breaking tonight, a newly identified deadly virus from china which killed at least two people and sickened dozens more. >> the cdc says it's a variation of coronavirus. a family that includes the common cold and sars. >> the virus can spread from person to person, raising bro broader fears of a pandemic. >> people are taking any precaution they can to keep safe. >> this morning the chinese city of the center of this epidemic is on lockdown, nobody allowed to leave or ente at least 41 pe

have died and there are more than 1,300 confirmed cases across the globe. >> the coronavirus has sent shockwaves through global markets. >> the state department is now telling americans in the clearest way possible, do not travel to china. >> the defense department is designating military bases across the country that could house a thousand quarantined patients. >> on friday u.s. health officials declared the virus a public health emergency. >> there are squads of people who are going door to door dragging people from their apartments because they're suspected of having the virus. >> the number of cases worldwide now topping 6,000. >> over 90,000 cases. >> the new name, covid-19, in u dea new deaths and new infections. many experts say the death toll is being underestimated by as much as fourfold. >> so at the hong kong airport, they're making an announcement

now to maintain your personal hygiene and not to travel to wuhan, china, and just look around here. this is hong kong international airport. one of the busiest transport hubs in the world. there's nobody here. >> the coronavirus has now spread to almost every continent on earth. here in hong kong, it's turned this crowded city into a ghost town. although the overwhelming majority of people who contract the coronavirus survive, most with just mild cases, globally, it has claimed more than 3,000 lives and tens of thousands have been infected. and this could be just the beginning. to find out how serious this outbreak is, where it came from, and what's being done to contain it, i traveled to asia and washington, d.c., to try to answer the most basic question. what happens when a disease that kills goes global?

in this city of 7 million on the southern tip of mainland china, they're taking all the precautions they can, but covid-19 is already here. at hong kong's tunwan hospital, the doctors have been put on so-called dirty teams to deal with coronavirus patients. it's the front line in the fight against the disease. cardiologist alfred wong was one of the first to volunteer. how do you get this? >> so -- >> how are people in your hospital getting this? >> so the roots of transmission of these viruses, all coronaviruses, they transmit through droplets. >> does it have to go into your mouth or in your eyes -- >> membranes. if we're wearing a mask, those droplets cannot pass through the mask into your mouth or nose and if you avoid messing around with your eyes, then you're probably

safe. we have seen many cases of clustered infections. within families or within groups of friends who pass on the virus to one another just within a mealtime. they have a lunch together or they have dinner together. >> one meal? >> yes. and then they transmit the virus to one another because you don't wear mask during mealtimes. >> and it's this level of infectiousness that means dr. wong has to take extreme measures to make sure he doesn't become infected and spread the disease. >> when we are working, we are sort of separated from the rest of the department. we have our own office. we don't eat inside canteens. we do hide somewhere to eat. and after work we don't go home. >> where where you staying? >> i'm staying in a hotel near the hospital. most of our colleague have children or old parents at home.

it's basically the same thing for any one of us. i just reckon if this battle, indeed, lasts for months then sooner or later, every one of us will have to be involved in the team. >> every one of them in a battle that's personal as well as professional. you have a wife. >> yes. >> she's pregnant. >> yes, she is. yeah. it's difficult, of course -- >> that's a lot of personal sacrifice. raise your hand, i'll be part of the dirty team, yes, my wife is -- how pregnant is she? >> she's more than 33 weeks now. >> she's almost at the end. >> almost there, yeah. >> this is what we know so far about the coronavirus. most people will be fine. the world health organization now believes the mortality rate from the coronavirus is 3.4% of all it infects. but that overall average is somewhat misleading because how

lethal this virus is depends a lot on who gets it. most of the data comes from china. based on their numbers, people with pre-existing conditions are at a far greater risk. for example, the mortality rate for someone with no diagnosed pre-existing conditions is less than 1%. and the risk goes up the older you get. especially for those 70 or older. the world health organization has found that children are far less susceptible with very few of them even getting the virus at all. just 2.4% of all people who tested positive are under the age of 18. >> no one in the world has ever experienced this virus before. this is the first time this virus has begun to circulate. and it is showing, you know, very significant rates of infectiousness. >> dr. richard hatchett is leading an international team of scientists to find a coronavirus

vacci vaccine, working in labs in australia, europe, and the united states. it's a process that normally takes decades, but time is working against us. >> our current goal, and this is an incredibly ambitious goal, but we have to set this for ourselves as a goal, to be able to have a vaccine within 12 to 18 months. >> do you think that's realistic? >> i thing it's going to be a big challenge. >> how is this different than the common cold? >> with the virus that has -- is that infectious, where there is no underlying population immunity, you would expect, perhaps, up to 60% or 67% of the population to become infected. >> the world population. >> yes. essentially. >> that's billions of people. >> it's billions of people. >> new developments this evening in the coronavirus crisis. china experiencing the deadliest

day of the outbreak yet. >> scientists are racing to develop a vaccine. >> growing concerns over the deadly coronavirus and the aggressive steps being taken to halt its spread. >> we're gaining new insights into the evolution of a coronavirus thanks to the work of a leading scientist who is studying the virus and the animals that probably transmitted it. >> how confident are you that this coronavirus came from bats like these? >> i'm 90% certain that the virus originated in bats that are similar to this. yes. >> danielle anderson is a virus hunter with 20 years of field experience. within days of the first outbreak, she and her team had identified the coronavirus. >> why bats? >> so bats are interesting because they contain a lot of viruses. they host a lot of viruses but those viruses don't make the bats sick, but once the virus is

shed out of the bats, they can make us sick. >> shed out of a bat. how does a virus shed out of a bat into humans? >> if a bat pees or goes on any surface or directly on you or bat scratches you, then the virus can be transmitted that way. >> and once it made that jump from bats to humans, the virus could be here to stay. what does that mean for all of us? >> we have to work hard for a vaccine and learn to live with the virus and it's -- i think it's just going to become part of our life. >> it's something people are just going to get year after year. >> until we have a vaccine, then that's the case. next, we'll take you to the epicenter of the outbreak. wuhan, china. and tell you how the chinese government's desire for secrecy may have allowed the virus to spread. (mom) were you planning on mowing the lawn today?

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the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak is the biggest city in central china and home to more than 11 million people. yet, few in the west had ever heard of it. they have now. >> the state department hasis urging travelers to avoid the chinese city of wuhan. >> tonight, extreme measures to contain the virus. >> in wuhan, spraying disinfectant on buildings and cars. >> wuhan, china, epicenter of the fast-growing outbreak. >> wuhan is a major city. detroit of china. auto manufacturers and manufacturing bases are based in wuhan. there's constant travel in and out of wuhan. >> in december of 2019, everything changed. that's when people started to show up at wuhan's hospitals with severe flulike symptoms. patients had difficulty breathing and pneumonia.

an ominous pattern that got the attention of a 34-year-old doctor. on december 30th he wrote to co-workers to warn them of what he believed was an outbreak of a new virus. he recommended that they wear protective equipment. >> he was just a very astute physician that noticed that there is an irregular pattern of pneumonia occurring in wuhan. it's always that frontline health care worker that's going to be the first person to notice there is something different and they're going to report that up their chain of command. >> joseph fehrer has worked all around the world tracking down deadly viruses. he knows they are like wildfires. contain them quickly or it can be too late. >> the first few days of discovering a new virus are absolutely critical and the first step of diagnostics and getting a diagnostic up and running and finding out how many people actually have this, that's our way of determining how contagious this virus is, how widespread it is, how large

the outbreak is. >> but that didn't happen during those crucial first days in wuhan. instead of being commended for spotting a new outbreak, dr. li was called in by police and forced to sign a letter stating his warning was an unfounded and illegal rumor. and even as more people became infected, china continued to downplay the severity of the outbreak. chinese state media pumped out images of wuhan nurses wishing everyone a happy new year. >> obviously, we would like it more if they were more open, more transparent, if they had septemb sent the letter immediately once they noticed something was out of the norm and knew. >> instead of sounding the alarm about the outbreak of a new and potentially deadly disease, china's one-party state chose the opposite. it said the virus was not spreading from human to human

and because of that it was under control. back in hong kong, i went to meet a man who's a vocal opponent of china's ruling communist party. before the intervie begaw began coronavirus screening. jimmy li is a media tycoon who believes the chinese government made a bad situation worse. >> if those doctors who initially discovered this virus were allowed to really tell the people instead of being punished by police, you know, saying that they were spreading rumors, maybe everything would have been contained. >> china is particularly susceptible to infectious diseases like covid-19. the wet markets where wild animals are sold alongside meat and seafood massively increase the odds of a virus jumping from one species to another.

scientists believe this coronavirus outbreak originated in one of these wet markets in wuhan. the working theory is someone butchered a bat, came into contact with its blood or urine, and then touched his or her nose or mouth. >> we know bats harbor thousands of coronaviruses. we know there were a lot of bats being sold in this market, in particular. and we know that through historical precedent that butchering animals such as bats can cause everything from ebola to coronaviruses, et cetera. >> on january 1st, two days after dr. lee tried to alert the authorities, the chinese government did close the city's wet market. they said it was for renovations. after a month of trying to downplay the outbreak, china switched gears. the coronavirus had become fatal, impossible to ignore, impossible to hide. china ease top health official finally confirmed human-to-human

spread. president xi jinping imposed wartime controls. a massive and unprecedented response. a thousand-bed hospital was built in a week. >> you'd have a very difficult time doing that ourselves here in the united states. so i have to commend them on that. >> elsewhere in the city, door-to-door temperature checks. across china, those who refuse to comply with the new measures face the full authoritarian response. china's message to the world was the virus was under control and being contained. in an extraordinary move, the entire city of wuhan was locked down. no one allowed in or out. everyone living in the city was put into isolation. the occasional food delivery from volunteers became the only contact with the outside world. >> i brought you something.

>> oh, cool. supplies. >> supplies. >> coffee. >> yes. >> i'm running low. it's been five weeks i've been here. you're the first human beings i've actually seen within this distance in five weeks. >> for steve mcclure, an american who teaches at wuhan university, the small gesture made a big difference. >> we're making an incredible sacrifice in wuhan. the volunteers are risking themselves to maintain connections between the people in our community. >> it was the largest quarantine in human history. turning the streets of a mega city eerily silent. china effectively put millions of people under house arrest in an effort to limit transmission. it spreads from contact, human contact. >> person-to-person, generally droplets, respiratory droplets. >> dr. anthony fauchi is one of the world's foremost experts on viruses at the national

institutes for health. >> people sneeze and cough into their hands. their shake hands with somebody. they open up a doorknob. somebody else comes five minutes later. >> that seems like really intimate contact. >> yeah. yeah. people are continually coming into close contact with each other. one of the real frustrations when you're dealing with a respiratory virus that's spread in a highly efficient way. >> what about the surface? if i cough into my hands, touch a surface, how long will it live on the surface? >> you know, there is no it takes ten minutes or two hours or three hours. it varies. it varies on the temperature, the humidity, on whether the virus is in a little droplet of mucous or saliva or whether it's a free virus. it's usually you could say measured in hours at most. not weeks. >> hours at most. >> yeah. >> but the doctors, the nurses, directly treating infected patients are at a higher risk. since they're exposed to higher concentrations of the virus.

in early january, dr. li, the physician who had first spotted the new virus, was diagnosed with it. less than a month later, he was dead. the doctor who tried to tell the world about a new disease became one of its victims. and, perhaps, even more concerning, china's wartime controls hadn't worked. the coronavirus was spreading beyond wuhan. dr. li's rumors had become a global health emergency. >> india is on a high alert after the first coronavirus case. >> another three australians have been diagnosed with the coronavirus infection. >> belararubelarus, lithuania, netherlands, all reporting their first cases and less than an hour ago, mexico. when we come back, how do you stop a coronavirus that's so hard to spot? it.

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because the tiny city state that had been caught off guard by epidemics in the past was now poised to respond. >> haven't seen anything like this for a long time. >> danielle anderson is leading a coronavirus task force at this facility on the outskirts of central singapore. >> the actual virus is housed in this secure facility, so you'll see there's a lot of layers we have to go through. >> layers of protection because if what lies inside somehow got out, it could be disastrous. so we took every precaution possible before entering the most sensitive areas of the compound. >> now we're going into the main lab and inside this lab here is where we keep the live virus. this is the most secure lab that we have in singapore. >> and the coronavirus is in here. >> the coronavirus is inside

here. we have a pure strain of that exact virus. >> and that would be the most contagious form. it's the most -- the purest form of the virus. >> absolutely. so this is the most contagious and very pure stock. so we definitely want that virus behind all of these closed doors. >> danielle anderson and her fellow scientists are working around the clock inspecting and dissecting the new virus. figuring out just how to fight it. what surprised you about this virus? >> the spread of this is really, really surprising. how quickly and how far we've seen outbreaks in the past, we think we know what we're doing and so for me, it's really, really big surprise. >> surprising but we have been here before. a century ago in 1918 as world war i was coming to an end, a new virus emerged. spanish flu. it was one of the worst

pandemics in human history. it spread across the planet, killing more than 650,000 people in the united states, alone. worldwide, more than 50 million p perished. and it was most deadly for younger adults. >> to seemed to strike people in the prime of life. the death rates were elevated in people between the ages of 20 and, say, 40 or 45. >> four decades later, another pandemic, the asian flu, first detected here in singapore. also spread internationally. it was followed ten years after that by the hong kong flu which scientists believe originated in mainland china. >> the war against infectious diseases is the long et west wa human history. it's killed more than all other wars combined, so 1918 was the last, i would say, major pandemic. it is inevitable that we will have a pandemic that's highly

lethal. in fact, we're long overdue and extremely lucky we haven't seen that yet. >> in 2002 a mystery illness we now know as sars appeared in southern china and swept across the k country. the chinese government unable to contain the outbreak shared little about what it was experiencing with the world, until one infected man, dr. lun, traveled to neighboring hong kong. >> scientists around the world are trying to find the source of a rapidly spreading illness. >> the deadly new illness known as sars. >> one man wifrom china with th infection stayed at this fancy hotel in hong kong. spread the virus six unrelated people, in turn, transmitted to six others. >> w.h.o. experts are trying to find out how it began and how it spread. >> health agencies raced to respond, but it was too late. sars, or severe acute

respiratory syndrome, had gone global. more than 700 died from the outbreak and 8,000 people were infected. roughly half of those cases were traced back to dr. liu. the man would become known as a superspreader. and now in 2020, spreading diseases could be easier than ever. >> it's easier to be a superspreader in today's world. i would say we are going to see more superspreaders just because we have a lot more people and just the simple physics of having a much larger population is that you're coming into contact with a lot more people than you normally would have in the past. we're much more vulnerable than we were before in the globalized world. >> we have planes that have flying all the time and people coming into contact with each other, but there are cities where people live really, really in close proximity and that's something that helps the virus spread easily. >> so urbanization. we're all living on top of each

other. >> pretty much, yes. >> if there's one bit of good news in the fight against this latest virus, it's that science may have a head start because like sars before it, covid-19 is a coronavirus. a family of viruses that's now well understood. in fact, usually carried by animals, coronavirus are known to have made the jump to humans at least seven times before. causing a range of symptoms from coughs and fevers to severe respiratory issues includie ini antibiotic resistant pneumonia, and while covid-19 is a close cousin of sars, there may be one troubling difference. sars only became contagious after those infected got visibly sick. >> it was a function of the biology of the sars virus. they didn't become infectious

until they became clinically ill. that's not the case with this virus which is what makes this virus potentially much more frightening. >> unlike sars, those infected with this new coronavirus may be contagious before they feel sick. according to the cdc. that means they can potentially pass the virus to others before they or their doctors even know they're infected. are you confident that you're going to be able to contain this, kill this thing? >> it is a coronavirus. we can't forget that we've worked on other coronaviruses before. so it's not like we're starting from scratch with our knowledge. so all of the vaccine development, this has been in play before. so we can use the knowledge that we have from those other coronaviruses and hopefully stop covid-19, so that's the goal. treat the people and stop the spread. >> so far, covid-19 hasn't killed nearly as many people as some of the worst pandemics of the 20th century.

but it's still very early days. how do you put the genie back in the bottle? >> it's out. for this particular outbreak, it's out, so how to get it back in, and we're -- you can see we're failing at that because the numbers have reached such high levels, so it's really, really difficult, and you can't go back in time. but in the future we can do better. and fighting the virus is only part of this battle. as it's spread, so have online conspiracies and toxic misinformation. >> this is, indeed, a bioweapon. >> genetic manipulation. >> involving chemical and biological experiments. >> coronavirus, the new democrat hoax. >> coming up, we'll separate the fact from fiction. so chantix can help you quit slow turkey. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first

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hi, richard liu with

breaking news. magnitude 5.9 earthquake broke off the state of california, 8:00 p.m. pacific time. it was far offshore. no tsunamis are expected from it. some shaking was said to be felt in eureka, california, in the north. multiple sources tell nbc news congressional leaders are considering a weeks-long recess over coronavirus concerns. this after senator ted cruz and congressman paul gosar announced they came in contact with an infected person and will self-quarantine. for now, back to "on assignment with richard engel." after initially downplaying the severity of the outbreak, china took drastic measures to control the coronavirus and the lives of its citizens. big brother was now watching and

taking orders. drones flew through the streets ordering people to wear face masks or return immediately to their homes. this training video shows what would happen to anyone who disobeyed. despite their draconian actions, the contagion spread. cruise ships carrying thousands of passengers were placed under lockdown but instead of acting as a quarantine, the ships became floating incubatoincubat >> just took temperatures and asked general questions and i guess the course of doing that that found ten more people that had the virus. >> the onward spread seemed relentless. >> nigeria has confirmed its first case of coronavirus. >> three new cases of the wuhan coronavirus. >> coronavirus. >> the deadly coronavirus is now in new zealand.

>> theories about the virus soon spread across the internet triggering an outbreak of rumors, conspiracies, and dangerous misinformation. >> the world health organization has described coronavirus as an info d infodemic. people are starting to panic, people are starting to get scared and people looking for information online. >> alex jones is director at london's center for analysis of social media. >> you can find examples of conspiracy theorists who are normally worried about ufos or worried about a flat earth or they're worried about the aluminati. they'll now leap on a new high attention-grabbing event like coronavirus in order to push that message. >> online was the perfect place to go viral. >> chinese have labs there in wuhan. chemical and biological experiments. >> bill gates has got an obsession with pandemics. >> genetic manipulation of

viruses to make them worse than they actually are. >> this is, indeed, a bioweapon. i've been saying that all along. >> coronavirus. the new democrat hoax. just like impeachment. >> this is not new with coronavirus. there are always conspiracy theories when there's a new disease that people are afraid of. >> dr. anthony fauchi, arguably the most respected virologist in the world, was called to testify before an urgent meeting of the senate health committee. >> i'm thinking back now about 35, 37 years ago i sat in this room trying to explain to the committee then that hiv was not a virus developed be i the eed. this is crazy, this is what happens when you haveout breaks. a lot of misinformation. >> we live in an attention economy. money to be made and eyeballs to be grabbed online and coronavirus presents an

opportunity to do that. >> people are spreading rumors about the coronavirus to get clicks. >> i 100% guarantee that. there are even young influencers who are faking coronavirus diagnoses for what they call clout, influence for attention. >> the misinformation fueled panic just as governments were taking ever more restrictive steps. pilgrimages to mecca have been canceled. paris' iconic louvre museum closed for three days. this milan fashion show did go ahead, but there was no one there to watch. and sporting events were played in empty stadiums. back in hong kong i met a young journalist, yuli yang. >> if you think you are surrounded literally by this killer bug that's out there, it's terrifying. >> the situation is even worse for her parents. they live in wuhan where the

outbreak began. >> my parents have not left their apartment for almost a month now. and they tried to reassure me that they're doing fine and they always sound very cheerful and upbeat. >> are people afraid? you afraid waking up in the morning, turning things, talking to people? >> everyone to a certain extent are afraid, are scared because you should see the number of people that have been dyingi i g because of this virus, you do see there's a legitimate conc n concern. >> francis is a financial analyst based in hong kong. he thinks this will have a lasting impact. so what is it like to be here, live here? >> well, i think it's really one of despair. it's heartbreaking to see something like that. >> francis knew almost from the beginning that the virus would have huge repercussions for the global economy. >> china is such an important manufacturing center. now it will do something like

50% of the industrial goods, consumer goods, of the world. and it stopped manufacturineman this entire world suffers. >> the economic effects of the virus could even be seen from space. these satellite images from nasa show a huge drop in pollution as factory in china slowed down. at one stage, president trump blamed the democrats saying they were exploiting the virus to score political points against him. >> this is their new hoax. >> the trump administration seemed to minimize the threat. >> we have contained this, i won't say airtight, but pretty close to airtight. >> but soon, the virus-induced slowdown of china's economy started to ripple across the globe. the u.s. stock market plummeted.

>> a brutal week. >> wall street just wrapping up its single worst week for the market. >> dow's going to open down almost a thousand points. >> nearly $4 trillion in market value over the past 10 sessions. >> what a week since the financial crisis. >> coverage continues of this monumental selloff on wall street. >> as the dow crashed, trillions of dollars were wiped off balance sheets. the white house became more vocal. >> we're taking this incredibly serious here in the united states. we're doing the most aggressive containment efforts in modern history. >> i went to washington, d.c., to the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases and spoke with the director, dr. anthony fauci. >> we're dealing with an evolving situation. we're dealing with clearly an emerging infectious disease that's now reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic proportions. it's not confined to one country anymore the way it was when it

first evolved and emerged in china. so this is clearly a major challenge to global health. >> the race is on to find a vaccine. scientists across federal agencies are sharing research and working together. they've isolated the pathogen, identified its dna, and are now fi finding out how to kill it. are you close? are you optimistic? >> well, we're always cautiously optimistic. the difficulty with vaccines is the time element that it takes. the thing that's sobering is it's not a vaccine we're going to have next month. so we're going to have to tough it out through this evolution of what we're seeing now of new cases in the absence of a vaccine. >> just three days after suggesting the coronavirus was part of a democratic hoax, president trump and his team were meeting big pharma, telling them to hurry up and produce a vaccine. >> i don't know what the time

will be. i don't think they know what the time will be. i've heard very quick numbers. a matter of months. >> a vaccine that you make and start testing a year is not a vaccine. that is going to be at the earliest a year to a year and a half no matter how fast you go. >> get it done. we need it. we want it fast. coming up, the coronavirus hits the u.s. >> a man in his 50s died at a hospital just outside of seattle. >> the death rate is rising. the question is, what can we do to stop the spread? >> for this kind of problem, the world's got to work together or otherwise we're toast. it all sts with an invitation. to feel exhilaration. the invitation to lexus sales event now through march 31st. get 0.9% apr for 60 months on all 2020 models. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

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broke that american public health officials had been dreading. >> authorities today announcing the first u.s. death from the deadly coronavirus that is spreading across the globe. >> coronavirus and the first death reported in the united states. >> a man in his 50s died at a hospital just outside of seattle and there are new concerns about how the virus is being transmitted inside the u.s. >> washington state declared a state of emergency. florida followed suit. then california and new york. covid-19 had come to the united states. >> right now you certainly shouldn't be panicking, but to deny that there's a threat is being unrealistic. it's clear that there's a threat. >> worringly for scientists, one of the infected patients in california hadn't traveled anywhere near wuhan. or any other known hotspot.

a kind of transmission known as community spread. and with a vaccine still months away at the earliest, the u.s. may have to consider taking disruptive steps to protect the population. >> it may come to a point where when you have enough community spread, that you switch from trying to contain it from coming into the country, contain it from spreading, and trying to protect yourself and your community. we're not there yet. but if and when we do, then you talk about what's called social distancing. >> social distancing has already been introduced in italy. the government imposing a quarantine on 16 million, a quarter of the population. they also issued public advisories telling people to stay three feet apart and not to kiss when they meet.

in israel, authorities didn't call off their elections but sent voters under quarantine for suspected contract or infection to special voting stations. not all governments are carrying out wide scale testing. so it's difficult to know the real extent of the global spread. around half the countries in the world now have identified coronavirus cases. the majority were just in four countries, china, italy, iran, and south korea. in iran, the virus hit the government like nowhere else, with dozens of officials infected. the deputy health minister even went on state tv to try to assure the public not to worry. coughing as he did it. the deputy minister tested positive for the virus the day after the interview. one of the biggest outbreaks was

in south korea. officials believe the virus was spread by a religious sect. church members there were worshipping and singing, tightly-packed together, sitting on the floor, even after it was known the virus was spreading. >> the u.s. government, failed to quickly implement testing for the pathogen. >> the world has to work together or otherwise we're toast. >> dr. thomas kaufman is the dean of duke university's medical school in singapore and helping the city fight the coronavirus outbreak. >> this virus keeps jumping from place to place. >> it certainly has that potential. and because of our, the global society, and travel, and linkage between countries, the potential for spread is really substantial. >> are we going to have to start quarantining people around the world and telling people to stay in your homes? >> i think the initial phase is

yes. >> do you think the united states would have to do something like what china did, lock up tens of millions of people? >> no -- >> have soldiers -- >> if there are big outbreaks in confined specific areas, then that's a strategy that can be used. the alternative is just to let it spread and the problem with that is the number of people who die could be a crisis nature. >> if we get a major outbreak of this coronavirus in this country, that would mean perhaps closing schools temporarily. getting people to do more tele working. canceling events where there is a lot of crowds in confined places. canceling unnecessary travel, so that you're not on an airplane for five hours, with a bunch of people who might be infected. >> that would be a huge step, it would have enormous economic, societal, psychological effects. >> it would. but it would be temporary. but it would be necessary.

>> finding the balance between containing a virus and restricting people's freedoms isn't easy. the chinese political system makes mass lockdowns possible, but also, its initial secrecy may have helped the virus spread. in the united states, high risk individuals have been instructed to self quarantine. but so far, there have been few major restrictions on travel for public events. >> who makes that call? >> the local health departments. it's not a federal call. it's local. >> and usually upon the advice of federal officials, like the cdc. >> coordinating what has become a global fight against the virus is done here, at the world health organization, established after world war ii, specifically to battle trans-national

epidemics. it means they're ready for moments like this. here, they're pulling information from health ministries around the world, and holding daily briefings. last week, the w.h.o. had two critical pieces of good news. >> in the past four hours, china reported 129 cases. the lowest number of cases seems generally 20. >> and covid-19 appears to be less contagious than the flu. so for now, the best advice -- >> it's a lot more just going back to the basics, making sure you wash your hands, religiously, every day, several times per day. >> back in hong kong, dr. wong finished another shift on the dirty team. as part of his new routine, he's going out to dinner with his wife. they walk separated by a safe distance, to get takeout.

and then go to a park, sitting away from each other, in case he's caught the virus from a patient. >> obviously, they're thinking about this now, and at times, the husband is supposed to be taking very good care of his wife, but then even now, i cannot have a dinner with her. every now and then, i feel guilty about it. >> you feel guilty because you're doing your job, but your job is so very important. >> there's only one hospital here, there's only one place for my daughter, but there are quite a few doctors. >> in the end, covid-19 reveals us to our core. our vulnerabilities, our resilience, the nature of our political systems, and how we treat our planet. >> if the bug were to stay in the air, in the trees, and we're going to get sick. let's move in there and have a

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