House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she hopes to bring an emergency funding supplemental package to the House floor this week in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
“An important step that Congress must take is to ensure the government has the resources needed to combat this deadly virus and keep Americans safe,” she said.
“To that end, House appropriators are working to advance a strong emergency funding supplemental package that fully addresses the scale and seriousness of this public health crisis, which we hope to bring to the Floor next week.”
Pelosi indicated that the House’s funding proposal will seek “entirely new” funding—not funding reallocated from other accounts.
Pelosi has emphasized that Congress needs to make sure that vaccines are affordable and available to all those in need, and that Small Business Administration (SBA) loans are readily available for small businesses affected by the outbreak. She added that any bill should ensure that state and local governments are reimbursed for costs they incur when assisting the federal response to the outbreak.
Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), confirmed during a White House press conference Feb. 28 that the man had no history of travel to other affected countries and no known contacts with infected individuals.
The death came after patients in Washington, Oregon, and California tested positive for the new disease without a history of exposure to known sources of infection, officials in those states said.
“This is a case of community spread of the disease, much like the case from California earlier this week,” Pat Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority, told reporters Feb. 28 about the first case in Oregon.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said that seniors or patients with underlying conditions are the most likely to be affected by the virus.
“For the most part, the people who get in trouble and ultimately, tragically, would die from this are people who are elderly and/or have underlying conditions: heart disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes, obesity—because of the difficulty in breathing,” he said.
Italy, Iran, and South Korea have reported spikes in the number of cases in recent days, with travelers from those countries becoming some of the first patients in a number of nations, including as far away as Brazil and New Zealand.
The White House expanded travel restrictions from Iran on Feb. 29, barring entry to foreign nationals who have recently visited the Middle Eastern nation.
