “18 months or longer,” according to the New York Times.
“It’s not going to be a light switch that we say, ‘OK, it is now June, July, or whatever, click, the light switch goes back on. It’s going to be depending where you are in the country, the nature of the outbreak that you already experienced and the threat of an outbreak that you may not have experienced,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN on Sunday.
Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis told CBS Thursday that, at best, the U.S. is looking at a mild recession, like in the aftermath of 9/11.
“If this is a three-month shutdown, we’ll find the bottom pretty soon,” he said. “If this is a year-long shutdown, this could be very damaging to the U.S. economy, and most importantly, to the American people.”
Trump has said that the health of Americans is always at the center of his policy decisions. As of early Tuesday, Johns Hopkins reported that there were 582,607 official cases in the U.S. and 23,000 deaths.
George Lowenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, told MarketWatch that it might be a “false dichotomy” to make the choice between human lives and the economy.
He said it is unclear what the long-term impact a severe depression would have on human life.
“It will dramatically decrease the quality of human life, and it will certainly kill people as well,” he said. He continued, “We’ve already had unprecedented levels of deaths of despair, and, if we lose a generation as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, that’s going to have mortality consequences.”
Trump signed a $2 trillion stimulus last month to help prop up small businesses and families across the  U.S. It was reported Monday that the $1,200 checks for qualifying Americans will be sent out this week.  Nearly 17 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits since mid-March and the Wall Street Journal reported that the numbers are expected to keep worsening.
“We clearly are still processing individuals who are having a hard time getting claims through at the state level in addition to the large numbers of layoffs that corporate America is now doing,” Joseph Brusuelas, the chief economist for RSM US LLP, told the Journal. He said he would not be surprised to see the unemployment rate up to 20 percent, which rivals Great Depression numbers.
John Yoo, a University of California at Berkeley law school professor, recently told the Federalist Society in a phone call that there are clear limits on what the president and federal government can enact when it comes “to domestic affairs.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said “the government doesn’t get opened up via Twitter. It gets opened up at the state level.”
Trump himself has said that state governors should lead the response and for good reason. States like Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana all have under 750 cases. New York, on the other hand, has nearly 200,000 cases.
The Smithfield pork-producing plant in Sioux Falls was closed after hundreds of its employees tested positive for the virus, raising concerns that the country could be headed to meat supply issues.
"It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running," Kenneth Sullivan, the company's CEO, said.
Six governors from states in the Northeast have formed a joint reopening task force after signs that the curve is flattening. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the New York Democrat who is part of the task force, said that the economy will have to be slowly reopened.
“If you see [infections start rising] then you know you’ve opened the valve too fast,” he said.
Besides the country’s health and economy,  another concern for some Americans was how quickly individual liberties were sacrificed during statewide orders. Americans were told to stay indoors and state governments were tasked to determine which businesses were “essential” and which were “nonessential.”
Pastors in some Southern states have found themselves on the wrong side of the law for allegedly breaking social distancing guidelines and holding public services. Some of these pastors questioned how a grocery store could be considered “essential” and a church “nonessential.”
Yoo, the Berkeley law professor, and Harmeet K. Dhillon, a lawyer, and Republican Party official, co-authored a column for the Hoover Institution that said under the Constitution’s system of federalism, “the authority to lift the quarantine orders lies in the same people who issued them in the first place: the state governors.”
“Our state officials should explain whether they could have implemented other policies that could have reduced the spread of the disease without incurring such massive economic destruction,” they wrote.
“Was any consideration given to the human health effects of the mandatory stay-at-home order, including exacerbation of mental health issues such as depression and anxiety; a predicted increase in domestic violence; suicides by business owners facing debt and ruin? We simply don’t know."
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Communist China Cartoons

Countries facing pressure to loosen virus restrictions

TOKYO (AP) — South Korean officials warned Monday that hard-earned progress fighting the coronavirus pandemic could be upset by new infections at bars and leisure spots, highlighting global tensions between governments desperate to maintain social distancing and citizens eager to resume their lives as economic pressure mounts and infections slow in some places.

Some European nations have started tentative moves to ease their shutdowns. Hard-hit Spain, which on Sunday reported its lowest daily growth in infections in three weeks, will allow workers in some nonessential industries to return to factories and construction sites Monday.

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South Korea’s caseload has slowed from early March, when it was reporting around 500 new cases a day, but officials have warned of a broader “quiet spread,” pointing to transmissions at locations such as bars that may indicate eased attitudes toward social distancing.

South Korean Prime Minster Chung Sye-kyun said officials were discussing new public guidelines that would allow for people to engage in “certain levels of economic and social activity” while also maintaining distance to slow the spread of the virus.

Social distancing was still on full display for Easter Sunday celebrations around the globe, with many Christians marking the day isolated in their homes while pastors preached to empty pews. St. Peter’s Square was barricaded to keep out crowds, while one Florida church drew a large turnout for a drive-in service in a parking lot.

Pope Francis called for global solidarity to confront the “epochal challenge” of the pandemic. He urged political leaders to give hope and opportunity to the millions laid off from work.

President Donald Trump in his Easter message paid tribute to the medical professionals, first responders and other essential workers striving to combat the pandemic. Back on March 24, Trump had broached the possibility that the U.S. could emerge from widespread lockdowns by this weekend.

“I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” he said.

Instead them U.S. is new epicenter of the pandemic, with more than half a million cases and more than 22,000 deaths, the world’s highest. About half the U.S. deaths have been in the New York metropolitan area, but hospitalizations are slowing in the state and other indicators suggest that lockdowns and social distancing are “flattening the curve” of infections.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said the economy in parts of the country could gradually reopen as early as next month.

The Italian government said weekend police patrols resulted in more than 12,500 people being sanctioned and 150 facing criminal charges of violating lockdown measures. On the hopeful side, officials said Italy recorded the lowest number of virus deaths in three weeks, with 431 people dying in the past day to bring its total to over 19,800.

But while attention has focused on the U.S. and Southern Europe, new coronavirus hot spots have been emerging in Japan, Turkey and Britain, where the death toll passed 10,000.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the first major world leader to test positive for the virus, paid an emotional tribute to the country’s National Health Service following his release from the hospital, saying its doctors and nurses had saved his life “no question.” He especially thanked two nurses who stood by his bedside for 48 hours “when things could have gone either way.”

Japan, the world’s third-biggest economy, has seen its number of new cases climb rapidly in recent days and now has 7,255 confirmed cases of the virus.

Japanese companies have been slow to switch to remote-working and people are still commuting, even after a state of emergency declaration for seven prefectures, including Tokyo.

In an effort to encourage citizens to stay at home, the government released a one-minute video showing Abe cuddling his dog, reading a book, sipping from a cup and clicking a remote control at home.

Abe’s message drew criticism that he didn’t understand the plight of those who cannot rest at home. Many called him “an aristocrat.”

In China, where the first coronavirus cases were detected late last year, a mask producer said it is rushing to fill orders from overseas while facing stricter quality inspections from Chinese regulators. Wuhan Zonsen, which makes masks and disinfection wipes, says $50 million in orders from European countries and the United States will keep them at full production capacity until June.

Chinese customs have announced that ventilators, masks and other supplies being exported to fight the coronavirus will be subject to quality inspections following complaints that substandard goods were being sold abroad. Regulators in Australia, the Netherlands and other countries have complained that masks, virus test kits and other products were faulty or failed to meet quality standards.

Ye denied there are any quality issues with the masks they had shipped to Netherlands.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older people and the infirm, it can cause severe symptoms and lead to death.

More than 1.8 million infections have been reported and over 114,000 people have died worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. has the highest numbers, with over 555,000 confirmed cases. The figures certainly understate the true size and toll of the pandemic, due to limited testing, uneven counting of the dead and some governments’ desire to play down the extent of outbreaks.

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Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report

President Trump sparked speculation about his relationship with the country's top disease expert Sunday night after he retweeted a post that called for the doctor's job.
Trump used statements Dr. Anthony Fauci made in February as evidence that a recent New York Times report that said he was slow to act on the coronavirus outbreak was "fake news."
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was asked about the report on CNN and admitted that earlier action could have saved more lives. The Times' report said Trump played down the seriousness of the virus throughout January.
DeAnna Lorraine, a former Republican congressional candidate, called out Fauci in her own tweet and said he told people in late February that "there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large. Time to #FireFauci."
Trump seized on Lorraine’s tweet as evidence of “fake news,” from the Times.  Trump implied that if there were widespread concerns about the virus in the White House in January, surely Fauci would have known in late February.
"Sorry Fake News, it's all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up," Trump tweeted, before thanking One News Network. Trump's tweet linked to Lorraine's tweet that called for Fauci's ouster.
Fauci was on NBC News’ “Today” on Feb. 29, the date Lorraine mentioned, and talked about the “community spread” of the coronavirus. The virus, at that time, was known to be in Italy and China. Fauci was asked if Americans should change their way of life and he said, “there is no need to change what you are doing on a day-by-day basis.” But he said that could change.
The New York Times reported this weekend that Trump played down the seriousness of the virus in January, even though experts in both his cabinet and intelligence agencies “sounded the alarm.”
Trump called the Times’ story “Fake, just like the “paper” itself.”
Trump has said that his decision to “close” the U.S. to China in early February was prescient, despite being panned in the media as "xenophobic."
As of early Monday, there were nearly over 550,000 confirmed cases in the U.S. and 22,000 deaths. Cities like New York have seen their public health systems straining under the demand to treat new patients. Although some governors and White House projections are optimistic that the curve is flattening, health officials have predicted that stay-at-home orders will be in place for the foreseeable future.
The Times has reported that Fauci has “grown bolder” in correcting Trump publicly and Fauci, in turn, “has become a hero to the president’s critics because of it.”
Fauci, for example, has publicly played down Trump’s claim that hydroxychloroquine combined with an antibiotic could be a “game-changer” in the fight against the disease.
Fauci was asked on CNN Sunday about the Times report on Trump playing down the threat.
“I mean. Obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives,” Fauci said on Sunday. He said the decision process is complicated but said “if we, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.”
A recent Fox News poll showed Trump’s job performance numbers at a record high. The poll said 49 percent approve of the job Trump is doing as president, which is up from 48 percent two weeks ago. Eighty-nine percent of Republicans approve of Trump.
Fauci has faced increasing criticism on conservative radio who see him as a career bureaucrat.
Fauci has slammed the media in the past for attempting to “pit” him against Trump. He was asked in March about reports of their relationship being on the rocks.  He was asked on the radio show “Mornings on the Mall” about questions from the media and how they seem designed at times to “create a rift between you and the president.”
"The president has listened to what I've said and to the other people who are on the task force have said,” Fauci said. “When I've made recommendations, he has taken them. He has never countered, overwritten me. The idea of just pitting one against the other is not helpful. I wish that would stop and that we'd look ahead at the challenge we have to get over this thing."
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfshon contributed to this report

China stifles coronavirus research in apparent bid to control narrative, analysts say

Two websites for leading universities in China seem to have published and then deleted academic research about the origins of the coronavirus, according to a report.
The posts on the websites of Fudan University and the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) were erased from online caches -- in a possible bid to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic, The Guardian reported.
The Wuhan university appeared to have published and then deleted posts about academic research that China’s ministry of science and technology needed to approve before publication.
Similar apparent censorship turned up in the form of deleted posts originally published on April 9 by the school of information science and technology at Fudan University in Shanghai.
“They are seeking to transform it from a massive disaster to one where the government did everything right and gave the rest of the world time to prepare,” Kevin Carrico, a senior research fellow of Chinese studies at Monash University, told The Guardian.
“There is a desire to a degree to deny realities that are staring at us in the face … that this is a massive pandemic that originated in a place that the Chinese government really should have cleaned up after SARS,” he added.
China’s science and technology ministry had announced on April 3 that academic researchers needed to report their coronavirus findings to officials within three days or be terminated.
The news outlet noted that China’s President Xi Jinping published an essay in March that included “tracing the origin of the virus” a national priority; the science and technology ministry referenced the essay shortly before the universities changed tunes.
On New Year’s Eve, China informed the World Health Organization of a “mysterious pneumonia outbreak” spreading through Wuhan, an industrial city of 11 million.
The government closed a seafood market at the center of the outbreak, moved all patients with the virus to a specially designated hospital and collected test samples to send to government laboratories. Doctors were told to stay quiet; one who issued a warning online was punished. He later died of the virus.
The Pentagon was said to have first learned about the new coronavirus in December from open-source reports emanating from China. By early January, warnings about the virus had made their way into intelligence reports circulating around the government. On Jan. 3, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], Robert Redfield, received a call from his Chinese counterpart with an official warning.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said he was alerted to the virus around the same time — and within two weeks was fearful it could bring about a global catastrophe.
Quickly, U.S. intelligence and public health officials started doubting China’s reported rates of infection and death toll. They pressed China to allow in U.S. epidemiologists — both to assist the country in confronting the spread and to gain valuable insights that could help buy time for the U.S. response. U.S. officials also pressed China to send samples of the virus to U.S. labs for study and for vaccine and test development.
On Jan. 11, China shared the virus’ genetic sequence. That same day, the National Institutes of Health started working on a vaccine.
Ultimately, the U.S. was able to get China’s consent to send two people on the WHO team that traveled to China later in the month. But by then precious weeks had been lost and the virus had raced across Asia and had started to escape the continent.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.