Archive for ‘Wuhan’

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25/03/2020

Coronavirus: Wuhan to ease lockdown as world battles pandemic

Medical staff clean up the empty hospital after all patients were discharged at Wuchang Fangcang hospital, a temporary hospital set up at Hongshan gymnasium to treat people infected with the coronavirus and Covin-19 disease, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, 10 March 2020 (issued 11 March 2020)Image copyright EPA
Image caption Wuhan has been sealed off since mid-January

The lockdown in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the global coronavirus outbreak began, will be partially lifted on 8 April, officials say.

Travel restrictions in the rest of Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, will be lifted from midnight on Tuesday – for residents who are healthy.

A single new case of the virus was reported in Wuhan on Tuesday following almost a week of no reported new cases.

Countries around the world have gone into lockdown or imposed severe curbs.

The UK is getting to grips with sweeping new measures to tackle the spread of coronavirus, including a ban on public gatherings of more than two people and the immediate closure of shops selling non-essential goods.

A person is tested for the Covid-19 virus in Villeurbanne, France (23 March 2020)Image copyright AFP
Image caption The WHO has urged the G20 group of nations to boost production of protective equipment

Meanwhile, health experts say Americans must limit their social interactions or the number of infections will overwhelm the health care system in the US.

Spanish soldiers helping to fight the coronavirus pandemic have found elderly patients in retirement homes abandoned and, in some cases, dead in their beds, the defence ministry has said.

An ice rink in Madrid is to be used as a temporary mortuary for Covid-19 victims.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the pandemic is accelerating, with more than 300,000 cases now confirmed. It is urging countries to adopt rigorous testing and contact-tracing strategies.

Wuhan has been shut off from the rest of the world since the middle of January. But officials now say anyone who has a “green” code on a widely used smartphone health app will be allowed to leave the city from 8 April.

Earlier, the authorities reported a new case of coronavirus in Wuhan, ending a five-day run of no reported new cases in the city.

Media caption Coronavirus: People in Beijing begin to head outdoors

It comes after health officials there confirmed that they were not counting cases of people who were positive but had not been admitted to hospital or did not show any symptoms of the disease.

Official government figures say there have been 78 new cases reported on the Chinese mainland in the last 24 hours. All but four of them were caused by infected travellers arriving from abroad.

This so-called “second wave” of imported infections is also affecting countries like South Korea and Singapore, which had been successful in stopping the spread of disease in recent weeks.

South Korea has been seeing a drop in its daily tally of new cases. On Tuesday it reported its lowest number since 29 February.

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China looks to repair its reputation

By Robin Brant, BBC News, Shanghai

China considers itself to be – very nearly – a “post corona” country.

In the last week we’ve heard Wuhan medics warning the UK and others that they need to do more to protect frontline health workers, citing the mistakes they made early on when some treated patients without wearing proper protective clothing.

But there’s also been reporting in state media of the reported death toll in Italy surpassing that in China. This has been combined with some commentary from prominent media figures that has appeared distasteful, almost triumphalist.

At the same time there is a panic about the threat of a second wave from imported cases – travellers arriving from abroad. This has fuelled the view – right or wrong – that some other countries aren’t taking the threat seriously because they aren’t doing what China did. (Almost all the cases in Beijing that have been made public are of Chinese nationals returning home).

Meanwhile, well away from senior leaders, there are some high-profile diplomatic figures using international-facing social media to spread theories that the US may have weaponised and dumped the virus in China. Or that Italy had cases that may have been Covid-19 earlier than China. China is sowing seeds of doubt and questioning assumed truths as it looks to repair its reputation.

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Banner image reading 'more about coronavirus'
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What’s the latest from around Asia?

  • Almost all of India with its 1.3bn people is under lockdown. Buses, trains and other forms of public transport are suspended. On Monday, the authorities said domestic flights would also stopped. The country has reported 485 cases and nine people have died. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation again this evening.
People travel in Central Railway's first air-conditioned EMU local train, on January 30, 2020, in Mumbai, India.Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image caption Mumbai’s suburban train network carries eight million passengers a day
  • Neighbouring Pakistan has almost twice as many confirmed cases – 878 as of Monday evening. Sweeping restrictions are in place although the government has stopped short of imposing a nationwide lockdown. However, several provinces have announced them independently. The army is being brought in to help enforce the restrictions.
  • Bangladesh, which has reported 33 cases and three deaths, is also deploying its armed forces to help maintain social distancing and boost Covid-19 preventive measures. The soldiers will also monitor thousands of quarantined expatriate returnees. Across South Asia, there are concerns that the actual number of cases could be much higher than is being reported.
  • Indonesia, which has 49 confirmed Covid-19 deaths – the highest in South-East Asia – has converted an athlete’s village built for the 2018 Asian Games into a makeshift hospital for coronavirus patients. A state of emergency was declared in Jakarta on Monday.
  • In Thailand, a month-long state of emergency which will include curfews and checkpoints will begin on Thursday. The government has been criticised for failing to take strong action so far. Four people have died and nearly 900 tested positive.
  • Talks between the Japanese PM and the International Olympic Committee are expected this evening.
  • The most populous country that was without a case until now – Myanmar – has announced two cases.

Europe’s battle against virus intensifies

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday night that, with immediate effect, “people will only be allowed to leave their home…for very limited purposes”. They include shopping for basic necessities, taking one form of exercise per day, fulfilling any medical need, or travelling to work if working from home is impossible.

Media caption Reality Check tackles misleading health advice being shared online

The number of people who have died in the UK rose to 335 on Monday.

In Italy, the worst-hit country in the world, the authorities said 602 people with Covid-19 had died in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll there to 6,077.

But the daily increase in cases was the smallest since Thursday, raising hope that the stringent restrictions imposed by the government were starting to have an effect.

Spain, however, said on Tuesday that its death toll had risen by 514 to 2,696. Nearly 40,000 are infected, about 5,400 of them healthcare workers.

Source: The BBC

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24/03/2020

Hubei relaxes restrictions as China’s new coronavirus infections double

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Hubei province where the coronavirus pandemic originated will lift travel restrictions on people leaving the region as the epidemic there eases, but other regions will tighten controls as new cases double due to imported infections.

The Hubei Health Commission announced it would lift curbs on outgoing travellers starting March 25, provided they had a health clearance code.

The provincial capital Wuhan, where the virus first appeared and which has been in total lockdown since since Jan. 23, will see its travel restrictions lifted on April 8.

RELATED COVERAGE

  • China health commission says virus transmission risks remain
  • China’s Hubei province to remove travel bans starting March 25

However, the risk from overseas infections appears to be on the rise, prompting tougher screening and quarantine measures in major cities such as the capital Beijing.

China had 78 new cases on Monday, the National Health Commission said, a two-fold increase from Sunday. Of the new cases, 74 were imported infections, up from 39 imported cases a day earlier.

The Chinese capital Beijing was the hardest-hit, with a record 31 new imported cases, followed by southern Guangdong province with 14 and the financial hub of Shanghai with nine. The total number of imported cases stood at 427 as of Monday.

Only four new cases were local transmissions. One was in Wuhan which had not reported a new infection in five days.

Wuhan residents will soon be allowed to leave with a health tracking code, a QR code, which will have an individual’s health status linked to it.

In other parts of the country, authorities have continued to impose tougher screening and quarantine and have diverted international flights from Beijing to other Chinese cities, but that has not stemmed the influx of Chinese nationals, many of whom are students returning home from virus-hit countries.

Beijing’s city government tightened quarantine rules for individuals arriving from overseas, saying on Tuesday that everyone entering the city will be subject to centralised quarantine and health checks.

The southern city of Shenzhen said on Tuesday it will test all arrivals and the Chinese territory of Macau will ban visitors from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The number of local infections from overseas arrivals – the first of which was reported in the southern travel hub of Guangzhou on Saturday – remains very small.

On Monday, Beijing saw its first case of a local person being infected by an international traveller arriving in China. Shanghai reported a similar case, bringing the total number of such infections to three so far.

CONCERNS ABOUT NEW WAVE OF INFECTIONS

The rise in imported cases and the lifting of restrictions in some cities to allow people to return to work and kickstart the battered Chinese economy has raised concerns of a second wave of infections.

A private survey on Tuesday suggested that a 10-11% contraction in first-quarter gross domestic product in the world’s second largest economy “is not unreasonable”.

The epidemic has hammered all sectors of the economy – from manufacturing to tourism. To persuade businesses to reopen, policymakers have promised loans, aids and subsidies.

In the impoverished province of Gansu, government officials are each required to spend at least 200 yuan (24.31 pounds) a week to spur the recovery of the local catering industry.

The official China Daily warned in an editorial on Tuesday that maintaining stringent restrictions on people’s movements would “now do more harm than good”.

Source: Reuters

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23/03/2020

Coronavirus: ‘strange pneumonia’ seen in Lombardy in November, leading Italian doctor says

  • Virus was circulating ‘before we were aware of the outbreak in China’, says Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research
  • Italy has now reported more than 4,800 deaths from Covid-19, more than any other country in the world
Italian doctors became aware of a “strange pneumonia” circulating in the Lombardy region in November. Photo: AFP
Italian doctors became aware of a “strange pneumonia” circulating in the Lombardy region in November. Photo: AFP
A “strange pneumonia” was circulating in northern Italy as long ago as November, weeks before doctors were made aware of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, one of the European country’s leading medical experts said this week.
“They [general practitioners] remember having seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November,” Giuseppe Remuzzi, the director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, said in an interview with the National Public Radio of the United States.
“This means that the virus was circulating, at least in [the northern region of] Lombardy and before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China.”
Remuzzi’s comments came as scientists continue to search for the origin of the coronavirus. Chinese respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan said earlier that although China was the first to report the pathogen, it was not yet certain where it actually came from.

Remuzzi said it was only recently that he had heard from Italian doctors about the disease, which meant it had existed and been spreading without people’s knowledge.

Despite reporting its first locally transmitted coronavirus infections – in Lombardy – only on February 21 – it had had only imported cases before then – Italy has since had more than 53,000 confirmed cases and 4,825 deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the pathogen. By comparison, China has had just over 81,000 cases and 3,261 fatalities.

Italy suspended all flights to China on January 31, the first nation to do so.

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22 Mar 2020
In the central China city of Wuhan, where the epidemic was first identified, doctors began noticing a “pneumonia with an unknown cause” in December. The first known infection in the city can be traced back to December 1.
A report by the South China Morning Post said that the first Chinese case might have been as early as mid-November, but that has not been confirmed by Beijing.

The current thinking among the scientific community is that the first infection in Lombardy was the result of an Italian coming into contact with a Chinese person in late January. However, if it can be shown that the novel coronavirus – officially known as SARS-CoV-2 – was in circulation in Italy in November, then that theory would be turned on its head.

The debate over the possible origin of the pathogen has also been at the heart of a war of words between Beijing and Washington, with US President Donald Trump repeatedly referring to it as the “Chinese virus” and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling it the “Wuhan virus”, infuriating Beijing in the process.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian took to Twitter to contest the claims.

“By calling it ‘China virus’ and thus suggesting its origin without any supporting facts or evidence, some media clearly want China to take the blame, and their ulterior motives are laid bare,” he said.

He then went on to suggest that the coronavirus outbreak might have started in the United States and been carried to Wuhan by the US Army.

Source: SCMP

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22/03/2020

Medical workers leave Hubei after finishing their tasks

CHINA-YUNNAN-MEDICAL STAFF-RETURN HOME-ARRIVAL (CN)

A plane carrying returning medical staffers arrives at Kunming Changshui International Airport in Kunming, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, March 22, 2020. About 700 medical workers of Yunnan Province left Wuhan on Sunday after finishing their tasks in Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao)

Source: Xinhua

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22/03/2020

Coronavirus: Xi Jinping calls leaders of France, Spain, Germany and Serbia with offers of support

  • Chinese president tells heads of state that Beijing is ready to do all it can to help Europe fight Covid-19, as death toll on the continent passes 5,000
  • ‘Public health crises are the common challenges facing humankind, and unity and cooperation are its most powerful weapons,’ Xi tells German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Chinese President Xi Jinping reached out a helping hand to four European leaders on Saturday. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese President Xi Jinping reached out a helping hand to four European leaders on Saturday. Photo: Xinhua
Chinese President Xi Jinping made an unusually intense diplomatic gesture towards Europe on Saturday by calling the leaders of France, Germany, Spain and Serbia to offer support in their fight against Covid-19.
The calls came as many European nations are facing shortages of the essential medical supplies and equipment they need to combat the pandemic that has already killed more than 5,000 people across the continent.
Italy has been the worst hit, with more than 4,000 people killed and over 47,000 infected. In Spain, the death toll jumped by more than 300 on Saturday to 1,326, while the number of confirmed cases neared 25,000.
In contrast, China has reported no new local transmissions for three days. As a result, the industrial powerhouse has been able to send millions of face masks it might otherwise have needed to Europe.
In a call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Xi said China was prepared to do all it could to help.
“If Germany is in need, China is willing to provide help within our capabilities,” he was quoted as saying by Xinhua, which reported on all of the calls.

“Public health crises are the common challenges facing humankind, and unity and cooperation are its most powerful weapons,” he said, adding that China was willing to share its “information and experience”.

Beijing was also ready to work with Berlin in other areas, such as vaccine development, Xi said.

Germany, which has reported more than 20,000 cases and 44 deaths, is the only country out of the four Xi called that has not yet requested medical supplies from China.

Xi Jinping promised to send Chinese medical support teams to Serbia, like this one that was deployed to Italy. Photo: AP
Xi Jinping promised to send Chinese medical support teams to Serbia, like this one that was deployed to Italy. Photo: AP
Of the four countries Xi called, only Serbia is not a member of the European Union. Its president, Aleksandar Vucic, earlier dismissed the EU’s vow of solidarity as a “fantasy” and turned to China for help.

“China and Serbia are comprehensive strategic partners,” Xi told Vucic on Saturday. “The hard-as-iron friendship of the two countries, and of the two peoples, shall last forever.”

Xi pledged to provide Serbia with protective gear and medical equipment, as well as helping it to source materials from China.

Vucic also managed to secure a guarantee from the Chinese president that he would send medical teams to Serbia, like those already deployed in Italy and Spain, the Xinhua report said.
Despite Vucic’s criticism of the EU, the bloc said on Friday it would provide Serbia with €7.5 million (US$8 million) worth of aid.
“Next week, big cargo airplanes will bring critical medical equipment. EU [is] always with Serbia in times of need,” EU ambassador to Belgrade Sem Fabrizi said on Twitter, adding: “Action not words.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has reportedly called for more power to be given to the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, as member states, current and future, could lose trust in the institution as the health crisis unfolds.

In his phone call with Macron, Xi also appealed for support from the World Health Organisation.

“China is willing to work with France to jointly promote international cooperation on preventing and controlling the disease, and on supporting the UN [United Nations] and WHO in playing a core role in perfecting global public health management,” he said.

The call was the second in three days between the two leaders.

In a poll published on Friday, Macron’s popularity rating rose past 50 per cent for the first time since 2018, France24 reported. The result suggests the French public approves of the way in which he is handling the health crisis.

Xi’s telephone call to Spain was unusual in that he spoke to King Felipe, the ceremonial head of state who generally stays out of politics.

Nonetheless, Xi again pledged his support and willingness to share China’s experiences in handling the disease and treating patients, Xinhua said.

After three days of no new domestic infections in mainland China, some residents of 

Wuhan

, the Chinese city hardest hit by the disease, celebrated with fireworks as local authorities began removing checkpoints. Restrictions were also eased in other cities.

Beijing’s containment efforts are now focused on preventing imported cases. National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng said on Saturday that the number of such infections had surged by 216 per cent to 269 on Friday, from just 85 on March 11. In the same period, the total number of infections worldwide had risen by 98 per cent.
“We have to strictly stop imported cases, step up epidemic control and avoid any rebound,” he said.
Source: SCMP

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22/03/2020

Coronavirus: Why India’s busiest rail network is being shut down

Passengers on a train in MumbaiImage copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image caption Many passengers have been wearing masks while travelling on the network

One of the world’s busiest urban rail systems will be shut down for ordinary commuters from Monday morning to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection in Mumbai, one of India’s most populous cities. Only government workers in “essential services” will be allowed to travel on a truncated service.

This was waiting to happen.

Consider this. Eight million people take Mumbai’s crowded suburban train network every day. Packed to nearly three times its capacity, this is one of the busiest railway systems in the world.

The 459km (285-mile) network is the lifeline of India’s financial and entertainment capital, accounting for nearly 80% of all commuting trips in the populous western city. The suburban trains “cover almost the distance up to [the] moon in one week,” the network’s website says.

The 66-year-old network carries 60,000 passengers per km per day, the highest among all the leading commuter rail systems in the world, say officials. The coaches are sturdy enough to carry a “super dense crush load”, a phrase coined by the railways to describe the intense crowding on Mumbai’s trains. This means that a nine-car train designed for 1,800 standing passengers will often carry up to 7,000 passengers, according to Monisha Rajesh, author of Around India in 80 Trains. “Mumbai’s local trains were certainly not for the fainthearted,” she wrote.

People travel in Central Railway's first air-conditioned EMU local train, on January 30, 2020 in Mumbai, India.Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image caption Mumbai’s suburban train network carries eight million passengers every day

Now consider this. The western state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, has confirmed more than 60 coronavirus infections, the highest in India so far. Scores of long distance trains out of the city have been cancelled, but the suburban network has continued to rumble on, raising fears of the mass spread of the virus on these packed trains. The crowded service was an easy target of a terror attack in 2006 when serial blasts ripped though a number of trains. At least 180 people were killed and more than 800 injured – the high casualty figure was attributed to overcrowding.

It is intuitively obvious that there’s a link between commuting with a lot of people and catching respiratory diseases. During the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed some 18 million Indians, the railways “played a prominent part [in aiding the spread of the disease] as was inevitable,” according to an official report.

“From ports and landing places the local transport networks, particularly the railways, carried the virus from large cities to the smallest, remotest settlements,” said a report on the spread of the flu in Britain in 1918-1919.

So should one of the world’s busiest rail networks be shut down to stop a possible spread of the virus in a city that many fear could turn into a coronavirus hotspot?

A passenger is seen wearing a protective mask as a precaution from coronavirus in the local train at CST railway station, on March 14, 2020 in Mumbai, India.Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image caption Officials say ridership on the trains has dropped by 17% after the coronavirus scare

Economists like Shruti Rajagopalan believe so.

“India is conducting the fewest tests per million at the moment. If the virus is truly within the community, then given these two issues, the Mumbai outbreak cannot be contained and people will die without healthcare.

“Mumbai trains are the fastest and surest way to spread the virus (if it is within the community) to the densest parts of the city,” she told me.

There is enough precedent: China stopped trains, ferries, planes and buses from leaving the city of Wuhan; and on Thursday, London officials announced that up to 40 stations on the London Underground network are to be shut as the city attempts to contain the outbreak.

Others are not so sure about linking the spread of a pandemic to public transport systems. One study does not support the effectiveness of suspending mass urban transport systems to reduce or slow down a pandemic because, “whatever the relevance of public transport is to individual-level risk, household exposure most likely poses a greater threat”.

“I have not seen any data on the relative risk of public transportation compared with [dense places like] workplaces or schools,” Timothy Brewer, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California Los Angeles told Vox.com.

He said data from China suggested that “household contact was an important means of transmission outside of Wuhan, suggesting that prolonged contact [with a sick person] increases the risk of transmission”.

“If correct, then the time spent commuting and the density of people commuting could be important factors in assessing if public transportation is a risk factor for the disease’s transmission.”

Trains being cleaned in MumbaiImage copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image caption Trains on the network are being scrubbed clean to avoid the spread of infection

Shivaji Sutar, a senior communications officer of the railways, told me that the network was running an aggressive campaign to ease the rush: awareness announcements, posters and videos containing virus information.

They were also monitoring crowds, scrubbing the trains, taking the temperature of willing passengers and embarking on a drive against public spitting, he said.

A combination of awareness and panic has already led to a 27% drop in traffic on the network. But millions of people continue to take the train to work and home every day.

“This is more because of fear than anything else. Most of us have to take the network because we have to come to work. There is still no government directive to all companies to work from home. And apart from passengers wearing masks, I haven’t seen any other precautions being taken,” Rekha Hodge, who has been using the network for three decades, told me. That is bad news.

Source: The BBC

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21/03/2020

Wuhan to reopen commercial outlets in part of residential communities

WUHAN, March 20 (Xinhua) — The central Chinese city of Wuhan, hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, will reopen commercial outlets to residents in an orderly manner, local authorities said late Friday.

Commercial outlets in residential communities and villages without existing confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases can resume business, according to the Wuhan municipal bureau of commerce.

Those outlets mainly include supermarkets, convenience stores, fresh food shops, fruit and vegetable shops and others that supply daily necessities.

Each household can send one person a day to go shopping with a one-time pass certificate or an electronic health code. Each shopping trip will be limited to within two hours.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in Business, commercial outlets, convenience stores, coronavirus outbreak, COVID-19 cases, electronic health code, fresh food shops, fruit and vegetable shops, Household, municipal bureau of commerce, one person, one-time pass certificate, reopen, residential communities, supermarkets, Uncategorized, Wuhan | Leave a Comment »

20/03/2020

Why China’s ‘zero new coronavirus infections’ could be cause for optimism – or caution

  • The country’s only new infections confirmed in the past two days have been imported from overseas, suggesting containment measures worked
  • But there are still likely to be infected people with mild or no symptoms, and questions over how the data was compiled, experts say
A makeshift hospital in Wuhan, converted from a sports arena, closed on Sunday after its last patients were discharged. Photo: Xinhua
A makeshift hospital in Wuhan, converted from a sports arena, closed on Sunday after its last patients were discharged. Photo: Xinhua
China reached an apparent milestone this week in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, announcing zero new non-imported infections on Thursday and Friday, but experts said the figures needed to be treated with caution.
After reporting thousands of daily new infections for much of February, China had a sharp decline this month while the wider world experienced the opposite trend as the coronavirus spread.
As China closes makeshift coronavirus hospitals in the outbreak’s initial epicentre of Wuhan because of a lack of patients, and eases some quarantine restrictions in the city and the broader Hubei province, there is consensus that its unprecedented measures changed the direction of the epidemic, offering hope for other countries.
But there are concerns over whether China’s rock-bottom case numbers reflect the full picture in the country. The high incidence of mild cases of Covid-19 is one reason, health experts said, warning that there could be infected people who were not counted but still able to spread the disease.
Coronavirus: More people have now died from Covid-19 in Italy than in China
“It is important that China is doing a good job testing and screening throughout the country to ensure that there are no pockets of infection remaining,” virologist Jeremy Rossman, of Britain’s University of Kent, said, adding that the news was “exciting” but needed to be “treated with caution”.

“With many of these cases having mild to no symptoms, ensuring that the whole country remains prepared and is actively looking for new cases is essential,” he said. “While it is possible there are no new cases, it is also very possible that somewhere in the country there are mildly infected people.”

Missing mild cases, and those infected but showing no symptoms, are a “legitimate concern”, according to Xi Chen, an assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health.

Unconfirmed cases ‘may be behind rapid spread of coronavirus in China’
19 Mar 2020

“Eighty per cent of cases have mild symptoms, so zero cases is a milestone, but not the end of the epidemic in China,” he said. Patients with mild symptoms or who are asymptomatic can still spread the disease to others, he added, and this needed to be monitored carefully in the coming weeks.

Are medicines to prevent and cure the coronavirus disease within reach?
China has come under scrutiny for how it treats asymptomatic cases. The National Health Commission excludes patients who test positive yet show no symptoms from its number of confirmed cases, although it monitors those cases when it knows of them.

The extent to which asymptomatic carriers contribute to spreading the disease is yet to be understood by scientists.

In addition, Hubei province in mid-February changed how it classified its confirmed cases, which caused a surge in infection numbers. This decision, which allowed doctors to diagnose a person by a clinical examination, not only by a positive laboratory test, was later reversed, leaving confusion about the true extent of the disease.

China must focus on keeping out imported cases, expert says

20 Mar 2020

Other commentators said it could not be ignored that political considerations may play a part as China looks to highlight its communist governance model and portray itself as a global leader in combating the disease.

“We are in the midst of the most intensive propaganda operation of the [Communist] Party state in living memory, in trying to project its success in dealing with the virus,” Steve Tsang, director of the University of London’s SOAS China Institute, said. “That narrative requires statistical backup.

Coronavirus: China starts getting back on track after being hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic
“I’m not saying [the zero number] is necessarily wrong; I’m simply saying we don’t know. What we do know is that there is now a political imperative for the statistics to be [low], and now we have statistics that serve the political imperative.”

Data can be trusted when it comes with transparency about how it was collected, so that it can be independently evaluated, Tsang said.

Nis Gruenberg, an analyst with Berlin-based independent think tank the Mercator Institute for China Studies, said that the numbers could be viewed as an “indicator” of a reduction of cases in China.

China’s economy slowly emerging from lockdown with power, transport gains

20 Mar 2020

“Some [Western critics] have been saying China and its system are ill-equipped to handle this outbreak, and now the Chinese government is trying to invert that argument and say, ‘Look at you, you are not doing it well enough,’” Gruenberg said.

The message from the Chinese government that it has succeeded in containing the virus may “politicise” the figures and is a potential driver for under-reporting around the country, according to Gruenberg.

“If history is any guide in China then there is a massive history of under-reporting for various reasons, both within the system and internationally,” he said. “I’m sceptical that this is the true number, or that anyone really knows the true number.”

Source: SCMP

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19/03/2020

Commentary: China’s zero increase in coronavirus infection a positive sign for world

BEIJING, March 19 (Xinhua) — China’s report of no new local infections of the novel coronavirus in the mainland for the first time is a positive sign amid the news of sharply increasing infections worldwide.

No new infections of the novel coronavirus were reported Wednesday in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, and Hubei Province. The Chinese mainland reported 34 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, however, all were imported from overseas.

The progress highlights China’s continually improving trend in its prevention and control of COVID-19 despite a growing challenge of imported cases from abroad. It shows China’s tactics and methods in controlling the virus have continued to deliver positive results.

With a unified and highly efficient command system, the country has launched a people’s war against the epidemic featuring full mobilization, transparency, timely activation and adjustment of response levels by provinces, a model of early detection, reporting, isolation and treatment and orderly resumption of production with targeted preventive moves.

In less than two months, China has efficiently contained the spread of the deadly virus with unprecedented measures including the lockdown of Wuhan and mobilization of medical resources nationwide. The 1.4 billion people have pulled together as one to tackle the tough task.

The measures that China has adopted are law-based, scientific and well-targeted. The country has given play to its technological strength to rapidly identify the virus, advance vaccine development and raise testing capacities in a very short time.

The epidemic situation both in and outside China remains complex and severe. The Chinese mainland still had 7,263 COVID-19 patients in hospitals as of Wednesday. The world faces a vital fight against the pandemic as the number of infections in other countries has exceeded 110,000, outnumbering that of China.

As a community with a shared future, the globe needs more solidarity, communication, responsibility and action than ever. What China has done can serve as a reference for those who are confronting the urgent and grave global pandemic.

China has bought the world time by containing the virus. As the country vows to prevent a reversal of the positive trend and clinch a complete victory over the epidemic, it will continue working closely with others and contribute more to the global fight via sharing experience and information and providing help to those in need.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in Beijing, China's, Chinese mainland, coronavirus infection, COVID-19, hubei province, mainland, novel coronavirus, positive sign, Uncategorized, World, Wuhan, zero increase | Leave a Comment »

19/03/2020

China’s Wuhan marks no new coronavirus case, success of strict measures

CHINA-HUBEI-ZERO INCREASE-COVID-19 (CN)

People enjoy sunset on a plank road at the Donghu Lake in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, March 18, 2020. No new infections of the novel coronavirus were reported on Wednesday in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, marking a notable first in the city’s months-long battle with the microscopic foe. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)

WUHAN, March 19 (Xinhua) — No new infections of the novel coronavirus were reported on Wednesday in Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, marking a notable first in the city’s months-long battle with the deadly virus and sending a message of hope to the world gripped by the pandemic.

The Health Commission of Hubei Province, where Wuhan is the capital, said the virus’ death toll climbed by eight in the province, but the total confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan and Hubei remained at 50,005 and 67,800 on Wednesday.

No increase was observed in the province’s number of suspected cases, which fell to zero on Tuesday, in another indication that large-scale transmissions have been suppressed at the epidemic ground zero after a slew of strict measures.

Previously, the central Chinese province had reported single-digit increases of new infections, all of which were from Wuhan, for a week in a row since last Wednesday. A month ago, the figure was several thousand a day.

The province also saw 795 patients discharged from hospital after recovery on Wednesday, reducing its caseload of hospitalized patients to 6,636, including 1,809 in severe condition and 465 in critical condition.

With no new cases in Wuhan, the Chinese mainland on Wednesday reduced the increase in domestic transmissions to zero, according to the National Health Commission. The country now faces a greater threat of infections imported from overseas, which jumped by 34 on Wednesday.

“The clearing of new infections in Wuhan came earlier than predicted, but it is still too early to let down our guard,” said Zhang Boli, one of the leading experts advising on the epidemic fight in Hubei.

Arduous work still lies ahead as China strengthens its defence against imported cases from abroad, treats thousands of patients still in serious or critical condition and rehabilitates those discharged from hospitals, said Zhang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

“CUNNING VIRUS”

The novel coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan in December as a new pathogen facing mankind. Before its traits were fully understood, the virus had cut a swath of infections among Wuhan’s unsuspecting public, before jumping from the transportation hub to other parts of China via the largest seasonal human migration ahead of the Spring Festival.

The Chinese leadership has described the COVID-19 outbreak as the most difficult to contain since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and “a big test” for the country.

Medical experts said the virus is more contagious, though less deadly, than the SARS virus that belongs to the same coronavirus family. Globally, the SARS virus infected 8,422 people and killed 919 between 2002 and 2003.

“We still have insufficient knowledge of the novel coronavirus. What we already know is it’s a very cunning virus with a long incubation period,” said Wang Daowen, a cardiologist at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan.

“We still found the virus from the anus, if not from the lungs, of one patient after he was hospitalized for 50 days,” said Wang, who was among the first medical experts joining the treatment of COVID-19. “Usually, a virus should vanish from one’s body in two weeks.”

TURNING TIDE

China began to see a drop in the number of COVID-19 patients on Feb. 18, after the number of recovered patients surged and new cases declined. By late February, the virus had withdrawn from most territories on the Chinese mainland, with only single-digit daily increases of infections in areas outside Wuhan.

On March 6, the epidemic epicenter Wuhan slashed the daily increase of confirmed cases to below 100, down from a peak of more than 14,000 in early February. Bruce Aylward, who led the China-WHO joint mission on COVID-19, said the outbreak in China had come down “faster than would have been expected.”

On March 11, the daily increase of locally transmitted infections dropped to single digits for the first time on the Chinese mainland. The virus has so far caused a total of 80,928 infections and 3,245 fatalities, defying earlier predictions by foreign researchers of a more extensive national outbreak.

Behind the downward trends were a raft of strong measures taken by the Chinese government, including canceling mass events, closing scenic attractions, suspending long-distance buses and asking hundreds of millions of Chinese to stay indoors to break transmission chain.

On Jan. 23, Wuhan declared unprecedented traffic restrictions, including suspending the city’s public transport and all outbound flights and trains, in an attempt to contain the epidemic within its territory.

The situation in Wuhan and its nearby cities was grim. Officials said more than 3,000 medics in Hubei contracted the virus at the early stage of the outbreak due to limited knowledge of the virus. Many families lost multiple loved ones.

Following reports of overloaded local hospitals, more than 42,000 medical staff, including those from the military, were dispatched to Hubei from across the country. At the peak of the fight, one in 10 intensive care medics in China were working in Wuhan.

Fleets of trucks carrying aid goods and displaying banners of “Wuhan be strong!” rushed to the city from all corners of the country. Under a “pairing-up support” system, each city in Hubei is taken care of by at least one provincial-level region.

To ensure the timely admission of patients, two hospitals with a total of 2,600 beds were built from scratch in Wuhan within a few days, and 16 temporary hospitals were converted from gyms and exhibition centers to add 13,000 beds. Nucleic acid testing (NAT) capacity in Wuhan reached 24,000 people a day. Testing is made free and treatment fees are covered by China’s basic medical insurance.

Huang Juan, 38, witnessed the first few days of chaos and despair at local hospitals before calm and order gradually set in amid the influx of support.

Huang recalled the hospitals were packed with patients — over 100 patients were waiting for the injection but only one nurse was around. Every day, her mother who had a fever on the eve of the Spring Festival in late January waited 10 hours to be injected.

After a week of imploration, Huang finally found a hospital willing to admit her mother. Ten days later, her mother was discharged upon negative NAT results. “She still had symptoms, but there was no choice, as many patients were waiting for beds,” Huang said.

The situation improved when her father, also diagnosed with the disease, was hospitalized on Feb. 19.

“He was discharged after the doctor confirmed his recovery on March 11. It was apparent that the standards for discharge were raised as Wuhan got sufficient beds,” Huang said.

Cui Cui (pseudonym), 57, also testified to the improving situation. The Wuhan resident was transferred to the newly built Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) Hospital as her sickness worsened on Feb. 10.

The military-run hospital that treats severe cases impressed her with a calm ambiance. “Doctors and nurses there called me ‘auntie’ instead of ‘patient’ and spent time chatting with me to ease my anxiety,” said Cui, who was discharged after recovering on Feb. 26.

COMMUNITY CONTROL

Outside Hubei, the battle against the epidemic has tested the mobilization capacity of China’s big cities and remote villages alike as they scrambled to prevent sporadic imported cases from evolving into community outbreaks.

Earlier this month, Beijing said about 827,000 people who returned to the capital city after the Spring Festival holiday were placed in two-week home observation. Around 161,000 property management staff and security guards were on duty to enforce the quarantine rules.

Shanghai, a metropolis in eastern China, has demanded its over 13,000 residential communities to guard their gates and take temperatures of residents upon entrance, according to Zeng Qun, deputy head of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.

Quyi Community was among the first Shanghai neighborhoods to adopt closed-off management. Since late January, it has been disinfecting public areas, introducing contactless deliveries and ensuring residents returning from severely affected regions are placed in quarantine.

“For those who are under self-quarantine at home, health workers will provide door-to-door visits every day, and services from grocery shopping to psychological counseling are offered,” said Huang Ying, an official with Hongkou District where the community is located.

Shanghai, with a population of 24 million, is among China’s most populous cities and a commercial hub. It was once predicted as the most susceptible to a coronavirus outbreak.

Mathematical models estimated that without prevention and control measures, Shanghai’s infection numbers would exceed 100,000. Even with some interventions, the figure could still reach tens of thousands, according to Zhang Wenhong, who heads Shanghai’s medical team to fight the epidemic.

“But now, the infection number is just over 300. This means the measures taken by Shanghai over the past month are effective,” Zhang said, describing the city as an epitome of China’s battle against the epidemic.

NEW BATTLEGROUNDS

China’s economy became a new battleground as the war against the virus wore on, delaying the reopening of plants after the Spring Festival holiday and causing a shortage of workers with the nationwide traffic restrictions in place.

China has about 170 million rural migrant workers employed away from their hometowns, many of whom could not return to work as enterprises across the country began to resume production on Feb. 10.

In response, local governments have arranged chartered flights and trains to take workers directly to the factories while issuing subsidies to tide companies over difficulties. By early March, the southern manufacturing heartland Guangdong Province had seen 91.2 percent of firms resume operation.

Almost every sector of Chinese society has chipped in on the anti-virus fight, from barbers offering medics free haircuts to factories revamping their assembly lines to produce medical masks.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China’s output of protective clothing has surged to 500,000 pieces per day from fewer than 20,000 pieces at the beginning of the outbreak. The daily output of N95-rated medical masks rose from 200,000 to 1.6 million, while that of regular masks reached 100 million.

“China’s economic and social development over the past decade has laid a sound foundation for the fight against the epidemic and enabled the society to mobilize more quickly,” said Tang Bei, an international public health researcher at Shanghai International Studies University.

China’s tech boom also made contributions — tech companies rolled out disinfecting robots, thermal camera-equipped drones and AI-powered temperature measurement equipment, which have been rapidly deployed to reduce the risks of cross-infection.

The outbreak has led to what is being called “the world’s largest work-from-home experiment.” The number of online meetings supported by Tencent Meeting on Feb. 10, when most enterprises started resuming work, was 100 times that of its previous average daily use.

Lu Chuanying, a researcher with Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said digital technologies have risen to the fore, not only in the country’s anti-virus efforts but also in the recovery of the virus-hit economy.

“Remote consultations, artificial intelligence and big data were used to contain the epidemic, while telecommuting, online education and online vegetable markets have kept our lives in quarantine going,” Lu said.

Source: Xinhua

Posted in 1949, Beijing, China's, China-WHO joint mission, Chinese Academy of Engineering, coronavirus case, COVID-19, epicenter, epidemic, founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), health commission, Hongkou District, hubei province, Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) Hospital, marks, measures, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, National Health Commission, new, no, novel coronavirus disease, Nucleic acid testing (NAT) capacity, SARS virus, Shanghai, Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, Spring Festival holiday, strict, success, Uncategorized, Wuhan | Leave a Comment »

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