Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: Washington’s governor banned large public events in three counties on Wednesday, a strategy guided by the work of Trevor Bedford and his colleagues, who have estimated there are currently 1,100 active cases in the state, most of them undiscovered by testing. Like a detective studying fingerprints, Bedford uses the genetic code the virus leaves behind. The dots he connects are mutations in the genetic alphabet of the virus, a 30,000-letter string that changes at the rate of one letter every 15 days. Those tiny mutations don’t change the virus’ effect on people, but they do allow scientists to draw conclusions about how it spreads from person to person. After a person gets tested for the virus with nasal and throat swabs, a small bit of the specimen can be used to rapidly sequence the virus’ genome. That work has been happening, not just in Seattle, but in other labs around the world. Scientists are sharing their results on a public platform where they’ve been sharing influenza genome data since 2008. This week, Bedford’s lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center worked with California researchers to find links between a cluster of cases in the Seattle area and the outbreak on the Grand Princess cruise ship in California. “They all are very similar genetically,” Bedford told The Associated Press. “It seems very possible” that virus from the Washington outbreak made it onto the Grand Princess. Dr. Charles Chiu at the University of California, San Francisco, agreed. He provided genome sequencing of seven samples from infected passengers who got off the Grand Princess this week. An eighth sample from an earlier Grand Princess cruise to Mexico had ties to Washington state, Chiu said, and that person likely seeded the outbreak among passengers on board as the ship left for Hawaii. “The simplest explanation,” Chiu said, is that the earlier Grand Princess passenger had been in Washington state and then seeded the cruise ship outbreak. There’s an alternative explanation, Chiu said. A cruise passenger or crew member was infected in another country, coincidentally by a virus with the same mutations as the Washington state cases. “Common sense tells you it more likely came from Washington,” Chiu said. For most people, the coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover within a few weeks. Based on genome sequencing of 18 Washington state cases, Bedford believes the state outbreak began with one person, perhaps the 35-year-old man who was the first known U.S. case. The coronavirus infection rate in the Seattle Flu Study, a project mapping seasonal flu, indicates there could be 1,100 active COVID-19 infections in the state, although because of limitations in the modeling that number could range from as low as 210 to as high as 2,800 active infections. Health authorities tried to trace all the people who had contact with the first U.S. case, a resident of Snohomish County, north of Seattle, who had visited Wuhan, the Chinese city that was the initial epicenter of the outbreak. He landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Jan. 15 and started feeling sick the next day. On Jan. 19, he visited a clinic in and was hospitalized on Jan. 20. “They did very aggressive contact tracing looking to identify anybody who had had contact with that initial case and sort of concentric circles outward,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. She called Bedford’s work “an interesting hypothesis,” but said the outbreak could have been caused by “a secondary seeding.” Kristian Andersen, a genetic epidemiologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, agreed that the virus was introduced to Washington state by one person and suggested that the active cases probably exceed 1,100. Neither of the conclusions Bedford described is a surprise, he said in an email. “The United States has completely failed to prepare for the pandemic — despite having adequate time — and we currently have one of the lowest capacity for COVID-19 testing,” he wrote. “This continues to be an enormous problem and it is highly likely that we are currently be missing the vast majority of cases occurring across the country.” “Unless our ability to detect cases is transformed within days and aggressive strategies for responses are put in place, within a couple of weeks, we are going to find ourselves in a situation that is very similar to the one currently unfolding in Italy,” Andersen wrote. ___ Associated Press Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report. ___ 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. ___ Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak Claim: Scientist links 2 state outbreaks with genetic fingerprints.

Output: A U.S. scientist is helping public health authorities understand and track the coronavirus, turning up clues about how it arrived and spread through Washington state and beyond, including potentially seeding an outbreak on the Grand Princess cruise ship.


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: "Raising backyard chickens has been satisfying some foodies’ affection for the uber-local egg and lower-fat meat in urban areas, including metro Atlanta, for about a decade. Now the Centers for Disease Control is warning of a downside to the popular trend: salmonella outbreaks traced to some backyard owners kissing and cuddling their flocks. The CDC findings drew some media attention last month, and a PolitiFact reader who heard the health alert on NPR’s ""Morning Edition"" on July 16 asked us to dig deeper. We went directly to the source, the CDC, which is headquartered in Atlanta and has been investigating four recent Salmonella outbreaks that, as of July 29, had infected 218 people in 41 states. Five of them were in Georgia, 19 were in Alabama, 5 were in North Carolina, 11 were in South Carolina and 6 were in Tennessee. Fifty of the 218 people have required hospitalization for Salmonella, the major symptoms of which are usually diarrhea, fever and abdominal pain. No deaths have been reported, CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said. So how exactly do CDC officials know that some of these cases are due to backyard breeders kissing and cuddling live poultry? Dr. Megin Nichols, a veterinarian with the CDC, told PolitiFact the agency has been tracking upward trends in both the number of outbreaks and people infected in the past five years and has been working to trace their causes. ""We’ve been trying to interview these people to find out how they are getting sick,"" Nichols said. ""We are finding a certain proportion that are due to very close contact -- something that surprised us here at the CDC."" Salmonella is a germ that lives naturally in the intestine of chickens, ducks and many other animals. It doesn’t typically make the birds sick, but they can transmit the germs in their droppings and on their feet, feathers and beaks, even when they look clean and healthy, the CDC says. The germs also can get on their cages, coops, feed, water dishes, hay, plants and the area where they live and roam. In addition, the bacteria can rest on the hands, shoes and clothes of those who work around the birds or play with them. And Nichols told us that among the people who became ill between 2008 and 2014 due to baby poultry exposure, 49 percent, or 196 out of 400, reported snuggling and holding baby birds. Another 13 percent, or about 53, reported kissing baby birds, she said. Those people, many of whom were young children, became sick through fecal oral contact, Nichols said. Those same interviews also showed that about 46 percent of backyard breeders are keeping live poultry in their homes, she said. Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback findings have linked the most recent four outbreaks of human Salmonella infections to contact with chicks, ducklings, and other live poultry from multiple hatcheries. Interviews have been conducted with 140 of those who were recently ill and, 117, or 84 percent, reported contact with live poultry in the week before their illness began, according to the CDC website. Additional interviews to determine whether that contact included snuggling and kissing have yet to be conducted, Nichols said. An increasing number of people around the country are choosing to keep live poultry - mostly chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese as part of a greener, healthier lifestyle. Local governments, including several in metro Atlanta, have changed their zoning ordinances in recent years to accommodate the trend, and groups of backyard poultry buffs meet regularly in the region to talk chicken. Backyard owners have told reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the benefits include fresh eggs and meat, a built-in source of fertilizer for their gardens and ready-made bug-killers. Some say they give their chickens names, the freedom to roam the house and yard and cuddle and coddle them like family pets. The larger problem According to the CDC, salmonella, named for an American scientist who discovered the bacteria, is estimated to cause a million illnesses in the United States a year, with 19,000 hospitalizations and 380 deaths. Most people develop diarrhea and the other conditions within 12 to 72 hour after infection and recover without treatment in four to seven days. It has the potential to turn deadly if it spreads from the intestines to the bloodstream, and then to other body sites. Prompt treatment with antibiotics is critical, and the elderly, infants, and people with impaired immune systems are more likely to have a severe illness. In the largest recent outbreak, which occurred between March 2013 and July 2014, more than 600 people in 29 states and Puerto Rico were infected with seven outbreak strains. The outbreak was associated with one brand of chicken, which led to a company recall of more than 40,000 pounds of chicken products, according to the CDC. To prevent salmonella infections related to backyard farming, the CDC’s Nichols encourages several common-sense rules. These include thorough handwashing after contact with the chicken, keeping live poultry out of the home, and avoiding snuggling, close contact with the birds’ beaks or other close exposure that would allow ingestion of bacteria. She will be one of the experts featured in a webinar on the topic of practicing backyard bird biosecurity at 7p.m. Thursday. Our conclusion The CDC has issued a warning against kissing or snuggling backyard chickens. It follows four recent Salmonella outbreaks that, as of July 29, had infected 218 people in 41 states. Five of them were in Georgia. Interviews have been conducted with 140 of the ill and 117, or 84 percent, reported contact with live poultry in the week before their illness began, according to the CDC website. The CDC also has evidence from outbreaks between 2008 to 2014. In that period, they found that of the people who became infected with salmonella due to baby poultry exposure, 49 percent, or 196 out of 400 people, reported snuggling and holding baby birds. Another 13 percent, or about 53, reported kissing baby birds.. That’s cause to sound the alarm." Claim: Caution: Kissing and cuddling chickens can be hazardous to your health.

Output: CDC: Kissing and cuddling backyard chickens linked to salmonella infections


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: The National Weather Service (NWS) warned of an Arctic air blast from Canada continuing to provide subzero temperatures for the U.S. Midwest, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Wednesday evening and into Thursday. On Wednesday, public school officials in Chicago, Milwaukee and Boston canceled Thursday classes out of caution, saying the frigid temperatures in the forecast pose a danger to children. “Our top priority remains the safety of our students, and tomorrow’s weather conditions could again be dangerous to students traveling to and from school,” said Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett in a statement to parents. Chicago Public Schools, the third-largest U.S. school district with 400,000 students and almost 800 schools, told students on Wednesday to stay home and indoors as temperatures dropped to between 20 and 30 degrees Fahrenheit below average. Overnight readings were expected to be as low as 16 below zero. There was little snow-day fun for children freed from school. Sledding hills and cross-country ski areas were shut down around Chicago, and in South Dakota, the city of Sioux Falls closed six ice-skating rinks, citing wind chill peril. Pat Powers, 48, of Brookings, S.D., about 50 miles north of Sioux Falls, put on snow gear to go shopping for sugar to take home for his teenaged daughter who wanted to bake on her day off from classes. He said he preferred to run the errand rather than let her out in the cold. “It’s a good day to stay home and blog in your pajamas,” said Powers, a political blogger. Although Chicago was sunny and clear, commuters said uncovered hands and faces became painful after a few seconds in the brutal cold. The National Weather Service warned that frostbite could happen with just 15 minutes of exposure and advised people to keep pets indoors. Chicago’s trains and buses were less crowded than normal as some workers stayed home. There also were some delays of buses and trains due to the weather. The NWS issued wind chill alerts for cities including Chicago and Detroit as strong Arctic high pressure built into the Midwest. Overnight wind chill values could reach 25 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, the weather service said. “Dangerously cold wind chills will continue Thursday morning,” in northern Illinois and northwest Indiana, the weather service said. BLIZZARD-LIKE BLOWING SNOW  The weather service forecast blizzard conditions for parts of South Dakota on Thursday afternoon because of blowing snow, not fresh snow. All Sioux Falls public and parochial schools were shut on Wednesday. Atmospheric pressure hit possible record highs in Aberdeen, S.D., the NWS said. High barometric pressure is associated with cold air from the polar regions. In Chicago, parents scrambled to line up child care after schools closed. Kim Dooley, 52, was on the elevated train into work after rushing to find a nanny for her 6-year-old special-needs daughter. “People aren’t as hardy as they used to be,” she said. In Minneapolis, where the temperature was 8 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, commuters left their parka hoods up inside  trains and pedestrians walked with their hands over their faces. Most Midwesterners took the cold in stride and said the temperatures seemed normal compared to last year’s polar vortex storms. “This is nothing. It does not compare to any of the epic storms that we’ve had,” said businessman Matt Minar, 42. Ohio saw snowfall overnight but nothing unseasonable. “This time last year was worse,” said Steve Carlson, 49, a Cleveland native and customer service worker for AT&T who had calls scheduled for outdoor work all day. Farther south, outdoor workers in Kentucky doubled up on coats to protect against wind chill temperatures of 4 degrees below zero. “I drink a lot of hot chocolate,” said Eddie Rainbolt, 50, in Louisville, a sign holder for Solid Gold, which buys gold and silver. Several Southeastern states also braced for frigid cold. In Atlanta, the medical examiner’s office said it was investigating the death of a man found outside a bus stop that may have been weather-related. Claim: 'Baby, It's Cold Outside': large part of U.S. in deep freeze.


Output: Schools in large cities across the Midwest and into the Northeast announced they will close on Thursday to protect children from bitterly cold temperatures as wind chill warnings were issued for most of the eastern half of the United States.