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: “We are declaring a state of alarm,” President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised appearance Friday night, urging Venezuelans to take precautionary measures and asking those over 65 to stay inside. Speaking with a blue mask covering his mouth, he encouraged people to wear face masks - even if it means making their own - and said no one would be allowed to board the metro or take trains without one. Hospitals in Venezuela have lost huge numbers of medical professionals and are so dilapidated that, in some, staff use paint buckets as improvised toilets and reuse surgical gloves. Maduro insisted Venezuela is prepared for a COVID-19 outbreak, but health workers have expressed concern that the country’s health system will be quickly overwhelmed. Maduro said that all restaurants in the country would be permitted to make orders to-go, but would no longer be allowed to serve patrons on-site, along with bars, clubs and movie theaters. He added that he was evaluating whether or not to suspend work. Earlier in the week, he suspended flights from Europe and Colombia and said public gatherings would be canceled. Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said earlier Friday that schools will be closed as of Monday. Rodriguez said the two people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 had arrived from Spain and had been placed in quarantine. Maduro added that those who had come on the flight were also in quarentine. Earlier in the day shoppers flocked to pharmacies in search of hygiene products such as alcohol to sanitize hands, which is a struggle due to lack of running water that has resulted from the decay of public services. “People in Venezuela are accustomed to crisis situations, we move quickly in reaction to anything that happens,” said Juan Silva, 23, a chef who shopping at a Caracas pharmacy for soap and hand gel. He said he wasn’t overly worried about the disease due to the low mortality rate, but added “I don’t trust the government as a source of information.”   Maduro says his government has been hindered in fighting the virus because U.S. sanctions, meant to force him from office, have led banks and foreign businesses to refuse services. The Pan American Health Organization said last week it would be prioritizing Haiti, Venezuela and a handful of other Central and South American countries who have “challenges to their health systems.”  Hania Salazar, head of the nurses’ association for the western state of Zulia, said hospitals are not even guaranteeing that employees will have access to face masks. Interior Ministry Nestor Reverol on Friday said the government would provide border control authorities with face masks, gloves and thermometers, without mentioning supplies to for citizens and hospitals. On the street, citizens were already figuring improvised ways to handle the situation. Neima Arocha, 46, managed to buy the last bottle of cough suppressant at a Caracas pharmacy but got there too late to buy alcohol for hand sanitation. As a substitute she planned to buy cocuy, an artesanal cactus liquor similar to tequila. “There’s no (rubbing) alcohol,” said Arocha. But in the liquor stores they still have all kinds of things.” Claim: Venezuela confirms coronavirus cases amid public health concerns.

SOLUTION: Venezuela on Friday confirmed its first two cases of coronavirus amid concerns that the economically struggling South American nation is unprepared to confront a pandemic that is spreading rapidly around the globe.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: George W. Bush stood with a bullhorn on a pile of rubble after the 9/11 attacks on lower Manhattan and promised that the people who were responsible “will hear all of us soon.” Barack Obama was in office for just a few months when the first reports came in about the H1N1 virus, which would eventually be declared a pandemic  like today’s new coronavirus. Most American presidents will confront a crisis — or crises — before they leave office, whether it is a natural disaster, war, economic downturn, public health threat or terrorism. What matters is how they respond, historians say. “The number one thing a president can do in a moment like this is try to calm the nation,” said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. It’s what Franklin D. Roosevelt did during an extraordinary 12 years in office, guiding the nation through a bleak period of Depression-era unemployment, a severe Midwest drought known as the Dust Bowl and battle against the Nazis and Japanese in World War II. During the influenza of Wilson’s time, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including about 675,000 in America, presidents were not involved in public health issues in the same way that President Donald Trump has become engrossed in the U.S. effort against the new coronavirus. Such issues were left for public health professionals at the state and local level. “Wilson never issued any public statement whatsoever,” said John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza,” a book about the 1918 flu. “He was entirely focused on the war. Period.” In fact, Wilson was so focused on the post-war peace talks he was participating in in Paris that he, too, ended up stricken with the flu. He recovered. Trump, on the other hand, seems intent on being the public face of the effort against what has become his most serious challenge in this reelection year. Trump, who has no scientific or medical training, now leads a daily White House briefing on coronavirus efforts by a task force he tapped the vice president to lead. Trump styles himself as a “wartime president” fighting an “invisible enemy” responsible for hundreds of deaths and thousands of infections in the U.S. - numbers that will continue to rise as the virus spreads — and a dramatic upheaval of everyday life. Millions of people have been ordered or urged to stay home for the foreseeable future, cut off from simple pleasures like going to restaurants, shopping malls or movies in a bid to slow the virus. But Trump’s crisis management has earned mixed reviews, with praise from many supporters and criticism from detractors, including mayors and governors who are desperate for Trump to more robustly use his authority to help them get much-needed protective gear and supplies for doctors and nurses. The president’s early attempts to minimize the severity of the situation, and to suggest that it was under control, have been panned, though he recently adopted a more urgent tone. But the damage has been done, said Steve Morrison, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, citing lack of public trust due to Trump’s early handling of the situation. “Not having trust and confidence is a huge liability heading into something this catastrophic,” said Morrison, senior vice president and director of the Global Health Policy Center at CSIS. Obama was a few months into his first term in 2009 term when reports started coming in that April about the H1N1 flu. He addressed the situation that month, assembled a team and ultimately declared both a public health emergency and a national emergency to deal with the threat. “This is obviously a very serious situation, and every American should know that their entire government is taking the utmost precautions and preparations,” Obama said as he opened a White House news conference that month. He said public health officials had recommended that schools with confirmed cases consider temporarily closing, and that he had asked Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funding to help monitor and track the virus, and to build a supply of antiviral drugs and other equipment. “Everyone should rest assured that this government is prepared to do whatever it takes to control the impact of this virus,” Obama said. Dr. Howard Markel, director of the University of Michigan’s Center for the History of Medicine, said Obama was “very hands on” during H1N1 — but not as visibly as Trump. Obama’s director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention conducted daily briefings from Atlanta. “He took a step back because he allowed his experts to run the show,” Markel said of Obama. “He didn’t have to be in front of the podium, but you knew he was there.”  Nearly 12,500 deaths due to the H1N1 flu were reported in the U.S. between April 2009 and April 2010, when the World Health Organization declared an end to the pandemic. Obama spent nearly $1 billion and sent U.S. military personnel to West Africa to help with the response to an outbreak of Ebola  in 2014. Still feeling his way through his first year in office, Bush became a wartime president the instant hijackers recruited by the al-Qaida militant network flew commercial airliners with passengers into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001. Days later, Bush stood atop the rubble and memorably spoke for the nation. “I can hear you!” Bush blared through the bullhorn as emergency responders cheered. “The rest of the world hears you! And the people – and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”  Weeks after that appearance, Bush authorized military airstrikes against Taliban military installations and al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan. U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan continues to this day. ___ This story has been corrected to reflect that Morrison’s first name is Steve, not Scott. ___ Bev Banks contributed to this report. Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap ___ The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Claim: Presidents in health crises: Trump more hands-on than many .

SOLUTION: Woodrow Wilson was more focused on the end of World War I than a flu virus that was making its way around the globe, ultimately sickening hundreds of thousands of Americans, including the president himself.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: Fine particulate matter from burning fossil fuels such as gasoline, coal and oil is the clearest offender, the group said. “Particulate matter appears to directly increase risk by triggering events in susceptible individuals within hours to days of an increased level of exposure, even among those who otherwise may have been healthy for years,” said Dr. Robert Brook of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who headed the group writing the report. A review of six year’s worth of medical research also showed strong evidence that pollution can help clog arteries, and a “small yet consistent” association between short-term exposure to air pollution and premature death. “The foremost message for these high-risk groups remains that they should work to control their modifiable traditional risk factors — blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, smoking,” Brook said. The American Heart Association said fine particulates could work in several ways, including by causing inflammation. “It’s possible that certain very small particles, or chemicals that travel with them, may reach the circulation and cause direct harm,” Brook said. “These responses can increase blood clotting and thrombosis, impair vascular function and blood flow, elevate blood pressure, and disrupt proper cardiac electrical activity which may ultimately provoke heart attacks, strokes, or even death.”   The group recommends that the elderly or anyone with heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes should pay attention to air pollution and air quality index warnings. “People can limit their exposure as much as possible by decreasing their time outside when particle levels are high and reducing time spent in traffic — a common source of exposure in today’s world,” Brook said. Claim: Stronger evidence pollution damages heart: report.

SOLUTION:
The evidence is stronger than ever that pollution from industry, traffic and power generation causes strokes and heart attacks, and people should avoid breathing in smog, the American Heart Association said on Monday.