Earlier today the federal Coronavirus Task Force established by President Trump held a press conference to explain the U.S. response status and answer media questions.
The task force is being led by HHS Secretary Alex Azar and includes:  Dr. Robert Redfield, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health; Ken Cuccinelli, Acting Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security; Matthew Pottinger, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor.
[Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – SECRETARY AZAR: Well, good afternoon, everyone. I’m Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Chairman of the President’s Task Force on the Novel Coronavirus.

I’m going to start by turning things over to Dr. Robert Redfield, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to discuss the current situation on the novel coronavirus. Dr. Redfield.

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Upon taking office one of the first initiatives from President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump was to organize a full government effort to tackle an extreme opioid crisis impacting many American communities.  In October 2017, President Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency.  Today the White House and CDC announce some incredible results as a result of the effort.  [CDC Data Here]
Fatal drug overdoses dropped in 2018 for the first time in 30 years; and as a result average life expectancy for Americans increased for the first time in four years.  Drug overdose deaths are still an urgent health emergency; and the entire program will remain a priority; however, the upward trend has been stopped and is starting to reverse.
Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway, ONDCP Director Jim Carroll, and Asst. Secretary of Public Health Admiral Brett Giroir hold a press conference to announce & discuss:

(Politico) […] New CDC data released Thursday provides hope that the major contributors to three years of stagnant or declining life expectancy may be relenting. (more)

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In response to potential health risks; and anticipating multiple agency aspects of the U.S. government would need a unified approach; President Trump has assembled a unified task force to coordinate all response efforts across the totality of government.

[White House] – President Donald J. Trump announced the formation of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force. Members of the Task Force have been meeting on a daily basis since Monday. At today’s meeting, which the President chaired, he charged the Task Force with leading the United States Government response to the novel 2019 coronavirus and with keeping him apprised of developments.
The Task Force is led by Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, and is coordinated through the National Security Council. It is composed of subject matter experts from the White House and several United States Government agencies, and it includes some of the Nation’s foremost experts on infectious diseases.
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The willful blindness of the U.S. media is becoming a parody unto itself.

The outbreak of the Measles virus is gaining attention as medical reports begin to accumulate by the day. Yet, no-one in the legacy media claims to be able to see the similarity to the Enterovirus D-68 outbreaks.
So, again, let’s look at outbreak maps and compare:

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At 100 or more new reported cases a day
(and, obviously, an unquantified number of unreported cases) coupled with the deliberate “removal” of dead victims from the official tally, it is apparent that the Ebola outbreak continues to rage and is far from contained.
As has been mentioned here and elsewhere in the Realism Blogosphere,  Math Just Is.  As the Daily Mail UK reports, scores of orphaned children left to care for themselves after close contact and sustained exposure to a parent or other caregiver who has died from Ebola are  “ticking timebombs”.
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To listen to the media versions of the Kaci Hickox story you might believe she is perceived as a celebrated heroine. However, the truth is fundamentally divergent. She is a visible personification of all things selfish, self-serving and smug; a pariah amid her own community.
As we shared last month: “at what cost do you want to fight – we the people”?
(MAINE) Nurse Kaci Hickox and her boyfriend are leaving Maine next week for parts unknown.
Hickox made national headlines last week when she fought efforts to quarantine her in New Jersey and Maine because she had just returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa.  Kaci Hickox and her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur, say they will stay in Maine through Monday, when a state court order expires. (more…)

Citing the experiences gleaned from responding to the SARS outbreak which impacted Singapore economically, the health ministy of Singapore announced the new restrictions which will become effective on Wednesday.
Singapore has negligible direct trade/ethnic ties to the affected west African nations, but did open a “trade and investment” outreach  office in Accra Ghana in an effort to secure a place as a clearing house/launching pad for west African trade with Asia and position itself at the head of the expected bow wave of development.
Citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will need a visa to enter Singapore as part of measures against the spread of Ebola, the city-state’s health ministry said Monday.
 
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Another suspected (non-insured) Ebola patient is receiving expensive, time consuming medical attention after landing at Newark International Airport on Friday, clearing US Border and Customs Inspection and taking a long bus ride from New Jersey to a relative’s home in North Carolina before spiking a fever and contacting the CDC which triggered the hospital admission:
“….A male patient, age unknown, was transported today to Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and is being tested this evening for Ebola virus infection.
The individual flew into Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday after traveling from Liberia through an unknown destination, then traveled to the Durham area on a commercial bus, according Aldona Wos, MD, secretary of the NC Department of Health and Human Services.
On Saturday, the individual was picked up by a relative and taken to the family’s home in Person County, north of Durham. After spiking a fever this morning, temperature unknown, the individual was transported to Duke Hospital and is currently isolated in a contained unit designated previous during training as the site for treatment of a potential Ebola patient.
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Neil Munro of The Daily Caller has an outline today exploring the EV-D68 virus against the backdrop of an increase to nine reported child deaths as a result of the virus spread: “Obama’s Border Policy Fueled Epidemic, Evidence Shows“.

One of the key takeaways from the Munro article is the unwillingness of CDC personnel to historically trace the source of the virus:

[…]  “In the current outbreak, there is one major group/clade which contains the vast majority of viruses, a minor group/clade that is related to the major group, and an outlier group/clade that has only a few viruses in it,” the CDC replied.

That’s critical information, because viral epidemics are usually powered by one new variety of a familiar virus. For example, the annual flu epidemics usually consist of a new mutation of an older flu virus. Because it is new, it bypasses immune responses that people acquired during prior flu waves, and then quickly jumps from person to person across the United States.

If confirmed, the presence of many strains would be further evidence that a population movement triggered the outbreaks, said Eden Wells, an assistant epidemiology professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health.

[…] When CDC officials were asked by TheDC to explain this multi-city, multi-strain anomaly, they waffled: “There is no evidence that unaccompanied children brought EV-D68 to the United States; we are not aware of any of these children testing positive for the virus,” Oberste replied. (more…)