Chinese cities sealed off over virus
BEIJING — Four more cities in China’s Hubei province said on Thursday that they have imposed travel bans as a new virus that has infected hundreds of people continues to spread from the province’s capital city of Wuhan.
Huanggang, Xiantao and Ezhou have joined Wuhan in shutting down railway stations and suspending longdistance buses as well as ferry services, according to statements on the cities’ websites and state media.
Playgrounds in Xiantao have been closed, as have markets with live birds and entertainment venues.
The smaller city of Chibi said public transportation and connections to other places would be suspended.
Authorities are trying to prevent the potentially deadly virus from spreading further, as hundreds of thousands of people are planning to travel home for the Lunar New Year this weekend.
Beijing authorities have canceled “large-scale” events, including New Year celebrations, in order to prevent the spread of a new coronavirus, state media reported.
The “large-scale events” include traditional temple fairs, the state-run newspaper Beijing Evening News said on the Weibo messaging service.
The capital’s main tourist attraction, the Forbidden City, announced that it will be closed to visitors from Saturday, while cinemas put off the release of seven new films for fear the virus would spread in movie theatres.
Eighteen people have died and 644 have been identified as carrying the virus, according to official figures cited by China’s Global Times newspaper late Thursday. Hong Kong has confirmed two cases.
In spite of a rising death toll, the World Health Organization said it was “too early” to declared an international health emergency over the outbreak.
But Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned that this should not be taken as a sign that the WHO is “not taking it seriously.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said after the organization’s Emergency Committee meeting.
The real numbers could be much higher, as many patients in Wuhan are reportedly unable to receive treatment due to the overcrowding of hospitals.
Experts at Imperial College in London estimated a total of 4,000 cases had symptoms as of Jan. 18.
Wuhan’s airports and train stations were shut down and long-distance bus, metro and ferry services out of the city of 11 million people were suspended, state broadcaster CCTV reported.