Rage

by Bob Woodward

Finally, Azar spoke. “Today President Trump took decisive action to minimize the risk of the spread of novel coronavirus in the United States,” he announced. “I have today declared that the coronavirus presents a public health emergency in the United States.” He said that U.S. citizens returning from China would undergo 14 days of mandatory quarantine, and that Trump had signed a presidential proclamation “temporarily suspending the entry into the United States of foreign nationals who pose a risk of transmitting the 2019 novel coronavirus”—namely foreign nationals who had traveled in China within the last 14 days. Azar called the measure “prudent, targeted and temporary” and stressed once more that “the risk of infection for Americans remains low.”