China orders unprecedented lockdown of two cities at virus epicentre
Health authorities around the world taking action to prevent global pandemic
BEIJING — China put millions of people on lockdown on Thursday in two cities at the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak that has killed 18 people and infected more than 630, as authorities around the world worked to prevent a global pandemic.
Health officials fear the transmission rate could accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel at home and abroad during week-long holidays for the Lunar New Year, which begins on Saturday.
Giving details on infections in China, state television said 634 cases had been confirmed. By the end of Wednesday, China’s National Health Commission confirmed 17 dead in the central province of Hubei.
Health authorities in Hebei, just south of Beijing, said on Thursday an 80-year-old man infected with the coronavirus had died there, marking the first confirmed death outside Hubei. He died on Wednesday but was not confirmed to have been infected with the virus until Thursday.
The previously unknown virus strain is believed to have emerged late last year from illegally traded wildlife at an animal market in the capital of Hubei province, Wuhan.
Most transport in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, was suspended on Thursday and people were told not to leave. Hours later, neighboring Huanggang, a city of about 7 million people, announced a similar lockdown.
Chinese state media, citing the Wuhan government’s virus task force, said the city would suspend all online car-hailing services on Friday to “cut off the transmission of the virus” on a larger scale.
“The lockdown of 11 million people is unprecedented in public health history,” Gauden Galea, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) representative in Beijing, said.
The newly identified coronavirus has created alarm because there are a number of unknowns surrounding it. It is too early to know just how dangerous it is and how easily it spreads between people.
There is no vaccine for the virus, which can spread through respiratory transmission. Symptoms include fever, difficulty breathing and coughing, similar to many other respiratory illnesses.
Three research teams are to start work on developing a vaccine, a global coalition set up to fight diseases said. China’s Finance Ministry said it was allocating 1 billion yuan ($145 million) to the provincial government of Hubei to help contain the outbreak.
As well as restricting movement, Wuhan plans to build a new hospital in six days to treat patients, Beijing News reported, citing a construction company source.
Other cities were also taking steps to contain the virus.
Nearby Ezhou shut train stations. Beijing canceled large gatherings, including two Lunar New Year temple fairs, and closed the Forbidden City, the capital’s most famous tourist attraction, to visitors until further notice.
WHO MEETING
The U.S. State Department warned travelers to exercise increased caution in China as airports worldwide were screening passengers arriving from the country.
Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, which has two confirmed cases, is turning two holiday camps into quarantine stations as a precaution. Taiwan has banned anyone from Wuhan from going to the island.
Chinese people had their own ways of protecting themselves.
“I go straight to where I need to go, and then I go home,” said 79-year-old Li Meihua, from behind a mask, on the streets of Shanghai. “I’m also maintaining a cleaner diet, I’ve turned vegetarian.”
Preliminary research suggested the virus was passed on to humans from snakes, but government medical adviser
Zhong Nanshan has also identified badgers and rats as possible sources.
Some experts believe the virus is not as dangerous as previous coronaviruses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).
“The early evidence at this stage would suggest it’s not as severe,” Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, Brendan Murphy, said.
Jeremy Farrar, director of research charity Wellcome Trust, said: “We don’t want to overstate the panic here because there is so much uncertainty. We want to keep a sort of calm, moderated approach to it, but we do have to take this incredibly seriously because you don’t often get an animal virus coming into humans, passing between humans and being spread by the respiratory route.
“...It is not SARS. The virus is in a similar family to SARS but this looks different to SARS, and the difference is probably it’s easier to pass between human beings.”
The WHO will decide on Thursday whether to declare the outbreak a global health emergency, which would step up the international response.
If it does so, it will be the sixth international public health emergency to be declared in the last decade. Its Emergency Committee meeting was under way in Geneva and a news conference is expected after 1800 GMT.
Michael Ryan, head of WHO emergencies program, said on Wednesday, that according to data presented from China, almost three quarters of the cases were in people aged over 40, with some 40% having underlying health conditions.