New cases called ‘very worrisome’
Coronavirus appears without clear origin
Ballooning numbers of coronavirus cases worldwide are shuttering schools, churches and businesses as the “tremendous public health threat” blazes forward in countries with no clear link to China.
“We are concerned about the number of cases with no clear epidemiological link such as travel history to China or contact with a confirmed case,” said World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a Friday press conference with reporters.
Ghebreyesus said cases not involved with international travel are “very worrisome” and added there is still potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems.
“The window of opportunity is still there. But our window of opportunity is narrowing,” said Ghebreyesus. “We need to act quickly before it closes completely.”
The global caseload increased to nearly 77,000 on Friday according to the WHO, with 2,247 total deaths so far.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters in a Friday telebriefing that the coronavirus is still a “tremendous public health threat.”
Messonnier said there is not yet a vaccine or medication that can combat the coronavirus.
Coronavirus cases swelled in South Korea on Friday, the newest front in the widening global outbreak, with two deaths and 204 infections — quadruple the number of cases it had two days earlier.
Though initial infections were linked to China, new ones have not involved international travel.
Ghebreyesus also noted Iran’s discovery of 18 cases and four deaths in two days — and that a traveler from Iran carried the virus to Lebanon, and another traveler from Iran to Canada.
Minoo Mohraz, an Iranian health ministry official, said the virus “possibly came from Chinese workers who work in Qom and traveled to China.”
In Lebanon, Health Minister Hamad Hassan on Friday reported the Mediterranean country’s first case of the new virus.
At a news conference in Beirut, he said the patient was a 45-yearold woman who arrived Thursday on a flight from Qom.
Europe is experiencing its own cluster of cases as the number of infected patients in Italy more than quadrupled Friday due to a cluster in the northern region of the country.
Many of the 14 new cases represented the first infections in Italy acquired through secondary contagion and brought the country’s total to 17 and officials closed schools, restaurants and businesses in response.
Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza said Italy is now seeing the same sort of “cluster” of cases that Germany, with 16 confirmed cases, and France, with 12 cases, have seen.
In the United States, the CDC has split up its case count into patients who have been repatriated to the country from Wuhan, China, as well as those from the recently quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, and those who have not.
There have been a total of 34 confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. with both categories added together.