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.

Amid warnings from public health officials that a 2020 outbreak of a new coronavirus could soon become a pandemic involving the U.S., alarmed readers asked Snopes to verify a rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump had “fired the entire pandemic response team two years ago and then didn’t replace them.” The claim came from a series of tweets posted by Judd Legum, who runs Popular Information, a newsletter he describes as being about “politics and power.” Legum’s commentary was representative of sharp criticism from Democratic legislators (and some Republicans) that the Trump administration had ill-prepared the country for a pandemic even as one was looming on the horizon. Legum outlined a series of cost-cutting decisions made by the Trump administration in preceding years that had gutted the nation’s infectious disease defense infrastructure. The “pandemic response team” firing claim referred to news accounts from Spring 2018 reporting that White House officials tasked with directing a national response to a pandemic had been ousted. Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer abruptly departed from his post leading the global health security team on the National Security Council in May 2018 amid a reorganization of the council by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Ziemer’s team was disbanded. Tom Bossert, whom the Washington Post reported “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” had been fired one month prior. It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer’s position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time. Legum stated in a follow-up tweet that “Trump also cut funding for the CDC, forcing the CDC to cancel its efforts to help countries prevent infectious-disease threats from becoming epidemics in 39 of 49 countries in 2018. Among the countries abandoned? China.” That was partly true, according to 2018 news reports stating that funding for the CDC’s global disease outbreak prevention efforts had been reduced by 80%, including funding for the agency’s efforts in China. But that was the result of the anticipated depletion of previously allotted funding, not a direct cut by the Trump administration. And as the CDC told FactCheck.org, the cuts were ultimately avoided because Congress provided other funding.
The Trump administration fired the U.S. pandemic response team in 2018 to cut costs.

The outbreak comes ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in late January, when many of China’s 1.4 billion people will be travelling to their home towns or abroad. The World Health Organization and Chinese authorities are taking steps to ensure the disease does not spread further. Thai health authorities said on Wednesday they were stepping up monitoring of passengers arriving at airports with infrared thermal scanners ahead of the holiday, when 800,000 Chinese tourists are expected to visit the country. Memories remain fresh in Asia of a 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in China and killed nearly 800 people worldwide. WHO has said there may have been limited human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus in China within families. And authorities in Wuhan confirmed on Wednesday that a married couple were among 41 people diagnosed with pneumonia believed to be caused by the new virus. There were no new cases or deaths at the end of Tuesday, the city’s health authority said. The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission did not say in the statement whether the couple represented an instance of human-to-human transmission. But it said the husband, who worked at a seafood market suspected of being at the epicentre of the outbreak, was the first to fall ill and that his wife did not have any exposure to the market. Some of the other people diagnosed also denied visiting the market, the commission said. The authorities in Wuhan also confirmed that a Chinese woman quarantined in Thailand, the first case of the mystery strain of coronavirus to be detected outside of China, had come from Wuhan. The State Department’s notice referred to an alert by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urging citizens in China travelling to Wuhan to avoid contact with animals, animal markets or animal products, among other precautions. It also asked citizens those who had visited Wuhan and feel sick to seek medical care. The Wuhan health commission said in another statement issued late Wednesday that 7 of the 41 pneumonia patients have been released. The statement also said that 450 of the 763 people put under observation due to their close contact with known patients have been released.
U.S. warns citizens in China about pneumonia outbreak.

Not applicable. The story presented the outcome of 472 obese individuals and examined in more detail those who were able, on average, to loss 14 pounds over a period of 26 weeks. The story did not provide any insight as to whether this amount of weight loss resulted in any health improvement in the obese individuals who were studied. So the true benefit – the true significance of the potential benefit – was not explained. Further – while the study found that those who got an adequate amount of sleep were among the cohort of individuals who were found to lose the most weight, the story did not explicitly point out that the study does not inform us about whether enforced hours of sleep would impact weight loss and weight loss management. So, again, the headline, the story’s first sentence, and the call to action by the researcher were not balanced. The story was reporting on the impact of getting adequate amounts of sleep on weight loss. While there was no overt discussion of the harm of obtaining adequate amounts of sleep, there doesn’t appear to be any harm involved in adequate sleep. Similar to the LA Times story we reviewed on the same study, this story did not challenge researchers’ comments that went too far in promoting a call to action based on one observational study – a study that can’t prove cause and effect. Its opening sentence is an example of that flaw:  “If you’re looking to lose those extra pounds, you should probably add reducing stress and getting the right amount of sleep to the list…” Later, it didn’t challenge a researcher when he said, “If you want to lose weight, things that will help you include reducing stress and getting the right amount of sleep.”  That’s pushing the limits of what one can conclude based on one observational study and the story should have explained that limitation. Toward the end, in describing another study, it started in a good direction by explaining that conclusions “should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.”  Actually, they should be considered preliminary because they were based on analysis of just 26 people. They should be considered to have evaded full scrutiny by expert colleagues until published in a peer-reviewed journal. Just because work has not been peer-reviewed does not make it preliminary. The intent, we think, was correct. But the explanation – the limitation – was not defined appropriately. The story did not engage in overt disease mongering. This story included expert quotes and also some insight from the results of a recently presented study. One of the strengths of this story in comparison with its shorter LA Times competition is the context it provided, much of it from an independent expert who said: “People who are healthy and vital tend to be healthy and vital not because of any one factor, but because of many. And the factors that promote health — eating well, being active, not smoking, sleeping enough, controlling stress, to name a few –promote all aspects of health. …The important message is that weight loss should not be looked at with tunnel vision. … This study encourages weight loss in a more holistic context.” Not applicable. The story was framed as taking a broader perspective when contemplating weight loss and including other lifestyle factors which can affect food intake and exercise. Better than its LA Times competition, at least this story nodded in the direction of one other recent study on sleep and weight, thereby conveying that the newer study is not the only research on this topic. It’s clear that the story did not rely solely on a news release.

Less Stress, Better Sleep May Help You Lose Weight