Deadly Coronavirus in China Raises Fears of Outbreak as Human Transmission Confirmed - Slate

A man wears a mask while riding on bike past the closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which has been linked to cases of Coronavirus, on Jan. 17, 2020 in Wuhan, China.

Getty Images/Getty Images

Chinese officials confirmed Tuesday that six people have died from the pneumonia-like Coronavirus, while raising the number of confirmed cases of the illness to 300, sparking fears of an outbreak in the country. The virus, which was first confirmed on Dec. 31 in the city of Wuhan, is believed to have been transmitted from animals to humans, but Chinese health officials now say they have evidence that human-to-human transmission is also possible, potentially via saliva. The World Health Organization says the symptoms Coronavirus are fever, cough, and respiratory difficulties, such as shortness of breath, all of which can, in serious cases, lead to pneumonia, kidney failure, and death in the most severe cases.

The potential for humans to spread the virus has heightened fears about containing the illness during the Lunar New Year in China, which officially starts this week and annually amounts to one of the largest movements of people in the world as people pour out of China’s cities to go home for the holiday. Cases have already been detected beyond Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, with confirmed cases elsewhere in China, as well as among people in Japan, South Korea, and Thailand, who had traveled to Wuhan. Australia is also currently monitoring its first suspected case. The number of cases in China tripled this week as officials instituted testing in other parts of the country, though the vast majority of instances were in Wuhan.

“Many of the cases were connected to the Huanan Seafood Market, which also sold live poultry and exotic animal meats. Considered a likely source of the virus, the market was closed and disinfected,” the New York Times reports. “The health commission in Wuhan said on Sunday that the illness had also appeared in people who had not been exposed to the market, raising the possibility that the virus could be present elsewhere in the city.” The latest cases have prompted a number of airports to screen passengers traveling from the region, including U.S. airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York’s JFK. The WHO announced it has scheduled an emergency meeting Wednesday to assess whether the outbreak now constitutes international public health emergency.

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2020-01-21 12:16:00Z
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China tries to close off Wuhan, city hit by coronavirus - The - The Washington Post

Darley Shen Reuters Medical staff carry a box at the Jinyintan hospital, where the patients with pneumonia caused by the new strain of coronavirus are being treated, in Wuhan, China Jan. 10, 2020.

BEIJING — Chinese health authorities sought to impose a quasi-quarantine Tuesday around Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, as they stepped up efforts to stop the spread of a mystery virus that has now claimed six lives.

With confirmation that the pneumonialike coronavirus can be transmitted from person to person, and with hundreds of millions of Chinese packing onto public transport to make their annual pilgrimages home for the Lunar New Year, a new sense of panic has erupted here.

Long lines formed at pharmacies and convenience stores around the country as people rushed to buy surgical masks, with unlucky customers posting photos on social media of bare shelves. People around the country canceled their trips home for the Spring Festival, as Chinese new year celebrations are known, the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar.

Officials over the weekend announced that the number of patients has tripled and a third person died from deadly new virus related to SARS.

“I don’t really dare to go to the airport right now, or even to the movie theater,” said Xie Jing, a 33-year-old who works in advertising in Shanghai, where there have been two confirmed cases of coronavirus. She canceled her planned trip home to Sichuan, where two cases are suspected.

“Everyone is being very careful at the moment in Shanghai. Everyone is wearing masks on the streets,” Xie said.

The Geneva-based World Health Organization said it would call an emergency meeting Wednesday to decide whether to designate the outbreak as an international public health emergency. Australia and the Philippines are the latest countries with suspected cases of infection.

[China virus: Expert says it can be spread by human-to-human contact, sparking concerns about themassive holiday travel underway

The virus was first detected on Dec. 31 and was linked to a dirty food market in Wuhan, not far from one of the main train stations, where wild animals including wolf pups and civet cats had been on sale for consumption.

A total of 298 people in China had been confirmed with the virus by 5 p.m. Tuesday, the National Health Commission said, an increase of more than 70 from Monday. The vast majority of cases are in Wuhan, where Mayor Zhou Xianwang said six people have now died from the virus.

Dake Kang

AP

The Wuhan Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, where a number of people related to the market fell ill with a virus, sits closed in Wuhan, China, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020.

Initially, doctors thought that the virus was not communicable between humans, but cases of infection across the country, including among people who have not been to Wuhan, prove that it can be passed on. Some 54 people across 14 provinces are being monitored for possible infection.

The spread has led specialists to urge travelers not to move in and out of the central Chinese city.

“We hope people can avoid going to Wuhan if possible and that people in Wuhan can stay there,” said Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the leader of a government team of experts responding to the outbreak. “This is not a call from the officials but a suggestion from us in the expert team.”

Still, he said it was “inevitable” that the virus would continue to spread as people moved around the country for the turning of the Lunar New Year, which occurs this Saturday.

The Ministry of Transport estimates that 400 million people will be on the move, making a total of 3 billion trips during this period.

Health authorities deployed more infrared thermometers to Wuhan airport and train stations to check passengers for fever, while some hotels in the central Chinese city also began requiring temperatures to be taken before customers could check in. Outbound group tours have been restricted.

Traffic police began conducting random checks on vehicles traveling in and out of the city to make sure they were not transporting live birds or wild animals.

Some airlines and travel agencies began to offer refunds to people traveling out of Wuhan or people with the virus.

[China identifies new strain of coronavirus as source of pneumonia outbreak]

The measures come after criticism that Wuhan authorities have been too lax in stopping the spread of the virus, which first appeared on Dec. 31.

On Saturday, as the virus exploded in Wuhan, the city held potluck banquets to celebrate the looming new year, attended by more than 40,000 families. News and photos of the event appeared Sunday on the front page of the state-run newspaper in Wuhan, but it was deleted from the Internet by Tuesday amid criticism about the lack of precautions.

The city had still planned to go ahead with 41 large-scale events for holiday celebrations, advertising them on Monday, but it announced Tuesday that they have been “postponed.” Schools and universities are on break for Spring Festival, but more than 100 extracurricular “cram” schools in Wuhan have canceled classes.

Kin Cheung

AP

A reporter wearing mask attends a news conference on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020.

Quarantine was the most effective way to stop the virus from being transmitted, since it spreads by droplets from the nose and mouth, said Zhong Nanshan, leader of a group of experts at China’s National Health Commission.

“Now our big concern is if a super spreader emerges,” Zhong said Tuesday at a news conference in the southern province of Guangdong, using the term for a carrier who infects a disproportionately high number of people. A “super spreader” is thought to have passed the virus on to 15 medical staff at a Wuhan hospital.

Although some hospitals have been stockpiling antibiotics, they are not effective against viruses. “There’s no specific drug to treat the infection at the moment,” Zhong said.

[Travelers at 3 U.S. airports to be screened for new, potentially deadly Chinese virus]

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said it was the seventh type of coronavirus known to affect human beings. The previously known six viruses include Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which are linked to animals.

Chinese health authorities have added this new type of pneumonia to the Class B list of infectious diseases, in the same category as SARS and HIV. But they said they would enforce the strictest controls, usually used for the most dangerous Class A diseases such as cholera and the plague, to try to contain the coronavirus.

That meant authorities could forcibly quarantine people afflicted with or suspected to have the coronavirus, and would update the public on every single new case nationwide. Immigration authorities have also listed the new pneumonia on a list of certifiable infectious diseases.

In Australia, Queensland health authorities said they were monitoring a man who had been to visit family in Wuhan, then returned to Brisbane with symptoms of a respiratory illness. Australia, which receives about 1 million Chinese tourists a year, has now begun screening passengers arriving on the three weekly flights from Wuhan to Sydney.

In the Philippines, the Department of Health said it was monitoring a 5-year-old who arrived in Cebu from Wuhan with a fever and cough.

Cases have also been confirmed in Thailand, Japan and South Korea.

The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said there is not a complete ban on movement in and out of Wuhan.

“The Wuhan government has already taken measures to control the flow of people leaving Wuhan,” said Geng Shuang, a spokesman at the ministry. “I understand when they are leaving or when they are entering, there will be checks, but there’s not a complete ban of all people leaving.”

The government was sharply criticized for downplaying or covering up the extent of the SARS virus, but experts said that Chinese authorities have learned many lessons in the 17 years since then.

“The new pneumonia in Wuhan reminds many people of the SARS epidemic in 2003,” said a social media account run by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, vowing not to repeat those mistakes.

“Self-deception will only make the epidemic worse and turn a natural disaster that was controllable into a man-made disaster at great cost,” said the post, which was later deleted. “Only openness can minimize panic to the greatest extent.”

Fortuitously, Wuhan is home to the highest biosafety level laboratory in China, a level-four facility that opened only two years ago and is designed for work on the most dangerous microbes, such as Ebola and Lassa fever.

When it opened, the lab was hailed as a “significant breakthrough” in building China’s public health defense system, with state media calling it an “aircraft carrier” for virus research and a facility that put up “firewall virus protection” for the country of 1.4 billion people.

Jason Lee

Reuters

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

Lyric Li, Liu Yang and Wang Yuan contributed to this report.

Read more

Specter of possible new virus emerging from central China raises alarms across Asia

China is waging a global propaganda war to silence critics abroad, report warns

U.S. report calls for sanctions on China for human rights abuses, influence operations

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2020-01-21 11:45:00Z
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Greta Thunberg’s Message at Davos Forum: ‘Our House Is Still on Fire’ - The New York Times

DAVOS, Switzerland — Greta Thunberg planned a speech to the world’s business and political leaders here Tuesday accusing them of “empty words and promises” that will do little to avert a climate change crisis.

“Our house is still on fire,” she was expected to say, reprising her most famous line from an address last year at the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the world’s rich and powerful in Davos, a village on the icy reaches of the Swiss Alps. “Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour.”

Ms. Thunberg, 17, was scheduled to speak Tuesday afternoon at an event hosted by The New York Times and the World Economic Forum. Her planned remarks were made available to The Times in advance. Here is the full transcript:

One year ago I came to Davos and told you that our house is on fire. I said I wanted you to panic. I’ve been warned that telling people to panic about the climate crisis is a very dangerous thing to do. But don’t worry. It’s fine. Trust me, I’ve done this before and I assure you it doesn’t lead to anything.

And, for the record, when we children tell you to panic we’re not telling you to go on like before. We’re not telling you to rely on technologies that don’t even exist today at scale and that science says perhaps never will.

We are not telling you to keep talking about reaching “net zero emissions” or “carbon neutrality” by cheating and fiddling around with numbers. We are not telling you to “offset your emissions” by just paying someone else to plant trees in places like Africa while at the same time forests like the Amazon are being slaughtered at an infinitely higher rate.

Planting trees is good of course, but it’s nowhere near enough of what needs to be done and it cannot replace real mitigation or rewilding nature.

Let’s be clear. We don’t need a “low carbon economy.” We don’t need to “lower emissions.” Our emissions have to stop. And, until we have the technologies that at scale can put our emissions to minus, then we must forget about net zero. We need real zero.

Because distant net zero emission targets will mean absolutely nothing if we just continue to ignore the carbon dioxide budget — which applies for today, not distant future dates. If high emissions continue like now even for a few years, that remaining budget will soon be completely used up.

The fact that the U.S.A. is leaving the Paris accord seems to outrage and worry everyone, and it should. But the fact that we’re all about to fail the commitments you signed up for in the Paris Agreement doesn’t seem to bother the people in power even the least.

Any plan or policy of yours that doesn’t include radical emission cuts at the source, starting today, is completely insufficient for meeting the 1.5-degree or well-below-2-degrees commitments of the Paris Agreement.

And again, this is not about right or left. We couldn’t care less about your party politics. From a sustainability perspective, the right, the left as well as the center have all failed. No political ideology or economic structure has been able to tackle the climate and environmental emergency and create a cohesive and sustainable world. Because, in case you haven’t noticed, that world is currently on fire.

You say children shouldn’t worry. You say: “Just leave this to us. We will fix this, we promise we won’t let you down.”

And then, nothing. Silence. Or something worse than silence. Empty words and promises which give the impression that sufficient action is being taken.

All the solutions are obviously not available within today’s societies. Nor do we have the time to wait for new technological solutions to become available to start drastically reducing our emissions. So, of course the transition isn’t going to be easy. It will be hard. And unless we start facing this now together, with all cards on the table, we won’t be able to solve this in time.

In the days running up to the 50th anniversary of the World Economic Forum, I joined a group of climate activists who are demanding that you, the world’s most influential business and political leaders, begin to take the action needed.

We demand that at this year’s World Economic Forum, participants from all companies, banks, institutions and governments:

Immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction.

Immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies.

And immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels.

We don’t want these things done by 2050, 2030 or even 2021. We want this done now.

It may seem like we’re asking for a lot. And you will of course say that we are naïve. But this is just the very minimum amount of effort that is needed to start the rapid sustainable transition.

So either you do this or you’re going to have to explain to your children why you are giving up on the 1.5-degree target. Giving up without even trying. Well I’m here to tell you that, unlike you, my generation will not give up without a fight.

The facts are clear, but they’re still too uncomfortable for you to address. You just leave it because you think it’s too depressing and people will give up. But people will not give up. You’re the ones who are giving up.

Last week I met with coal miners in Poland who lost their jobs because their mine was closed. And even they had not given up. On the contrary, they seem to understand the fact that we need to change more than you do.

I wonder, what will you tell your children was the reason to fail and leave them facing the climate chaos you knowingly brought upon them? That it seemed so bad for the economy that we decided to resign the idea of securing future living conditions without even trying?

Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour. We are still telling you to panic, and to act as if you loved your children above all else.

For more climate news sign up for the Climate Fwd: newsletter or follow @NYTClimate on Twitter.

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2020-01-21 11:00:00Z
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Prince Harry rejoins Meghan and Archie in Canada, leaving royal life behind - CNN

Photos in UK media showed Harry walking off a plane early Tuesday on Vancouver Island, where the family spent time over Christmas.

The Duke of Sussex attended the UK-Africa Investment Summit in London on Monday, where he met with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, before flying across the Atlantic.

A royal spokesperson told CNN they would not comment on the family's private schedule.

The Duke and Duchess spent the Christmas holidays in Canada with the Duchess' mother, Doria Ragland.

Meghan lived in the country for seven years and the couple say they have a "strong connection to Canada."

The Sussexes are set to embark on a proposed new life in the country, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week that discussions are ongoing in over who will pay the costs of their security detail.

The prince's departure from the UK follows a turbulent period in which Harry and Meghan agreed to give up their royal titles and end their official duties.

The couple made the shock announcement that they were stepping back from senior royal duties on Instagram on January 8, and the Queen announced a transition period had been agreed Saturday.

Conversations with the pair had been going on for months, said the monarch in a statement.

"I am pleased that together we have found a constructive and supportive way forward for my grandson and his family," read the statement.

Under the terms of the deal, Harry and Meghan will no longer represent the Queen as working royals, splitting their time between the UK and North America as they work toward becoming financially independent.

The pair will no longer use their royal titles -- His and Her Royal Highness -- beginning this spring, and Buckingham Palace announced Saturday they would instead be addressed as "Harry, Duke of Sussex" and "Meghan, Duchess of Sussex."

It's a move the Queen hadn't been expected to make and it's entirely unprecedented for a monarch to ask her own grandchild to drop their title, but given the prospect of the Sussexes signing commercial deals in the future, the need to separate their ventures from the royal household was pressing.

However, in one of the first hiccups in the process of decoupling Harry and Meghan from the royal family, the palace later said it would revise its guidance after reports Meghan's new title made it sound as though she were divorced.

The problem is that the same formatting was adopted by Sarah Ferguson -- now addressed as "Sarah, Duchess of York" -- after she divorced Prince Andrew in 1996. And Harry's mother was known as Diana, Princess of Wales after her divorce from Prince Charles.

On Sunday, Harry expressed "great sadness" about the developments at a charity event in London.

"Our hope was to continue serving the Queen, the commonwealth, and my military associations, but without public funding," he said in a speech. "Unfortunately, that wasn't possible."

Harry emphasized that the decision "is not one I made lightly" during his speech.

"The UK is my home and a place that I love," Harry said. "That will never change."

"It was so many months of talks after so many years of challenges. And I know I haven't always gotten it right, but as far as this goes, there really was no other option."

CNN's Max Foster and Rob Picheta contributed to this report.

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2020-01-21 11:57:00Z
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China tries to close off Wuhan, city hit by coronavirus - The - The Washington Post

Darley Shen Reuters Medical staff carry a box at the Jinyintan hospital, where the patients with pneumonia caused by the new strain of coronavirus are being treated, in Wuhan, China Jan. 10, 2020.

BEIJING — Chinese health authorities sought to impose a quasi-quarantine Tuesday around Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, as they stepped up efforts to stop the spread of a mystery virus that has now claimed six lives.

With confirmation that the pneumonialike coronavirus can be transmitted from person to person, and with hundreds of millions of Chinese packing onto public transport to make their annual pilgrimages home for the Lunar New Year, a new sense of panic has erupted here.

Long lines formed at pharmacies and convenience stores around the country as people rushed to buy surgical masks, with unlucky customers posting photos on social media of bare shelves. People around the country canceled their trips home for the Spring Festival, as Chinese new year celebrations are known, the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar.

“I don’t really dare to go to the airport right now, or even to the movie theater,” said Xie Jing, a 33-year-old who works in advertising in Shanghai, where there have been two confirmed cases of coronavirus. She canceled her planned trip home to Sichuan, where two cases are suspected.

“Everyone is being very careful at the moment in Shanghai. Everyone is wearing masks on the streets,” Xie said.

The Geneva-based World Health Organization said it would call an emergency meeting Wednesday to decide whether to designate the outbreak as an international public health emergency. Australia and the Philippines are the latest countries with suspected cases of infection.

[China virus: Expert says it can be spread by human-to-human contact, sparking concerns about themassive holiday travel underway

The virus was first detected on Dec. 31 and was linked to a dirty food market in Wuhan, not far from one of the main train stations, where wild animals including wolf pups and civet cats had been on sale for consumption.

A total of 298 people in China had been confirmed with the virus by 5 p.m. Tuesday, the National Health Commission said, an increase of more than 70 from Monday. The vast majority of cases are in Wuhan, where Mayor Zhou Xianwang said six people have now died from the virus.

Dake Kang

AP

The Wuhan Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, where a number of people related to the market fell ill with a virus, sits closed in Wuhan, China, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020.

Initially, doctors thought that the virus was not communicable between humans, but cases of infection across the country, including among people who have not been to Wuhan, prove that it can be passed on. Some 54 people across 14 provinces are being monitored for possible infection.

The spread has led specialists to urge travelers not to move in and out of the central Chinese city.

“We hope people can avoid going to Wuhan if possible and that people in Wuhan can stay there,” said Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the leader of a government team of experts responding to the outbreak. “This is not a call from the officials but a suggestion from us in the expert team.”

Still, he said it was “inevitable” that the virus would continue to spread as people moved around the country for the turning of the Lunar New Year, which occurs this Saturday.

The Ministry of Transport estimates that 400 million people will be on the move, making a total of 3 billion trips during this period.

Health authorities deployed more infrared thermometers to Wuhan airport and train stations to check passengers for fever, while some hotels in the central Chinese city also began requiring temperatures to be taken before customers could check in. Outbound group tours have been restricted.

Traffic police began conducting random checks on vehicles traveling in and out of the city to make sure they were not transporting live birds or wild animals.

Some airlines and travel agencies began to offer refunds to people traveling out of Wuhan or people with the virus.

[China identifies new strain of coronavirus as source of pneumonia outbreak]

The measures come after criticism that Wuhan authorities have been too lax in stopping the spread of the virus, which first appeared on Dec. 31.

On Saturday, as the virus exploded in Wuhan, the city held potluck banquets to celebrate the looming new year, attended by more than 40,000 families. News and photos of the event appeared Sunday on the front page of the state-run newspaper in Wuhan, but it was deleted from the Internet by Tuesday amid criticism about the lack of precautions.

The city had still planned to go ahead with 41 large-scale events for holiday celebrations, advertising them on Monday, but it announced Tuesday that they have been “postponed.” Schools and universities are on break for Spring Festival, but more than 100 extracurricular “cram” schools in Wuhan have canceled classes.

Kin Cheung

AP

A reporter wearing mask attends a news conference on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020.

Quarantine was the most effective way to stop the virus from being transmitted, since it spreads by droplets from the nose and mouth, said Zhong Nanshan, leader of a group of experts at China’s National Health Commission.

“Now our big concern is if a super spreader emerges,” Zhong said Tuesday at a news conference in the southern province of Guangdong, using the term for a carrier who infects a disproportionately high number of people. A “super spreader” is thought to have passed the virus on to 15 medical staff at a Wuhan hospital.

Although some hospitals have been stockpiling antibiotics, they are not effective against viruses. “There’s no specific drug to treat the infection at the moment,” Zhong said.

[Travelers at 3 U.S. airports to be screened for new, potentially deadly Chinese virus]

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said it was the seventh type of coronavirus known to affect human beings. The previously known six viruses include Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which are linked to animals.

Chinese health authorities have added this new type of pneumonia to the Class B list of infectious diseases, in the same category as SARS and HIV. But they said they would enforce the strictest controls, usually used for the most dangerous Class A diseases such as cholera and the plague, to try to contain the coronavirus.

That meant authorities could forcibly quarantine people afflicted with or suspected to have the coronavirus, and would update the public on every single new case nationwide. Immigration authorities have also listed the new pneumonia on a list of certifiable infectious diseases.

In Australia, Queensland health authorities said they were monitoring a man who had been to visit family in Wuhan, then returned to Brisbane with symptoms of a respiratory illness. Australia, which receives about 1 million Chinese tourists a year, has now begun screening passengers arriving on the three weekly flights from Wuhan to Sydney.

In the Philippines, the Department of Health said it was monitoring a 5-year-old who arrived in Cebu from Wuhan with a fever and cough.

Cases have also been confirmed in Thailand, Japan and South Korea.

The Foreign Ministry in Beijing said there is not a complete ban on movement in and out of Wuhan.

“The Wuhan government has already taken measures to control the flow of people leaving Wuhan,” said Geng Shuang, a spokesman at the ministry. “I understand when they are leaving or when they are entering, there will be checks, but there’s not a complete ban of all people leaving.”

The government was sharply criticized for downplaying or covering up the extent of the SARS virus, but experts said that Chinese authorities have learned many lessons in the 17 years since then.

“The new pneumonia in Wuhan reminds many people of the SARS epidemic in 2003,” said a social media account run by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, vowing not to repeat those mistakes.

“Self-deception will only make the epidemic worse and turn a natural disaster that was controllable into a man-made disaster at great cost,” said the post, which was later deleted. “Only openness can minimize panic to the greatest extent.”

Fortuitously, Wuhan is home to the highest biosafety level laboratory in China, a level-four facility that opened only two years ago and is designed for work on the most dangerous microbes, such as Ebola and Lassa fever.

When it opened, the lab was hailed as a “significant breakthrough” in building China’s public health defense system, with state media calling it an “aircraft carrier” for virus research and a facility that put up “firewall virus protection” for the country of 1.4 billion people.

Jason Lee

Reuters

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

Lyric Li, Liu Yang and Wang Yuan contributed to this report.

Read more

Specter of possible new virus emerging from central China raises alarms across Asia

China is waging a global propaganda war to silence critics abroad, report warns

U.S. report calls for sanctions on China for human rights abuses, influence operations

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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2020-01-21 10:31:00Z
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Watch live: Trump speaks at World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland - NBC News

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2020-01-21 09:58:01Z
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Fears of China’s Coronavirus Prompt Australia to Screen Flights - The New York Times

HONG KONG — Australian officials said Tuesday that the country would begin screening passengers on flights from Wuhan, the Chinese city where a new coronavirus has infected more than 200 people and killed at least four, as global concern has grown about the spread of the disease.

Adding to worries about the outbreak was confirmation by a prominent Chinese scientist on Monday night that the disease is capable of spreading from person to person. Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a scientist leading a group of experts in examining the outbreak in Wuhan, said the virus could be present in particles of saliva and that in one case, a patient appeared to have infected 14 medical workers.

The number of reported cases in China more than tripled earlier this week as the authorities expanded testing across the country. Most of the cases were found in Wuhan, where the disease was first reported last month.

China’s health commission said Tuesday that 291 cases had been reported nationwide, with 270 in Hubei, the province that includes Wuhan. Major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have also reported cases of infections.

Infections have been confirmed abroad in Japan, South Korea and Thailand, all in people who traveled from Wuhan. The World Health Organization said it would hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to determine whether the outbreak was an international public health emergency.

Confirmed Cases of Coronavirus

Note: Confirmed cases as of Jan. 21, 2020.

By The New York Times

“It is now very clear from the latest information that there is at least some human-to-human transmission,” said Dr. Takeshi Kasai, the Western Pacific regional director for the World Health Organization.

Dr. Kasai said that the infections among health care workers added to the evidence that the virus was spreading between humans, but more analysis of the data was necessary to understand the full extent of such transmission.

Worries that the outbreak could worsen and hit the Chinese economy sent financial markets down across Asia on Tuesday. The Chinese currency, the renminbi, weakened in value against the American dollar. Stock markets in Europe also opened generally lower.

On Monday, China’s health commission said it would respond with measures intended to manage outbreaks of the most virulent diseases, including mandatory reporting of cases, and classified the virus as a class B infectious disease — a category that includes diseases such as SARS.

The authorities in Wuhan will begin barring group tours from traveling outside of the city and carry out checks of vehicles to search for live animals, state media reported on Monday. The city has also installed infrared thermometers at airports, and bus and train stations.

The potential for the disease to spread across more countries has prompted health authorities to step up checks at their borders.

In Australia, border security and biosecurity staff will meet and screen passengers from three direct flights from Wuhan to Sydney, Brendan Murphy, the government’s chief medical officer, said Tuesday.

Professor Murphy warned, however, that such measures were not foolproof. Some people who are carrying the virus might not show symptoms, he added.

“You cannot absolutely prevent entry into the country of a disease like this,” he said.

Australia is also considering expanding the screening to cover more of the 160 flights that come from China each week.

In the Australian state of Queensland, health officials placed in quarantine a man who had traveled to Wuhan and returned with a respiratory illness.

“The man will remain in isolation until his symptoms have resolved,” the Queensland health department said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that the United States would begin screening passengers arriving from Wuhan at airports in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

In Hong Kong, the authorities have reported more than 100 potential infections. So far, none have tested positive for the new coronavirus, and most have been discharged. But the possibility of the illness emerging in the territory remained, Matthew Cheung, the city’s second-highest official, said Tuesday.

High-speed rail passengers will have their temperatures checked on arrival in Hong Kong. Air passengers from Wuhan will be required to declare their health status, and people suspected of having an infection will be “forcibly transferred to public hospital to be treated in isolation,” Mr. Cheung said.

Elaine Yu in Hong Kong and Javier C. Hernández in Wuhan, China, contributed reporting.

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2020-01-21 08:26:00Z
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