Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar declared a public health emergency in the United States at a White House press briefing on coronavirus Friday.
The following day, Massachusetts health officials reported its first confirmed case of coronavirus in the state, in a man who recently traveled to Wuhan and became ill after returning home to Boston. There are now eight confirmed cases in the U.S. — seven in travelers and one a human-to-human transmission between a husband and wife.
U.S. citizens returning from Hubei province in the previous 14 days will be subject to up to a 14-day quarantine. Foreign nationals, other than immediate family members of U.S. citizens who have traveled to China in the previous 14 days, will be denied entry into the country. The temporary measures take effect Feb. 2 at 5 p.m.
Americans who’ve traveled to other parts of China in the previous 14 days will be subject to a health screening upon entry and asked to self-quarantine for up to 14 days.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered a federal quarantine order for all 195 people who were evacuated from China and have been voluntarily quarantined at military base in California.
Those people were on a government-chartered flight earlier this week for American consulate staffers and private U.S. citizens from Wuhan. The quarantine, the first order of its kind in 50 years, will last for 14 days from when the plane left Wuhan, health officials said at a news conference Friday.
“We are preparing as if this was the next pandemic,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said of the quarantine.
Source: yahoo
