Large-scale virus fight
Striking medical workers want border with China closed
BEIJING — Hong Kong hospitals cut services as thousands of medical workers went on strike for a second day Tuesday to demand that the border with mainland China be shut completely. A new virus caused its first death in the semi-autonomous territory, adding to growing fears that it is spreading locally.
In China, President Xi Jinping has signaled a more assertive strategy for dealing with the coronavirus epidemic.
All but two of Hong Kong’s land and sea crossings with the mainland were closed at midnight after thousands of hospital workers went on strike Monday. Hong Kong health authorities reported two additional patients without any known travel to the virus’s epicenter, bringing the number of locally transmitted cases to four.
More than 7,000 health workers joined the strike Tuesday, according to the Hospital Authority Employees’ Alliance, the strike organizer.
Hong Kong was hit hard by the 2002-03 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, a virus from the same family as the current outbreak. And trust in Chinese authorities has plummeted after months of anti-government protests in the Asian financial hub.
The territory’s leader, Carrie Lam, criticized the strike and said the government was doing all it could to limit the flow of people across the border.
“Important services, critical operations have been affected,” including cancer treatment and care for newborns, Lam told reporters. “So I’m appealing to those who are taking part in this action: Let’s put the interests of the patients and the entire public health system above all other things.”
In China, Xi’s convening of a special Communist Party meeting on Monday was only his second public appearance since the government in Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the outbreak, took the extraordinary step of locking down the city on Jan. 23. That order was likely approved at the highest levels in Beijing.
By this morning, the death toll in China had risen to 490. The Chinese government has reported 24,324 confirmed cases.
Outside mainland China, at least 180 cases have been confirmed, including two fatalities: the one in Hong Kong and another in the Philippines.
The patient who died in Hong Kong was a 39-year-old man who had traveled to Wuhan. The Hospital Authority said Tuesday that he had pre-existing health conditions, but it gave no details.
Most deaths have been among the elderly and those with other health problems, authorities said. More than 80% were over 60 years old, and more than 75% had an underlying disease, Jiao Yahui, a National Health Commission official in China, said at a news conference Tuesday.
Dr. David Heymann, who led the World Health Organization’s response to the SARS outbreak, said it’s too early to tell when the new virus will peak, but that it appears to still be on the rise.
He said the spike in China’s caseload in recent days is partly attributable to the fact that officials have expanded their search to include milder cases, not only people with pneumonia. He declined to predict whether the virus would ultimately cause a pandemic. The WHO defines a pandemic as sustained transmission of a disease in at least two world regions.
Heymann said that as the new virus starts to spread beyond China, scientists will gain a better understanding of it. “What we will see is the clearer natural history of the disease,” he said, as those exposed to the virus “are being traced and watched very closely.”
In Wuhan, patients were being transferred to a new 1,000bed hospital that was built in just 10 days, its prefabricated wards equipped with state-ofthe-art medical equipment and ventilation systems. A 1,500-bed hospital, also specially built, is due to open soon.
Elsewhere in the city, authorities were converting a gymnasium, exhibition hall and cultural center into hospitals with a total of 3,400 beds to treat patients with mild symptoms. Television video showed beds placed in tight rows in cavernous rooms without any barriers between them.
Authorities hope that will help relieve what is being described as an overwhelmed public health system in Wuhan and surrounding areas.
One man, Fang Bin, said he saw wards so crowded during a visit to the city’s No. 5 Hospital on Saturday that some patients were forced to sit on the ground.
“There are too many patients; it’s overcrowded,” Fang told The Associated Press. He said he was taken from his home and questioned by police after he posted online a video of what he saw.
Thailand confirmed six more cases Tuesday, raising its total to 25, the highest outside China. Two were motorcycle taxi drivers who had driven for Chinese tourists. Earlier, a Thai taxi driver was also diagnosed with the virus. The cases are concerning because they suggest the virus can spread more easily between people.
Japan has quarantined about 3,700 people aboard a cruise ship off the port city of Yokohama after 10 of the passengers tested positive for the new coronavirus, authorities said Tuesday.