The coronavirus outbreak is a serious matter and must be treated seriously, but steps taken by President Donald Trump to control its spread in the United States have helped keep numbers low, Sen. Ted Cruz, who chaired a Foreign Relations Committee hearing this week to examine how to stop the spread of the disease, said Thursday.
"There are worldwide now over 95,000 confirmed cases with the virus," the Texas Republican said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "We have over 3,200 people who have died. Now, the vast majority of those infections, the vast majority of those deaths have been in China. The spread to the United States is still relatively limited."
In the hearing, held on Wednesday, senators spoke with officials from the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Transportation to speak about steps being taken to secure the nation's borders and to screen people, said Cruz.
He said the experts noted that President Donald Trump's "unprecedented" steps to freeze civilian air travel to and from China and quarantining Americans returning from infected regions played a major role in stopping the virus' spread in the United States.
Meanwhile, everything possible must be done to stop the spread of the disease, said Cruz, but "we also shouldn't give in to the panic or hysteria. We should be driven by facts and medical science."
His comments came before the Senate passed an $8.3 billion measure Thursday to help stem the coronavirus outbreak and accelerate the government's response. The money is earmarked to pay for a multifaceted attack on the virus, which has disrupted travel and threatened the U.S. economy's growth.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.