Bloomberg Law
Feb. 12, 2020, 5:51 PMUpdated: Feb. 12, 2020, 8:14 PM

U.S. Lacks Resources to Combat Rapidly Spreading Coronavirus (1)

Jeannie Baumann
Jeannie Baumann
Reporter

The U.S. health-care system lacks the capacity to handle the latest coronavirus if the rapidly spreading outbreak can’t be contained, former CDC and FDA officials told a Senate panel.

“Slowing down the spread is important because if we have a lot of cases all at once, we simply don’t have the surge capacity to manage that in our health-care environment,” Julie Gerberding, who led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the 2003 SARS outbreak, said Wednesday at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee roundtable.

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