novel coronavirus in the United States,” said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health.
“The risk to the general public in Illinois remains low,” Ezike said during the briefing. “This person-to-person spread was between two very close contacts, a wife and husband. The virus is not spreading widely across the community.”
Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agreed.
“We understand this may be concerning, but based on what we know now our assessment remains that the risk to the public is low,” Redfield said during the briefing.
“The vast majority of Americans have not had recent travel to China, the high-risk areas of transmission where human-to-human transmission is occurring,” he added.
U.S. health experts said person-to-person transmission in the United States was inevitable.
“The main takeaway is this confirms something we already knew: that there was likely person-to-person spread in