Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Reuters
A woman wearing a face mask rides a scooter along a street in Beijing on Wednesday.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is striking an increasingly confident note that the country can control the coronavirus outbreak and manage the economic and social fallout, as some Chinese health experts predict a peak in infections by the end of the month.
Chinese leaders, eager to kick-start economic activity, have dismantled some highway checkpoints, while businesses have begun to reopen. As of Wednesday, however, restrictions on personal mobility remained tight, suggesting wariness about rising infections.
China on Wednesday reported that the rate of new cases continues to decline, but international experts, including Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, say they are wary of declaring that the pace of worldwide infections is slowing. Here’s what we know so far:
● Beijing’s central Xicheng district said it would seal off residential compounds for almost half a million residents in one of strictest control policies to reach the Chinese capital.
● China tallied a total of 1,749 new infections and 136 deaths through the end of Tuesday, making the cumulative total 74,185 infections and 2,004 deaths — the overwhelming majority still occurring in central Hubei province. Hong Kong reported its second death, a 70-year-old man.
● New stricter criteria for diagnosing coronavirus cases will likely result in further drops in the rate of new infections reported.
● In Japan, an infectious disease specialist slammed conditions on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, where 79 new cases were reported Wednesday, saying officials endangered lives by failing to observe proper quarantine practices.
6:06 AM: WHO details efforts to step up virus preparedness in North Africa and the Middle East
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday that it was working to increase preparedness in North Africa and the Middle East for a possible outbreak of the coronavirus, promising the delivery of more essential medical supplies.
The organization detailed its strategy in the region in a news conference in Cairo on Wednesday, one day after the United Nations secretary general warned that one of his biggest concerns was the possible spread of the coronavirus to countries with “less capacity in their health service.”
Egypt recently reported its first case of the virus, amid mounting concerns that it could spread in other parts of Africa, which analysts have cautioned are ill-equipped to handle an outbreak. More than 1 million Chinese citizens are estimated to work in Africa.
Speaking in Cairo on Wednesday, Richard Brennan, a regional emergency director with the WHO, said laboratories in 20 out of 22 countries in the Eastern Mediterranean region are now capable of diagnosing the virus. Speeding up tests has been considered crucial in quickly confirming cases and identifying other individuals who were potentially exposed to the virus.
Brennan also said the WHO was distributing essential supplies, including gloves, masks, medical gowns and respirators.
“There has been a tendency for some countries to start hoarding some of these materials, these essential supplies,” he said. “But we’ve got to make sure that the supplies get to people who need them. So, WHO is working with the manufacturers [and] with governments to make sure that supplies are freed up and appropriately and fairly distributed across the globe in the spirit of solidarity.”
Brennan added that while there have been encouraging trends of decreasing numbers of new cases around the world, “we have to be vigilant, we cannot be complacent.” He said the WHO would continue working on preparedness around the region.
“We are not at a turning point yet,” he added.
By: Rick Noack
5:30 AM: Chinese issue stricter virus detection guidelines — numbers could now drop
BEIJING — Chinese national health authorities have released stricter guidelines for how coronavirus cases are diagnosed, which could decrease the rate of new cases in the outbreak’s epicenter.
In the sixth edition of its diagnostic criteria released Wednesday for covid-19, as the disease is called, the National Health Commission eliminated the distinction between how cases would be classified in Hubei province and other regions. Cases will now be reported under two categories: “suspected cases” and “confirmed cases,” the document said.
Moving forward, cases can only be described as “confirmed” if they stem from a positive result in a nucleic acid test.
AFP/Getty Images
A doctor looks at an image as he checks a patient infected by the coronavirus at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in China's central Hubei province, on Feb. 16, 2020.
Hubei officials surprised the world last week when they loosened their diagnosis criteria and began classifying as “confirmed” cases that were only clinically diagnosed by physicians. The move, which was not followed by other provinces, led to a dramatic surge in newly reported cases in Hubei to 10 times the previous rate. Chinese officials said the change was necessary due to the prevalence of undercounting inside the virus-ridden province.
It’s unclear if the new guidelines will now lead to an equally dramatic drop in new cases.
The prevalence of coronavirus patients showing mild or no symptoms has been a challenge for public health authorities worldwide, who say it is difficult to screen for carriers.
Experts, including top Chinese scientists, have called into question the accuracy of the nucleic acid tests, which examine genetic material from swabs of the mouth and throat. State media have also reported that case counting inside Hubei has been bottlenecked by the limited number of labs that can process samples.
A team led by top Chinese pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan said this week that he has been developing an antibody test that should give conclusive results more quickly and accurately.
By: Gerry Shih
5:26 AM: Passengers begin disembarking from Diamond Princess as 79 more cases discovered
TOKYO — Hundreds of passengers who have tested negative for the new coronavirus began disembarking from the Diamond Princess cruise ship Wednesday as the 14-day quarantine ended, even as another 79 people from the ship have been found to have the virus.
The latest figures from the Japanese Health Ministry bring to 621 the number of people on board the ship who have the virus, according to Japanese media. Those testing positive will be taken to isolation facilities or hospitals depending on their level of symptoms, while those who have tested negative are finally being freed.
People whose travel companion contracted the virus have been asked to serve out an additional 14-days quarantine, starting from the date at which their cabin mate was removed from the ship.
Athit Perawongmetha
Reuters
Passengers wearing face masks leave the cruise ship Diamond Princess in Yokohama, Japan, south of Tokyo, Feb. 19, 2020.
At around noon, people wearing masks and carrying their suitcases began descending from the boat one after another, some walking alone and some in pairs between cones toward a fleet of buses waiting to take them to a nearby station in the Japanese city of Yokohama, just outside Tokyo.
“When I learned that they decided to disembark us, I really could not help but cry with joy,” an elderly man told reporters as he was descending from the bus, according to a video posted on the NHK website. “I just wanted to get out as soon as possible.”
Many people described how their worries had grown as more and more people on board the ship tested positive for the virus and were taken away to hospitals.
“It was tiring, but I am so relieved now,” said a 77-year-old man who was traveling with his 70-year-old wife, according to Yomiuri Shimbun.
The disembarking of the passengers is expected to continue through Friday.
By: Akiko Kashiwagi and Simon Denyer
5:08 AM: New research paper indicates Chinese authorities underreported virus cases at outbreak onset
BEIJING — A new paper by researchers at China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that more than 100 people in China had been infected with the novel coronavirus by the end of 2019, suggesting the possibility of underreporting by health authorities or mishandled responses by local governments in the early days of the outbreak.
The paper, published by Chinese Journal of Epidemiology, revealed for the first time that 104 people had already showed coronavirus pneumonia symptoms as of Dec. 31, 2019, and that 15 of them later died. The epidemiologists from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed 72,314 patient records nationwide as of Feb. 11 — both confirmed and suspected cases — and found that more than 5,000 of them had been put under medical observation as early as last December.
China Daily
Reuters
Workers wearing face masks pack vegetables at Baishazhou market in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, in Hubei province, China Feb. 19, 2020.
The new finding contrasts with official accounts from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, which confirmed on Jan. 3 only 44 infections and reported no deaths, saying that 121 people who had come into contacts with those confirmed patients were under medical observation. It went on to say that only half of those early infections had visited the Huanan Seafood Market, a popular market associated with sales of exotic game meat and widely believed to be the origin of the ongoing outbreak.
After Jan. 1, the rate of new infections associated with the seafood market had dropped to 8.6 percent, as the epidemic started to explode through community transmission, the paper said. Through retrospective analysis, the authors pointed out that by Jan. 10, the virus had spread to 20 out of 31 provinces, regions, and municipalities. However, China’s National Health Commission did not announce the first infection outside Hubei — a case in Guangdong province — until Jan. 19.
By: Lyric Li
3:50 AM: Chinese cities coming back to life as confidence builds that outbreak, is under control
BEIJING — Chinese cities are slowly coming back to life as the government gains confidence in its ability to control the epidemic.
Shanghai and a dozen other Chinese cities have allowed office buildings, shopping malls, and restaurants to reopen this week, but with extra measures taken to reduce the risks of virus spread, local media reported Wednesday.
While a number of businesses have encouraged employees to work from home, more and more white-collar workers are tiptoeing back to downtown Shanghai’s dense skyscrapers — albeit with some safety measures. The 88-story Jinmao Tower, which houses branch offices of big state banks, IT companies, and an upscale Hyatt hotel, have required tenants on different floors to clock in at different hours of the day to reduce mass gathering. Other buildings have limited the number of passengers for elevators, for instance, the Hongqiao R&F Center allows no more than four people in one ride at the same time, while the HKRI Taikoo Hui commercial complex put the upper limit to six.
Aly Song
Reuters
People wear face masks and plastic raincoats as a protection from coronavirus at Shanghai railway station, in Shanghai, Feb. 17, 2020.
The city government said Tuesday that a third of storefronts have also reopened. Smaller restaurants in Shanghai remain closed, and the few that are open have either opted for takeaway only or kept eating-in customers as far apart as possible. The food court in Shanghai Center has kept only a third of their tables and allowed only one customer per table; in addition, tables are placed at least one meter away from each other. Fast food chains and coffee shops including KFC and Starbucks are introducing a “no-touch” service, which asks customers to place orders on smartphone apps or a self-service machine and then get their food or drinks at a pickup table away from the cashier.
Some 200 miles away in Nanjing, the provincial capital of Jiangsu, major shopping malls and department stores — The Central, Golden Eagle, CenBest, and the House of Fraser — reopened Wednesday morning with temperature checks at entrances, while most offices, cinemas and other indoor venues remain closed. Clinics and outpatient departments at public hospitals also resumed service, but dental clinics and the departments of stomatology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, and plastic surgery are closed until further notice.
Intercity bus services and subway systems in Suzhou and several other cities in Jiangsu province have returned to normal operation this week. On Tuesday alone, over 110,000 passengers took the subway in Suzhou, and all of them had to register their personal information before security check. Parks, gardens, and outdoor sports facilities are now open to public, but with security in place to control human flow.
Hangzhou, the home city of e-commerce giant Alibaba, announced Tuesday that road blocks and temporary checkpoints inside the city would be dismantled. On Wednesday morning, social media was abuzz with excitement because traffic jams were reported in some parts of the town, signaling an increasing number of cars back on the road. The city’s West Lake scenic area has reopened starting Wednesday, cutting the daily quota of visitors by half and requiring all to wear masks inside.
Three malls owned by Yintai Group have reopened, requiring temperature check, real-name registration, and closing two hours earlier than normal. By Thursday, all businesses in the services sector will be allowed to reopen.
Malls and wholesale markets in other cities — from Kunming in the west to Yiwu in the east, from Changchun in the north to Sanya in the south — have also reportedly reopened this week. Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, and the wider Hubei province remain under strict quarantine.
By: Lyric Li
2:20 AM: Philippines to allow some flights from China to bring home citizens
MANILA — Select commercial flights from China to the Philippines will be available despite the travel ban, the Department of Foreign Affairs announced on Wednesday.
In a public advisory, the department said Filipinos who wish to return to the Philippines can board flights out of Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Guiyang, Kunming, Shanghai, and Xiamen.
All returning Filipinos must undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
The Philippines eased its travel ban on China and its special administrative regions on Tuesday, when it allowed overseas Filipino workers, permanent residents, and students to return to Hong Kong and Macao.
There are at least 200,000 Filipinos residing or working in China. Earlier this month, 45 Filipinos were repatriated from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.
By: Regine Cabato
2:15 AM: Beijing district changes tack on epidemic control
BEIJING — Xicheng district, one of Beijing’s most central locales and the site of the Chinese government’s central headquarters, is tightening restrictions and increasing tests for more than 489,000 households in one of the most significant changes in epidemic control policies in the capital.
Tingshu Wang
Reuters
A police officer wearing a face mask stands guard under a giant portrait of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong at Tiananmen Gate in Beijing on Wednesday.
Sun Shuo, deputy secretary of the district’s Communist Party committee, said Tuesday that all residential compounds that have conditions for closed-off management will be locked down, and the government has formulated specific measures for bungalows and compounds without property companies to ensure that “no blind spots are left.”
News had been circulating online that a government employee in Xicheng was diagnosed with the coronavirus, leading to the shutdown of government work in the district. Sun confirmed that the unnamed government employee was infected while carrying out epidemic control work in central China and then drove back to Beijing.
Sixty-nine close contacts and people with high risks have been placed under centralized medical observation, but Sun said government agencies in the district are operating normally.
A total of 393 confirmed cases have been reported in 15 districts in Beijing so far, with 52 from Xicheng.
By: Liu Yang
2:10 AM: Chinese police in hot water as videos surface of officers beating people for not wearing masks
BEIJING — Chinese Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi on Tuesday warned police officials and local administrators against excessive and “crude” use of force after a spate of videos surfaced showing officers tackling and roughing up citizens who refuse to wear masks.
Chinese citizens are generally not known to hold urban beat cops, known as chengguan, or an array of semiformal security enforcers in particularly high esteem. Now, one month into the full-blown epidemic, tempers are running particularly hot as countless Chinese cities and villages live under severe restrictions on movement.
The Chinese Internet has been suffused with online videos showing residents facing off with police. Women have been pinned on the ground for refusing to wear masks. One officer fired his gun after he was swarmed by locals angry about quarantine policies. Local inspectors slapped three people playing mah-jongg, leading to furious confrontation with pajama-clad players. Brawls sometimes break out.
The latest video to cause a sensation showed a man in Henan province being bound by rope against a pillar outside a building while a man in haz-mat suit berated him for not wearing a mask or registering his movement.
After the video surfaced, local Henan officials this week sent a terse reminder to villages that epidemic prevention and control work must be done “in accordance with laws and regulations,” according to the Southern Metropolis newspaper.
By: Gerry Shih
1:53 AM: Japan whistleblower slams chaotic, scary conditions on Diamond Princess
TOKYO — A Japanese infectious disease specialist has condemned the “chaotic” and “scary” conditions on board the Diamond Princess cruise liner, saying a lack of infection control risked the lives not only of the passengers and crew but also of the officials and medical staff working on the ship.
Kentaro Iwata of Kobe University said he had gained access to the ship Tuesday and was appalled by a “completely inadequate system of infection control on board.”
After several hours trying offer constructive advice on how to improve procedure, he was thrown off the ship, but was so worried he recorded YouTube videos in Japanese and English exposing his findings. The Japanese version has already been viewed more than 710,000 times.
Iwata said he had worked in Africa during the Ebola outbreak, in China during the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic, as well as during cholera outbreaks.
“I never had fear of getting infection myself, for Ebola, SARS, cholera, because I know how to protect myself, how to protect others and how infection control should be,” he said. “But inside the Diamond Princess, I was so scared.”
Already 542 people on the cruise ship have been found to have the virus, out of 2,404 people tested, with results still awaited on the final 1,300 tests.
Four people working on or around the ship during the quarantine period have also contracted the virus, including a quarantine officer, a Health Ministry official, an ambulance driver and a medical staffer.
Normal infection control involves establishing a red zone, where the virus is present and protective gear must be worn, and a green zone, which is safe, Iwata said. There was no such demarcation on board the ship, with people wearing protective suits mingling with and eating alongside unprotected people, and people even eating food and handling smartphones without removing gloves and clothing that could carry the virus.
“It was completely chaotic,” he said. “I was so scared of getting covid-19 because there was no way to tell where the virus is, no green zone, no red zone — everywhere could have the virus.”
Iwata said “bureaucrats were in charge of everything” without a single professional infection control specialist on board. When a crew member went to a nurse with a fever, the nurse didn’t even bother protecting herself, because she had concluded she must have already caught the virus, he said.
He has since returned to his home in Kobe, but has isolated himself in a room for fear of infecting his family, and will not return to work for around two weeks for fear of infecting colleagues and patients. But he said he feared doctors and nurses working on board will return to medical centers around the country with the virus, and could infect patients.
Responding to Iwata’s complaints, Japan’s chief government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said the government had been “implementing measures to prevent the spread of the infection thoroughly.”
By: Simon Denyer
1:03 AM: South Korea reports sharp rise in cases, mostly linked to a church
SEOUL — South Korea confirmed 15 new cases of the new coronavirus infection on Wednesday, raising the national tally to 46.
Of the new cases, 13 were in Daegu city and the surrounding southwestern province of North Gyeongsang Province, with 11 of them linked to a previously confirmed patient, according to Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
The 61-year-old woman is believed to have infected 10 people who attended the same church, and one person who came in contact at her hospital.
She started displaying symptoms of fever around Feb. 10 and tested positive for the virus on Tuesday, according to the KCDC.
The agency has identified 166 people who came in contact with the woman, who are now in quarantine at home or in hospitals. It said it would conduct a close inspection of the church and test more churchgoers for the virus.
By: Min Joo Kim
12:25 AM: Six more Filipino crew members on Diamond Princess test positive for coronavirus
MANILA — There are now 41 Filipino crew members on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship infected with the novel coronavirus, health officials said Wednesday, an increase of six from a day earlier.
The patients have been brought to hospitals in Japan, where the ship is moored, and will be unable to return to the Philippines even as the government aims to repatriate other Filipinos this week.
Charly Triballeau
AFP/Getty Images
A man in protective gear speaks on the phone near the Diamond Princess cruise ship, quarantined at Yokohama, Japan, on Wednesday.
Only those who are asymptomatic and who tested negative for the virus will be allowed to board a flight. They will still be subject to a 14-day quarantine.
The repatriation team will also be kept in isolation for the same period. Officials said the quarantine facility and other details are still being finalized.
There are a total of 538 Filipino crew members on the cruise liner.
The global outbreak has affected the Philippines’ 2 million-strong overseas workforce, resulting in panic and job uncertainty. At least two Filipinos in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates have tested positive for the virus.
By: Regine Cabato
12:01 AM: Hong Kong reports second death from virus outbreak
HONG KONG — A 70-year-old man has died after testing positive for coronavirus, according to a Hong Kong hospital, bringing city’s death toll from the outbreak to two.
A spokeswoman for Princess Margaret Hospital said the patient died on Wednesday morning after his condition deteriorated, without providing more details. When health officials initially provided details on his case on Friday, they said he had underlying illnesses. He was sent to the hospital on Feb. 12 after developing malaise, shortness of breath and cough, the Center for Health Protection said, where he was in critical condition at the time. The man, who lives alone, had visited mainland China for a day trip on Jan. 22.
As of Wednesday morning, Hong Kong reported 62 cases of coronavirus infection, including the two deaths. The first death, a 39-year-old man who contracted the virus outside of the city, also had underlying medical issues, health officials said.
By: Shibani Mahtani
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2020-02-19 11:18:00Z
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