TASK DEFINITION: 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.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: The new measures may include screening air travelers for fever when they arrive in the United States from the worst-stricken countries in West Africa, on direct or indirect flights, Schumer said in a statement. He said U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Thomas Frieden told him the agency might adopt some of the recommendations Schumer had made on Ebola screening over the weekend. Those included having the CDC and Customs and Border Protection conduct intense health screening of workers at U.S. ports of entry. The New York Democrat also urged the Department of Homeland Security to create a database of people flying to and from West Africa, which would be shared with hospitals around the country. “The CDC has been doing a very good job thus far in combating the threat, but you can’t be too careful when it comes to stopping a deadly epidemic,” Schumer said in the statement. The outbreak has killed at least 3,439 people out of 7,492 confirmed, probable and suspected cases since it emerged in Guinea in March, in the worst Ebola epidemic on record. Along with Guinea, the worst-hit countries have been Sierra Leone and Ebola. The disease has also spread to Nigeria and Senegal, but is considered contained there. A man who traveled to Dallas from Liberia last week became the first patient diagnosed with the disease on U.S. soil. In Spain, officials reported on Monday that a nurse had become the first person infected with the hemorrhagic virus in Europe. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the administration had confidence in the system as it exists but was working on additional safety protocols that would be announced in the coming days. “The president’s team is hard at work on developing additional protocols for additional screening measures,” Earnest told reporters on Air Force One. Claim: U.S. to require tougher Ebola screening at airports: senator.

SOLUTION: U.S. health officials are preparing to require tougher Ebola screening at American airports this week to keep the deadly virus from spreading to this country, Senator Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The Democrat-led Senate and Assembly voted Thursday to repeal the exemption, which allows parents to cite religious beliefs to forego getting their child the vaccines required for school enrollment. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, signed the measure minutes after the final vote. The law takes effect immediately but will give unvaccinated students up to 30 days after they enter a school to show they’ve had the first dose of each required immunization. With New York’s move, similar exemptions are still allowed in 45 states, though lawmakers in several of them have introduced their own legislation to eliminate the waiver. The issue is hotly contested and debate around it has often been emotional, pitting cries that religious freedom is being curtailed against warnings that public health is being endangered. After the vote in the Assembly, many of those watching from the gallery erupted in cries of “shame!” One woman yelled obscenities down to the lawmakers below. The debate has only intensified with this year’s measles outbreak , which federal officials recently said has surpassed 1,000 illnesses, the highest in 27 years. “I’m not aware of anything in the Torah, the Bible, the Koran or anything else that suggests you should not get vaccinated,” said Bronx Democrat Jeffrey Dinowitz, the bill’s Assembly sponsor. “If you choose to not vaccinate your child, therefore potentially endangering other children ... then you’re the one choosing not to send your children to school.” Hundreds of parents of unvaccinated children gathered at New York’s Capitol for the vote to protest. Stan Yung, a Long Island attorney and father, said his Russian Orthodox religious views and health concerns about vaccines will prevent him from vaccinating his three young children. His family, he said, may consider leaving the state. “People came to this country to get away from exactly this kind of stuff,” Yung said ahead of Thursday’s votes. Supporters of the bill say religious beliefs about vaccines shouldn’t eclipse scientific evidence that they work, noting the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1905 that states have the right to enforce compulsory vaccination laws. During the Assembly’s floor debate, supporters brought up scourges of the past that were defeated in the U.S. through vaccines. “I’m old enough to have been around when polio was a real threat,” said Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, D-Manhattan. “I believe in science.... Your personal opinions, which may be based on junk science, do not trump the greater good.” Supporters also suggest some parents may be claiming the religious exemption for their children even though their opposition is actually based on scientifically discredited claims about the dangers of vaccines. The bill would not change an existing state exemption given to children who cannot have vaccines for medical reasons, such as a weakened immune system. Cuomo told reporters on Wednesday that he believes public health — and the need to protect those who cannot get vaccinated because for medical reasons — outweighs the concerns about religious freedom. “I understand freedom of religion,” he said. “I have heard the anti-vaxxers’ theory, but I believe both are overwhelmed by the public health risk.” The current measles outbreak has renewed concern about the exemptions in many states. The nation last saw as many cases in 1992, when more than 2,200 were reported. The majority of cases are from outbreaks in New York in Orthodox Jewish communities. California removed personal belief vaccine exemptions for children in both public and private schools in 2015, after a measles outbreak at Disneyland sickened 147 people and spread across the U.S. and into Canada. Maine ended its religious exemption earlier this year. Mississippi and West Virginia also do not allow religious exemptions. Once common in the U.S., measles became rare after vaccination campaigns that started in the 1960s. A decade ago, there were fewer than 100 cases a year. Claim: New York ends religious exemption to vaccine mandates.

SOLUTION: New York eliminated the religious exemption to vaccine requirements for schoolchildren Thursday, as the nation’s worst measles outbreak in decades prompts states to reconsider giving parents ways to opt out of immunization rules.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: There’s a good reason for that. A devastating 1964 Alaska earthquake — the most powerful on record in the United States — led to stricter building codes that helped structures withstand the shifting earth Friday. “Congratulations to the people of Alaska for being really prepared for this earthquake,” U.S. Geological Survey Geophysicist Paul Caruso said Saturday. “Because a magnitude 7.0 in a city like that, you know, it could have been significantly worse.” Gov. Bill Walker said sometimes people, including himself, grouse about stringent building codes. But he’s “really glad” they were in place as he only had minor water damage at his home. “Building codes mean something,” he said Friday. The quake was centered about 7 miles (12 kilometers) north of Anchorage, which has a population of about 300,000. People ran from their offices or took cover under desks. A 5.7 aftershock arrived within minutes, followed by a series of smaller quakes. The two big back-to-back quakes knocked items off shelves, disrupted power, broke store windows and briefly triggered a tsunami warning for islands and coastal areas south of the city. Walker issued a disaster declaration, and President Donald Trump declared an emergency, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief. There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries. Still, aftershocks Saturday continued to fray nerves, with people worrying about being caught in more massive shakers. “They’re disturbing, and I’m not putting anything away that could fall until they calm down,” Randall Cavanugh, an Anchorage attorney, said following a restless night at home. “I kept waking up.” By mid-morning, there had been about 550 aftershocks, including 11 with magnitudes of 4.5 or greater, Caruso said. The aftershocks should be weaker and less frequent in the coming days, but officials can’t say for sure when they’ll stop, he said. Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz said the extent of damage was “relatively small” considering the scale of Friday’s earthquake. He also credited building codes for minimizing structure damage. “In terms of a disaster, I think it says more about who we are than what we suffered,” he said Saturday at a press briefing, adding that Anchorage was prepared for such an emergency. “People pulled together. We followed the plans that were in place. We looked after one another. And when people around the country and around the world look at this, they’re going to say, ’We want to do things in the Anchorage way because Anchorage did this right,” Berkowitz said. After the first earthquake, Alaska’s largest hospital activated its incident command center, but the trickle of patients into the emergency room at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage was more like a normal workday and not a mass casualty event. The injuries were described as minor, and there were no patients with life-threatening conditions. “The flow of patients into the emergency department was similar to a typical Monday,” hospital spokesman Mikal Canfield said Saturday. “It wasn’t a situation where there was a mass rush of people.” Roads didn’t fare so well, as reports of extensive damage came in. The Alaska Department of Transportation counted about 50 sites with damage, including eight considered major. Most of the damage was to highways north of Anchorage. The agency also was planning to conduct bridge inspections Saturday. Transportation officials said in a release that the aftershocks continue to contribute to settling and additional cracking. Rock falls exacerbated by the aftershocks were causing some problems on the Seward Highway south of Anchorage. Normal operations resumed at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport after flight operations were suspended Friday, Transportation Department spokesman Meadow Bailey told The Associated Press. The 800-mile (1,287-kilometer) trans Alaska oil pipeline was shut down for hours while crews were sent to inspect it for damage. Michelle Egan with Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., the pipeline operator, said the line was restarted at 3:30 p.m. Friday. She said there are no obvious signs of damage and no operational impact on the pipeline, whose closest section is 120 miles (193 kilometers) from the epicenter. Anchorage’s school system canceled classes through Tuesday while it examined buildings for damage. Alaska’s 1964 earthquake, with a 9.2 magnitude, was centered about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Anchorage. It and the tsunami it triggered claimed about 130 lives. The state averages 40,000 earthquakes a year, with more large quakes than the 49 other states combined. Southern Alaska has a high risk of earthquakes because the Earth’s plates slide past each other under the region, but it is rare for major quakes to strike so close heavily populated areas. ___ Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; Dan Joling in Anchorage; Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon; Gene Johnson in Seattle; Jennifer Kelleher, Audrey McAvoy and Caleb Jones in Honolulu; Rachel La Corte in Olympia, Washington; and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report. ___ Follow Rachel D’Oro at https://twitter.com/rdoro Claim: Alaska quake damage could have been much worse, experts say.

SOLUTION:
The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that rattled Alaska’s largest city cracked roads and collapsed highway ramps, but there were no reports of widespread catastrophic damage or collapsed buildings.