United States President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the US “pretty much shut down” all travel from China to prevent more cases of the coronavirus coming to the country. “We’ve offered China help. But we can’t have thousands of people coming in who may have this problem, the coronavirus,” Trump stated in an interview with Fox ahead of the Super Bowl. On Friday, US Health Secretary Alex Azar declared a national health emergency over the deadly virus which originated in China with cases also reported in other countries, including the US. Azar also stressed that the US will block all foreign nationals who have been to China in the past 14 days from entering the US.
The Chinese city of Wuhan is building a hospital in just a few days, to treat patients suspected of contracting the coronavirus.
The Chinese city of Wuhan is structure a hospital in simply a couple of days, to deal with people thought of acquiring the coronavirus.
The 25,000- square-metre (30,000 sq yd) Huoshenshan Hospital, one of 2 brand-new medical facilities being built, is arranged to open up on Monday.
On 24 January, miners were easily removing the ground where the hospital will certainly rest.
China’s health and wellness authorities claim 304 individuals have actually passed away from the coronavirus, with greater than 14,000 instances in the nation and also past. There have actually had to do with 100 instances in an additional 22 nations, consisting of 2 individuals in the UK.
The number of instances worldwide has actually gone beyond that of the Sars epidemic, which infected greater than 2 loads nations in 2003. There were around 8,100 instances of Sars – serious intense breathing disorder – reported throughout that episode.
The coronavirus episode started in Wuhan, house to around 11 million individuals. According to state media, the brand-new Huoshenshan Hospital will certainly consist of regarding 1,000 beds.
China’s main CCTV broadcaster has actually been holding livestreams so individuals can see the medical facilities being built in real-time – and also they have actually confirmed a not likely hit. The Global Times paper claims greater than 40 million individuals have actually been viewing the livestreams in China.
(Reuters) – U.S. health officials on Saturday confirmed an eighth case of the fast-spreading new coronavirus in the United States and the Pentagon said it would provide housing for people arriving from overseas who might need to be quarantined. The latest U.S. patient, who is in Massachusetts, recently returned from Hubei province in central China, the epicenter of the outbreak, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an emailed statement. The person was not identified and no other details were provided. The flu-like coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in a market that traded illegally in wildlife in Hubei’s provincial capital Wuhan, has so far resulted in 304 deaths in China, state broadcaster CCTV said early on Sunday in China. Confirmed cases of the virus have been reported in 27 other nations, according to the CDC. All but one of the patients in the United States was believed to have contracted the disease while they were traveling in the Wuhan area. U.S. officials this week reported the first human-to-human transmission of the disease in the United States in Illinois.
Concerns about the virus spurred the Trump administration to declare a public health emergency and bar entry to the United States for foreign nationals who have recently visited China.
In addition, U.S. citizens who have traveled within the past two weeks to Hubei will be subject to a mandatory quarantine of 14 days, believed to be the incubation period of the virus, officials said. Americans who visited other parts of mainland China will undergo special health screening upon their return, followed by up to 14 days of “monitored self-quarantine,” under the temporary restrictions. In a statement on Saturday, the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Mark Esper approved a request for assistance from the Department of Health and Human Services for housing support for 1,000 people who may be subject to quarantine on arrival from overseas.Health officials had asked the Defense Department to provide several facilities capable of housing at least 250 people in individual rooms through Feb. 29. The Pentagon said four military installations have been selected: two in California, one in Colorado, and one in Texas. It said Defense Department personnel would only provide housing support and HHS would be responsible for all care and transportation. “DOD personnel will not be directly in contact with the evacuees and evacuees will not have access to any base location other than their assigned housing,” the Pentagon said. The first quarantines of U.S. citizens potentially exposed to coronavirus in China began hours before the White House announcement on Friday. Nearly 200 Americans evacuated earlier this week from Wuhan and voluntarily confined to a California military air base for 72 hours of health screenings were placed under a mandatory 14-day quarantine on Friday. By Saturday afternoon, none of those quarantined showed any symptoms of having the virus, said Jose Arballo, a spokesman for the public health department in Riverside County, where the air base is located. He said test results were still pending. The order to keep the Americans on the base marked the CDC’s first mandatory quarantine for decades. “Since this hasn’t been done in 51 years there’s quite the scramble to work through all the procedures,” a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official said, adding that the last mandatory quarantine was ordered to fight smallpox. The official, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said DHS personnel would take over running medical screenings at airports this weekend to free up their CDC counterparts for other tasks. A DHS spokeswoman denied the department was scrambling and said it has been working on these plans since last summer, when it began contracting medical professionals and readying quarantine and health screening plans in case it had to ramp up for the Ebola outbreak. Nearly 12,000 people have been infected globally by the virus, according to the WHO, with all but just over 130 of those cases occurring in China.
BEIJING (AP) — A new viral illness being watched with a wary eye around the globe accelerated its spread in China on Sunday with 56 deaths so far, while the U.S. Consulate in the city at the epicenter announced it will evacuate its personnel and some private citizens aboard a charter flight. China’s health minister said the country was entering a “crucial stage” as “it seems like the ability of the virus to spread is getting stronger.” Ma Xiaowei declined to estimate how long it would take to bring the situation under control, but said travel restrictions and other strict measures should bring results “at the lowest cost and fastest speed.” President Xi Jinping on Saturday called the outbreak a grave situation and said the government was stepping up efforts to restrict travel and public gatherings while rushing medical staff and supplies to the city at the center of the crisis, Wuhan, which remains on lockdown with no flights, trains or buses in or out. The epidemic has revived memories of the SARS outbreak that originated in China and killed nearly 800 as it spread around the world in 2002 and 2003. Its spread has come amid China’s busiest travel period of the year, when millions crisscross the country or head abroad for the Lunar New Year holiday. The latest figures reported Sunday morning cover the previous 24 hours and mark an increase of 15 deaths and 688 cases for a total of 1,975 infections. The government also reported five cases in Hong Kong, two in Macao and three in Taiwan. Small numbers of cases have been found in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the U.S., Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, France and Australia. The U.S. has confirmed cases in Washington state, Chicago, and most recently Southern California. The latest patient announced Saturday night traveled from Wuhan and is in isolation at a hospital and in good condition. Canada said it discovered its first case, a man in his 50s who was in Wuhan before flying to Toronto. Singapore and South Korea each reported one new case Sunday, while Thailand reported three new cases. A notice from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said there would be limited capacity to transport U.S. citizens on a Tuesday flight from Wuhan that will proceed directly to San Francisco. It said that in the event there are not enough seats, priority will be given to to individuals “at greater risk from coronavirus.” The French Consulate also was considering an evacuation of its nationals from the city. It said it’s working on arranging a bus service to help French citizens leave Wuhan. French automaker PSA Group said it will evacuate its employees from Wuhan, quarantine them and then bring them to France. Japan was also making preparations to fly its nationals out of Wuhan. Chinese travel agencies have been told to halt all group tours, and concern is growing over the potential impact of millions of people traveling back to the cities after the Lunar New Year holiday ends on Thursday. China’s National Health Commission said anyone traveling from Wuhan is now required to register with community health stations and quarantine themselves at home for 14 days — the virus’ maximum incubation period. Beijing has decided to delay the start of classes after the Lunar New Year holiday ends, the official Beijing Daily reported on its website. That will extend to all schools in the capital from kindergartens to universities. Hong Kong announced similar measures on Saturday and on Sunday two of that territory’s biggest attractions, Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park, announced they were closing for the time being. In the heart of the outbreak where 11 million residents are already on lockdown, Wuhan banned most vehicle use, including private cars, in downtown areas starting Sunday. The city will assign 6,000 taxis to neighborhoods to help people get around if they need to. China cut off trains, planes and other links to the city Jan’ 22, and has steadily expanded the lockdown to 16 surrounding cities with a combined population of more than 50 million — greater than that of New York, London, Paris and Moscow combined. Wuhan is building two makeshift hospitals with about 1,000 beds each to handle the growing number of patients. The city has said the first is expected to be completed Feb. 3. Medical workers in Wuhan have been among those infected and local media reported a doctor died on Saturday morning. The 62-year-old physician was hospitalized on Jan. 18 and died a week later. Xinhua also said medical supplies are being rushed to the city, including 14,000 protective suits, 110,000 pairs of gloves and masks and goggles. Videos have circulated online showing throngs of frantic people in masks lined up for examinations and there have been complaints that family members had been turned away at hospitals that were at capacity. The National Health Commission said it is bringing in medical teams to help handle the outbreak and the Chinese military dispatched 450 medical staff, some with experience in past outbreaks, including SARS and Ebola, Xinhua reported. The new virus comes from a large family of what are known as coronaviruses, some causing nothing worse than a cold. It causes cold- and flu-like symptoms, including cough and fever, and in more severe cases, shortness of breath. It can worsen to pneumonia, which can be fatal. First detected last month, the virus is believed to have originated in a type of wild animal sold at a Wuhan market to be consumed as food. Chinese authorities announced a temporary ban on the trade of wild animals Sunday, saying they will “severely investigate and punish” violators. They also called on the public to refrain from eating wild animal meat. Investigators are closely observing whether the virus was mutating, but thus far found “no obvious signs,” that it is doing so, head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, Gao Fu, told reporters. That could make it easier to develop vaccines against the virus, something the center is already working on. Xinhua quoted center official Xu Wenbo as saying the they had isolated the virus and were identifying seed strain. The rapid increase in reported deaths and illnesses does not necessarily mean the crisis is getting worse but could reflect better monitoring and reporting of the virus. Those killed by the virus have mostly been middle-aged or elderly people, sometimes suffering from other conditions that weaken their ability to fight back. It is not clear how lethal the new coronavirus is or even whether it is as dangerous as the ordinary flu, which kills tens of thousands of people every year in the U.S. alone.
The spread of a deadly new virus is accelerating, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned, after holding a special government meeting on the Lunar New Year public holiday. The coronavirus has killed at least 42 people and infected some 1,400 since its discovery in the city of Wuhan. Meanwhile, UK-based researchers have warned of a real possibility that China will not be able to contain the virus. Travel restrictions have come in place in several affected cities. From Sunday, private vehicles will be banned from central districts of Wuhan, the source of the outbreak. A second emergency hospital is to be built there within weeks to handle 1,300 new patients, and will be finished in half a month, state newspaper the People’s Daily said. It is the second such rapid construction project: work on another 1,000-bed hospital has already begun. Specialist military medical teams have also been flown into Hubei province, where Wuhan is located. The urgency reflects concern both within China and elsewhere about the virus which first appeared in December. Lunar New Year celebrations for the year of the rat, which began on Saturday, have been cancelled in many Chinese cities. Across mainland China, travellers are having their temperatures checked for signs of fever, and train stations have been shut in several cities. In Hong Kong, the highest level of emergency has been declared and school holidays extended. Several other nations are each dealing with a handful of cases, with patients being treated in isolation. A coronavirus is a family of viruses which include the common cold. But this virus has never been seen before, so it’s been called 2019-nCov, for “novel coronavirus”. New viruses can become common in humans after jumping across the species barrier from animals. The Sars [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] outbreak of 2003 started in bats and transferred to the civet cat which passed it on to humans. This new virus also causes severe acute respiratory infection. Symptoms seem to start with a fever, followed by a dry cough and then, after a week, lead to shortness of breath and some patients needing hospital treatment. Based on early information, it is believed that only a quarter of infected cases are “severe”, and the dead are mostly – though not exclusively – older people, some of whom have pre-existing conditions. The Chinese authorities suspect a seafood market that “conducted illegal transactions of wild animals” was the source of the outbreak. Scientists at the respected MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis in the UK have warned that it may not be possible to contain the virus to China. They say self-sustaining human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus is the “only plausible explanation” for the scale of the epidemic. Their calculations estimate each infected person is passing it onto, on average, 2.5 other people. The centre praised the efforts of the Chinese authorities, but said transmission of the virus needed to be cut by 60% in order to get on top of the outbreak. This is a massive challenge, the scientists suggest, which will require finding and isolating even patients with only mild symptoms that could easily be confused with other diseases. Elsewhere, a team at Lancaster University have published their estimates of the number of cases suggesting 11,000 have been infected this year. If true, that would be more than Sars. There are now 1,372 confirmed cases across China, though most are concentrated in those provinces closest to Hubei. But it has also spread abroad – in isolated cases affecting small numbers of patients. On Saturday, Australia confirmed its first four cases – first in Melbourne, and then three more in Sydney. It has also spread to Europe, with three cases confirmed in France. Tests in the UK on 31 people have come back negative, the government has said. Officials are trying to trace around 2,000 people who have recently flown to the UK from Hubei province. The cases largely involve people who had recently travelled from the affected region in China. China’s neighbours in the Asia region are on high alert, however, with cases reported in Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea and Nepal. There are also cases in the United States. The city of Wuhan is effectively on lockdown, with heavy restrictions on travel in and out, and public transport options from buses to planes cancelled. It is a major population centre with up to 11 million inhabitants – comparable in size to London. Pharmacies in the city have begun to run out of supplies and hospitals have been filled with nervous members of the public. Officials have urged people to avoid crowds and gatherings. “The whole transport system has been shut down,” Kathleen Bell, who is is originally from the UK and works in Wuhan, told the BBC. “From midnight tonight private cars are not allowed on the road. And taxis aren’t running.” Major Western brands such as McDonald’s and Starbucks have closed in the city and in others nearby. The US, France and Russia are among several countries trying to evacuate their nationals from Wuhan, reports say.
China is also suspending from Monday all foreign trips by Chinese holiday tour groups, state media reported.
The outbreak has severely restricted Lunar New Year celebrations in China, when millions of people normally travel home. Major public events have been cancelled and tourist sites shut.
Researchers are racing to find out more about the epidemiology and genetic sequence of the coronavirus spreading in Asia and beyond.
Health authorities around the world are worried about an outbreak of a mysterious virus that originated in Wuhan, China, last month. Officials there have confirmed more than 500 cases of the infection, which causes a respiratory illness, and 17 deaths. Several cases have been spotted elsewhere in Asia and one in the United States.
Researchers are racing to learn more about the virus and to discover whether it has the potential to cause an outbreak similar to the 2002–03 epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which emerged in southern China and killed 774 people in 37 countries. Both are members of a large virus family, called coronaviruses, that also includes those responsible for the common cold. Efforts to understand the outbreak are especially crucial, because mass travel from Friday for the Chinese New Year holiday could spread the virus farther and faster.How does the virus spread? The most urgent question surrounding the outbreak is determining how it spreads. Chinese authorities have confirmed that some cases have been caused by transmission between humans, but it’s still unclear whether this can happen routinely. “What’s critical to understand is whether that’s occurring at a rate and with a level of efficiency which would sustain a human epidemic,” says Neil Ferguson, a mathematical epidemiologist at Imperial College London. Monitoring the rate at which new cases appear, and when symptoms began for each case, should tell scientists how easily the virus can pass between humans and whether the outbreak has the potential to persist. High rates of pneumonia among the first people infected had many researchers worried that the Wuhan virus was especially pernicious. Those concerns have receded slightly, as more mild cases turn up. With at least 17 deaths in more than 500 cases, the virus does not seem to be as deadly as SARS — which killed an estimated 11% of the people it infected. But “It’s too early to be sanguine about the severity,” Ferguson says. Authorities are working on the theory that the virus originated in an unidentified animal or animals, and then spread to humans at a large animal and seafood market in Wuhan. Identifying the animal source of the virus could help to control the current outbreak and gauge its threat — and potentially prevent future epidemics, say researchers. Genetic sequencing suggests that the Wuhan virus is related to coronaviruses that circulate in bats, including SARS and its close relatives. But other mammals can transmit these viruses — SARS was probably spread to humans by civet cats. The live-seafood market where the outbreak seems to have originated — now closed — also sells wild animals. Tracing other cases to the market could help to identify the source, as could tests of animals from the market, or containers and cages, for viral genetic material, says Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong. Genetic sequencing of the Wuhan coronavirus offers clues to its origins and spread. Laboratories in China and Thailand have sequenced the genomes of at least 19 strains found in infected people and have made them publicly available. That’s “pretty remarkable, given that we’re two weeks after work has begun,” says Trevor Bedford, an evolutionary geneticist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, who is analysing the sequences as they come in. “People are extremely fast and excellent about data sharing,” Bedford adds. Bedford says that the most striking thing about the sequences is how similar they are to one another. “There’s very little diversity. I expected to see more and I think other people did as well.” The lack of genetic diversity suggests that the common ancestor of the different human strains emerged in November or December and has spread rapidly, and hasn’t gained many mutations. Those it has gained tend to be distinct for each virus sequence. However, Bedford adds, the genomes don’t yet indicate whether the rapid expansion of the virus occurred in humans or in an animal reservoir. Evolutionary geneticist Andrew Rambaut at the University of Edinburgh, UK, posted an analysis on 20 January that came to a similar conclusion. Bedford says that, with further virus sequences, it might be possible to find out whether most cases are caused by repeated spillover of the virus from animals into humans, with limited human-to-human transmission, or whether the virus spread to a small number of humans and most cases are now being caused by secondary human-to-human transmission. “I think that would be the big epidemiological goal for everyone at the moment,” he says. Genetic information from the animal or animals that transmitted the virus to humans would also be helpful in identifying the extent of human-to-human transmission, Bedford adds.
Such sequences, he says, could also identify any genetic changes that might have helped the virus make the jump from animals to humans. And if the outbreak drags on because of extensive human-to-human transmission, Bedford and other geneticists will be looking for signs that the virus has gained further mutations enabling it to spread more efficiently in humans. Bedford cautions that these conclusions are preliminary, because so few data are available. “Adding a few key samples can change the story significantly,” he says. No drugs have been shown to be effective in treating SARS or other coronavirus infections in humans, and no vaccines aimed at preventing these infections have been licensed. A team at China’s National Engineering Research Center for the Emergence Drugs in Beijing is working on finding therapies that would work by blocking the receptor on human cells that the virus latches on to and uses to infect. A comparison of the SARS and new China virus sequences, published on 16 January, found that they bind to the same receptor. The team is hoping to revive efforts to develop treatments for SARS and adapt them in a bid to make a drug could work against the latest virus.
GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday that the new coronavirus that has emerged in China and spread to several other countries does not yet constitute an international emergency but it was tracking its evolution “every minute”. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the announcement after its Emergency Committee of 16 independent experts reviewed the latest evidence and made its recommendations, which he accepted. “Make no mistake, though, this is an emergency in China,” Tedros told a news conference at WHO headquarters in Geneva. “But it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one.” China put millions of people on lockdown on Thursday in two cities at the epicentre of a coronavirus outbreak that has killed 18 people and infected more than 630, as authorities around the world worked to prevent a global pandemic.
Soldiers wearing face masks screened people Thursday for the coronavirus in Wuhan, China — where doctors wore hazmat suits to treat patients sickened by the mystery illness, photos from inside the city show. Wuhan government officials called the situation a “state of war” after a public transportation ban and other safety measures were issued in the central Chinese city where the disease emerged, according to NPR.
“Strictly implement emergency response requirements, enter into a state of war and implement wartime measures to resolutely curb the spread of this epidemic,” officials warned, according to the report. The officials further urged residents to remain in their homes, saying, “Homes must be segregated, neighbors must be watched.”
Wuhan issued a travel ban Wednesday that suspended all public transportation in an effort to contain the spread of the virus, which has sickened more than 600 people and killed 17. The mandate banned travel out of the central Chinese city on trains, long-haul buses and flights. Soldiers were photographed wearing face masks as they barricaded the entrances to the city’s train stations Thursday morning to prevent travel out of Wuhan.Cars were still allowed to leave Wuhan on Thursday, but officials began to close down major highways, NPR reported. Officials said they were screening anyone leaving or entering the city for symptoms such as fever. The city is home to 11 million residents, who received less than eight hours’ notice of the quarantine, according to the report.
The deadly virus can spread from person to person, but the exact nature of that transmission is not known, officials said.
EXCLUSIVE: Disturbing images on Instagram from inside Wuhan show residents dropping to the floor following a lockdown of the city by Chinese authorities. Disturbing images of Wuhan residents dropping unresponsive to the floor have emerged on Instagram following the diseased Chinese city’s coronavirus lockdown.
MAY BEFAKENEWSWARNING!
Wuhan has been branded a “zombieland” by frantic locals after Chinese authorities told residents they are not allowed to leave yesterday morning. It appears as though the man was waiting in line for paperwork when he collapsed while wearing a disposable face mark for protection. As the scene unfolds, a medic dressed in all white approaches the man and bends down to offer assistance.
The situation was witnessed by a line of six people but the incident does not seem isolated as other residents have posted images of the same scenario. Pictures from inside the city paint an apocalyptic picture as medics patrol in hazmat suits and gas masks. In an upload direct from Wuhan, a man can be seen lying unresponsive on the floor as concerned individuals look on. The situation was witnessed by a line of six people but the incident does not seem isolated as other residents have posted images of the same scenario.
