Outbreakdeathtoll risessharply Japan screens 3,700 on board quarantined ship
Number of people dead jumps to 427; over 20,000 infected with virus
foreign ministry urged “certain countries” to rationally and fairly assess the situation and initiate measures per the World Health Organization advisory and not go beyond the reasonable limit and hinder normal exchanges.
The WHO said on Tuesday that the outbreak does not yet constitute a pandemic. “Currently we are not in a pandemic,” Sylvie Briand, head of WHO’S Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness division, told reporters in Geneva.
The outbreak has already crossed the SARS epidemic’s infections by around four times. The confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland had reached 20,438 by the end of Monday. The youngest Chinese patient so far is one month old and the oldest over 90 years old. Authorities said 2,788 patients remained in severe condition, and 23,214 people were suspected of being infected with the virus.
Wuhan city, where the outbreak began, will convert another stadium, a conference hall and a cultural building complex into makeshift hospitals to provide 3,400 more beds.
In a worrying development, “cluster cases” of the outbreak have begun appearing in different regions of China including in capital Beijing.
A cluster of coronavirus infection case was seen in a Beijing hospital. The nine patients included five medical personnel and four hospitalised patients wereinfected. Aclusteroutbreak refers to two or more cases found in a small area (such as one home or a construction site) within 14 days with the possibility of human-to-human transmission caused by close contact or the possibility of infection caused by joint infection.
TOKYO/BEIJING: Health screening began on Tuesday for some 3,700 passengers and crew aboard a cruise liner held in quarantine at the Japanese port of Yokohama, after a Hong Kong passenger who sailed on the vessel last month tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus.
The 80-year-old man flew to Japan and boarded the ship, the Diamond Princess, run by Carnival Japan, in Yokohama on January 20 and disembarked in Hong Kong on January 25.
Photographs and video posted on Twitter by a passenger with the handle @daxa_tw showed masked health workers walking down empty corridors.
Carnival Japan, a unit of cruise operator Carnival Corp, confirmed that the turnaround of the ship had been delayed by 24 hours for authorities to review the health of all 2,666 guests and 1,045 crew on board. the people’s, to cite a few examples. On the streets of China, people have now taken up the fight against the pathogen.
The only pre-emptive weapon, of course, is precaution. Masks are ubiquitous among the few walking the deserted streets of Beijing and it’s the same in other cities. All shopkeepers, too, can be seen wearing masks.
Apartment administrations have geared up to contain the infection from spreading. Security guards conduct temperature checks on visitors at gates.
Beijing’s public transport corporation has taken measures such as cleaning and disinfecting buses, ventilating the air inside, measuring the temperatures of staff members and ensuring that staff members work with face masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.