Wuhan airlift:
U.S., other countries evacuate citizens from Chinese city where coronavirus outbreak began.
BEIJING — Countries began evacuating their citizens Wednesday from the Chinese city hardest hit by an outbreak of a new virus that has killed 132 people and infected more than 6,000 on the mainland and abroad.
A plane carrying Americans who had been in Wuhan left for Anchorage, Alaska, where they will be rescreened. U.S. hospitals are prepared to treat or quarantine people who may be infected. After departing Alaska, the plane is to fly to Ontario (San Bernardino County).
A Japanese flight carrying evacuees home included four people with coughs and fevers. The three men and one woman were taken to a Tokyo hospital on separate ambulances for treatment and further medical checks.
It wasn’t immediately known whether they were infected with the new type of coronavirus that appeared in the central city of Wuhan in December. Its symptoms, including cough and fever and in severe cases pneumonia, are similar to many other illnesses.
China’s latest figures cover the previous 24 hours and add 26 to the number of deaths, 25 of which were in the central province of Hubei and its capital, Wuhan. The 5,974 cases on the mainland marked a rise of 1,459 from the previous day, although that rise is a smaller increase than the 1,771 new cases reported on Monday. Dozens of infections have been confirmed abroad as well.
The United Arab Emirates on Wednesday announced the first confirmed case of coronavirus in the Middle East.
Chartered planes carrying evacuees home to Japan and the United States left Wuhan early
Wednesday as other countries planned similar evacuations from areas China has shut down to try to contain the virus. The lockdown of 17 cities has trapped more than 50 million people in the most farreaching diseasecontrol measures ever imposed.
At the Tokyo airport, Takeo Aoyama, an employee at Nippon Steel Corp.’s subsidiary in Wuhan, told reporters he was relieved to be able to return home.
“We were feeling increasingly uneasy as the situation developed so rapidly and we were still in the city,” Aoyama said, his voice muffled by a white surgical mask.
Tokyo Metropolitan Government confirmed the condition of the four ill passengers after the flight of 206 Japanese evacuees arrived. They were taken in separate ambulances to a Tokyo hospital for treatment and further health checks.
Australia and New Zealand were the latest countries planning evacuations. Both countries also stepped up their travel advice to China, as did Britain. Experts have feared travel during the Lunar New Year holiday would enable the further spread of the virus, and China expanded the holiday to keep people home, closing schools and offices to try to contain it.
Wuhan is building two hospitals in a matter of days to add 2,500 beds for treatment of patients with the virus.