Kamis, 23 Januari 2020

Chinese Authorities Begin Quarantine Of Wuhan City As Coronavirus Cases Multiply - NPR

A traveler walks past a display board showing a canceled flight from Wuhan at Beijing Capital International Airport Thursday. China closed off the city of more than 11 million in an unprecedented effort to try to contain a deadly new viral illness that has sickened hundreds and spread to other cities and countries during the Lunar New Year travel rush. Mark Schiefelbein/AP hide caption

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Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Wuhan's public health authorities say they are in a "state of war" as they quarantine the Chinese city in an attempt to halt the spread of a never-before-seen strain of the coronavirus.

"Strictly implement emergency response requirements, enter into a state of war and implement wartime measures to resolutely curb the spread of this epidemic," urged a committee of Wuhan's top officials. "Homes must be segregated, neighbors must be watched."

Beginning at 10 a.m. local time (9 p.m. Wednesday ET), authorities in Wuhan, about 500 miles west of Shanghai, started sealing off public transportation, including its metro system, airport, train station and long-haul bus hubs. Live-streamed videos from the city show soldiers wearing face masks barricading the entrances to the city's train station Thursday morning to prevent passengers from entering and leaving the city.

As of early afternoon, cars were still allowed to exit Wuhan, the epicenter of a rapidly-growing outbreak of a coronavirus that has sickened more than 570 within China and killed at least 17, according to health authorities.

But officials also began sealing off highways entering the city. Authorities said they were screening passengers leaving and entering Wuhan, checking for fever and the illegal transport of wild animals thought to be the original vector for the virus.

Online, people expressed doubt whether the quarantine came in time to check the disease's spread. Influential bloggers have been calling on the mayor of Wuhan, Zhou Xianwang, to step down after he admitted the city government's initial public health responses "were not sufficient." The disease has spread to virtually all other Chinese provinces as well as Hong Kong, none of which has been quarantined.

Passengers wear masks as they arrive at Manila's international airport, Philippines, on Thursday. The government is closely monitoring arriving passengers as a new coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China has infected hundreds. Aaron Favila/AP hide caption

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Aaron Favila/AP

The sudden decision to lock down the city of 11 million residents, who were given less than eight hours notice of the suspension of public transportation, suggests the severity of the outbreak has alarmed China's leaders. Wuhan's lock down comes only two days before the official start of Lunar New Year, a major, week-long holiday during which hundreds of millions normally travel within and outside China.

The recent jump in the number of confirmed cases in China has also raised suspicions among both researchers and residents that authorities have delayed reporting the true extent of a public health threat.

Thursday's front page of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, made no mention of the viral outbreak and focused instead on the country's leadership. The top story covered Chinese leader Xi Jinping's New Year's wishes to former senior officials.

A London Imperial College study published Wednesday estimated that the number of those infected in China with the new coronavirus should be at least 4,000 based on past outbreaks of similar viral diseases, far fewer than the 570 or so officially acknowledged as of Thursday.

"This is a mathematical model. The number you were referring to was the maximum in the range predicted. Faced with viruses like this, facts must be facts and theories are just theories," Gao Fu, the director of China's Bureau of Disease Prevention and Control, told reporters yesterday when asked about a similar study from the same authors.

Part of the problem with reaching an accurate count may be that overstretched hospitals have been unable to cope with the numbers of potential cases needing to be screened. Hundreds of residents with fevers seeking screening posted on social media Wednesday night that they had been turned away from overloaded Wuhan hospitals. The posts were deleted by the following morning.

In one case, a man from Liaoning province who sought treatment in a Wuhan hospital on Jan. 12 was simply prescribed oral medication and turned away, according to a notice posted by the Liaoning Public Health Commission. Five days later, he flew to Dalian, a major city in Liaoning, for further care as his symptoms worsened and were diagnosed as coronavirus pneumonia. He is currently in critical condition.

Wuhan says it will add 3,400 more beds to hospitals which are equipped to treat the virus, bringing the overall number to 5,400, indicating authorities expect the scale of the outbreak to grow. Caixin, an independent Chinese-language outlet, quoted doctors in Wuhan saying they expected the outbreak to eventually infect as many as 6,000 people, though they did not give a timeline. SARS, which also belongs to the coronavirus family, infected more than 8,000 from 2002 to 2003.

Hospitals are struggling to find enough doctors to treat the growing numbers of patients. An account of a 23-year-old man treated for the virus and eventually released last week described how his doctors had been transferred from other institutions within Wuhan and even from as far away as Beijing. As the crisis worsened, they worked sixteen hours a day, "from dawn to dusk."

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2020-01-23 08:35:00Z
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Three Americans killed as firefighting plane crashes in Australia - The Washington Post

David Gray Reuters A television reporter stands in front of a C-130 Hercules as it drops a load of around 15,000 liters during a display ahead of the bush fire season in Sydney, Sept. 1, 2017.

MELBOURNE, Australia — Three Americans died Thursday when their aerial water tanker crashed while battling bush fires in the mountainous terrain of the Australian state of New South Wales.

The Rural Fire Service confirmed a C-130 Hercules crashed while fighting fires in hazardous conditions near Cooma, in the northeast of the Snowy Mountains.

“All three occupants on board were U.S. residents,” said Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons in a news conference. “We simply lost contact with the machine and the flight tracker we used stopped — there is no indication at this stage what caused the accident.”

“There was a large fireball associated with the crash,” he said, adding that it was still an active fire scene and it took “quite some time” to locate the wreckage.

[Australia fire crisis fuels protests calling for bolder action on climate change]

He said the plane was operated by Coulson Aviation which is based in Canada and contracted by the fire service. The C-130 could carry up to 15,000 liters of water.

Coulson grounded its fleet on Thursday as a mark of respect for the victims and to reassess safety conditions.

Fitzsimmons said the grounding of the large air tankers will impact firefighting capabilities on the ground in New South Wales, where there are still 70 fires burning, 44 of them out of control and three of them at an emergency warning level. Bush fires have also closed the airport in Australia’s capital, Canberra.

The fires have been burning across Australia since September last year, in what is being called an “unprecedented” season. Dangerous and widespread fires have engulfed millions of acres and displaced many communities. Several Australian firefighters have been killed on the job and millions of wildlife are feared dead.

Some 150 American firefighters and ground staff have been helping out with the bush fires in New South Wales and Victoria.

Crew from United States were helping out on the front line fighting fires, while also helping in operation command centers to oversee the response on the ground.

Last year Australia also requested assistance from U.S. aviation specialists to observe fires from helicopters and planes, and to help decide where to send firefighters on the ground and where to drop retardant or water bombs.

“Our thoughts are not just with family and loved ones but for anyone who feels impacted by what has unfolded this afternoon. We can’t thank enough people who continue, notwithstanding the conditions, to put their safety at risk to protect lives and property of others,” said Fitzsimmons.

Coulson Aviation has provided water-bombing aircraft to New South Wales for nearly five years.

The company said it was sending a team to the crash site to assist with emergency operations and are expected to arrive in the next 24 hours.

“The aircraft had departed Richmond, NSW with a load of retardant and was on a firebombing mission,” the statement said. “The accident is reported to be extensive and we are deeply saddened to confirm there are three fatalities.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison tweeted his condolences to the “loved ones, friends and colleagues of those who have lost their lives. Such a terrible tragedy.”

Gladys Berejiklian, the premier of New South Wales, said there were more than 1,700 volunteers fighting fires across the state and flags will be flown at half-mast as a sign of respect.

“Today again demonstrated the fire season is far from over,” she said.

Read more

In Australia, the air poses a threat; people are rushing to hospitals in cities choked by smoke

7 questions about traveling to Australia during catastrophic fires, answered

In Australia, fires energize environmental movement

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2020-01-23 09:53:00Z
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Three Americans dead after firefighting water bomber crashes in rural Australia - CNN

The water-bombing tanker had been chartered by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS), state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said in a news conference on Thursday. It was called in to fight a bushfire near the town of Cooma, in the state's southeast.
The Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council told CNN the casualties were American. The crew members belonged to Coulson Aviation, an aerial firefighting company that owned the aircraft contracted to the NSW RFS.
Coulson Aviation said in a statement that the crew had been on a firebombing mission when the accident occurred.
"Today is a stark and horrible reminder of the dangerous conditions that our volunteers, our emergency services personnel across the number of agencies take on a daily basis," Berejiklian said. "It demonstrates the dangerous work currently being undertaken. It also demonstrates the conditions that our firefighters are working under."
According to the NSW RFS commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, contact was lost with the C-130 water-bombing plane shortly before 1:30 p.m. local time on Thursday.
"Tragically, there appears to be no survivors as a result of the crash down in the Snowy Monaro area," Fitzsimmons said in the news conference. "It's impacted heavily with the ground. And initial reports are there was a large fireball associated with the impact of the plane as it hit the ground."
The cause of the crash is not yet clear.
Traci Weaver, a United States public information officer with firefighting teams on the ground, called the crash a "heartbreaking" incident.
"We're just here taking care of our folks," she told CNN. "And it hits close to home when it's Americans too -- as tight a family as we are in the firefighting community -- it's just hard."
Fires have been burning in the state for months, and several countries have sent personnel and firefighting assistance, including the US and New Zealand.
The US announced Wednesday it was sending two more 20-person crews to Australia, only days after sending air support personnel and other emergency management teams. So far, the US has deployed more than 200 staff to Australia, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Fires are still raging in several states, particularly in New South Wales, Victoria, and the Australian Capital Territory, home to the national capital Canberra.
Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, is blanketed by bushfire smoke on January 23, 2020.
The Canberra airport closed on Thursday, with arrivals and departures grounded as bushfires burned nearby. One of the fires, only a few miles away, is "out of control" and has reached an emergency alert level, according to the territory's emergency agency.
The airport has not been evacuated, but closed "due to aviation firefighting operations," it said in a tweet. Photos from the airport show planes grounded on smoky runways, and the entire city shrouded in a thick, reddish haze.
Authorities have advised residents in the area to seek shelter, warning that roads are closed and that "it is too late to leave."
"The fire may pose a threat to all lives directly in its path," the ACT Emergency Services Agency said. "People in these suburbs are in danger and need to seek immediate shelter as the fire approaches."
The emergency-level fire began on Wednesday, but worsened on Thursday due to strong winds and high temperatures, according to CNN affiliate Seven News.

It rained mud in Melbourne

Much of southeastern Australia -- where Canberra is located -- has been battered by severe weather for the past week. Canberra was hit by a hailstorm on Monday, with hailstones the size of golf balls shattering car windows and injuring scores of birds.
There have also been heavy winds all week -- apart from exacerbating the persistent and widespread fires, the wind created apocalyptic scenes of massive dust storms engulfing towns last Sunday.
A bushfire burns on January 23, 2020 in Canberra, Australia.
Australia has been gripped by a devastating drought since 2017 -- which has not only destroyed livelihoods, but has left the land parched and dry, full of loose soil and dust that are easily whipped up into the air by wind.
In normal conditions, dust storms are not common occurrences. But because of the drought and wind, they are happening more and more frequently in Australia. The major city of Melbourne, south of Canberra in the state of Victoria, was hit with a dust storm on Wednesday night and then rain on Thursday, creating a whole new kind of weather disaster.
The dust had been spread in the air by the wind -- so when the rain came, it combined into a rust-colored sludge of mud that coated the city. Photographs from Melbourne show the Yarra River turned completely brown with the dust-mud, and cars covered with dirt. People woke up to see their household pools and bird baths filled with brown dusty water.
Staff cleaning dirt off the outside courts at Melbourne Park on January 23, 2020 in Melbourne, Australia.
The Australian Open, now in its fourth day, even had to delay matches for several hours because the outdoor courts were covered with mud. Staff at the tennis tournament rushed to clean the court with towels, hoses, and "high pressure cleaning," finally opening it back up to matches in the late afternoon.
There are "damaging winds" across much of the state on Thursday, with the strongest wind gust reaching 85 miles per hour in a national park northeast of Melbourne, according to the Victoria Bureau of Meteorology. Milder winds are forecast for Friday and across the weekend.

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2020-01-23 08:27:00Z
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Rabu, 22 Januari 2020

CNN goes to ground zero of Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in China - CNN

A deadly outbreak of the new Wuhan coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China, a city of 11 million people in December 2019. Within weeks, the virus has killed nine people, sickened hundreds and spread as far as the United States. CNN's David Culver reports.

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2020-01-22 16:13:25Z
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Trump downplays service members' concussion injuries from Iranian attack: 'I heard they had headaches' - CNN

During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump was asked to explain the discrepancy between his previous comments that no US service member was harmed in the January 8 Iranian missile attack on Al-Asad airbase in Iraq, and the latest reports of US troops being treated for injuries sustained in that attack.
Bitter exchanges and incriminating evidence rock Trump's impeachment trial
"No, I heard that they had headaches, and a couple of other things, but I would say, and I can report, it's not very serious," Trump replied during the news conference.
The reporter pressed, "So you don't consider potential traumatic brain injury serious?"
"They told me about it numerous days later, you'd have to ask Department of Defense," Trump replied.
The commander in chief continued, "I don't consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries that I've seen."
"I've seen what Iran has done with their roadside bombs to our troops. I've seen people with no legs and with no arms. I've seen people that were horribly, horribly injured in that area, that war," Trump said.
"No, I do not consider that to be bad injuries, no," he added.
According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, a majority of TBI injuries are considered mild, and are also known as concussions, but they can leave long-term effects on cognitive functions.
A mild TBI is more difficult to identify than severe TBI injuries because there might not be a visible head injury and some symptoms are similar to those of PTSD, according to the DVBIC. Individuals who sustain multiple concussions are at greater risk for further or permanent neurologic damage.
The Defense Department and Veterans Affairs announced last year it would fund up to $50 million in new research on concussions.
"VA and DOD share an urgent, ongoing commitment to better understand the long-term impact of TBI," Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie said at the time.
The Pentagon and the President had initially said no service members were injured or killed in the January 8 Iranian missile attack, which was retaliation for the January 2 US drone strike that killed a top Iranian general.
"No Americans were harmed in last night's attack by the Iranian regime. We suffered no casualties. All of our soldiers are safe and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases," Trump said an address to the nation after the attack.
But last week, US Central Command said that 11 service members were treated for concussion symptoms from the attack.
CENTCOM said that service members who had been in the impact zone were being monitored for potential injuries and that the injuries became apparent in the days after the attack. Concussions are not always apparent immediately after they've been suffered.
CENTCOM announced Tuesday that additional US troops have been transported to an American medical facility in Germany.

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2020-01-22 15:14:00Z
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Coronavirus outbreak kills 9 in China; US has 1 confirmed case, health officials say - KABC-TV

SEATTLE -- Chinese health authorities urged people in the city of Wuhan to avoid crowds and public gatherings, after warning that a new viral illness that has infected more than 400 people and killed at least nine could spread further.

The appeal came as World Health Organization experts were meeting to determine whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency.


The number of new cases has risen sharply in China, the center of the outbreak. There were 440 confirmed cases as of midnight Tuesday in 13 jurisdictions, said Li Bin, deputy director of the National Health Commission. Nine people have died, all in Hubei province, since the outbreak emerged in its provincial capital of Wuhan late last month.

"There has already been human-to-human transmission and infection of medical workers," Li said at a news conference with health experts. "Evidence has shown that the disease has been transmitted through the respiratory tract and there is the possibility of viral mutation."

RELATED: Human-to-human transmission confirmed in China coronavirus

The illness comes from a newly identified type of coronavirus, a family of viruses that can cause the common cold as well as more serious illnesses such as the SARS outbreak that spread from China to more than a dozen countries in 2002-2003 and killed about 800 people. Some experts have drawn parallels between the new coronavirus and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome, another coronavirus that does not spread very easily among humans and is thought to be carried by camels.

But WHO's Asia office tweeted this week that "there may now be sustained human-to-human transmission," which raises the possibility that the epidemic is spreading more easily and may no longer require an animal source to spark infections, as officials initially reported.

A man in Washington state has been diagnosed with the deadly coronavirus that has sickened hundreds and killed six in China, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Washington state health officials said the man, who is in his 30s, recently traveled to Wuhan in central China, where health officials believe the outbreak started in a fresh food market. However, Washington state officials said the patient did not go to any of the markets in question or interact with any infected individuals. He came back to Snohomish County, which is north of Seattle, Jan. 15, two days before the CDC began screenings at three US airports.

Officials affirmed that there is low risk to the public.

Authorities in Thailand on Wednesday confirmed four cases, a Thai national and three Chinese visitors. Along with the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have also reported one case each. All of the illnesses were of people from Wuhan or who recently traveled there.

"The situation is under control here," Thai Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters, saying there are no reports of the infection spreading to others. "We checked all of them: taxi drivers, people who wheeled the wheelchairs for the patients, doctors and nurses who worked around them."

RELATED: What are coronaviruses? Why US health officials are screening airline passengers from China


Macao, a former Portuguese colony that is a semi-autonomous Chinese city, reported one case Wednesday.

Some experts said they believe the threshold for the outbreak to be declared an international emergency had been reached.

Dr. Peter Horby, a professor of emerging infectious diseases at Oxford University, said there were three criteria for such a determination: the outbreak must be an extraordinary event, there must be a risk of international spread and a globally coordinated response is required.

"In my opinion, those three criteria have been met," he said.

In response to the U.S. case, President Donald Trump said: "We do have a plan, and we think it's going to be handled very well. We've already handled it very well. ... we're in very good shape, and I think China's in very good shape also."

In Wuhan, pharmacies limited sales of face masks to one package per customer as people lined up to buy them. Residents said they were not overly concerned as long as they took preventive measures.

"As an adult, I am not too worried about the disease," Yang Bin, the father of a 7-year-old, said after buying a mask. "I think we are more worried about our kids. ... It would be unacceptable to the parents if they got sick."

Medical workers in protective suits could be seen carrying supplies and stretchers into Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, where some of the patients are being treated.

Travel agencies that organize trips to North Korea said the country has banned foreign tourists because of the outbreak. Most tourists to North Korea are either Chinese or travel to the country through neighboring China. North Korea also closed its borders in 2003 during the SARS scare.

Other countries have stepped up screening measures for travelers from China, especially those arriving from Wuhan. Worries have been heightened by the Lunar New Year holiday rush, when millions of Chinese travel at home and abroad.

Officials said it was too early to compare the new virus with SARS or MERS, or Middle East respiratory syndrome, in terms of how lethal it might be. They attributed the spike in new cases to improvements in detection and monitoring.


"We are still in the process of learning more about this disease," Gao Fu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, said at the news conference.

Gao said officials are working on the assumption that the outbreak resulted from human exposure to wild animals being sold illegally at a food market in Wuhan and that the virus is mutating. Mutations can make it spread faster or make people sicker.

Jiao Yahui, a health commission official, said the disease "will continue to develop. It has developed different features compared with the early stage, and the prevention and precautionary measures need to change accordingly."

One veteran of the SARS outbreak said that while there are some similarities in the new virus - namely its origins in China and the link to animals - the current outbreak appears much milder.

Dr. David Heymann, who headed WHO's global response to SARS in 2003, said the new virus appears dangerous for older people with other health conditions, but doesn't seem nearly as infectious as SARS.

"It looks like it doesn't transmit through the air very easily and probably transmits through close contact," he said. "That was not the case with SARS."

Health officials confirmed earlier this week that the disease can be spread between humans after finding two infected people in Guangdong province in southern China who had not been to Wuhan.

Fifteen medical workers also tested positive for the virus, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has said. Fourteen of them - one doctor and 13 nurses - were infected by a patient who had been hospitalized for neurosurgery but also had the coronavirus.

"This is a very profound lesson, which is that there must not be any cracks in our prevention and control," Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang said about the infections of the medical workers in an interview with state broadcaster CCTV.

Experts worry in particular when health workers are sickened in outbreaks by new viruses, because it can suggest the disease is becoming more transmissible and because spread in hospitals can often amplify the epidemic.

The Lunar New Year is a time when many Chinese return to their hometowns to visit family. Li, the health commission official, said measures were being taken to monitor and detect infected people from Wuhan, and that people should avoid going to the city, and people from the city should stay put for now.

Copyright © 2020 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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2020-01-22 13:41:15Z
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Coronavirus outbreak kills 9 in China; US has 1 confirmed case, health officials say - KABC-TV

SEATTLE -- Chinese health authorities urged people in the city of Wuhan to avoid crowds and public gatherings, after warning that a new viral illness that has infected more than 400 people and killed at least nine could spread further.

The appeal came as World Health Organization experts were meeting to determine whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency.


The number of new cases has risen sharply in China, the center of the outbreak. There were 440 confirmed cases as of midnight Tuesday in 13 jurisdictions, said Li Bin, deputy director of the National Health Commission. Nine people have died, all in Hubei province, since the outbreak emerged in its provincial capital of Wuhan late last month.

"There has already been human-to-human transmission and infection of medical workers," Li said at a news conference with health experts. "Evidence has shown that the disease has been transmitted through the respiratory tract and there is the possibility of viral mutation."

RELATED: Human-to-human transmission confirmed in China coronavirus

The illness comes from a newly identified type of coronavirus, a family of viruses that can cause the common cold as well as more serious illnesses such as the SARS outbreak that spread from China to more than a dozen countries in 2002-2003 and killed about 800 people. Some experts have drawn parallels between the new coronavirus and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome, another coronavirus that does not spread very easily among humans and is thought to be carried by camels.

But WHO's Asia office tweeted this week that "there may now be sustained human-to-human transmission," which raises the possibility that the epidemic is spreading more easily and may no longer require an animal source to spark infections, as officials initially reported.

A man in Washington state has been diagnosed with the deadly coronavirus that has sickened hundreds and killed six in China, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Washington state health officials said the man, who is in his 30s, recently traveled to Wuhan in central China, where health officials believe the outbreak started in a fresh food market. However, Washington state officials said the patient did not go to any of the markets in question or interact with any infected individuals. He came back to Snohomish County, which is north of Seattle, Jan. 15, two days before the CDC began screenings at three US airports.

Officials affirmed that there is low risk to the public.

Authorities in Thailand on Wednesday confirmed four cases, a Thai national and three Chinese visitors. Along with the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have also reported one case each. All of the illnesses were of people from Wuhan or who recently traveled there.

"The situation is under control here," Thai Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters, saying there are no reports of the infection spreading to others. "We checked all of them: taxi drivers, people who wheeled the wheelchairs for the patients, doctors and nurses who worked around them."

RELATED: What are coronaviruses? Why US health officials are screening airline passengers from China


Macao, a former Portuguese colony that is a semi-autonomous Chinese city, reported one case Wednesday.

Some experts said they believe the threshold for the outbreak to be declared an international emergency had been reached.

Dr. Peter Horby, a professor of emerging infectious diseases at Oxford University, said there were three criteria for such a determination: the outbreak must be an extraordinary event, there must be a risk of international spread and a globally coordinated response is required.

"In my opinion, those three criteria have been met," he said.

In response to the U.S. case, President Donald Trump said: "We do have a plan, and we think it's going to be handled very well. We've already handled it very well. ... we're in very good shape, and I think China's in very good shape also."

In Wuhan, pharmacies limited sales of face masks to one package per customer as people lined up to buy them. Residents said they were not overly concerned as long as they took preventive measures.

"As an adult, I am not too worried about the disease," Yang Bin, the father of a 7-year-old, said after buying a mask. "I think we are more worried about our kids. ... It would be unacceptable to the parents if they got sick."

Medical workers in protective suits could be seen carrying supplies and stretchers into Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, where some of the patients are being treated.

Travel agencies that organize trips to North Korea said the country has banned foreign tourists because of the outbreak. Most tourists to North Korea are either Chinese or travel to the country through neighboring China. North Korea also closed its borders in 2003 during the SARS scare.

Other countries have stepped up screening measures for travelers from China, especially those arriving from Wuhan. Worries have been heightened by the Lunar New Year holiday rush, when millions of Chinese travel at home and abroad.

Officials said it was too early to compare the new virus with SARS or MERS, or Middle East respiratory syndrome, in terms of how lethal it might be. They attributed the spike in new cases to improvements in detection and monitoring.


"We are still in the process of learning more about this disease," Gao Fu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, said at the news conference.

Gao said officials are working on the assumption that the outbreak resulted from human exposure to wild animals being sold illegally at a food market in Wuhan and that the virus is mutating. Mutations can make it spread faster or make people sicker.

Jiao Yahui, a health commission official, said the disease "will continue to develop. It has developed different features compared with the early stage, and the prevention and precautionary measures need to change accordingly."

One veteran of the SARS outbreak said that while there are some similarities in the new virus - namely its origins in China and the link to animals - the current outbreak appears much milder.

Dr. David Heymann, who headed WHO's global response to SARS in 2003, said the new virus appears dangerous for older people with other health conditions, but doesn't seem nearly as infectious as SARS.

"It looks like it doesn't transmit through the air very easily and probably transmits through close contact," he said. "That was not the case with SARS."

Health officials confirmed earlier this week that the disease can be spread between humans after finding two infected people in Guangdong province in southern China who had not been to Wuhan.

Fifteen medical workers also tested positive for the virus, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has said. Fourteen of them - one doctor and 13 nurses - were infected by a patient who had been hospitalized for neurosurgery but also had the coronavirus.

"This is a very profound lesson, which is that there must not be any cracks in our prevention and control," Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang said about the infections of the medical workers in an interview with state broadcaster CCTV.

Experts worry in particular when health workers are sickened in outbreaks by new viruses, because it can suggest the disease is becoming more transmissible and because spread in hospitals can often amplify the epidemic.

The Lunar New Year is a time when many Chinese return to their hometowns to visit family. Li, the health commission official, said measures were being taken to monitor and detect infected people from Wuhan, and that people should avoid going to the city, and people from the city should stay put for now.

Copyright © 2020 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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2020-01-22 12:33:45Z
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