With President Donald Trump's administration downplaying the threat of the coronavirus, more and more cases are coming to light in the United States.
A lack of proper training and supplies for health officials receiving potentially infected people from Wuhan, China—the outbreak's epicenter—revealed by a whistleblower has already sparked concern.
It seems a similar lack of vigilance has occurred in San Antonio, Texas where a woman who contracted the virus in Wuhan was released from a Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) facility while she still had the virus. The woman had taken two tests, with one indicating negative and another one pending, which later turned out to be positive.
Now, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott is taking Trump's CDC to task.
Abbott said:
"What the CDC did is completely unacceptable. It appears to be a case of negligence with regard to allowing this person who had coronavirus to leave Texas Center for Infectious Disease and go back into the general population. I think they understand the magnitude of the error."
After her release, the woman checked into a hotel near the San Antonio International Airport, and spent two hours at the food court.
Fortunately, officials say that the 21 people exposed to the virus due to her release pose a "low risk" of actually contracting the virus.
The ineptitude of the CDC, however, was troubling.
Abbott continued to caution the CDC.
"They must improve their protocols and they must be absolutely certain that before they allow anybody to be released from any location in San Antonio they can ensure the public that whoever they are releasing does not have coronavirus."
The Governor is far from the only one concerned with current testing procedures and resources to monitor the virus. The Trump administration has been accused of allocating too few test kits, resulting in numerous cases going undetected and the number of cases in the United States going underestimated.
Experts say that the best chance of curtailing the coronavirus and other potential pandemics is washing one's hands, avoiding touching of the face, and voting Donald Trump out of office in November.
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