Coronavirus: Mixed US messages as leading health official Nancy Messonnier warns of spread while Donald Trump downplays it

The United States’ mixed messaging over the coronavirus continued on Monday as a top health official warned that “many people” would be exposed to the coronavirus over the next two years while President Donald Trump persisted with downplaying the significance of widespread transmission in the country.

The crossed wires within the Trump administration stood in contrast to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) assertion that there was now a “real risk” of a global pandemic because of the virus.

In a media briefing, Nancy Messonnier of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said currently available data suggested “many people in the United States will at some point in time either this year or next be exposed to this virus”.

“And there's a good chance many will become sick,” she said. She emphasised that empirical findings from a study of the outbreak in China – where most of the illness and deaths linked to the virus have occurred – showed that more than 80 per cent of people who were infected had only mild flu-like symptoms.

For now, Messonnier said, most places in the US are not seeing community transmission. While Washington state and California may begin adopting some “mitigating” measures such as reducing mass gatherings to deal with likely community transmission, not all parts of the country need to follow their example, she said.