Wuhan cut off to contain coronavirus
26 deaths in China, cases in other countries
CHINA widened its travel restrictions yesterday in putting Hubei province – the centre of the coronavirus outbreak – in lockdown as the death toll climbed to 26.
The restrictions will affect at least 20 million people across 10 cities, including the capital, Wuhan, where the virus emerged.
Nationally, there are currently 830 confirmed cases of patients infected with the virus.
A small number of confirmed cases have also been found outside China, including in Thailand, the US, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Singapore.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced yesterday that a second case of the coronavirus had been confirmed in a woman in her sixties in Chicago who had recently travelled to Wuhan.
The growing list of restrictions comes on the eve of Lunar New Year – one of the most important dates in the Chinese calendar when millions of people travel home.
City officials in the capital, Beijing, and Shanghai have also asked residents who return from affected areas to stay at home for 14 days to prevent the spread of the virus, local media report.
The impact of the coronavirus is not limited to Hubei province. Authorities have also shut major tourist sites including the Forbidden City in Beijing and a section of the Great Wall and cancelled major public events in other parts of the country. Shanghai Disneyland has also been shut down
The World Health Organisation has not classed the virus as an “international emergency”, partly because of the low number of overseas cases.
“It may yet become one,” said the WHO’s director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
One doctor, who requested anonymity, describes the conditions at a hospital in Wuhan.
“In the last two weeks, there has been an alarming rate of spread,” she told the BBC.
“The hospitals have been flooding with patients, there are thousands, I haven’t seen so many before.”
One woman, Jane, flew back to Wuhan from Beijing just before the lockdown.
“I feel very uneasy,” she said. “But for me, because my child, my husband and family… are in the Wuhan area, I have to go back.”
Daniel Pekarek, a software engineering student at Wuhan University, told the BBC he and his friends were all staying in their rooms.
“I was planning to stay in my apartment because I’m scared to go to the gym, and I’m scared to go to out in public, and not many people are willing to go out.”
Vietnam and Singapore were on Thursday added to the nations recording confirmed cases, joining Thailand, the US, Taiwan and South Korea.
Japan and South Korea have both confirmed their second cases.
Yesterday, Singapore confirmed its third case – who is known to be the son of another patient.
Thailand has five.