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  • JUDY WOODRUFF: The virus that quarantined whole cities in China has now spread to new

  • countries, and fears are growing.

  • Wall Street cratered today, as major indexes plunged more than 3 percent. The Dow Jones

  • industrial average lost over 1,000 points to close at 27,960. The Nasdaq fell 355 points.

  • And the S&P 500 dropped 111.

  • All of this amid encouraging signs inside China.

  • Amna Nawaz begins our coverage.

  • AMNA NAWAZ: Some factories across Shanghai were back in business Monday, as cases outside

  • the epicenter of China's coronavirus outbreak fell to the lowest number in a month.

  • World Health Organization officials say the number of infected people in China has now

  • peaked and leveled off. But beyond China's borders, the virus, and concerns over its

  • spread have picked up momentum.

  • There are now confirmed cases in at least 32 countries. But the new cases and deaths

  • in South Korea and Italy raised new alarms today. Over the weekend, shops across South

  • Korea closed their doors and workers disinfected sidewalks. and today, the country announced

  • more than 800 confirmed coronavirus cases.

  • Timothy Martin is the South Korea bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal.

  • TIMOTHY MARTIN, South Korea Bureau chief, The Wall Street Journal: There aren't enough

  • doctors, nurses, investigators to follow up on individual confirmed cases, to let others

  • who might be affected know that they were exposed. We have even heard of hospital staffs

  • who quit because their families were pressuring them to do so.

  • AMNA NAWAZ: South Korea took additional measures to curb the virus' spread today, closing its

  • parliament building and the surrounding area.

  • But Martin says South Korea is also using high-tech tools to deal with the outbreak.

  • TIMOTHY MARTIN: South Koreans are highly connected, highly updated about each coronavirus case.

  • You can travel through a region that an infected patient had been recently, and you will get

  • a text message saying, be on alert. There was an infected case, you know, that might

  • have been in the vicinity or even in some cases been at this restaurant.

  • AMNA NAWAZ: Italy, meanwhile, recorded its sixth coronavirus death over the weekend,

  • making it Europe's hardest-hit country.

  • On the highways to Milan, barely any signs of life. Police check the few cars that pass

  • through. Only authorized personnel can pass. Cities across the country are on lockdown.

  • Sabina Castelfranco is a television news producer based in Italy.

  • SABINA CASTELFRANCO, Television News Producer: Students who cannot go to school at the moment

  • because schools have been closed, universities have been closed, are wondering when they

  • can sit their exams. Many of them were having exams this week. And they have all been canceled.

  • The Italian prime minister has said that the towns will remain in lockdown for whatever

  • time is needed.

  • AMNA NAWAZ: Across several borders, in Iran, the virus has killed at least 12 people. On

  • the streets of Tehran, Iranians wear face masks to prevent the spread of the virus,

  • and officials sanitize public transportation.

  • but today, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom said the virus had not yet reached pandemic

  • levels.

  • TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, Director General, World Health Organization: The sudden increase

  • in new cases is certainly very concerning.

  • I have spoken consistently about the need for facts, not fear. Using the word pandemic

  • now doesn't fit the facts, but it may certainly cause fear. This is not the time to focus

  • on what word we use. That will not prevent a single infection today or save a single

  • life today. This is a time for all countries, communities, families, and individuals to

  • focus on preparing.

  • AMNA NAWAZ: For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Amna Nawaz.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: Let's zero in some of the emerging concerns over the spread of COVID-19 outside

  • of China.

  • Lawrence Gostin is a professor of medicine at Georgetown University, where he heads the

  • O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. He's also advised the World Health

  • Organization on pandemic preparedness and served on two global commissions assessing

  • the 2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

  • Professor Gostin, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN, Georgetown University: Thank you for having me, Judy.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what do these new outbreaks, South Korea, Italy, Iran, tell us?

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN: I mean, one of the touchstones that we have all been looking for is whether

  • or not you are going to have mini-epidemics that are sustained in the community. Outside

  • of China, that is beginning to happen.

  • So I think many of us feel that we are on the precipice of something very new, where

  • we might see quite considerable spread. And we probably are having silent community transmissions

  • in many countries. We're just not picking it up.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, there are a couple things in that answer that I want to pick up on.

  • When you said concerning the spread is happening, how is it spreading?

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Well, it's basically it's spreading human to human.

  • I mean, initially, somebody was in contact with somebody from China. So, for example,

  • in Iran, there's a lot of interchange between Iran and China. So, there was a case. They

  • caught the virus. And then they have been silently transmitting it in the community.

  • By the time you pick it up, it's already spread quite widely.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: So when you say silently transmitting, what does that refer to?

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN: It refers to the fact that we they're not detectable.

  • What actually makes this so tricky is, is that it's got a low death rate, but people

  • can transmit when they're asymptomatic. They might just have mild symptoms. People don't

  • realize they have got the coronavirus.

  • But it's spreading a lot. I mean, another thing of deep concern is the fact that we're

  • seeing rapid spread in congregate settings, prisons, hospitals, churches. So, anywhere

  • that people gather, you might have a very large outbreak.

  • And that's certainly what's happened in Korea and in a number of other places.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: So we're seeing how China has handled this, where it's been for a number

  • of weeks.

  • What's your assessment of how these other countries, like Iran, like South Korea, which

  • we just heard a little bit, how they are capable of handling it?

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Well, South Korea, it is an enigma because it's got one of the best

  • health systems in the world, but it actually didn't handle MERS. There was a big outbreak

  • of MERS, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, there.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN: And now they really don't seem to be handling this well. They didn't

  • pick it up early. It spread quite widely, and there are runs on hospitals, a lot of

  • the worried well, and hospitals can't cope.

  • And so that's not good. And we don't really know what's going on in Iran. But imagine

  • this. It's foreseeable that it could leave Iran and go to, say, Syria, or Afghanistan.

  • And once it got into a country that had a fragile state, a weak health system, that

  • would really be a game-changer.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: Because the difficulty of providing medical...

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN: It would be virtually impossible.

  • And you have refugee camps, mass migrations around the world. And so we need to take this

  • seriously. But the good news is, it has a relatively low fatality rate. And in the United

  • States, I don't think we should panic.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: And I wanted to ask about that, finally.

  • What is our capacity here in the United States to keep it from spreading any more than it

  • has already?

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Well, I think the U.S. CDC and state and local health departments are

  • the best in the world. They're very, very well-equipped.

  • I do foresee some problems, though, if we have sustained community transmission in the

  • U.S. And the CDC said that that's a possibility, maybe even a likelihood, at some point. You're

  • going to start to see a run on hospitals and clinics, the worried well, as well as the

  • actual illness.

  • And so we're going to need a lot more capacity. I'd really hope that Congress will allocate

  • an emergency allocation for this.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: And just quickly, by community transmission, you mean?

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN: I mean that it's happening it's not travel-related case, and it's just

  • human-to-human transmission. It's here. It's not in China. And we're communicating it within

  • our neighborhoods.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: And that's what we are all watching for in every country.

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Yes.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: Dr. Lawrence Gostin, thank you very much.

  • LAWRENCE GOSTIN: Thank you.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The virus that quarantined whole cities in China has now spread to new

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