Chinese city at centre of outbreak ‘in lockdown’
Wuhan’s 11m population effectively in quarantine as air, bus, ferry and rail terminals are closed down
THE city at the centre of a mystery virus sweeping through China and beyond has been locked down in an effort to contain the fast-moving outbreak.
From this morning Wuhan, a city of 11million people, will effectively be in quarantine with air, bus, ferry and rail terminals closed to prevent the spread of the disease around the country.
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which emerged in the central Chinese city in December, has infected at least 551 people and killed 17.
The announcement of the lockdown came as the World Health Organisation last night delayed a decision on declaring a global health emergency.
An emergency meeting of the WHO will reconvene today to discuss whether to sound a warning that would mean affected countries must report cases and give the organisation power to impose trade and travel restrictions.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the WHO, said the decision to declare an emergency should not be taken lightly.
“[The decision] is one I’m only prepared to make with appropriate consideration of the evidence,” he said.
Dr Tedros would not be drawn on whether or not he thought putting Wuhan in effective quarantine was a good idea. “We will need some time to understand the specific measures that are being taken,” he said.
At home, the Foreign Office last night warned British citizens to avoid the city. A spokesman said: “In light of the latest medical information, including reports of some person-to-person transmission and the Chinese authorities’ own advice, we are advising against all but essential travel to Wuhan.”
The majority of cases of the pneumonia-type illness have been in China – but there have been four cases reported in Thailand, as well as single cases in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico and in Washington state in the US. Russia has also reported a suspected case.
The novel coronavirus comes from the same family as the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus that went around the world from 2002 to 2003. That, too, emerged in China, eventually infecting around 8,000 people and killing 800.
The disease – which preliminary research has linked to snakes – is thought to have originated in an animal market in Wuhan, 650 miles south of Beijing, but officials were still unsure
‘The virus gradually adapted once it was transmitted from the animals’
which animals were transmitting the disease and how fast it was spreading from human to human.
Disease modelling carried out by researchers at Imperial College, London, showed that thousands of cases may have not yet been identified, with as many as 4,000 people in the city at the epicentre of the outbreak likely to have been infected.
Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial, said that over the coming weeks the number of cases would increase rapidly.
“It will be much more complicated to estimate for the whole of China,” he added.
The virus causes a pneumonia-type illness, leading to fever, coughing and breathing difficulties. Health officials have confirmed human-tohuman transmission.
The virus is spread through coughing and sneezing.
Authorities in China warned yesterday that the novel coronavirus was already “adapting and mutating”.
George Fu Gao, director-general of China’s centre for disease control and prevention, said: “The virus gradually adapted once it was transmitted from the animals [to humans], and we need
‘In light of the latest medical information, we are advising against all but essential travel to Wuhan’
more time to study further.” At the moment, however, children and young people do not appear to be susceptible to the virus, Mr Gao added.
In Wuhan, local officials were asking people to avoid large social gatherings and were barring imports of livestock and wild animals into the city.
Many countries in Asia and as far away as the US have stepped up screening measures at airports for incoming travellers from China.
North Korea has closed its borders to all foreign tourists, most of whom visit from China.
Hong Kong, where hospitals were monitoring more than 100 people with related symptoms, had already prepared quarantine camps as an emergency measure, its public broadcaster reported. Face masks have begun to disappear off shelves in stores, and online retailers are running out of stock as many Chinese seek to protect themselves against the new virus.
Wuhan was reported to be preparing 2,000 more hospital beds as it worked to mitigate the impact, and had set up a prevention and control centre. Chinese airlines were offering refunds to passengers with a fever who had been banned from travelling out of the city.