The CDC created a website to make it easy to keep track of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., but it hasn’t been updated in several days and is stuck at the count from late last week, with 11 deaths and 161 infections. In fact, nearly twice this number are dead with more than 500 testing positive.
The government (least of all the Trump administration) isn’t taking it seriously, but newsmedia is starting to. CNN:
Starting today, you will notice that CNN is using the term pandemic to describe the current coronavirus outbreak. It is not a decision we take lightly. While we know it sounds alarming, it should not cause panic. So why now? The World Health Organization hasn’t called the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Nor has the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But many epidemiologists and public health experts argue the world is already experiencing a pandemic because of the novel coronavirus. There are now over 100,000 cases and over 3,000 deaths attributed to this new virus. In one day last week, the number of new cases outside of China, where the virus originated, was nearly 9 times higher than the number of new cases in China. This virus has found a foothold on every continent except for Antarctica. In several countries, the number of cases continues to climb.
