COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION

COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION

President trump says the united states is prepared to respond to the growing threat of coronavirus.

Even as health officials confirm the first u.s. case with no known links to travel or other patients.

Skyler henry reports from capitol hill.

A patient at ?

C davis medical center in sacramento is in isolation with coronavirus.

The cdc says it may be the first case of community transmission in the united states, meaning the patient was probably infected by someone in the general population.

(sot dr. dean blumberg)the person who exposed them probably exposed others.

There's probably other cases out there in the community that we don't know about.

(track #2)(gfx) this is the 15th case to originate in the u.s. the other 14 cases involved either people who had traveled to china or who had close contact with an infected patient.

(nats) opening bell (track #3)concerns over the coronavirus continue to rattle markets.

The dow jones continued its slide thursday.

(sot jill schlesinger) we are on track to have the worst week since the financial crisis.

It's been unrelenting sell off since monday morning.

(track #4)president trump tried to reassure americans =and= jittery investors.

(sot potus) whatever happens we're totally prepared (track #5)but mister trump seemed to contradict his own health officials about the future trajectory of the virus.

(sot schuchat) we do expect more cases(sot potus) there's a chance it could get fairly substantially worse but nothing is inevitable (bridge skyler henry/cbs news, capitol hill)on capitol hill this morning the secretary of health and human services explained that isolating patients is for containment, but that won't necessarily be the protocol if the virus becomes widespread.

(sot azar) if we end up having broader spread it will look and feel to the american people more like a severe flu season in terms of the interventions and approaches you see.

(track #5)the president tapped vice president mike pence to head the administratio n's task force for monitoring the outbreak.

He is meeting with that task force this afternoon.

Skyler henry, cbs news capitol