TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
PROBLEM: They said the same goes for products like egg salad that contain hard-boiled eggs. Seven people in five states have been reported ill so far, including someone who died in Texas, officials said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said peeled, hard-boiled eggs sold in bulk by Almark Foods are the outbreak’s likely source. The eggs were sold to retailers and food service operators in plastic pails and could be used in products like salads. The CDC said retailers and food service operators should wash and sanitize any surfaces that may have come in contact with the eggs or packaging, since listeria can spread easily. The warning does not apply to Almark’s hard-boiled eggs sold directly to consumers. Nor does it apply to eggs hard-boiled at home or in restaurants and stores. The CDC also said people at higher risk for listeria should confirm whether a store or restaurant is using Almark’s eggs before buying or ordering products with hard-boiled eggs. If the store or restaurant does not know, officials say not to buy the product. Pregnant women and people with cancer are 10 times more likely than others to get a listeria infection, while people on dialysis are 50 times more likely, the agency said. People who are 65 and older are four times more likely. A person who answered the phone at Almark Foods in Gainesville, Georgia, said the company did not have any comment. The company has four manufacturing facilities and delivers nationwide, according to its website. In a letter  to the FDA in August, Almark said it had taken corrective actions after two swabs taken by the agency in February at its facility tested positive for listeria.

SOLUTION: Food poisoning linked to hard-boiled eggs in food service.

PROBLEM: Scientists dubbed the startling findings “immune amnesia.” The body can rebuild those defenses — but it could take years. And with measles on the rise, “it should be a scary phenomenon,” said Dr. Michael Mina of Harvard’s school of public health, lead author of research published Thursday in the journal Science. “This goes under the radar” because doctors wouldn’t necessarily connect a child’s pneumonia to measles they suffered a year earlier, Mina explained. “But would they have gotten it if they hadn’t gotten measles?” The Harvard team analyzed blood samples taken from 77 children before and after a measles outbreak in an unvaccinated community in the Netherlands. They looked for antibodies, which remember viruses and bacteria they encounter to guard against a repeat infection. After recovering from measles, the youngsters were left with plenty of antibodies against that virus — but ones they’d previously harbored against other germs had plummeted. In the most severe cases, “they’re just as vulnerable as if they were infants,” said study senior author Stephen Elledge, a Harvard geneticist. Elledge is paid by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which also supports AP’s Health & Science Department. A separate study, published Thursday in Science Immunology, supported the findings. Researchers from Britain’s Wellcome Sanger Institute used the Dutch blood samples to genetically test antibody-producing cells, and concluded measles is eliminating enough to re-set the immune system to a baby-like state. If protection against the misery — and sometimes life-threatening effects — of measles isn’t enough reason to vaccinate children, specialists said the two studies offer a powerful new rationale. “There really are profound gaps and holes” in someone’s immunity after measles, said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which helped fund the Harvard work. “You ultimately recover but after a year or two or sometimes more.” “It’s doubly important to vaccinate children,” agreed Dr. Mark Mulligan of NYU Langone Health, who wasn’t involved with the new research. “It’s a vaccine that protects against the specific target, measles virus, but also against immune suppression.” Measles is one of the world’s most contagious viruses, able to spread through coughs and sneezes for four days before someone develops the characteristic rash. It sometimes leaves children with brain damage or hearing loss, and while deaths are rare in the U.S., measles killed 110,000 people globally in 2017. The vaccine offers powerful protection but a lack of access means measles remains rampant in many lower-income countries. Even the U.S., where most children are immunized, has seen a resurgence fueled by outbreaks in unvaccinated communities that in turn threaten people too young or sick to be immunized. So far this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted more than 1,200 U.S. measles cases, the most since 1992. Doctors have long known that people temporarily experience weakened immunity after measles. Using decades of health records, Mina previously reported that child deaths from other infections jumped after a measles outbreak, increases that lasted two or three years. But no one knew why, until the new study. The Dutch children started out pretty healthy: Technology developed in Elledge’s lab found antibodies in their blood against typical childhood germs. But two months after recovering from measles, the children had lost on average 20 percent of their usual antibody mix. Some lost up to 70 percent of protection against specific bugs, limiting their ability to respond if they encounter that germ again. Importantly, researchers didn’t find loss of antibodies in “control” populations that didn’t get infected with measles — or in children after they received the measles vaccine. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

SOLUTION: Measles saps kids’ ability to fight other germs.

PROBLEM: Trump made the announcement at a Rose Garden news conference as he battled to show Americans he is aggressively addressing the health crisis after facing criticism that he was slow to react and played down the threat until the number of cases rose. Trump cautioned that Americans will have to make sacrifices and change their daily practices, a stark difference from two weeks ago when he said people should use common sense but otherwise not change their routines. “It could get worse. The next eight weeks will be critical,” he said. The president appeared on stage with members of his coronavirus task force and business executives after meeting them inside the White House over how to accelerate testing of Americans for the virus to better track the contagion’s spread. Shaking hands freely with the gathered business executives, the 73-year-old Trump later acknowledged he expected to be tested for the virus. He had come into contact with a Brazilian official last Saturday who later tested positive for coronavirus. “Most likely, yeah, most likely. Not for that reason but because I think I will do it anyway,” Trump said. “Fairly soon. We’re working out a schedule.”  “We have no symptoms whatsoever,” he said to a question about whether he should get a test. Trump said Walmart Inc  Chief Executive Doug McMillon had agreed to set up drive-thru testing at store parking lots across the country and that Alphabet Inc’s Google will create a website to help determine whether individuals need a coronavirus test. Trump shrugged off a question about whether he was responsible for what many experts have said was slow progress toward expansion of tests to track the virus. “I don’t take responsibility at all,” he said, blaming rules and regulations he inherited for the inability to mass produce the testing kits. Trump, who on Wednesday ordered citizens from 26 European nations not to enter the United States for 30 days as of midnight Friday, said his administration “may be adding” travel restrictions on the United Kingdom and a couple of other countries. As for whether Americans should take commercial flights, Trump was blunt: “If you stay home, it’s not bad. It’s not bad.”  The virus that emerged in central China in December has now spread to over 130 countries and territories and infected more than 138,000 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. It has so far led to 47 U.S. deaths after six more were reported on Friday in hard-hit Washington state and one in Colorado. Trump said his declaration of a national emergency will “unleash the full power of the federal government” to help states and territories in the fight. The announcement gave Wall Street a much-needed boost with the Dow and benchmark S&P 500 both ending the day more than 9% higher. “Through talent or through luck, call it whatever you want, but through a very collective action and shared sacrifice, national determination, we will overcome the threat of the virus,” Trump said. Trump said the battered cruise ship industry could expect help. “We will be helping them and we will be helping the airline industry if we have to, assuming we have to,” he said. Trump had been heavily focused on hard-hit industries in making sure the U.S. economy is not devastated by a slowdown in consumer activity as a result of the virus. On Friday, he used much of his appearance to focus on the potential human toll of the respiratory illness than can cause pneumonia in severe cases. He urged every state to set up emergency centers to help fight the coronavirus. “We’ll remove or eliminate every obstacle necessary to deliver our people the care that they need and that they’re entitled to. No resource will be spared, nothing whatsoever,” he said. Pressure has been mounting for Trump to declare an infectious disease emergency under the 1988 law that would allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide disaster funds to state and local governments and to deploy support teams. President Bill Clinton in 2000 employed the rarely used measure to declare such an emergency for West Nile virus. Trump said the federal government was partnering with the private sector to accelerate production of test kits to make them more widely available to Americans. He said there will be about 5 million coronavirus tests available soon but doubted that that many will be needed. He urged Americans to only seek the test if they feel they need it. “We don’t want people to take a test if we feel that they shouldn’t be doing it and we don’t want everyone running out and taking - only if you have certain symptoms,” he said. Alongside Trump was Anthony Fauci, the National Institutes of Health expert who is on Trump’s coronavirus task force. He offered a cautious outlook for what may unfold in the short term. “We still have a long way to go. There will be many more cases. But we’ll take care of that,” said Fauci, long the nation’s top infectious disease expert. “What’s going on here today is going to help it end sooner than it would have.”  Trump said the federal government would waive interest on student loans and ordered the Energy Department to take advantage of low oil prices to top up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

SOLUTION:
Trump declares coronavirus national emergency, says he will most likely be tested.