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Live updates: Rate of new coronavirus infections slows, but China remains largely shut down
Feb. 12, 2020 at 12:25 p.m. PST
Here are the latest developments:
● The number of new infections in China outside the epidemic hotspot of Hubei province has fallen for the eighth day in a row, even as the total number of deaths reaches new highs.
● World Health Organization expert Michael Ryan said in a news briefing that — in a good sign — the novel coronavirus’s behavior doesn’t seem to be as aggressive or accelerating outside of Hubei province.
● In a meeting with the leadership of the Community Party, Chinese President Xi Jinping said efforts would be made to minimize the impact of the outbreak on the economy.
● World stocks and oil prices rallied Wednesday amid the reduction in new cases.
● After several countries barred the MS Westerdam cruise ship, its 1,455 guests and the crew are headed toward Cambodia to disembark there.
● The death toll from the coronavirus rose to 1,113, nearly all of the fatalities in China, and total confirmed cases reached 44,653.
12:15 p.m.
Ninth coronavirus case confirmed in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom confirmed its ninth coronavirus case Wednesday and said the patient contracted the virus while in China.
“This virus was passed on in China and the patient has now been transferred to a specialist NHS (National Health Service) center at Guy’s and St Thomas’ in London,” Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said in a statement, Reuters reported.
Earlier Wednesday, the World Health Organization told reporters in Geneva that of the 48 new coronavirus cases confirmed outside of China since the previous day, 40 were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined off the coast of Japan.
The number of new cases in China has been declining for a week, said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He cautioned Wednesday, however, that “that must be interpreted with extreme caution” as “this outbreak could go in any direction.”
By Miriam Berger
11:55 a.m.
World Health Organization concludes forum on treating and preventing outbreaks like coronavirus
The Geneva-based World Health Organization concluded a two-day conference Wednesday that brought together over 300 scientists and researchers to set priorities for research related to covid-19 and future outbreaks.
The forum focused on creating “a strategy for developing drugs and vaccines before epidemics, and accelerating research and development while they are occurring,” according to a WHO statement.
Experts from China who could not attend in person joined in via videoconference.
“We need to come together to fight a common enemy that does not respect borders, ensure that we have the resources necessary to bring this outbreak to an end and bring our best science to the forefront to find shared answers to shared problems,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Research is an integral part of the outbreak response. I appreciate the positive response of the research community to join us at short notice and come up with concrete plans and commitment to work together.”
Also Wednesday, a WHO team convened to discuss whether to continue to label the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo, also known as DRC, as a public health emergency of international concern. Tedros determined it did.
“As long as there is a single case of Ebola in an area as insecure and unstable as eastern DRC, the potential remains for a much larger epidemic,” said Tedros. “WHO’s risk assessment is that the risk of [Ebola] spread is high nationally and regionally and low globally.”
Tedros also cautioned that while covid-19 has dominated headlines, other deadly diseases continue to spread.
“Strengthening a health system may not be as sexy as responding to an outbreak, but it’s equally important,” he said.
By Miriam Berger
11:30 a.m.
CDC has found no coronavirus cases since airport screening began a month ago
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has screened over 30,000 travelers from China since mid-January, and no confirmed coronavirus cases have been identified, a top official said Wednesday.
U.S. airport screening began Jan. 17 and expanded more than two weeks ago to all travelers from China to 11 U.S. airports.
“We have not detected any cases from returning travelers from China,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. The number of confirmed cases in the United States remains at 13, most of them travelers returning from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
In a briefing with reporters, Messonnier also said test kits that CDC sent to state and local public health labs last week were producing “inconclusive results” during practice runs. “Some states were getting inconclusive results — not as false positives or false negatives — and not on actual clinical specimens,” she said.
Scott Becker, executive director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, said about 25 states had flagged the problem and notified CDC immediately. CDC determined that one component of the kit was not performing “as it should,” Messonnier said. The agency is remaking that component and will send the new ones back to the labs. In the meantime, testing for covid-19 will continue at CDC headquarters in Atlanta.
As soon as CDC realized there was a problem with a component in the test kit, it did not send any of the kits to international labs, officials said.
Once the labs perform their quality control and verification procedures, states will be able to start testing patients, Becker said, a delay that may be a few days to a week.
By Lena H. Sun
10:30 a.m.
Though coronavirus is centered in China, it’s fueling racism toward Asians around the world
As the coronavirus epidemic continues and the number of people infected beyond China expands, communities around the world are reporting growing racism, xenophobia and discriminatory incidents targeting people of Asian heritage.
In Perth, Australia, a Malaysian woman of Chinese descent who had traveled to Malaysia for the Lunar New Year returned to find that her landlord had kicked her out, over unsubstantiated concerns that she had the virus, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
The woman, whom the broadcaster identified only as Helen to protect her privacy, shared text messages the landlord sent tying the eviction to the virus.
“The world health organisation has declared a global emergency and I now have made a decision to change locks on the house and put your belongings outside as I am concerned for my welfare and family and friends it was a hard decision to make between family and friends but as you have traveled we are very concerned and you are no longer welcome to come back to the house,” it said.
Helen told ABC she was angry and confused.
“I haven’t been to China [so] why do they think I have the virus?” she told Australian broadcaster.
Though the vast majority of coronavirus cases exist inside China, it has led to increased discrimination outside of China.
In the Netherlands, 50,000 people have signed an online petition, titled “We are not viruses,” to condemn discrimination in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
The impetus for the petition was a song played by a Dutch radio station, “Prevention is better than Chinese,” Dutch News reported. The station has since apologized for airing the song, which included the line: “Don’t eat Chinese, then you have nothing to fear, because prevention is better than the Chinese.”
Fifty-seven Chinese Dutch organizations issued a statement denouncing the song and the climate that gave rise to it.
“We have lived in peace and harmony with everyone in the Netherlands for more than 100 years and we have tolerated many jokes about the Chinese,” the statement said, according to Dutch News. “But this song has crossed the line.”
In Toronto, politicians have been touring the city’s Chinatown to combat misinformation linking Chinese food or people to the virus — which spreads through droplets and can only be contracted through close contact with an infected person.
“There’s still a lot of discrimination out there,” Christine Elliott, Canada’s health minister, told the National Post. “We want to make sure that people know it’s safe to go out. It’s safe to come to your favorite restaurants … it’s safe to go shopping.”
Chinatowns across North America have reported declines in customers in recent weeks
“What we must not do is allow ourselves in any way to stigmatize or to stop patronizing the businesses of or otherwise treat differently any group of people,” Toronto Mayor John Tory said this week. “I think, in particular, of our Chinese Canadian population … which is so positive a contributor to the well-being of Toronto and to Canada.”
By Miriam Berger
9:25 a.m.
In Russia, 2 women claim to have fled quarantine due to poor hospital conditions
Two Russian women who recently returned from China’s Hainan province claim to have escaped from quarantine in two separate Russian hospitals in recent days.
In an Instagram post Friday, a woman identified by the Moscow Times as Guzul Neder described seeking medical attention for her son’s cough after returning to Russia from Hainan. She wrote that she called Russian emergency services, which told her to visit a hospital, which then held her without providing her with coronavirus test results. When she started to feel ill after five days in quarantine, she wrote, her husband brought her a pregnancy test, and she tested positive. When doctors still refused to release her, she and her son fled through a window, she wrote.
“My son was hysterical,” she wrote on Instagram, according to an Associated Press translation. “There was no exit for us other than to leave the hospital without authorization, through the window.”
Neder told the Moscow Times that inside the hospital, “conditions were awful.”
“Doctors were very unprofessional and not wearing any protective gear,” she said.
Another woman, Alla Ilyina, told the Moscow Times that she was hospitalized after returning from China despite testing negative for coronavirus three times. She claimed she “short-circuited the magnetic lock” in her room to escape.
“I studied physics, which helped,” she told the newspaper.
Irina Sidorova, another woman who recently visited China, told the AP that isolation rooms were locked.
Only two cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Russia. But hundreds of people have been held in isolation there as authorities test for the virus. Russia’s Interfax news agency reported Monday that a Chinese diplomat was among those held in precautionary quarantine.
By Siobhán O’Grady
8:40 a.m.
A U.S. evacuee is posting Instagrams of his life under quarantine in California
Jeffrey Ho, 33, is on a strange “vacation,” as he’s dubbed it for his followers on Instagram: quarantine at Travis Air Force Base in California.
Ho is one of hundreds of evacuees the United States has flown out of Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, and placed in mandatory quarantine in the United States for 14 days. His wife and infant child, however, remained in China.
They were worried about her transporting their young daughter on such an arduous trip, he told Storyful.
Quarantine is by nature an isolating experience, but Ho has been sharing tidbits of the experience on Instagram. He’s posted about his exercise routine, the quality of the food served and his search for more soap — a particular concern because people at risk of exposure to the virus have been recommended to wash their hands constantly.
Despite some complaints, Ho has also expressed a sense of gratitude for his circumstances.
“Overall pretty boring but at least I’m in America and if I do get sick there is at least space in the hospital to treat me, not like Wuhan where their hospital[s] are all maxed out and have to turn away patients that need help,” he wrote on Instagram on Feb. 6.
On Monday, Ho shared a video of his room, offering a little tour of his humble abode.
“So my friends have asked me what my quarantine looks like,” he said. “Well, a normal room. Thank god I brought a computer because there’s Wi-Fi. And then there’s this normal TV, microwave, refrigerator, coffee maker, normal restroom. And of course we are free to step outside.”
By Miriam Berger
8:15 a.m.
World’s leading wireless industry event canceled after key companies pull out amid coronavirus fears
Mobile World Congress, the wireless industry’s top yearly event, was losing participants left and right because of fears about the coronavirus spreading. On Wednesday, its organizers canceled the event, which was to be held in Barcelona, altogether, Bloomberg News reported.
This year’s MWC, which brings together leading mobile technologies and innovators, was scheduled for four days starting Feb. 24. Organizers originally expected around 100,000 participants, but in recent days, big names such as Nokia Oyj, Ericsson AB, BT Group and Sony Corp. pulled out, Bloomberg reported. Companies were reportedly worried about exposing employees to coronavirus during travel to and from the event.
MWC’s cancellation is the first time in the event’s 33-year history. MWC also joins a growing list of global business gatherings canceled or curbed because of the coronavirus outbreak.
By Miriam Berger
7:45 a.m.
Israel asks Japan to release Israelis from cruise-ship quarantine
TEL AVIV — Israel’s Foreign Ministry asked Japan on Wednesday to release Israeli citizens aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which has been on lockdown off the coast of Japan, and said it will find another location for the passengers to complete their quarantine period.
Some 15 Israelis are confined to the ship and have been widely interviewed by Israeli media, describing their conditions confined to their cabins. They have said they are allowed out only once a day for fresh air and have their meals delivered to their rooms.
The Foreign Ministry confirmed Tuesday that one Israeli tourist aboard the Diamond Princess was found to have a high temperature and was being checked to see if she had contracted the coronavirus.
In a statement Wednesday, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Israeli authorities have been in daily contact with their Japanese counterparts regarding the situation. Katz also said the Israeli Embassy in Japan has been working to ensure that the needs of Israelis onboard are met, such as requests to receive kosher food in keeping with Jewish dietary laws.
In contrast to Israel’s appeal, the United States has rejected calls from U.S. citizens onboard to be evacuated and quarantined elsewhere, saying that the safest place for them is on the ship.
More than 170 of the 492 people tested for the virus onboard the cruise liner have tested positive for the virus. Roughly 3,700 passengers and crew members of various nationalities are on the ship.
On Sunday, Israel’s Health Ministry expanded the list of travel destinations it recommended avoiding to include Hong Kong, Japan, Macao, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. A warning about travel to China was issued earlier in the month, and Israelis returning from China are required to quarantine themselves for 14 days.
By Ruth Eglash and with Miriam Berger in Washington
7:15 a.m.
International flights to China have fallen by 67 percent
International flight routes to China have fallen by 67 percent since Jan. 30, when the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, according to an analysis by Nikkei, a leading financial newspaper based in Japan.
Nikkei found that flights with links to the United States have declined by 76 percent and connections through Japan have fallen by 55 percent. The United States imposed stringent travel restrictions on Jan. 31 barring non-U.S. citizens who had recently traveled in China.
The disease new coronavirus, named Wednesday by the World Health Organization as covid-19, could be on track to have an even bigger impact on the aviation industry than the SARS epidemic in 2003, Nikkei estimated. Cuts in flights have also affected the hospitality industry. Hilton Hotels and Resorts has shut 150 hotels in China due to fallout from the virus, chief executive Christopher Nassetta said during the latest earnings call, Nikkei reported.
By Miriam Berger
6:55 a.m.
Suspected British ‘superspreader’ is released from hospital
LONDON — The British business executive suspected of playing an outsize role in transmitting the coronavirus was released from a hospital and is no longer contagious, health authorities said Wednesday.
Steve Walsh, a project management lead for Servomex, a gas analytics company, is believed to have passed the virus to at least 11 people in three countries. He was attending a work conference from Jan. 18 to 22 in Singapore, which is where he is thought to have caught the virus. Unaware that he was infected, he visited a ski resort in the French Alps before returning to England on Jan. 28.
It was at the ski resort where he is thought to have unknowingly passed along the virus. Five of those infected at the resort are still in France, one is in Mallorca, and five others — including two British doctors — are back in Britain.
Keith Willett, strategic incident director for the National Health Service (NHS), said in a statement: “I’m pleased to say that — following two negative tests for coronavirus, twenty-four hours apart — Mr Walsh has been discharged from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, having made a full recovery following his treatment.”
“Mr Walsh’s symptoms were mild and he is no longer contagious, and poses no risk to the public,” he said. Walsh is “keen to return to his normal life and spend time with his family out of the media spotlight,” Willett added.
“I’m happy to be home and feeling well,” Walsh said in a statement. “I want to give a big thank you to the NHS who have been great throughout and my thoughts are with everyone around the world who continues to be affected by the virus.”
By Karla Adam
6:30 a.m.
Chinese Grand Prix postponed due to coronavirus outbreak
Formula One announced Wednesday that April’s 2020 Chinese Grand Prix would be postponed due to the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Organizers confirmed they are seeking “alternative dates” for the Shanghai event to take place in the future.
“F1 and the FIA [International Automobile Federation] have accepted a request from the promoter to postpone the event,” Formula One announced in a tweet, adding that officials would be monitoring the situation closely.
In a statement, Formula One offered its well wishes to the people of China amid the crisis and said: “The Chinese Grand Prix has always been a very important part of the F1 calendar and the fans are always incredible. We all look forward to racing in China as soon as possible.”
Other sporting events have also been canceled due to the outbreak, including two women’s golf tournaments. The Ladies Professional Golf Association and its partners announced earlier this month that the 2020 Honda LPGA Thailand and the 2020 HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore have been canceled, citing “continued health concerns and recent advisories” surrounding the disease.
This year’s World Athletics Indoor Championships, expected to take place from March 13 to 15, were also postponed, with the organization saying it would not seek to reschedule the event until 2021.
“The advice from our medical team, who are in contact with the World Health Organization, is that the spread of the Coronavirus both within China and outside the country is still at a concerning level and no one should be going ahead with any major gathering that can be postponed,” World Athletics said in a statement last month.
By Jennifer Hassan
5:45 a.m.
Indonesia’s virus-free status may be threatened by case confirmed in recent Chinese visitor
A Chinese man who recently visited the Indonesian resort island of Bali has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Chinese authorities, raising the possibility that there might be undetected cases of the virus in the huge archipelago.
Alone among the major countries of Southeast Asia, Indonesia has not reported a single case of the coronavirus, even though it receives millions of Chinese tourists each year and all of its neighbors have cases.
The Jakarta Post reported that authorities in China’s Anhui Province confirmed that a man who had visited Bali in late January has the virus. He flew directly from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, to Bali on Jan. 22 and stayed on the island a week before flying on to Shanghai.
In a statement on social media site Weibo, authorities in Anhui warned people on both those flights that they may have been exposed.
The director general of the Indonesian Health Ministry’s disease control department, Anung Sugihantono, told the Jakarta Post that it was still trying to confirm the report, even as he dismissed it as a “rumor.”
Indonesia’s lack of cases has surprised observers. According to a Harvard University study, mathematically at least, it should have cases due to the large number of travelers regularly visiting from Wuhan, suggesting the possibility that cases are going undetected. That study has also been dismissed by the Indonesian government.
Dozens of Indonesians, however, have been quarantined, including 68 who had just returned from China as well as 30 Chinese workers.
By Paul Schemm
5:15 a.m.
China’s Xi urges efforts to keep economy on track
BEIJING — Chinese leader Xi Jinping urged the top cadres in the ruling Communist Party not to allow any letup in the “war” against the coronavirus, stressing the need to still meet this year’s economic goals.
“The results are hard-won progress made by all sides,” Xi told the six other members of the Politburo’s Standing Committee at a meeting Wednesday, referring to the “positive changes” of recent days.
Chinese officials have been stressing that the number of infections outside the epicenter of Hubei province has continued to steadily decline, even as the overall infection rate and death toll continues to climb.
Xi said that epidemic prevention and control efforts have entered “a critical stage that requires stringent efforts,” according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Chinese officials from Xi down have voiced clear concern about the impact that the epidemic will have on the country’s economy, which had already entered a period of prolonged structural decline. The authorities had been making concerted efforts — including massaging the numbers, according to many economists — to keep the annual growth rate on target at 6 percent.
The party “should strive to minimize the impact from the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, to maintain the steadiness of the economy and the harmony and stability of society, and make efforts to accomplish all goals and tasks set by the Party Central,” Xinhua said in its summary of the meeting.
By Anna Fifield
4:50 a.m.
Chinese publisher apologizes for labeling civet cats as ‘edible’ in children’s book
BEIJING — Numerous Chinese children’s books were pulled nationwide, following outrage over their labeling of civet cats — an animal widely associated with the SARS outbreak — as “edible” game meat, Chinese media reported on Wednesday.
“Civet cats are full of treasures in and out, and their meat is edible and long known as a rare ‘delicacy from the mountains,’ [and] their fur can be made into gloves, and their tail and guard hair can be made into brushes,” says a book entitled “Mini Encyclopedia of Animals,” which was published by Wuhan University Press.
On the Chinese microblogging website Weibo, users posted images of the controversial page this week, accusing the publisher of “irresponsible” and “vulgar” practices.
The online fury pressured the company into issuing a statement on social media and pulling the book off shelves.
By Lyric Li
4:30 a.m.
Three more South Korean coronavirus patients discharged from hospital
SEOUL — South Korea on Wednesday discharged three more patients, bringing the total number to 7, in a promising sign for the overall recovery rate. In total, 28 people have tested positive for the virus in the country.
A quarter of South Korea’s coronavirus patients have now fully recovered from the disease and been released from quarantine, Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said.
One of the three patients discharged on Wednesday was believed to have infected five other people. South Korean media outlets have referred to the patient as a “super-spreader.”
Lee Wang-jun, chairman of Myongji hospital where the patient was treated, said he suffered from malicious media reports against him and had to receive psychiatric treatment. Lee told reporters on Wednesday that coronavirus patients have to “endure fear while isolated alone in a small space.”
Lee said the patient recovered after anti-HIV drug Kaletra was used on him. Kaletra has also been deployed in Chinese hospitals as a possible therapy against the new coronavirus.
By Min Joo Kim
4:15 a.m.
Yunnan introduces bar codes to track residents’ movements in public
BEIJING — The southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan on Wednesday launched a WeChat in-app program called Kang Yiqing (Fighting the Epidemic) that requires residents to register their personal information by scanning a QR code whenever they enter a public venue.
In a notice issued Tuesday, the provincial epidemic control command center said that “public venues” would include residential areas, farmers markets, shopping malls, supermarkets, restaurants, hospitals, pharmacies, airport terminals, subway stations, bus terminals and other means of public transportation.
“For those who refuse to cooperate, public venue management has the right to ban them from entering or exiting. Those who try to force [their way] into public venues without registration, disturb public order or cause serious consequences will be held accountable according to law,” the notice said.
By Lyric Li
3:50 a.m.
Westerdam cruise ship is headed toward Cambodia
A cruise ship that has been barred from numerous countries in recent days amid coronavirus concerns “is now sailing for Sihanoukville, Cambodia, where the current cruise will end,” the Holland America cruise line said Wednesday.
The MS Westerdam cruise ship is expected to arrive in Cambodia early Thursday local time. “Guests will be able to go ashore. All approvals have been received and we are extremely grateful to the Cambodian authorities for their support,” the cruise line wrote in a statement.
There are no suspected or confirmed coronavirus cases onboard the ship, the cruise line said.
Its 1,455 travelers will disembark “over the next few days and transfer via charter flights to Phnom Penh for forward travel home.” There are also 802 crew members onboard the ship, Holland America added.
The ship left Hong Kong on Feb. 1, but the coronavirus outbreak derailed multiple subsequent attempts to anchor at ports in the region.
After Guam, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan had all turned the cruise ship away, Thailand also barred travelers onboard the MS Westerdam from disembarking near Bangkok this week.
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