WHO team heads for China as coronavirus toll hit daily record

[webfact]

WHO team heads for China as coronavirus toll hit daily record

By Ryan Woo

 

FILE PHOTO: Passengers wearing masks walk at the Shanghai railway station in China, as the country is hit by an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, February 9, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - An advance team of international experts led by the World Health Organization (WHO) has left for Beijing to help investigate China's coronavirus epidemic, which authorities said on Monday had now claimed 908 lives on the mainland.

 

The outbreak has caused huge disruptions in China with usually teeming cities becoming virtual ghost towns during the past two weeks as Communist Party rulers ordered virtual lockdowns, canceled flights, closed factories and shut schools.

 

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who made a trip to Beijing for talks with President Xi Jinping and Chinese ministers in late January, returned with an agreement on sending an international mission.

 

But it has taken nearly two weeks to get the government's green light on its composition, which was not announced, other than to say that WHO veteran Dr. Bruce Aylward, a Canadian epidemiologist and emergencies expert, was heading it.

 

"I've just been at the airport seeing off members of an advance team for the @WHO-led #2019nCoV international expert mission to #China, led by Dr Bruce Aylward, veteran of past public health emergencies," Tedros said in a tweet from Geneva on Sunday.

 

The WHO declared the outbreak a global emergency on Jan. 30, days after the Chinese central government imposed a lockdown on 60 million people in Hubei province and its capital Wuhan, epicenter of the virus that emerged in December in a seafood market.

 

The death toll from the outbreak in mainland China rose by 97, the largest in a single day so far, to 908 as of the end of Sunday, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Monday.

 

Over the weekend, an American hospitalized in the central city of Wuhan became the first confirmed non-Chinese victim of the disease. A Japanese man who also died there was another suspected victim.

 

The coronavirus outbreak has now killed more people than the SARS epidemic did globally in 2002/2003.

 

Across mainland China, there were 3,062 new confirmed infections on Sunday, bringing the total number so far to 40,171.

 

Authorities had told businesses to tack up to 10 extra days onto holidays that had been due to finish at the end of January.

 

Even on Monday, a large number of workplaces will remain closed and many white-collar workers will continue to work from home.

 

The virus has also spread to at least 27 countries and territories, according to a Reuters count based on official reports, infecting more than 330 people. Two deaths have been reported outside mainland China - both of Chinese nationals.

 

The latest patients outside China include a group of British nationals staying in a mountain village in Haute-Savoie in the Alps, French health officials said, raising fears of further infections across Europe.

 

(GRAPHIC: Tracking the novel coronavirus - https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-MAP/0100B59S39E/index.html)

 

(Reporting by Ryan Woo and Huizhong Wu; Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; ylie MacLellan in London and Jessica Jones in Madrid; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Michael Perry)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-02-10

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[DrTuner]

Let me guess, nobody from US CDC? Would be too risky, they might not allow themselves to be herded around the places commies have prepared for the lot to see, to keep their propaganda narrative intact.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

But it has taken nearly two weeks to get the government's green light on its composition, which was not announced,

 

Ya, the Chinese govt. is really treating this sorry affair as a real crisis  . It's spiraling out of control in their own country, and they spend two weeks haggling over the makeup of the international experts trying to help them.

 

BTW, I hope none of the WHO crisis team is going to be wearing face masks while in China, since the WHO seems to feel that face masks aren't necessary for healthy people as a preventive measure, and only for medical personnel when treating confirmed CV victims.  

 

Maybe they'll also recommend that all the airlines that have halted service to China, in order to protect their own crews, customers and countries, should immediately resume those flights, since the WHO also doesn't feel that any travel restrictions are necessary.  

[natway09]

They will only get access to where China wishes them to go, so we still will not get any real figures

 

[Proboscis]

3 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Let me guess, nobody from US CDC? Would be too risky, they might not allow themselves to be herded around the places commies have prepared for the lot to see, to keep their propaganda narrative intact.

Why not, just for a moment, tip our hats to the guys who have volunteered for this trip, to go into a country where this hateful disease is most prevalent? Instead of moaning about the CDC.

 

For your information, Dr Troll, guys from the CDC AND other specialist centres in other countries will be part of the WHO team.These are the guys who battled Ebola in Africa, if you remember. So enough of this "Us and Them" nonsense.

[sletraveler]

4 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Let me guess, nobody from US CDC? Would be too risky, they might not allow themselves to be herded around the places commies have prepared for the lot to see, to keep their propaganda narrative intact.

Nope you guessed wrong.  US is in the group unless that changed since being announced.

[rabas]

18 hours ago, Proboscis said:

Why not, just for a moment, tip our hats to the guys who have volunteered for this trip, to go into a country where this hateful disease is most prevalent? Instead of moaning about the CDC.

 

For your information, Dr Troll, guys from the CDC AND other specialist centres in other countries will be part of the WHO team.These are the guys who battled Ebola in Africa, if you remember. So enough of this "Us and Them" nonsense.

The issue is not politics, it is why has it taken so long for China to allow anyone to help? Normally the CDC (and other world players) have teams that can move in 24 hours.

 

For more than a month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been offering to send a team of experts to China to observe its coronavirus outbreak and help if it can. Normally, teams from the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service can be in the air within 24 hours. But no invitation has come — and no one can publicly explain why. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/health/cdc-coronavirus-china.html WHO had similar concerns.

 

The discussion is about China. China's actions are putting the whole world at risk, and the world has a right to be concerned.

[Scott]

Off-topic post removed.

 

[rabas]

21 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

BTW, I hope none of the WHO crisis team is going to be wearing face masks while in China, since the WHO seems to feel that face masks aren't necessary for healthy people as a preventive measure, and only for medical personnel when treating confirmed CV victims.  

 

Maybe they'll also recommend that all the airlines that have halted service to China, in order to protect their own crews, customers and countries, should immediately resume those flights, since the WHO also doesn't feel that any travel restrictions are necessary.  

I thought WHO changed its spelling to HU a while back...   XI what I mean?

 

[DrTuner]

On 2/10/2020 at 3:42 PM, Proboscis said:

For your information, Dr Troll, guys from the CDC AND other specialist centres in other countries will be part of the WHO team.These are the guys who battled Ebola in Africa, if you remember. So enough of this "Us and Them" nonsense.

https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-11-20-intl-hnk/index.html

 

Quote

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provided names for a World Health Organization team traveling to China to study the novel coronavirus epidemic, CDC Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat said during a news conference on Tuesday.

Although US experts have not yet traveled to China to study the novel coronavirus outbreak, “my understanding is the latest discussions, that there’s been receptivity” to the offer, Schuchat said.

Just as I suspected.