China's coronavirus cases likely grossly underestimated, study says - CNN

Authorities in China's Wuhan city have confirmed 45 cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus, which is in the same family as the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), but so far appears to be less lethal. Two people have died, Wuhan authorities say.

But the study, by Imperial College London, suggests that an estimated 1,723 people were likely to have been infected by January 12.

Officials in China have linked the viral infections to a Wuhan seafood and wildlife market, which has been closed since January 1 to prevent further spread of the illness.

Three travelers -- two now in Thailand and one in Japan -- who visited Wuhan but not the market have been infected with the virus, suggesting human-to-human transmission may be possible and raising concerns of the virus's further spread.

The number in the study is only an estimate and is based on several assumptions, including the number of cases that have been exported to Thailand and Japan, the number of people using Wuhan International Airport and the time it has taken for the infection to incubate.

Imperial College London's Neil Ferguson, a disease outbreak scientist, said that many aspects of the Wuhan coronavirus were "highly uncertain."

"However, the detection of three cases outside China is worrying. We calculate, based on flight and population data, that there is only a 1 in 574 chance that a person infected in Wuhan would travel overseas before they sought medical care. This implies there might have been over 1,700 cases in Wuhan so far," Ferguson told CNN.

"There are many unknowns, meaning the uncertainty range around this estimate goes from 190 cases to over 4,000. But the magnitude of these numbers suggests that substantial human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out. Heightened surveillance, prompt information sharing and enhanced preparedness are recommended."

Three US airports will start screening passengers arriving from Wuhan to check for signs of the virus, such as coughing, difficulty breathing and high temperatures with the use of an infrared thermometer, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday.

The agency is deploying more than 100 people to carry out the screenings at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, San Francisco International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. Last year, more than 60,000 passengers arrived in the US from Wuhan, the vast majority coming through those three airports.

While the new virus has not shown death rates like MERS and SARS -- which infected more than 8,000 people and killed 774 in a pandemic that ripped through Asia in 2002 and 2003 -- so little is known about it that health authorities are calling for vigilance.

"Much remains to be understood about the new coronavirus, which was first identified in China earlier this month. Not enough is known about 2019-nCoV to draw definitive conclusions about how it is transmitted, clinical features of disease, or the extent to which it has spread. The source also remains unknown," the World Health Organization said Friday.

CNN's Vanessa Yung and Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report.

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2020-01-18 13:58:00Z
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Experts warn over scale of China virus as US airports start screening - Yahoo News

The outbreak centred around a seafood market in the central city of Wuhan (AFP Photo/Noel Celis)

Hong Kong (AFP) - The true scale of the outbreak of a mysterious SARS-like virus in China is likely far bigger than officially reported, scientists have warned, as countries ramp up measures to prevent the disease from spreading.

Fears that the virus will spread are growing ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, when hundreds of millions of Chinese move around the country and many others host or visit extended family members living overseas.

Authorities in China say two people have died and at least 45 have been infected, with the outbreak centred around a seafood market in the central city of Wuhan, a city of 11 million inhabitants that serves as a major transport hub.

But a paper published Friday by scientists with the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College in London said the number of cases in the city was likely closer to 1,700.

The researchers said their estimate was largely based on the fact that cases had been reported overseas –- two in Thailand and one in Japan.

The virus -- a new strain of coronavirus that humans can contract -- has caused alarm because of its connection to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.

China has not announced any travel restrictions, but authorities in Hong Kong have already stepped up detection measures, including rigorous temperature checkpoints for inbound travellers from the Chinese mainland.

The US said from Friday it would begin screening flights arriving from Wuhan at San Francisco airport and New York's JFK -- which both receive direct flights -- as well as Los Angeles, where many flights connect.

And Thailand said it was already screening passengers arriving in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket and would soon introduce similar controls in the beach resort of Krabi.

- Two deaths -

No human-to-human transmission has been confirmed so far, but Wuhan's health commission has said the possibility "cannot be excluded".

A World Health Organization doctor said it would not be surprising if there was "some limited human-to-human transmission, especially among families who have close contact with one another".

Scientists with the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis -- which advises bodies including the World Health Organization -- said they estimated a "total of 1,723" people in Wuhan would have been infected as of January 12.

"For Wuhan to have exported three cases to other countries would imply there would have to be many more cases than have been reported," Professor Neil Ferguson, one of the authors of the report, told the BBC.

"I am substantially more concerned than I was a week ago," he said, while adding that it was "too early to be alarmist".

"People should be considering the possibility of substantial human-to-human transmission more seriously than they have so far," he continued, saying it was "unlikely" that animal exposure was the sole source of infection.

Local authorities in Wuhan said a 69-year-old man died on Wednesday, becoming the second fatal case, with the disease causing pulmonary tuberculosis and damage to multiple organ functions.

After the death was reported, online discussion spread in China over the severity of the Wuhan coronavirus -- and how much information the government may be hiding from the public.

Several complained about censorship of online posts, while others made comparisons to 2003, when Beijing drew criticism from the WHO for underreporting the number of SARS cases.

"It's so strange," wrote a web user on the social media platform Weibo, citing the overseas cases in Japan and Thailand. "They all have Wuhan pneumonia cases but (in China) we don't have any infections outside of Wuhan -- is that scientific?"

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2020-01-18 11:52:59Z
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China reports new virus cases, raising concern globally before key holiday - CNBC

Medical staff members carry a patient into the Jinyintan hospital, where patients infected by a mysterious SARS-like virus are being treated, in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on January 18, 2020.

STR

China reported four more cases of pneumonia believed to be caused by a new coronavirus strain, causing rising concern globally that a disease health officials do not yet fully understand could spread during a key holiday period.

The new virus, which was discovered in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, belongs in the same large family of coronaviruses that includes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people globally during a 2002/03 outbreak that also started in China.

Though experts say the new virus does not appear to be as lethal as SARS, there is little known about its origins and how easily it can spread. Thailand and Japan have confirmed new cases of the virus earlier this week, stoking worries globally as many of the 1.4 billion Chinese people will travel abroad during the Lunar New Year holidays that begin next week.

Authorities around the world including in the United States, Thailand and South Korea have stepped up monitoring of travellers from Wuhan as part of their efforts to prevent the disease from spreading.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has also warned that a wider outbreak is possible, though it has advised against any travel restrictions for China.

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission (WMHC) said on Saturday the four new individuals diagnosed with the new virus are in stable condition, adding it has confirmed 45 cases in the city as of Thursday. A day earlier, the commission confirmed the death of a second patient.

Nearly 50 people are now known to have been infected globally, but all of them either live in Wuhan or have travelled to the city.

A report published by the London Imperial College's MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis said there are likely "substantially more cases" of the new coronavirus than currently announced by Wuhan authorities: its base scenario estimate is that there would be 1,723 cases showing onset of related symptoms by Jan. 12.

The WMHC referred Reuters queries about the report to the National Health Commission (NHC) and the Hubei provincial government, but the NHC and the Hubei government did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province.

Screening

U.S. authorities have said they would start screening at three airports to detect travellers arriving via direct or connecting flights from Wuhan who may have symptoms of the new virus.

In Asia, authorities in Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand have stepped up monitoring of passengers from Wuhan at airports. Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines say they have strengthened screening at all points of entry in response to the outbreak, as well.

But Alexandra Phelan, global health legal expert at Georgetown University's Center for Global Health Science and Security, said such screening may be insufficient in preventing the virus from spreading as its symptoms, which include fever, cough and difficulty in breathing, are "quite general".

"There are likely to be many individuals with matching symptoms due to an illness that is not 2019-nCoV," Phelan said, referring to the new virus.

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2020-01-18 11:34:00Z
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China's coronavirus cases likely grossly underestimated, study says - CNN

Authorities in China's Wuhan city have confirmed 45 cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus, which is in the same family as the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), but so far appears to be less lethal. Two people have died, Wuhan authorities say.

But the study, by Imperial College London, suggests that an estimated 1,723 people were likely to have been infected by January 12.

Officials in China have linked the viral infections to a Wuhan seafood and wildlife market, which has been closed since January 1 to prevent further spread of the illness.

Three travelers -- two now in Thailand and one in Japan -- who visited Wuhan but not the market have been infected with the virus, suggesting human-to-human transmission may be possible and raising concerns of the virus's further spread.

The number in the study is only an estimate and is based on several assumptions, including the number of cases that have been exported to Thailand and Japan, the number of people using Wuhan International Airport and the time it has taken for the infection to incubate.

Imperial College London's Neil Ferguson, a disease outbreak scientist, said that many aspects of the Wuhan coronavirus were "highly uncertain."

"However, the detection of three cases outside China is worrying. We calculate, based on flight and population data, that there is only a 1 in 574 chance that a person infected in Wuhan would travel overseas before they sought medical care. This implies there might have been over 1,700 cases in Wuhan so far," Ferguson told CNN.

"There are many unknowns, meaning the uncertainty range around this estimate goes from 190 cases to over 4,000. But the magnitude of these numbers suggests that substantial human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out. Heightened surveillance, prompt information sharing and enhanced preparedness are recommended."

Three US airports will start screening passengers arriving from Wuhan to check for signs of the virus, such as coughing, difficulty breathing and high temperatures with the use of an infrared thermometer, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday.

The agency is deploying more than 100 people to carry out the screenings at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, San Francisco International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. Last year, more than 60,000 passengers arrived in the US from Wuhan, the vast majority coming through those three airports.

While the new virus has not shown death rates like MERS and SARS -- which infected more than 8,000 people and killed 774 in a pandemic that ripped through Asia in 2002 and 2003 -- so little is known about it that health authorities are calling for vigilance.

"Much remains to be understood about the new coronavirus, which was first identified in China earlier this month. Not enough is known about 2019-nCoV to draw definitive conclusions about how it is transmitted, clinical features of disease, or the extent to which it has spread. The source also remains unknown," the World Health Organization said Friday.

CNN's Vanessa Yung and Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report.

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2020-01-18 10:16:00Z
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The US operation in Iraq could come to an embarrassing end. Iran's power will only grow - CNN

Officials in Iraq's parliament, where powerful blocs have unbreakable ties to Tehran, started a process to end the presence of foreign troops in the country, in a clear riposte to the US after it killed top Iranian commander Qasm Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad two weeks ago.

In the wake of the strike, joint US-Iraqi operations against ISIS were put on hold, and Iraq's caretaker prime minister said a US troop withdrawal was the only way to "protect all those on Iraqi soil," though this week he said that decision would be up to the next government.

But a US withdrawal could bring even more trouble, experts say. ISIS continues its attacks in the country, and without US and other foreign troops, the group would have more room to resurge. At the same time, Iran will be able to expand its already far-reaching powers in Baghdad.

Tehran and Washington have competed for influence in Iraq since the US 2003 invasion, and in that battle, Iran is already winning. Its consistent and coherent strategy, which the US lacks, has allowed Tehran to gradually weave itself into the fabric of everyday life in Iraq.

It has capitalized on years of war and occupation to form militia groups that have become official factions of the Iraqi military, while economically, it provides an enormous amount of exports that Iraqis have come to rely on. It has made surrogates out of senior Iraqi government officials and members of parliament.

Because of those links, the Iraqi parliament's decision to side with Iran after the attack on Soleimani is not surprising. The strike appears to have backfired, to the benefit of Iran's long-term goal: getting the US out of the region.

"Iran is the most influential state in Iraq now," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "That power is only going to grow if the US leaves."

He said that the most important challenge for Iraq now was not ISIS, but rebuilding a working nation -- fighting corruption, changing the sectarian-based government to one based on citizenship and professionalizing the army, for example. Iran isn't interested in those goals, Gerges said, and a US withdrawal would embolden it further its reach across the Middle East.

"If the US leaves, people across the region will think that despite his flowery rhetorical devices, Trump does not really have a strategy for the Middle East and at the end of the day will fold and go home," Gerges said.

Being forced out would be a humiliating end to the US' long mission in Iraq, which has sucked up hundreds of billions of US taxpayers' money and left thousands of US soldiers dead.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has denied the US will leave, but pointed to a possible reduction of numbers. Gerges sees that proposal as a face-saving exercise for the US that could allow the American troops to stay in small numbers for the fight against ISIS but essentially begin the process of withdrawal.

How Iran got a hold on Iraq

Much of Iran's power in Iraq comes through militia groups that have roots in the 1980s Iraq-Iran war. Recruiting fighters from Iraq wasn't that difficult. Iraq was a Shia-majority nation led for more than two decades by brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, born a Sunni.

Iran, which has long pitched itself as the world's leader of Shia Muslims, took in Shia prisoners of war and refugees, and turned them into soldiers who would go back to Iraq to act in Tehran's interests, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Some became part of what is now known as the Badr Organization, the report said, both a militia group and an anti-US political party in Iraq today.

"Because of the institutional organizational capacity of those paramilitary groups, when Saddam fell and the repression that contained them ended, they flourished. They had the capacity to expand and to operate more overtly," said Jack Watling, a specialist in land warfare at the London-based Royal United Services Institute.

The fight against ISIS provided another recruitment opportunity for Iran, particular after the terrorist group took Mosul and the Iraqi military collapsed. It was at this time the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), a coalition of mostly Shia militias, formed and became a powerful force in the country, in the absence of a real army. They have since been officially folded into Iraq's military.

According to Watling, there are now around 113,000 salaried personnel in the powerful Tehran-backed Iraqi militia group. Of those, some 60,000 are actively deployable as fighters, and of those, 36,000 are directed by Iran.

In the 2018 Iraqi elections, the political wing of the PMUs, Fatah, won the second-highest number of seats in parliament, giving another powerful voice to Iranian interests in the Iraqi government.

Economically, Iran has ensured Iraq is dependent on it for energy, seeking loopholes and waivers from the US to get around sanctions and sell energy to its neighbor. Iraq is also Iran's second most important destination for its exports, after China, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, so Tehran wants to ensure its market across the border is well secured.

Trump sends mixed messages

As Iran made steady headway in the Iraqi government and military, the US' objective in Iraq has changed so many times that it's become muddy and unfocused. Iraqi officials are growing weary of the changes that have come with each new US president, and the mixed signals being sent by the Trump administration.

Pompeo is struggling to send the message that the US is in Iraq to fight ISIS, while strikes on Iranians there and comments from Trump indicate otherwise.

Last year, Trump admitted in an interview with CBS News that he wanted to keep a base in Iraq "because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem." The comment provoked Tehran, and sowed confusion in Iraq.

Watling said the US appears to have shifted its interests in Iraq from countering ISIS to countering Iran.

"If the US said our objective is a strong and stable Iraq, then in many ways their best course of action would be to collaborate closely with the Iranians. But it's not. Their wish to counter the Iranian government in many ways overrides their wish to support the Iraqi state. There are contradictions in US policy in the region," he said.

Watling questioned what Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran was aiming to achieve. Iran's long-term strategy in Iraq, on the other hand, is paying off.

"We have seen a broadly unified attempt to ensure that Iran underwrites and limits Baghdad's military capability and that they retain Iraq as a market for their exports and as an economic partner," he said.

Winning hearts and minds

Despite achieving the regime change the US was looking for, with the capture and execution of Saddam, the US left Iraq in 2011 with an unsteady government in place. It had no choice but to send troops back to put out fires with the spread of ISIS. Iran also took part in the fight against ISIS, but it continued with its drive to boost influence in Iraq.

But Iran is failing in one key area. It hasn't really won the hearts of the people.

Anti-government protesters galvanized by deep economic grievances that have accumulated over many years have found themselves facing off with Iranian-backed forces.

Demonstrators were rallying against endemic corruption and cronyism, which they blame on "confessionalism," a system of government introduced by the US that divides power based on sectarian affiliation. While Iran didn't create that status quo, it has had a stake in maintaining it.

In video footage of some of the demonstrations, protesters can be heard yelling chants against both Iran and the US. Young Iraqis in particular don't want either the US or Iran in their country, said Joost Hitermann, who leads the International Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa program.

"Iraqis want to get rid of both. Some might like one more than they other, and they don't want just one of the two alone there, to dominate their country," Hitermann said.

"Shia Iraqis may be loosely aligned with Iran, but they don't subscribe to the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian way is not all what Shia Iraqis want."

CNN's Tamara Qiblawi contributed to this report.

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2020-01-18 09:23:00Z
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The US operation in Iraq could come to an embarrassing end. Iran's power will only grow - CNN

Officials in Iraq's parliament, where powerful blocs have unbreakable ties to Tehran, started a process to end the presence of foreign troops in the country, in a clear riposte to the US after it killed top Iranian commander Qasm Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad two weeks ago.

In the wake of the strike, joint US-Iraqi operations against ISIS were put on hold, and Iraq's caretaker prime minister said a US troop withdrawal was the only way to "protect all those on Iraqi soil," though this week he said that decision would be up to the next government.

But a US withdrawal could bring even more trouble, experts say. ISIS continues its attacks in the country, and without US and other foreign troops, the group would have more room to resurge. At the same time, Iran will be able to expand its already far-reaching powers in Baghdad.

Tehran and Washington have competed for influence in Iraq since the US 2003 invasion, and in that battle, Iran is already winning. Its consistent and coherent strategy, which the US lacks, has allowed Tehran to gradually weave itself into the fabric of everyday life in Iraq.

It has capitalized on years of war and occupation to form militia groups that have become official factions of the Iraqi military, while economically, it provides an enormous amount of exports that Iraqis have come to rely on. It has made surrogates out of senior Iraqi government officials and members of parliament.

Because of those links, the Iraqi parliament's decision to side with Iran after the attack on Soleimani is not surprising. The strike appears to have backfired, to the benefit of Iran's long-term goal: getting the US out of the region.

"Iran is the most influential state in Iraq now," said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "That power is only going to grow if the US leaves."

He said that the most important challenge for Iraq now was not ISIS, but rebuilding a working nation -- fighting corruption, changing the sectarian-based government to one based on citizenship and professionalizing the army, for example. Iran isn't interested in those goals, Gerges said, and a US withdrawal would embolden it further its reach across the Middle East.

"If the US leaves, people across the region will think that despite his flowery rhetorical devices, Trump does not really have a strategy for the Middle East and at the end of the day will fold and go home," Gerges said.

Being forced out would be a humiliating end to the US' long mission in Iraq, which has sucked up hundreds of billions of US taxpayers' money and left thousands of US soldiers dead.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has denied the US will leave, but pointed to a possible reduction of numbers. Gerges sees that proposal as a face-saving exercise for the US that could allow the American troops to stay in small numbers for the fight against ISIS but essentially begin the process of withdrawal.

How Iran got a hold on Iraq

Much of Iran's power in Iraq comes through militia groups that have roots in the 1980s Iraq-Iran war. Recruiting fighters from Iraq wasn't that difficult. Iraq was a Shia-majority nation led for more than two decades by brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, born a Sunni.

Iran, which has long pitched itself as the world's leader of Shia Muslims, took in Shia prisoners of war and refugees, and turned them into soldiers who would go back to Iraq to act in Tehran's interests, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Some became part of what is now known as the Badr Organization, the report said, both a militia group and an anti-US political party in Iraq today.

"Because of the institutional organizational capacity of those paramilitary groups, when Saddam fell and the repression that contained them ended, they flourished. They had the capacity to expand and to operate more overtly," said Jack Watling, a specialist in land warfare at the London-based Royal United Services Institute.

The fight against ISIS provided another recruitment opportunity for Iran, particular after the terrorist group took Mosul and the Iraqi military collapsed. It was at this time the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), a coalition of mostly Shia militias, formed and became a powerful force in the country, in the absence of a real army. They have since been officially folded into Iraq's military.

According to Watling, there are now around 113,000 salaried personnel in the powerful Tehran-backed Iraqi militia group. Of those, some 60,000 are actively deployable as fighters, and of those, 36,000 are directed by Iran.

In the 2018 Iraqi elections, the political wing of the PMUs, Fatah, won the second-highest number of seats in parliament, giving another powerful voice to Iranian interests in the Iraqi government.

Economically, Iran has ensured Iraq is dependent on it for energy, seeking loopholes and waivers from the US to get around sanctions and sell energy to its neighbor. Iraq is also Iran's second most important destination for its exports, after China, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, so Tehran wants to ensure its market across the border is well secured.

Trump sends mixed messages

As Iran made steady headway in the Iraqi government and military, the US' objective in Iraq has changed so many times that it's become muddy and unfocused. Iraqi officials are growing weary of the changes that have come with each new US president, and the mixed signals being sent by the Trump administration.

Pompeo is struggling to send the message that the US is in Iraq to fight ISIS, while strikes on Iranians there and comments from Trump indicate otherwise.

Last year, Trump admitted in an interview with CBS News that he wanted to keep a base in Iraq "because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem." The comment provoked Tehran, and sowed confusion in Iraq.

Watling said the US appears to have shifted its interests in Iraq from countering ISIS to countering Iran.

"If the US said our objective is a strong and stable Iraq, then in many ways their best course of action would be to collaborate closely with the Iranians. But it's not. Their wish to counter the Iranian government in many ways overrides their wish to support the Iraqi state. There are contradictions in US policy in the region," he said.

Watling questioned what Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran was aiming to achieve. Iran's long-term strategy in Iraq, on the other hand, is paying off.

"We have seen a broadly unified attempt to ensure that Iran underwrites and limits Baghdad's military capability and that they retain Iraq as a market for their exports and as an economic partner," he said.

Winning hearts and minds

Despite achieving the regime change the US was looking for, with the capture and execution of Saddam, the US left Iraq in 2011 with an unsteady government in place. It had no choice but to send troops back to put out fires with the spread of ISIS. Iran also took part in the fight against ISIS, but it continued with its drive to boost influence in Iraq.

But Iran is failing in one key area. It hasn't really won the hearts of the people.

Anti-government protesters galvanized by deep economic grievances that have accumulated over many years have found themselves facing off with Iranian-backed forces.

Demonstrators were rallying against endemic corruption and cronyism, which they blame on "confessionalism," a system of government introduced by the US that divides power based on sectarian affiliation. While Iran didn't create that status quo, it has had a stake in maintaining it.

In video footage of some of the demonstrations, protesters can be heard yelling chants against both Iran and the US. Young Iraqis in particular don't want either the US or Iran in their country, said Joost Hitermann, who leads the International Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa program.

"Iraqis want to get rid of both. Some might like one more than they other, and they don't want just one of the two alone there, to dominate their country," Hitermann said.

"Shia Iraqis may be loosely aligned with Iran, but they don't subscribe to the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian way is not all what Shia Iraqis want."

CNN's Tamara Qiblawi contributed to this report.

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2020-01-18 07:59:00Z
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Iran plane crash: Khamenei defends armed forces in rare address - BBC News - BBC News

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2020-01-17 14:22:54Z
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