U.S President Donald Trump claimed the U.S was in good shape and he said, “The heat, generally speaking, kills this kind of virus. A lot of people think that goes away in April as the heat comes in. We’re in great shape though, we have 12 cases, 11 cases, but we’re in very good shape”. Medical experts have backed the U.S President to remain attentive regarding the threat posed by corona-virus in the United States. Trump claimed that it would be gone by April. The World Health Organization also warned the spread of corona-virus cases which had no history of travel to China could be the spark that becomes a major fire as people across China returned to work after the Lunar New Year holiday. The president’s comments came as the death toll from the epidemic rose to 908, all but two in mainland China, as 97 more fatalities were recorded over the weekend.
A number of medical experts urged caution and said it was expected the number of cases would drop nothing could be taken for granted. They also said members of the public could help themselves such as getting vaccinated against the flu. A medical doctor and CEO of Corvus Health (Washington DC-based medical services), Kate Tulenko said, “I think it’s probably too early to say. It was likely the U.S would see an increase in cases over the coming month, but that instances would drop off towards the spring. I understand why there might be a tendency to play down any risk in order to prevent panic”. She said, “You read all this stuff with people saying, it’s only the flu or it isn’t as bad as the flu. Well, 100,000 people die from the flu every year around the world. Right now, the most useful thing people could be doing is to get vaccines against the flu”.
The dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, Dean Hotez said, “It would be reckless to assume that things will quiet down in spring and summer. We don’t really understand the basis of seasonality, and of course we know, we absolutely nothing about this particular virus”. The NHC (National Health Commission) reports say the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship with 3,700 passengers and crew on-board remained quarantined in the Japanese port of Yokohama, with 64 more cases detected, taking the number of confirmed case from the Carnival Corp-owned vessel to 134. On Sunday, 3,059 new infections were confirmed across China totaling the numbers to 40,168.