As virus spreads to more Chinese cities, WHO calls emergency meeting

By Se Young Lee and Colin Qian

 

Passengers wearing masks are seen at the waiting area for a train to Wuhan at the Beijing West Railway Station, ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year, in Beijing, China January 20, 2020. REUTERS/Stringer

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - An outbreak of a new coronavirus has spread to more Chinese cities, including the capital Beijing and Shanghai, authorities said on Monday, and a fourth case has been reported beyond China's borders.

 

China's National Health Commission confirmed that the virus, which causes a type of pneumonia, can pass from person-to-person, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

 

President Xi Jinping said curbing the outbreak and saving lives was a top priority as the number of patients more than tripled and a third person died.

 

Adding to the difficulties of containing it, hundreds of millions of Chinese will be traveling domestically and abroad during the Lunar New Year holiday that starts this week.

 

Authorities around the globe, including in the United States and many Asian countries, have stepped up screening of travelers from Wuhan, the central city where the virus was first discovered.

 

A deadly new virus related to SARS is spreading outside the Chinese city where it first broke out. Officials over the weekend announced that the number of patients has tripled and a third person died. Eve Johnson reports.

 

"Wuhan is a major hub and with travel being a huge part of the fast approaching Chinese New Year, the concern level must remain high. There is more to come from this outbreak," said Jeremy Farrar, a specialist in infectious disease epidemics and director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity.

 

Authorities confirmed a total of 217 new cases of the virus in China as of 6 p.m. local time (1000 GMT) on Monday, state television reported, 198 of which were in Wuhan.

 

Five new cases were confirmed in Beijing and 14 more in Guangdong province, the report said. Another statement confirmed a new case in Shanghai, bringing the number of known cases worldwide to 222.

 

"People's lives and health should be given top priority and the spread of the outbreak should be resolutely curbed," President Xi was quoted as saying by state television.

 

The virus belongs to the same family of coronaviruses as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people globally during a 2002/03 outbreak that also started in China.

 

Its symptoms include fever and difficulty in breathing, which are similar to many other respiratory diseases and pose complications for screening efforts.

 

Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory expert and head of the health commission team investigating the outbreak, confirmed that two cases of infection in Guangdong province were due to human-to-human transmission, Xinhua said. Some medical staff have been infected, it added, but gave no number.

 

BEYOND BORDERS

South Korea on Monday confirmed its first case, a 35-year-old Chinese national who had traveled from Wuhan, the fourth patient reported outside China.

 

Last week, two cases were reported in Thailand and one in Japan. All three involved people from Wuhan or who recently visited the city.

 

A report by London Imperial College's MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis estimated that by Jan. 12 there were 1,723 cases in Wuhan City with onset of related symptoms. Chinese health authorities have not commented directly on the report.

 

"This outbreak is extremely concerning. Uncertainty and gaps remain, but it is now clear that there is person to person transmission," Farrar said.

 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday "an animal source" appeared most likely to be the primary source of the outbreak and that some "limited human-to-human transmission" occurred between close contacts.

 

The Geneva-based U.N. agency later convened an emergency committee for Wednesday to assess whether the outbreak constitutes an international health emergency and what measures should be taken to manage it.

 

So far, the WHO has not recommended trade or travel restrictions, but a panel of independent experts could do so or make other recommendations to limit spread.

 

China's state council reiterated the government will step up prevention efforts and find the source of infection and transmission channels as soon as possible, state television said on Monday.

 

Shares in pharmaceutical firms and mask makers in China surged Monday because of the outbreak.

 

"Who knows how many people who have been to Wuhan may be unaware that they have already been infected?," said one commentator on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

 

The state-run Global Times newspaper said in an editorial the government needs to disclose all information and not repeat the mistakes made with SARS. Chinese officials covered up the SARS outbreak for weeks before a growing death toll and rumors forced it to reveal the epidemic.

 

"Concealment would be a serious blow to the government's credibility and might trigger greater social panic," the editorial said.

 

(Reporting by Winni Zhou and Josh Horwitz in Shanghai, Roxanne Liu, Sophie Yu, Judy Hua and Colin Qian and Se Young Lee in Beijing, Joyce Lee in Seoul, Kate Kelland in London, and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Se Young Lee; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-01-21

Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking Thailand news and visa info

Not to worry in Thailand. Priminister says hes tough and pollution only effects the weak so anyone with the virus will be killed by pollution fast thanks to a weakend immune systems.

Happy index must be through the roof today!

58 minutes ago, webfact said:

hundreds of millions of Chinese will be traveling domestically and abroad during the Lunar New Year holiday that starts this week.

Given that h-to-h transmission has been established I would think their chances of containing it are now somewhere between 0 and zero. On the bright side, it does appear to be less virulent than say SARS. Hopefully, the probability of it mutating to a more deadly form is pretty slim. They really should've jumped on this like a ton of bricks from day 1, and assumed h-to-h transmission until proven otherwise, rather than pushing the animal transmission only narrative cos it suited the political agenda.

very bad news

Moving fast. There are now 15-16 medical personnel confirmed with the virus and reports are saying many had been wearing hazmat spacesuits. According to South China Morning Post,  14 were infected from 1 super-spreader.

 

-- Priority now must be to stop emergence of ‘super-spreader’, with one carrier already infecting more than a dozen medical personnel, specialist says...

 

Theory of the day: the Swine Flu epidemic now devastating China's pork industry has increased the consumption of alternative wild animals, triggering the spread of the new coronavirus from a meat market. SARS was transmitted to humans from bats thorough civets.  How many ways can you spell too many people.

ban Chinese tourists.... just kidding

Chinese Government should close their borders, nobody out - as they did in Mao's times, when life was still good.

Block all Chinese Flights, NOW

42 minutes ago, MasterBaker said:

ban Chinese tourists.... just kidding

No kidding Block them

3 hours ago, rabas said:

Moving fast. There are now 15-16 medical personnel confirmed with the virus and reports are saying many had been wearing hazmat spacesuits. According to South China Morning Post,  14 were infected from 1 super-spreader.

 

-- Priority now must be to stop emergence of ‘super-spreader’, with one carrier already infecting more than a dozen medical personnel, specialist says...

 

Theory of the day: the Swine Flu epidemic now devastating China's pork industry has increased the consumption of alternative wild animals, triggering the spread of the new coronavirus from a meat market. SARS was transmitted to humans from bats thorough civets.  How many ways can you spell too many people.

 

38 minutes ago, Deli said:

Chinese Government should close their borders, nobody out - as they did in Mao's times, when life was still good.

 

6 minutes ago, Nice Boyd said:

Block all Chinese Flights, NOW

From the article linked to by rabas " Earlier on Monday, the WHO also warned that human-to-human transmission might have been behind the infection cases in China but it did not change its earlier advice that it did not see grounds to restrict travel to or trade with China. ".

1 hour ago, Deli said:

Chinese Government should close their borders, nobody out - as they did in Mao's times, when life was still good.

Well at least in WuHan Province.

9 hours ago, webfact said:

Adding to the difficulties of containing it, hundreds of millions of Chinese will be traveling domestically and abroad during the Lunar New Year holiday that starts this week.

Watch the numbers shoot-up at the end of this month... and more possible countries involved as Chinese travel domestically and internationally

 

2 hours ago, Con Peoples Fund said:

Well at least in WuHan Province.

Wuhan is the provincial capital city of Hubei province, just for clarification.

Thank God we don't live in a borderless world.  Those exhibiting symptoms can be stopped at.the.border and quarantined.

Edited January 21, 20206 yr by Kelsall

13 hours ago, webfact said:

Adding to the difficulties of containing it, hundreds of millions of Chinese will be traveling domestically and abroad during the Lunar New Year holiday that starts this week.

Cancel Chinese New Year. restrict travel out of China.

 

So long as its not Bird Flu, I do not want that again.

2 hours ago, Kelsall said:

Thank God we don't live in a borderless world.  Those exhibiting symptoms can be stopped at.the.border and quarantined.

It would be much more effective if we could introduce borders between cities, preferably with high walls protecting the people and especially our children from outside viruses and other undesired influences. 

 

We should also have to apply permission to travel from one city to another, from the collective board, which would require real business reason and decent paperwork to travel between cities. 

 

What a safe world that would be.

15 hours ago, Nice Boyd said:

Block all Chinese Flights, NOW

...and let the Iranian air defense team deal with any straying planes.

Post with an inappropriate reference has been removed.  

 

Thank you very much. I'll give it a more appropriate try.

 

Don't worry about the outbreak right before chinese new year with hundreds of thousands coming to Thailand the next few days. Our beloved, democrately elected, worldwide respected  government will solve the problem and save it's people.

Edited January 22, 20206 yr by JustAnotherHun

Just another reason why I don't eat animal products. In China, the virus spreads easily because in rural areas people live in the same building as their livestock; chickens and pigs so the virus is easily spread to humans. (I lived there for years). AVOID animal consumption and you'll be much safer.

2 hours ago, howbri said:

Just another reason why I don't eat animal products. In China, the virus spreads easily because in rural areas people live in the same building as their livestock; chickens and pigs so the virus is easily spread to humans. (I lived there for years). AVOID animal consumption and you'll be much safer.

There is no indication this is a food borne illness.   None whatsoever.   

 

2 hours ago, howbri said:

AVOID animal consumption and you'll be much safer.

LoL. The virus can spread from human to human, so I'll have a nice steak today.

Just flew through Shanghai on the 21st.  They  had a lady watching the line walking by at 10-15 meters. She stood looking at  a tripod  mounted camera looking thing.  Not very techie imho.  Incoming thermal inspection arriving in Seattle,  USA.    I believe Thailand is going to get a lot more than money  from the Tourism this Chinese  new Year. 

Latest on BBC is that the first case has been found in USA.

Standby for next week here.

7 hours ago, JustAnotherHun said:

LoL. The virus can spread from human to human, so I'll have a nice steak today.

????

Just don't eat human steak and you'll be ok.

6 hours ago, rhyddid said:

Virus scare paranoia...

Make walls more walls and of course more vaccines !

And raise taxes on something.

Off-topic post removed. 

 

BBC reporting that public transport in Wuhan has closed, including planes and trains in and out. Wuhan is a city of 8.9 million people, about the same as London.

1 hour ago, champers said:

BBC reporting that public transport in Wuhan has closed, including planes and trains in and out. Wuhan is a city of 8.9 million people, about the same as London.

Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. 

 

This situation is far worse than the official lines coming out of the CCP which is far more interested in saving face. 

1 hour ago, thisisrascal said:

Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. 

 

This situation is far worse than the official lines coming out of the CCP which is far more interested in saving face. 

With the WHO on top of it, and information from reputable sources saying 'human to hum contraction is possible but not really easy', I disagree with you.