Over the last two days, the coronavirus story has gone from interesting to concern to outright panic.
Just moments ago, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced housing is being set aside to quarantine travelers from China to ensure they do not spread the coronavirus once back here in the United States.
Careful is Better
While this virus is literally destroying China, the CDC had the United States listed as low risk for an outbreak.
Even so, U.S. diplomats in China were ordered back home.
The plane of the diplomats landing and being held for quarantine and testing went viral just about as quickly as it was posted on social media.
With more than 200 deaths reported in China, this concern is very real.
Even though only a limited number of Americans have been exposed, there have already been six cases reported here in the states.
The first case was reported in Washington state, but there are now cases in Arizona, California, and Illinois.
To new outbreaks outside of China led to the World Health Organization announcing a global emergency.
Now that travelers from China will have to be quarantined and tested, the Pentagon stated, “Under the request, DOD will only provide housing support, while HHS will be responsible for all care, transportation, and security of the evacuees.
“DOD personnel will not be directly in contact with the evacuees and evacuees will not have access to any base location other than their assigned housing.
“In accordance with (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines, all evacuees will be monitored for a period of 14 days.
“Should routine monitoring of the evacuees identify ill individuals, HHS has procedures in place to transport them to a local civilian hospital.”
Death Toll Climbing
As of Saturday, the death toll has reached 259 globally.
Additionally, the virus is believed to have infected more than 12,000 people globally.
There are now at least a dozen different nations reporting cases of coronavirus.
Domestic airlines have already agreed to stop their Chinese flights, and now there are calls for all carriers to cease flights to and from China until a vaccine can be developed.