A new coronavirus strain is making headlines, and one case was confirmed in Chicago on Friday.
Should we panic, fellow Chicagoans, if even just a little?
Let’s not.
Yes, it is worrisome that no vaccine has been developed for the coronavirus, which has been blamed for 56 deaths in China so far. But so little is really known. There’s not even enough data yet to know whether the virus, which has shut down travel in Chinese cities, has a high or low mortality rate or is easily transmitted.
At this point, Americans should be far more concerned about the flu, which is to blame for hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world each year, including up to 61,000 in the United States. Anybody who hasn’t gotten a flu shot this season should worry about that.
One Chicago case
At a press conference on Friday, officials confirmed that a 60-year-old woman who had recently returned from a trip to China is the first Chicago area person known to have contracted the coronavirus, which scientists call 2019-nCoV. But Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady, talking common sense, stressed there is no need for people to change their behavior at this point.
We’ve seen this before.
In 2014, when an Ebola victim stepped on U.S. soil for the first time, 40 percent of Americans were convinced that a “large” Ebola epidemic was headed our way. There was a lot of talk about whether hospitals could contain the spread. Remember that?
An Ebola outbreak never happened in the United States.
A wake-up call
This is not to dismiss the gravity of the threat. No one is sure where the coronavirus outbreak is headed or how quickly a vaccine can be developed. In the past, some coronaviruses have evolved into more severe illnesses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Be on the alert for symptoms such as a shortness of breath, chills and body aches.
What we know for sure is that the new coronavirus, which originated in animals, is a public health wake-up for the United States, which has let cracks develop in its front-line defenses against outbreaks of disease.
Last year, the federal government began shutting down Predict, a program run by the United States Agency for International Development to look for dangerous animal viruses that might infect humans. The Prevention and Public Health Fund, which supports state and local health agencies, has had its funding cut over and over again in recent years.
In 2018, the Trump administration cut millions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Also in 2018, the administration abolished the permanent office on pandemic preparedness and response.
Moreover, Congress did not include funding in its 2020 budget for a program that prepares hospitals to deal with pandemics caused by so-called special pathogens.
In China, hospitals are crowded, doctors are stressed and health care workers are running out of supplies. China says the number of cases has increased to 1,975 with the death toll at 56. The nation has locked down travel in 12 cities near the center of the outbreak, preventing the movement of 35 million people. But health officials need more tools than quarantines to prevent pandemics caused by new viruses or antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Now that the World Health Organization has started tracking the coronavirus outbreak and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has said the risk of global spread is likely, the United States must gear up its defenses against new viruses and remain in a state of alert.
No ‘emergency’ yet
In Washington on Friday, some two dozen senators attended a special briefing with top health officials about the outbreak. One, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., came away calling on President Trump to declare a public health emergency.
You wouldn’t want to go with Sen. Scott on that. He’s no scientist.
But our nation does need a planned and measured response to the new coronavirus. And it needs to shore up its defenses against other disease outbreaks sure to come down the road.
Send letters to letters@suntimes.com.
