Saturday, February 15, 2020

67,178/1527. Had White House Task Force conference call at 12:00 noon (Saturday). Big issue was the plan to get Americans off the Diamond Princess in Yokohama harbor. State will charter planes to get them to Lackland and Travis AF bases. Sick people will stay in Japanese hospitals. Uninfected and people whoise status is not clear will be flown out with the proper PPE for those who are thought to be at roisk of being infected. Also, discussed on the call the persistent problem of cruise ships in general, which could derail all polasn for containment since they scatter people from all over the world to all over the world. Important conference call chaired by Bob Kadlec with the ASPR and CDC people who are on the ground with the Diamond Princess Cruise ship in Yokohama. The conditions apper to be dreadful with major transmission on the boat. Many crew members getting infected. Japanese are not adhering to the required PPE. It seems that they are unaware of the potential transmissibility of the virus. The CDC people say the ship is like an “incubator” for the virus. One called it a cesspool of virus. This conversation makes it clear that we need to get US citizens off that ship. James Lawlor (Nebraska) and Michael Callahan (Mass. General) were on the call. PRESS: FOX News with Molly Line;