(KFTK) – Former Missouri Senator Jim Talent says addressing an outbreak like the coronavirus, takes a "gumshoe epidemiology" approach.
"Once these things break out, once they get recognized, there's a lot about these viruses you can only learn by observing and cataloging the actual impact they're having in a population," says Talent. "You can't study the virus under a microscope and know how contagious it is."
Based on conversations Talent has had with people at the Centers for Disease Control and Johns Hopkins, "it may be fairly contagious. Not like the common cold probably, but faily easy to get, but they think the virulence rate is rather low."
One problem Senator Talent sees is, exactly how accurate is the data about the outbreak from China, "I don't think anybody fully trusts that, for a lot of reasons. The Chinese don't know. They don't know how many people are walking around with this."
Where did this start?
"Its the Chinese food-safety system, I think," says Talent.
Could this have been a man-made virus, released as an act of terrorism or an accidental release from a lab?
"That's not what happened here," says Talent. "It went from animals to people. That's a characteristic of coronavirus."
Read Sen Talent's piece on the coronavirus at National Review online
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