After monitoring the situation, the Trump administration officially declared the coronavirus a public health emergency and will be implementing travel restrictions and mandatory quarantines.
Alex Azar, Health and Human Services Secretary, said that the President signed an order to deny the entry of foreign nationals who have been in China in the past two weeks. U.S. citizens who are returning from the Hubei province of China, where the outbreak is at its worst, will be subject to a 14-day mandatory quarantine period to guarantee they aren't infected with the coronavirus.
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While the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has reiterated that the country is still at a "low" risk level at this time, coronavirus cases are continuing to spread in countries outside of China. Additionally, Homeland Security deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli has said that incoming flights from China will be restricted to just seven airports as of Sunday. These include New York's JFK, San Francisco, Los Angeles International Airport, Seattle, Atlanta, Honolulu, and Chicago's O'Hare airport.
Coronavirus statistics
At the time of writing, there have been 9,925 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 9,783 of them coming from China. In the U.S., only six people have been diagnosed with the illness, while the total global death toll has grown to 213.
Ever since the outbreak first caught mainstream attention, shares of biotech stocks have been even more volatile than normal. Certain vaccine developers, such as Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO -1.83%), have surged on the possibility of developing a coronavirus vaccine. Inovio announced on Thursday that it came to a research agreement with Beijing Advaccine Biotechnology to speed up the development of a potential treatment.
