China locks down 20m people at centre of deadly virus outbreak
Coronavirus quarantine is largest world has ever seen – but experts doubt if it can contain spread of disease
CHINA effectively quarantined 20million people against the deadly coronavirus last night in what is thought to be the largest operation ever of its kind.
Authorities grounded flights, blocked roads and closed train stations to stop residents leaving Wuhan, the epicentre of the mystery disease, while restrictions were imposed on five further cities in Hubei province.
At least 18 people have died and 600 are known to have contracted the virus, which is thought to have come from a wholesale food market in Wuhan, a city of 11million people.
Travellers arriving after the Wuhan ban went into effect yesterday morning were met by police, SWAT teams, paramilitary guards and metal barriers at the high-speed train station.
Transport links were also sealed off in the cities of Huanggang, Ezhou, Li- chuan, Xiantao and Xianning.
Authorities in Huanggang have told residents not to leave and ordered entertainment venues such as cinemas and internet cafes to shut their doors.
The Chinese government has scrambled to put emergency measures in place ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins today.
Beijing is cancelling the celebrations planned for the next few days, and closed the Forbidden City, the capital’s most famous tourist attraction.
Chinese New Year represents the world’s biggest annual migration, with hundreds of millions of people expected to travel in the country and abroad, which could complicate how the coronavirus spreads.
Despite division within its ranks, the World Health Organization declared yesterday that it was “too early to consider” the unfolding outbreak as an international health emergency.
“Make no mistake, this is an emergency in China,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general. “But it has not yet become a global health emergency – it may yet become one.”
Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of health emergencies at the WHO, added that more cases and deaths are likely to emerge in the coming days.
“The outbreak is still evolving – we are not in a position to say that it has peaked,” he said.
Chinese authorities have pledged to spend £110million on preventing the spread of the disease in Hubei province amid mounting criticism inside the country. However, experts have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the quarantine measures.
Dr Michael Osterholm, director of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said that although “nothing in history can compare” to the operation, maintaining the quarantine is “impossible”.
Jeremy Konyndyk, senior policy fellow at the Centre for Global Development, told The Daily Telegraph that the lockdown may push some people to attempt to escape to avoid being trapped, as witnessed during the Ebola outbreak in Africa.
He added: “Even in China I suspect it’s going to be very difficult to rigorously enforce. You’re talking about cordoning off a city of the size of New York – it’s inconceivable. It remains to be seen how coercive this enforcement will prove to be.”
To control a 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, known as SARS, Beijing shut all schools for a fortnight and quarantined more than 4,000 individuals – but stopped short of widespread travel shutdowns.
In Wuhan, residents voiced concerns about shortages of food and disinfectant. “We are feeling as though it is the end of the world,” said one resident on social media.
Despite the lockdown, some remained unperturbed and ready to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday.
“No, I’m not afraid,” said Ms Xu, 43, a seafood vendor at the market thought to be the source of the virus outbreak. “I wasn’t even afraid of SARS.”
Chinese authorities have closed the market, handing out cash subsidies to merchants to offset a loss in revenue.
According to the South China Morning Post, the market advertised live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines and koalas.
Identifying the source could go a long way in helping authorities devise a more robust public health response, said Chen Xi, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health. “If you don’t know this, you don’t know why the virus spread,” said Prof Chen.
Governments and health officials elsewhere in the world have remained on high alert as they rushed to increase measures to protect their citizens, including screening passengers arriving from China.
Taiwan’s Centre for Disease Control has set up an epidemic command centre, and said it would make millions of protective masks available.
In Hong Kong, where 55 patients are under isolation, pan-democracy legislators, all wearing face masks, staged a protest to criticise the government for its slow handling of the crisis.
Doctors were reportedly drawing lots to decide who will stay in isolation wards to treat patients.