Last week in my office, I had the first case where I questioned whether a patient could have Covid-19, or coronavirus.

The young person had traveled abroad and returned with flu-like symptoms. I discovered that it is not easy for physicians to make this diagnosis. I first called Baystate Medical Center and was directed to the Department of Public Health in Boston, where a person took my number; an epidemiologist called me back. The epidemiologist told me that this patient was low risk and did not require testing.

If she had, then I would have had to fill out a 17-page questionnaire, which changes daily, then collect a nasal and oral viral swab, and send it to Baystate, where, once a day, a courier brings them to Boston for testing, where until this week, it would be then sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Maryland.

Many people I speak with, including other doctors, are not aware of this process, thinking that there are special collection kits out there. The collection requires only an ordinary viral culture, but the process is very special.

Adding to the confusion is that President Donald Trump has said that all information about Covid-19 would come from Vice President Mike Pence, not health experts within the administration.

Hes used his bully pulpit to take aim at Democrats for creating a hoax around this new epidemic, even as public health experts like Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Immunology, said that the new coronavirus has adapted very well to humans and seems now to lead to a higher mortality rate than influenza.

In addition, budget cuts by the Trump administration have severely hampered the public health communitys efforts to protect American people from the novel coronavirus and other exotic infections. There has been controversy about his proposed reduction in funding to the CDC, since many of the cuts were not supported by Congress.

But this much is well documented: Trump eliminated the position of senior director for global health security and biodefense in the National Security Council, established after the first Ebola virus outbreak. He terminated epidemic prevention efforts in 39 out of 49 countries, including the Congo and China.

The Obama administration maintained a tiered epidemic response approach, created after the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic, with 10 advanced facilities and 60 centers located one tier below. The Trump administration continued funding for the 10 advanced facilities, but eliminated the 60 intermediate treatment centers.

His administration also got rid of a U.S. Agency for International Development program called PREDICT, established in 2009 to detect new zoonotic viruses (originating in animals, like Covid-19).

For the first time in its history, the CDC is headed by a physician with no expertise in public health. In the meantime, budget cuts to public health departments meant that until this week, only three health departments across the country were able to test for coronavirus.

Then of course, are the Trump administration cuts to health care in general, to pay for the $2 trillion in tax cuts for Americas wealthiest individuals: $1.4 trillion eliminated from Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, disproportionately affecting the poor, seniors, families and children. How will this affect care for patients who have Covid-19?

Under the ACA, the number of uninsured Americans fell from 40million to about 27.5million, but because of the Trump administrations withering attacks on the Obama-era program, the number of uninsured Americans increased last year to 29.5 million. Do you think that an uninsured waitress, like my sister-in-law, who cares for her wheelchair-bound husband, can skip work if she is sick?

The same is true for millions of Americans who are the sole wage earner for their families and, thanks to the continued erosion of the labor unions in this country, have no job security. How do you think that will affect efforts to control this emerging epidemic?

This new virus, along with sickening nearly a 100,000 people, and killing thousands of them, has highlighted the dangers of having a president with no concern for science or public health, a tax structure that cripples funding for vital health services and a nation alone among modern industrialized nation which does not guarantee health care for all.

Despite all the bad news, the risk of Covid-19 to children is very low: Fewer than 1% of diagnosed cases have occurred in those less than 18 years old, and they have tended to be mild cases, many without fever.

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Dr. David Gottsegen: Coronavirus and the dangers of a president with no concern for science - GazetteNET