by Tyler Hale
UPDATE: Trump has halted all travel from Europe to the United States.
President Donald Trump will discuss coronavirus concerns in a special Oval Office address on March 11.
Trump is expected to discuss the measures the United States government is taking to combat the coronavirus outbreak. Earlier today, the World Health Organization declared that coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, is a pandemic.
On March 6, Trump signed a $8.3 billion spending bill that is aimed to providing funding for state agencies to develop and manufacture vaccines for the virus, as well as developing other preventative measures. The bill, H.R. 6074, provides funding Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), specifically the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health, and the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund. It will also provide supplemental appropriations for the Small Business Administration, the Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The address comes on the same day that Arkansas officials announced the first presumptive positive case of COVID-19 in the state. In a Wednesday morning press conference, Hutchinson said that the patient is being held in isolated in a Pine Bluff-area hospital.
According to Johns Hopkins University, there are 125,865 confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide with 4,615 total deaths. In the United States, there have been 1,281 confirmed cases as of March 11.
The Oval Office address will be held at 8 p.m. CST and will be livestreamed.
To watch the Oval Office address, click here.