Coronavirus infections in China exceed 75,000; cases surge in South Korea
Live updates: Coronavirus outbreak in China prisons raises alarm; South Korea feared as new hot spot
(about 3 hours later)
Authorities worldwide warned about the spread of the coronavirus beyond China on Thursday as Japan reported the first two deaths from the Diamond Princess cruise liner, South Korea reported its first fatality, and new cases in Iran sparked fears about many new cases appearing in the Middle East.
Chinese authorities on Friday reported hundreds of new coronavirus infections inside prisons around the country, a dire revelation that undercut the government’s effort to show progress in containing the deadly epidemic.
A Japanese man and woman, both said to be in their 80s, were among more than 600 passengers who contracted the disease while on board the Diamond Princess. They left the ship last week and were hospitalized, but they died Thursday, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported. A day earlier, an infectious disease specialist slammed officials for failing to observe proper quarantine practices on the vessel.
A handful of prisons reported nearly 500 new cases, a significant portion of more than 1,100 new cases reported in mainland China on Friday — and a marked increase after several days of declines.
In South Korea, cases soared by nearly two-thirds, mostly in the southern part of the peninsula, national authorities said. The mayor of Daegu, the city where 10 South Koreans contracted the disease from a church service, asked residents to stay indoors.
Tests at a prison in eastern Shandong province showed 207 out of 2,077 inmates and staff were infected, and the provincial justice department’s Communist Party secretary was dismissed as a result, the province announced. Another jail in Zhejiang province found 34 cases. Hubei province at the center of the outbreak said Friday it found 220 new cases inside penitentiaries.
Many international experts say the disease will continue to spread globally even as the Chinese government seeks to present the image that it is coming to grips with the epidemic. New cases inside China dropped again Wednesday, officials reported Thursday, after national authorities changed for the second time in a week the criteria for how cases are diagnosed and counted. Here’s what we know:
The prison outbreaks underscored the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s high transmissibility in confined spaces after the disease ravaged the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan. In South Korea, new cases skyrocketed by half, bringing the national total to 156, as worries mounted that the country could be a new hot spot.
● China tallied a total of 889 new infections and 118 new deaths through the end of Thursday. There is a cumulative total of 75,465 infections and 2,236 deaths, most in central Hubei province. Wild swings in numbers in recent days have raised suspicions over counting methods.
China’s government has sought to encourage companies to resume work after an extended Lunar New Year closure aimed at containing the virus, but some factories have been forced to shut down soon after reopening as infections surface.
● South Korea reported its first coronavirus death, and the mayor of the South Korean city of Daegu urged its 2.5 million people Thursday to stay indoors, as cases of the new virus soared. Cases in the country rose to 156 by Friday morning, making it the country with the highest number of virus cases outside China.
Here is what we know:
● In Ukraine, police clashed with protesters angered by plans to allow more than 70 people evacuated from China’s Hubei province to enter the country.
● The discovery of hundreds of new coronavirus cases in Chinese prisons underlined fears about the virus’s ability to spread rapidly in confined areas.
● Iran reported three new cases Thursday, a day after two people died of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, in the holy city of Qom. Iraq’s Health Ministry called for travel restrictions on Iran.
● Cases in South Korea doubled, with investigators focusing on a church and hospital in the southern city of Daegu.
● Meanwhile, researchers still do not know for sure how contagious the virus is, a crucial detail to predict how big the epidemic could get. The virus has spread to more than two dozen countries outside China.
● Hundreds of passengers were disembarking from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, but the massive case load left troubling questions about the rigor of quarantine and testing procedures on board.
In its latest nationwide tally, China’s National Health Commission on Friday morning reported 889 new coronavirus infections and 118 new deaths from the virus through the end of Thursday.
● Officials in Wuhan have been disinfecting the city’s drainage pipes amid concerns that the virus could spread through the sewer system.
There are now a cumulative total of 75,465 infections and 2,236 deaths, mostly in the central Hubei province.
North Korea has closed all of its schools as of Thursday in response to fears about the spreading coronavirus, the Daily NK reported.
The latest numbers show a significant increase in new infections from Wednesday, when the NHC reported 394 new cases. National authorities recently changed the criteria for classifying cases, leading to wild swings in numbers in recent days.
The closure affects all of the country’s educational institutions, from childcare centers though secondary schools and most colleges, except for universities in Pyongyang, according to the Seoul-based news website.
SEOUL — South Korea reported on Friday that 52 more people contracted the coronavirus, making it the country with the highest number of virus cases outside China.
Pyongyang university students who live in the capital have been told to stay at home, while those who come from other parts of the country have been ordered not to leave their dormitories, the Daily NK reported.
South Korea’s national tally of virus infection jumped by half to 156 from 104 the previous day, according to Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
Although the coronavirus originated in neighboring China, which has since documented tens of thousands of cases, North Korea has insisted it is free of the virus. On Wednesday, officials with the World Health Organization said there are “no indications” of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
About two-thirds of the country’s cases have been reported in the southern city of Daegu and surrounding North Gyeongsang Province.
The school closure has nonetheless sparked some fears that an outbreak is already underway in North Korea, according to the Daily NK, even as all foreign tourists have been blocked from entering the country.
Out of the 52 latest cases, 33 are linked to an existing cluster of infections centered on a church in Daegu, the KCDC said.
BEIJING — Wuhan has dumped nearly 2,000 tons of disinfectant in the city’s drainage networks in a bid to prevent the coronavirus from spreading through the sewer system, which has been a growing concern with troubling historical precedent.
At a hospital in neighboring Cheongdo County, North Gyeongsang, 16 infection cases were reported in total, including the country’s first death from the virus.
Since Jan. 29, Wuhan – the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak – has mobilized over 6,500 people to pour 1,936 tons of disinfectant down the drains, targeting pipelines, septic tanks and sewage wells in hospitals, centralized quarantine facilities and other “high risk” areas, the city’s water authority said on Thursday.
South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said early Friday that the country is facing a coronavirus “emergency.” Chung designated Daegu city and Cheongdo County as “special care zones” to mobilize all available resources, including military medics, and set up quarantine facilities.
The move came after research showed the virus can survive in human feces and that the pathogen could be transmitted along the fecal-oral route, despite repeated assurances from the government in the early days that it is only transmitted through direct contact with virus-laden droplets from an infected person.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) warned Thursday that it expects the drop in flights due to the coronavirus outbreak to cause the first global decline in airline passengers in 11 years.
In 2003, over 300 residents in Hong Kong’s Amoy Gardens compound were infected with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus due to the defective design of its sewer system.
Overall, the IATA predicted a 4.7 percent reduction in global traffic, which would cancel out its previous growth estimates for 2020. Such a steep decline would be the first overall loss for the airline industry since the 2008-09 financial crisis.
Wuhan’s 26 water treatment plants and sewage pumping stations have taken similar measures in the past three weeks, having poured sodium hypochlorite into wastewater for extra disinfection and oxidation around the clock.
It’s “challenging times for the global air transport industry,” the IATA’s Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said in a statement.
Renowned respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan, who was a leading medical adviser in China’s management of the coronavirus outbreak, on Tuesday had warned the public to keep their drainage pipes unblocked as the virus might spread through drainage systems.
The IATA’s forecast predicts a potentially 13 percent decline in demand for flights in the Asia-Pacific region in 2020 based on the already thousands of flights canceled as the epidemic has spread. This could translate into a nearly $28 billion loss in revenue for airline companies in the region, including a nearly $13 billion decline just in China’s domestic market.
“If a waste pipe is blocked, the contaminated air, or the aerosol carrying the novel coronavirus, may lead to infection,” Zhong said at a news conference in Guangzhou.
“The estimated impact of the COVID-19 outbreak also assumes that the center of the public health emergency remains in China,” IATA said in a statement. “If it spreads more widely to Asia-Pacific markets then impacts on airlines from other regions would be larger.”
“I think the virus was spread and inhaled through aerosol that contained dried and contaminated feces, not taken in through the digestion tract,” Zhong added.
Eleven out of 13 people being held at the University of Nebraska Medical Center tested positive for the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Thursday. All 13 people were former passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship who were evacuated to the United States on Monday.
Two research teams, one led by Dr. Zhong, announced last week that they had isolated novel coronavirus strains from feces of infected patients.
In a statement, Nebraska Medicine said 10 of the patients were being held in its national quarantine unit, while three were in the Nebraska biocontainment unit.
Earlier this month, dozens of homes in Hong Kong’s Tsing Yi area were evacuated after two tenants from different floors of one building were infected. Authorities have yet to conclude whether the infections were caused by a modified drainage pipe, as suspected.
“Most of them aren’t showing symptoms of the disease; however, several others are exhibiting minor symptoms,” the statement read.
BEIJING — China is grieving the death of another young doctor in Wuhan, a 29-year old pulmonologist at Jiangxia District No. 1 People’s Hospital named Peng Yinhua.
TORONTO — A government-chartered plane evacuating Canadian citizens and permanent residents aboard the Diamond Princess cruise liner has left Tokyo, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Thursday.
Peng was scheduled to hold his wedding on Feb. 1 but postponed it to continue treating patients who began flooding into Wuhan’s hospitals in January as the coronavirus outbreak escalated. He had wedding invitation cards stored in his office desk, unsent, as he rushed back to work, according to Wuhan’s Changjiang Daily newspaper.
There were 256 Canadians on the ship, according to Global Affairs Canada, including 47 who tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Passengers were screened before boarding the airplane, and only those not exhibiting symptoms of the deadly virus were allowed to fly home.
Peng worked practically nonstop for weeks, telling his colleagues that he did not need rest because he was young, before falling ill and admitting himself into his hospital Jan. 25.
The country’s foreign ministry said that if space allowed, it would allow non-Canadian immediate family members of Canadian citizens to also board the flight in order to keep families together.
Despite several weeks of treatment at Wuhan’s advanced Jinyintuan hospital and a successful blood transfusion, he died Thursday, becoming the latest high-profile case of a young, seemingly healthy adult succumbing to Covid-19.
It is unclear how many passengers were allowed to board.
China’s battle against the epidemic has been particularly costly for medical professions. More than 1,700 health workers have ben infected so far, with at least seven deaths, including Peng.
The plane will take the evacuees to a military base in Trenton, Ontario, where nearly 300 Canadians who were evacuated from the virus-stricken Chinese city of Wuhan are being quarantined. After being screened there, the cruise ship passengers will be taken to the Nav Canada training institute in Cornwall, Ontario, where they will also be quarantined for 14 days.
On Tuesday, Wuhan doctors and nurses stood at attention outside Wuhan’s Wuchang hospital to mourn the passing of hospital director Liu Zhiming’s hearse. Liu became infected on the job and died age 51, the Wuhan Health Commission said.
Patty Hajdu, Canada’s health minister, said on Thursday that none of the evacuees quarantined in Trenton have tested positive for the virus. The first group of evacuees will finish its quarantine on Friday.
YOKOHAMA, Japan — As hundreds of passengers disembark from the Diamond Princess on Friday, the Japanese government insists that the quarantine was effective in reducing transmission of the virus on the ship.
Ottawa has faced criticism for being too slow to evacuate its citizens from the luxury cruise ship, which has been quarantined at a Yokohama dock since Feb. 5.
It also says its choices were limited at the start, because it lacked facilities on land to isolate all 3,711 people on board.
Two passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship who arrived home to Australia on Thursday morning in a repatriation flight have tested positive for coronavirus, according to the Austrailian Broadcasting Corp.
Still, with at least 634 people on board confirmed to have contracted the virus, many questions remain unanswered. Here are a few of them.
The news comes after a chartered flight carrying 164 people from the ship, including Australian citizens and permanent residents from Japan, arrived at a quarantine facility in Darwin.
After the first case was diagnosed, why did it take more than three days before the passengers were placed in quarantine?
In a statement, the Austrailian government’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, said six people who were identified as having minor respiratory symptoms were separated at the airport. Two of them later tested positive for coronavirus.
A former passenger from Hong Kong was diagnosed with the virus on Feb 1. Princess Cruises said it learned about this on social media the following day and reached out to Hong Kong authorities. On Feb. 3, after receiving formal notification from Hong Kong, the captain told passengers the ship would wait in Yokohama for Japanese health ministry officials to assess the situation.
The passengers on the repatriation flight had been quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship and were required to pass a health check before boarding the Boeing 747 at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Murphy said the two infected passengers “remain well and are being housed in separate isolation.”
But passengers continued to mingle, including at a buffet dinner on Feb. 4. It was only later that the captain told passengers to remain in their cabins. Those three days provided a crucial window for the virus to spread.
“Given there was continued evidence of spread of infection on board the Diamond Princess in recent days, the development of some positive cases after return to Australia is not unexpected, despite all of the health screening before departure,” Murphy wrote.
Was it ethical to leave more than 1,000 crew members on board to run the ship, with no effective quarantine or isolation, and no choice in the matter?
Kuwait Airlines announced Thursday that it has indefinitely suspended all flights to Iran after three new cases of coronavirus were reported in the country Thursday.
Indian crew members appealed to their government to get them off the ship, saying they feared for their lives. But their calls went unanswered. In the end at least 74 crew members contracted the virus, with many falling sick after the quarantine was imposed.
In a statement, the airline said it had received instructions from the Kuwaiti Health Ministry and civil aviation authority.
Was it right to confine more than 200 people over the age of 80 on board?
On Wednesday, two Iranians infected with the virus died in the city of Qom, a holy city and pilgrimage site for Shiite Muslims. Iraq’s Health Ministry prompted the government to stop issuing tourist visas to Iranian nationals, citing the new coronavirus cases across the border.
Eight days into the quarantine, Japan’s government changed course and began to bring the oldest passengers off the ship, but many people believe it should have acted sooner.
The U.S. Department of State urged U.S. citizens Thursday to reconsider travel via cruise ship to or within the East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.
Why did it take a week to bring one 84-year-old woman off the ship after she came down with fever, and did this delay contribute to her death?
The department cited countries that have implemented strict screening procedures amid the spread of the novel coronavirus, adding that those traveling by ship “may be impacted by travel restrictions affecting their itineraries or ability to disembark, or may be subject to quarantine procedures implemented by the local authorities.”
Asked about this case, Japan’s government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said only that doctors gave “the highest priority” to people with a fever or over 80 years old.
“While the U.S. government has successfully evacuated hundreds of our citizens in the previous weeks, repatriation flights should not be relied upon as an option for U.S. citizens under the potential risk of quarantine by local authorities,” the department wrote. “Passengers who plan to travel by cruise ship should contact their cruise line companies directly for further information on the current rules and restrictions, and continue to monitor the Travel.state.gov website for updated information.”
Did the ship act as a breeding ground for the virus?
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to avert the spread of coronavirus in the United States by purchasing $40,000 worth of hand sanitizer and face masks, according to CNBC.
The U.S. government seems to think so, mandating an additional two weeks’ quarantine for its evacuated citizens. The Japanese government says the quarantine was effective “in reducing the transmission” of the virus, with most of the infections after Feb. 5 occurring among crew members and within cabins.
An acquisition document acquired by the news station showed that the intelligence agency ordered its “pandemic preparedness” hand sanitizer and masks from two contractors in case coronavirus spreads across the United States.
Were the conditions safe for people brought in to manage the quarantine?
The face masks from manufacturing conglomerate 3M and hand sanitizer from medical device company PDI Healthcare will be delivered to the FBI on Friday, according to CNBC. The items were ordered directly from the companies due to “the urgency” of the request, according to CNBC’s review of the document.
Infectious disease expert Kentaro Iwata called the conditions on board chaotic and scary, with no effective infection control. The government has pushed back against the criticisms, yet six workers – four government officials, one medic and one ambulance driver – all contracted the virus.
The FBI awarded the no-bid contract to PDI because its products destroy “54 different microorganisms within [one] minute so this disinfectant has both speed and power,” according to CNBC’s review of the order.
SEOUL — South Korea designated a southern city and surrounding area a “special care zone” after a surge in coronavirus cases centered on a church there.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 15 cases of coronavirus in the United States last Thursday. The Trump administration declared the virus a public health emergency late January.
Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said early Friday that South Korea faces a coronavirus “emergency” and vowed to mobilize “utmost resources” to Daegu city and surrounding North Gyeongsang province, where more than two-thirds of the country’s 156 virus cases have occurred.
In the wee hours of a rainy Monday, more than a dozen buses sat on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Inside, 328 weary Americans wearing surgical masks and gloves waited anxiously to fly home after weeks in quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess, the luxury liner where the coronavirus had exploded into a ship-wide epidemic.
After the national tally of infection jumped by half from previous day, South Korea on Friday now has the unwanted distinction of having the highest toll besides China and Japan.
But as the buses idled, U.S. officials wrestled with troubling news. New test results showed that 14 passengers were infected with the virus. The State Department had promised that no one with the infection would be allowed to board the planes.
President Moon Jae-in on Friday described South Korea’s coronavirus situation as “grave” and ordered inspections of the Daegu church and a nearby hospital identified as two clusters of infection. More than 80 coronavirus patients are linked to the local branch of Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a fringe religious sect. The hospital in nearby Cheongdo County reported 16 infection cases, including the country’s first death from the virus.
A decision had to be made. Let them all fly? Or leave them behind in Japanese hospitals?
Three members of South Korea’s military also tested positive for the virus since Thursday. Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said all soldiers will be banned from leaving their barracks except for special situations.
In Washington, where it was still Sunday afternoon, a fierce debate broke out: The State Department and a top Trump administration health official wanted to forge ahead. The infected passengers had no symptoms and could be segregated on the plane in a plastic-lined enclosure. But officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disagreed, contending they could still spread the virus. The CDC believed the 14 should not be flown back with uninfected passengers.
After several cases were reported in capital, Seoul, since Thursday, mayor Park Won-soon said large demonstrations often held in the city on weekends will be banned.
“It was like the worst nightmare,” said a senior U.S. official involved in the decision, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. “Quite frankly, the alternative could have been pulling grandma out in the pouring rain, and that would have been bad, too.”
Meanwhile, Daegu Mayor Kwon Young-jin said Friday the city’s 2.5 million residents should “refrain from movement.” Daegu officials ordered schools and nurseries to postpone classes by a week to prevent the virus from spreading.
The State Department won the argument. But unhappy CDC officials demanded to be left out of the news release that explained that infected people were being flown back to the United States — a move that would nearly double the number of known coronavirus cases in this country.
“Concerns of local transmission are growing with the jump in confirmed cases in Daegu and North Gyeongsang,” Moon said, while urging the public to “trust the government’s efforts.”
The tarmac decision was a pivotal moment for U.S. officials improvising their response to a crisis with few precedents and extraordinarily high stakes.
TORONTO — A woman who recently returned to Canada after a trip to Iran has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, public health officials said Thursday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to nine.
Read more here.
The woman, who is in her 30s, lives in British Columbia and has a “relatively mild” form of the virus, said Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer. She and some of her close contacts are in self-isolation at home.
Iranian health officials urged the holy city of Qom to suspend religious gatherings Thursday after Iran reported a sudden spike to five coronavirus cases, the semiofficial news agency ISNA reported.
The case, which Henry described as “unusual,” is prompting new questions about how the coronavirus may be spreading.
Two people on Thursday tested positive for the virus in Qom, south of the capital Tehran, and another in Arak, a city about 100 miles southwest of Qom, Iran’s health ministry spokesman reported. Two other Iranians died of the coronavirus in Qom on Wednesday, just hours after authorities first reported the infections.
“This could be an indicator that there’s more widespread transmission,” Henry said. “This is what we call an indicator, or a sentinel event.”
Kianush Jahanpur, the health ministry spokesman, told ISNA that the infected patient in Arak was a doctor from Qom.
Iran has reported five cases of the novel coronavirus and two deaths.
Qom is a holy seminary and pilgrimage site for Shiite Muslims, who are the majority in Iran. Worshipers from all over gather in the revered city to pray and study.
Henry said that public health officials are investigating the details of the woman’s travel and when exactly she began to experience symptoms, to determine whether the other passengers on her flight need to be notified.
Jahanpur told ISNA that the health ministry recommended restricting traffic to Qom’s major shrines, mosques and other pilgrimage places, as well as temporarily canceling seminars, conferences, camps and touristic trips in the city.
There have been six cases of the novel coronavirus in British Columbia and three cases in Ontario.
Iranian authorities reported that they still don’t know how the patients contracted the virus. But in other places, such as Hong Kong and South Korea, religious sites such as churches have been cited as clusters for infections.
Last week, the Catholic Church in Hong Kong announced it was suspending Mass as a precaution to prevent the virus’ spread.
Steve Conlee always had a habit of collecting reserves of food, water and other essentials at his home in case of the unknown. Now his Salt Lake City-based preparedness company, Emergency Essentials, is riding a rise in people across the United States looking to buy stashes of items such as water filters, face masks and stores of food amid fears over how far the coronavirus outbreak could go.
“The coronavirus has definitely sparked a huge demand across the board for companies like ours,” Conlee said. “We suspect this will be a longer-term demand spike, as opposed to something like hurricanes,” when demand rises for just a few weeks.
The preparedness industry, which targets a contingent often called “preppers,” markets the goods and advice needed to survive anything from a tornado to a quarantine to a full-blown apocalypse.
There are different subsets within the community, said Conlee. He’s part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially called Mormons, among whom a culture of emergency preparedness is common. But he said 90 percent of his customers now come from across the United States and range from anyone fearful of natural disasters to more apocalyptic doomsayers to Silicon Valley tech circles.
At the end of January, Conlee started seeing a rise in searches around coronavirus and an uptick in the scale and scope of purchases. Within days, the company’s supply of N95 masks ran out.
Jon Stoke, deputy editor of the Prepared, a website dedicated to the preparedness industry, said he’s also seen a surge in traffic to his site since late January. In early February, he put up a page specifically dedicated to tips for preparing for and surviving an outbreak.
There are only 15 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States, and the vast majority of infections remain centered in certain parts of China. The World Health Organization has warned that shortages of protective gear like face masks is due to people stocking up, and has put health-care workers and those at the center of the outbreak at greater risk.
Despite the fact that the outbreak remains many miles and time zones away, Stoke, who lives in Texas, said he didn’t think those stocking up on emergency essentials were driven by panic.
“I wouldn’t say there’s panic yet,” he said. “But the kind of paradox we deal with in preparedness is that it’s better to be early and wrong.”
A Washington state hospital will treat four patients who have tested positive for coronavirus, according to a joint statement Wednesday from hospital and public health officials.
Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Wash., will care for the patients at the request of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the news release.
The health center is one of only 10 hospitals in the country with airborne infection isolation rooms. At a Thursday afternoon news conference, Christa Arguinchona, manager of special pathogens with Providence Health and Human Services, said the DHHS on Wednesday night had clarified that the health center would receive four patients instead of five.
The exact process for transferring patients is still being determined, though partner agencies have practiced for this kind of scenario, according to Bob Lutz, a Spokane County health officer with the Spokane Regional Health District.
“We are coordinating with local partners to safely transport these patients to Sacred Heart,” Lutz said in the statement. “This is all being done following our jointly developed infectious disease protocols that we train and prepare for. The risk to the public from this novel coronavirus remains low.”
Lutz reiterated that point while addressing reporters Thursday, adding that the risk to the general community is “zero.”
Health officials at the news conference declined to provide specific details about the incoming patients.
“There is no risk to the general public,” Lutz stated. “I reiterate that as much as I can.”
The Washington State Department of Health listed 779 people under health supervision. That number includes people who are at risk of having been exposed to the virus, close contacts of confirmed cases, and people who have returned from China in the past two weeks.
KREM, a Spokane news channel, reported an increase of 87 people since the beginning of the week.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday that China’s reduction in new reported coronavirus infections was “encouraging,” but warned against complacency.
“This is the time to attack the virus while it is manageable,” the WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at a daily news briefing in Geneva. “You will get sick of me saying that the window of opportunity remains open for us to contain this covid-19 outbreak.”
In his remarks, Tedros has sought to both praise China’s response to the outbreak and push the international community to react with urgent measures of its own, branding the virus “public enemy No. 1.”
He warned Thursday that while covid-19 cases have remained limited outside of China, countries still needed to act, as “that may not stay the same for very long.”
A WHO-led mission of international experts, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is in China reviewing available research and data on the virus and China’s responses to it. On Thursday, Tedros provided further details on the team’s makeup, listing Singapore, Nigeria, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia as some of the other participants.
Last week, Tedros declined to provide details on who would be part of the mission after Larry Kudlow, the director of the U.S. National Economic Council, said China was preventing U.S. experts from entering, which WHO and China denied.
Tedros also announced Thursday that WHO would begin coordinating meetings weekly with diplomatic missions in Geneva about coronavirus. In addition, he said he expected preliminary results in three weeks from WHO’s initial clinical trials of two anti-viral drugs that scientists hope could combat covid-19.
The Chinese port city of Wenzhou is set to somewhat pare back coronavirus-related lockdown measures to aid in economic recovery, according to a social media post from the city’s government Thursday, Reuters reported.
The government will reopen highway entrances and exits and cancel some freeway checkpoints.
The industrial city of more than 9 million residents has been under lockdown since late January due to the spread of the coronavirus, Reuters reported.
The city, in Zhejiang province, is the metropolis most affected by the virus outside of Hubei province, the outbreak’s epicenter, Singapore’s The Straits Times reported.
Wenzhou government officials have stringently restricted the movement of residents and on Feb. 2 closed many roads, allowing one person per household to emerge every other day to purchase necessities, Reuters reported.
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s health ministry urged the government here Thursday to stop issuing tourist visas to Iranian nationals, after five cases of coronavirus were confirmed across the border in the seminary city of Qom. Millions of Iranians enter Iraq every year to visit its Shiite holy sites, especially the cities of Najaf and Karbala in the south, and Samarra with its golden-domed shrine.
Iraq’s health ministry said Thursday that visitors from Iran should be barred from entering the country until further notice, citing an inability to stop the virus spreading if it crossed the border.
“It’s going to be very hard to contain this disease if it enters Iraq, God forbid,” said Jaffar Allawi, the health minister, in a letter to the country’s prime minister.
Iraq’s government has formed a crisis cell to monitor the spread of coronavirus to Iran. In his letter, Allawi said that all travelers should be banned from entering Iraq via an Iranian border crossing until further notice. Diplomatic missions should be exempted, he said, although they must be screened for the virus. Iraqis returning from Iran should also be quarantined, according to the new measures. It was unclear how that would be implemented.
Iraqi Airways said Thursday that it was suspending its flights to Iran. The country’s interior minister, Yassin al-Yasiri, also visited Baghdad airport to inspect screening procedures. A photograph circulated by his office showed the politician pointing at what appeared to be a temperature scanner.
Global health officials have not designated the coronavirus epidemic a pandemic, which scientists define as an outbreak affecting a wide geographic region or population. While cases have been detected around the world, experts have not seen widespread local transmission outside China.
But if the epidemic were to develop into a pandemic, it could cost the global economy more than $1 trillion, according to Oxford Economics, a U.K.-based economic forecaster.
“Our scenarios see world GDP hit as a result of declines in discretionary consumption and travel and tourism, with some knock-on financial market effects and weaker investment,” the consultancy told the Guardian.
According to Oxford Economics’s models, the coronavirus outbreak has already had a “chilling effect” on the global economy. In recent weeks, leading companies, from Apple to Jaguar, have warned of looming shortages and declines in revenue because of disruptions in supply flows and demand from China. Oil prices and stock markets have fluctuated up and down amid differing projections over how long the virus will last and how far into the future it could continue to impede business.
Oxford Economics’s projection reports a larger loss of output than do some other forecasters.
The United States Army Garrison Daegu in South Korea restricted access to its base as of Thursday, according to a statement.
People who have Department of Defense identification cardholders registered with the Defense Biometric Identification System, contract workers and their crews and others who have reason to be on the installation will be the only ones allowed in.
Visitors, such as relatives or Department of Defense identification cardholders who don’t have Defense Biometric Identification System access for bases throughout Korea, will not be allowed.
“Travel to and from Daegu is restricted for U.S. service members and highly discouraged for civilians, retirees and family members,” the base announced. Personnel who are either on leave, on temporary duty assignments and those returning to the Daegu base continue to be permitted on base.
Upcoming temporary duty assignments and preapproved leaves from the base will not be affected.
“The 19th [Expeditionary Sustainment] Commanding General will grant any other exceptions to this policy on a case-by-case basis, and this policy will be reassessed daily,” the announcement stated.
LONDON — Britons who have been under coronavirus lockdown on the Diamond Princess cruise ship since Feb. 3 will be allowed to fly home Friday providing they have no symptoms of the deadly virus, British officials said Thursday.
“I can confirm the evacuation flight out of Tokyo on Friday for British nationals from the Diamond Princess cruise ship,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, adding that the British government would “continue to support British nationals who wish to stay in Japan.”
The British government and its Foreign Office have come under criticism for their handling of the incident, with many arguing that not enough has been done to return British passengers home amid the outbreak. More than 70 British nationals are thought to have been on board the ship when it was quarantined.
Two British passengers, David and Sally Abe, have gained a following on social media through updates from the ship. Their son, Stephen Abel, told the BBC that his parents were “not getting any communication” from Britain and were feeling “unloved.”
Earlier this week David Abe said on Facebook that he and his wife had both contracted the virus and were beginning treatment in a hospital in Japan.
Online reports of possible treatments for the novel coronavirus, from drugs to herbal medicines, have spread nearly as fast as the virus. The unfortunate truth is there are not yet any effective treatments. There are many scientific laboratories and companies racing to test and develop drugs and vaccines, but no medicine is yet approved for Covid-19, or any other coronavirus.
Food and Drug Administration commissioner Stephen Hahn tweeted a request for people who see products making fraudulent claims to be reported.
“There are no FDA- approved drugs to treat #COVID19 or other coronaviruses,” Hahn tweeted. “Products claiming otherwise should be reported to FDA.”
Physicians and scientists remain hopeful that drugs that are already on pharmacy shelves could be rapidly repurposed to fight the virus. Clinical trials in China are testing a variety of possible drugs, including one originally developed for Ebola. But anyone claiming to have a cure or treatment now would be leaping ahead of the necessary testing to show a drug is both safe and effective.
KYIV — Ukrainian police clashed Thursday with protesters angered by plans to allow more than 70 people evacuated from China’s Hubei province — the epicenter of the coronavirus — to enter the country.
The 45 Ukrainians and 27 evacuees of other nationalities are under orders to spend 14 days in quarantine at a National Guard medical facility in Novi Sanzhary. The group arrived Thursday in the eastern Ukrainian city Kharkiv after a flight from Wuhan. It was the latest evacuation flight staged by various countries, including the United States, from the Chinese city.
Several hundred protesters set up roadblocks and burned tires in Novi Sanzhary in attempts to prevent the arrival of the evacuees, which included people from Belarus, Kazakhstan and various countries in Latin America, Ukrainian media reported.
More than 10 protesters were detained by authorities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a Facebook message assuring that authorities have “done everything possible and not possible in order to guarantee that the virus doesn’t come to Ukraine.”
He also noted the demonstrations did not “show the best side of our character.”
A 36-year-old Chinese national in Singapore has been confirmed to have the coronavirus, bringing the country’s total number of infected people with the flu-like virus to 85, according to Singaporean newspaper the Straits Times.
The man did not recently travel to China. Health officials are still tracing his recent contacts to find connections to previous cases, Channel News Asia reported.
Announcement of the new case of coronavirus was coupled with another report Thursday that a 57-year-old Singaporean woman is the only known case of a person to have both coronavirus and dengue fever, the Straits Times reported.
The unidentified woman sought medical attention Feb. 13 and Saturday before being admitted as a dengue patient in a general ward on Saturday, the newspaper reported.
She was tested for coronavirus when she started having respiratory problems, the Straits Times reported. Her positive test result Tuesday prompted medical staff to place her in an isolation room, according to the paper.
Those who were in the ward with her when she was being treated only as dengue patient have been quarantined, the paper reported.
The Ministry of Health confirmed three patients with coronavirus were discharged from a hospital Thursday, according to the Straits Times. About 37 people have fully recovered and were released from medical care after contracting the illness, according to the newspaper.
Singapore’s hospitals are still treating 48 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Most patients are reported to be in either stable or recovering conditions, according to the Strait Times. Four people are being treated in the intensive care unit.
Coronavirus has also hampered certain sectors of the country’s economy.
Singapore’s government is stepping in to help Changi Airport tenants and employees by offering a 50 percent rental rebate for six months, Channel News Asia reported.
The rebate and other assistance are part of an overall government effort called the Stabilisation and Support Package, which aims to boost sectors that have been affected by the impact of the coronavirus, according to Channel News Asia.
TOKYO — Japan’s Health Ministry released new information about the deaths of two passengers from the Diamond Princess on Thursday but was not able to answer some of the pressing questions about the treatment of those on board.
An 87-year-old man and an 84-year-old woman died of the new coronavirus on Thursday, while another 27 people from the ship are in serious condition.
But officials had no immediate explanation as to why the woman who died had to wait a week between falling ill with a fever Feb. 5 and finally being hospitalized Feb. 12.
The woman also developed diarrhea Feb. 6, which is when a doctor first visited her. She tested positive for the virus Feb. 13, developed respiratory problems the following day and died on Thursday morning, eight days after being transferred to a hospital.
Masami Sakoi, a senior ministry official, said he would “like to refrain from guessing” why it had taken a week between her complaining of a fever and her entering the hospital, but said health officials on board the ship were making their “utmost efforts” to dispatch sick people to medical facilities as quickly as possible.
But it is not the only incident indicating how doctors have struggled to cope with the situation on board the ship, as cases of the virus have multiplied.
So far, 634 people from the ship have tested positive.
An American, John Haering, 63, says he came down with a fever of up to 39.8 degrees Celsius (103.6 Fahrenheit) in the evening of Feb. 10 but was not seen by a doctor until 5 p.m. the following day. It was not until Feb. 13 that he was evacuated from the ship and taken to a hospital. His fever had subsided by then.
On Feb. 13, Health Minister Katsunobu Kato — facing mounting criticism of his ministry’s approach — relaxed the quarantine on board the ship, announcing that passengers over 80 and those with underlying health problems would be able to disembark early, provided they test negative for the virus.
There were more than 200 people in their 80s on board the ship.
The man who died Thursday suffered from bronchial asthma. He developed a fever on Feb. 10, was tested and hospitalized the following day, developed pneumonia Feb. 18 and died two days later.
Sakoi said he could not be certain, but it was “natural to think” both patients had been infected before quarantine was imposed Feb. 5. He said both patients had been given antiretroviral drugs normally used to combat HIV.
MOSCOW — Russia’s temporary entry ban for Chinese tourists, workers, students and private travelers came into force Thursday, amid concerns of a coronavirus outbreak — a measure some have criticized as extreme, considering that just two cases have been confirmed in the country.
Chinese visitors account for nearly 30 percent of Russia’s total tourism traffic, according to the World Without Borders travel association. Tour operators expect losses of roughly $44 million in January and February. They fear the figure could climb significantly if the ban is not lifted until summer, the Association of Tour Operators in Russia told the Interfax news agency.
The group’s director has said it intends to ask for compensation from the government.
“The only thing that can be ascertained is that all necessary measures are being taken to prevent the coronavirus from getting into our country and spreading around,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.
The two individuals who tested positive for coronavirus in Russia were Chinese citizens, and they have since recovered. Japanese doctors have diagnosed another three Russian citizens on board the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship with the disease.
The suggestion by a London mayoral candidate to host the 2020 Olympics in the British capital instead of in Tokyo sparked fierce Japanese reactions Thursday.
On Wednesday, Conservative Party candidate Shaun Bailey had tweeted: “London can host the #Olympics in 2020. We have the infrastructure and the experience. And due to the #coronavirus outbreak, the world might need us to step up.”
In Japan, a hashtag in response to the remarks was trending on Twitter on Thursday, with many expressing anger at the suggestion. “It’s completely irresponsible suggestion,” wrote one user in English.
Bailey’s remarks came amid mounting concerns that the coronavirus outbreak may disrupt the Tokyo Olympics in July, after qualifiers in Asia had to be canceled or moved elsewhere. Japan itself has seen the number of cases surge in recent days, forcing officials to acknowledge that local transmission has entered a new phase.
Bailey is running against incumbent London Mayor Sadiq Khan in elections set for May, but has trailed his opponent in the polls.
TOKYO — Japan says 13 more people on the Diamond Princess tested positive for the coronavirus Thursday, bringing the total to 634 passengers and crew on the ship who have the virus.
Testing of the 2,666 passengers who were on the ship when it was placed into quarantine Feb. 5 is complete, but some tests still need to be finished for the 1,045 crew members.
The disembarkation of most of the passengers who tested negative for the virus will be completed Friday, but some foreign nationals may remain on board as they await evacuation flights to their home countries. Other passengers whose cabin mates were infected with the virus face an additional quarantine period, while crew members will also have to stay as they were not isolated from one another during the quarantine period.
Two passengers in their 80s died of the virus Thursday.
A report by the Health Ministry’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases that analyzed the onset of symptoms on board the ship concluded that the quarantine was effective at “reducing the transmission” of the virus and that most of the people infected after Feb. 5 were crew members or people sharing cabins.
People leaving the ship who have tested negative for the virus have been asked to go home, stay inside “unless absolutely necessary,” wear a mask if going out and monitor their own temperatures.
Around Japan, the government announced an additional eight people had contracted the virus, bringing the national total to 92 cases outside the ship. The latest cases included a Health Ministry official and a cabinet official who worked on the ship during the quarantine period.
Landmarks in the Australian state of Victoria will be lit up in the Chinese flag colors red and gold on Friday, in a sign of solidarity with Chinese communities abroad.
The campaign will include color projections on Melbourne Town Hall and Flinders Street railway station. It accompanies a broader effort by the Victorian government to support Chinese expats amid the coronavirus outbreak. China and Australia are close trading partners, even though the extent to which Canberra should make itself dependent on Beijing is a frequent topic of heated debate among Australian lawmakers.
“We have a long history of standing by our Chinese communities — and that’s what we need to be doing right now,” Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said in a release.
The Victorian government said it will also lead a delegation of regional businesses to China, with the aim to boost trade. The coronavirus outbreak has had a particularly severe impact on China’s output, but is also expected to hit other regional economies, including Australia’s.
Earlier this month, Philip Lowe, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, said the economic fallout of the coronavirus on Australia’s economy could become more significant than the impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic in 2002-2003.
“China is a larger part of the global economy and more closely integrated with other economies, including Australia,” he told a parliamentary panel. “I think it is quite likely that the international spillovers will be larger than they were back in 2003 with SARS.”
SEOUL — A church and a hospital in South Korea have been identified as likely clusters of coronavirus transmission after 43 and 15 infection cases were linked to the two locations respectively.
The church is in southern city of Daegu and the hospital is in the surrounding North Gyeongsang Province.
South Korea added 53 new cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, more than doubling its national tally to 104. All but two of the latest cases came in Daegu and North Gyeongsang, according to Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
The church is a branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a fringe religious sect.
After a 61-year-old woman who attended the church was diagnosed with the virus on Tuesday, health authorities ordered all 1,001 churchgoers to quarantine themselves. Daegu Mayor Kwon Young-jin told a briefing early Thursday that 90 of them said they were symptomatic, while nearly 400 could not be reached by phone.
The church’s founder Lee Man-hee claims he is the second coming of Jesus Christ who will save his 144,000 followers from a forthcoming apocalypse.
Shincheonji said in a statement on Thursday that the church is wrongfully accused as “the main culprit of coronavirus transmissions,” by those who label the church as a “cult.” Shincheonji said churchgoers inevitably gather in a small space for their services because the church was denied approval to build a larger structure by those who view the group as illegitimate.
A hospital in Cheongdo County, less than 20 miles from the church, has emerged as the other main center of mass transmission after 15 cases were reported there on Thursday, including the first death from the virus in South Korea.
The KCDC said it is investigating the hospital’s possible connection to the church since the 61-year-old patient from the church visited Cheongdo County in early February. Some of the infections occurred at the hospital’s locked psychiatric ward and inspection is underway on all patients and staff members at the hospital, according to the KCDC.
South Korea’s Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip said on Thursday “local transmission” of the coronavirus has begun in parts of the country.
South Korea’s military also saw its first coronavirus case in a soldier who visited Daegu, the country’s state-funded Yonhap News agency reported on Thursday citing unnamed sources.
TOKYO — The Japanese city of Nagoya said it would only allow elite runners to compete in its women’s marathon on March 8, recognized as the largest women’s marathon in the world, due to fears of spreading the new coronavirus, while an open city marathon due to take place on the same day was canceled.
The decision follows a similar decision taken by Tokyo on Monday, which also decided to restrict its March 1 race to elite runners.
On their websites, the organizers of the twin marathons in Nagoya said the races had been expected to attract 40,000 runners, but “cannot help but create crowded areas and close contacts between runners and visitors.”
“Much to our regret, we reached a conclusion that it is extremely difficult to stage a safe and secure event that all runners can participate [in] without worries,” it said, explaining that only elite runners who can complete a marathon in under three hours will be allowed to compete in the women’s race.
“We are terribly sorry for our nonelite runners who have been practicing hard for the race and for everyone else who were looking forward to seeing and cheering runners on race day,” the organizers said.
Meanwhile, the Japan Para Sports Association (JPSA) postponed a boccia tournament that doubles as a test event for the Tokyo Paralympics, to protect athletes.
Boccia is a game, similar to bowls and pétanque, involving throwing small blue and red leather balls, toward a white jack, and is open to people with severe physical disabilities.
The JPSA “concluded that further time is necessary to fully analyze the potential impacts should the novel coronavirus affect an athlete,” Tokyo 2020 said in a statement, adding that it will nevertheless will carry out the test event “in some form, after ensuring a safe and secure environment.”
The decisions are the latest in postponements and cancellations of pre-Olympic and other sporting events due to coronavirus fears, underlining the uncertainties surrounding the summer Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Hundreds of crew members aboard a cruise ship docked in Cambodia have all tested negative for covid-19, the vessel’s operator said, despite fears they had possibly been exposed to coronavirus while aboard.
In a statement Thursday, Holland America Line said that all 747 crew members on the Westerdam had been cleared following tests ordered by Cambodian health officials.
After the cruise had docked in Sihanoukville, Cambodia last Thursday, several governments — including the American one — assumed the ship was virus-free and allowed passengers to disembark and travel to other destinations around the world.
That conclusion came into question when an 83-year-old American woman tested positive for the virus days later in Kuala Lumpur. Public health officials have since been scrambling to determine if passengers had been exposed to the virus while on board.
All 781 guests still aboard the ship tested negative for coronavirus on Wednesday.
Holland America said that 25 crew members were supposed to disembark the ship on Feb. 15, at the end of their work contracts, but are now cleared to travel home. All others will remain with the docked vessel as its future itinerary is finalized.
Authorities in Hubei province reported good news Thursday: There were only 349 new coronavirus cases the previous day, the lowest tally in weeks.
The bad — and puzzling — news? Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, reported 615 new cases all by itself.
As Chinese leaders and state media strike a coordinated note this week about the government’s ability to contain the outbreak, inconsistencies and sudden changes in official data are leaving international experts struggling to plot meaningful trends — or even place any confidence in the figures coming from government.
Hubei authorities have changed their criteria for counting cases twice in the past week. An earlier change that was applauded by international researchers led to a sudden spike in case numbers on Feb. 12. And the latest shift — the sixth time that national guidelines have been edited since Jan. 15 — caused an overnight drop in new cases from 1,693 to 349.
Jonathan Read, an epidemiologist at the University of Lancaster, said case definitions sometimes do need to be edited as authorities come to grips with how a novel pathogen manifests itself.
“That said, it is very unhelpful for surveillance purposes to change how you define a case too often,” he said.
The latest inconsistency — how one city appeared to have more cases than the total in the province — apparently arose because Hubei province deducted cases that have not been confirmed through genetic tests from a total reported case number, which includes all diagnoses made by physicians using other methods.
At best, the constant changes have frustrated scholars. At worst, they have raised suspicions.
“Sloppiness of cheating the case # is getting to level of ridiculous,” Eric Feigl-Ding, a visiting scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said on Twitter.
To be sure, there is no smoking gun suggesting that Chinese officials fabricate numbers out of whole cloth — at least not since late January. But researchers widely say that the official figures likely underestimate the true infection numbers because of limited testing capacity in China and the prevalence of cases with mild or no symptoms. That is why at least having case numbers collected with consistent methodology would help scholars chart the general contours, if not the precise values, of how the epidemic is unfolding.
When cases spiked on Feb. 12, coinciding with the Communist Party naming several new officials to oversee Hubei and Wuhan, Chinese political observers predicted that the move allowed the new regime to wipe the slate clean and be able to show progress as the numbers steadily decreased from there. That prediction has been largely borne out.
Meanwhile, the newly installed officials in the region have said they need accurate statistics. The party boss of Wuhan, Wang Zhonglin, has ordered a citywide sweep to find all remaining cases of coronavirus infections so that the city would have “baseline” statistics to work with.
“If we can’t see the baseline, our resistance campaign isn’t reliable,” he said. At the same time, he issued a warning to local party cadres: If one more case were to be found in a household, he said, that district’s party secretary would be held accountable.
MANILA — After two weeks on board the coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship, about 500 Filipinos are set to return to the Philippines on Sunday.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque said Thursday that all of those repatriated will undergo a 14-day quarantine in a facility that housed athletes during the Southeast Asian Games.
More than 40 Filipinos have been infected with the novel coronavirus, and all have received treatment in hospitals in Japan, where the ship is docked. The patient in the first case has since tested negative for the virus and been released.
Only those who are asymptomatic will be allowed to board the two flights, set to land at Clark Airport north of Manila.
A total of 538 Filipinos were on board the Diamond Princess, mostly crew members and seven passengers.
Authorities in Iran confirmed three new cases of the coronavirus Thursday as they shuttered schools and evacuated hospitals, just one day after two Iranians infected by the virus died in the city of Qom.
All of the patients who tested positive for the virus were from Qom, a holy city and pilgrimage site for Shiite Muslims. One of the patients is a doctor under quarantine in the nearby city of Arak, according to a Health Ministry spokesman.
Seven more patients with viral-like symptoms were being monitored at hospitals in the capital, Tehran, and in the northern city of Babol.
Authorities said they did not know how the patients — two of whom died late Wednesday — contracted the virus, which originated in China in December.
“The victims in Qom did not travel abroad and were not in touch with foreigners or any Chinese people,” Mohammad Mehdi Gouya, director general of the department of infectious disease management at the Ministry of Health, told the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
Another health official, Massoud Mardani, said family members of the two deceased patients, both of whom were elderly, were placed under quarantine. One of the victims was a 65-year-old war veteran who suffered from the lingering effects of exposure to chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War, the Mehr News Agency quoted Iran’s health minister as saying.
“It is likely that many more people among the relatives and friends of the two deceased victims in Qom are infected,” said Mardani, a member of the Health Ministry’s infectious diseases committee, the Iranian Students’ News Agency reported.
In Qom, authorities closed schools and universities and cleared two hospitals to receive patients suspected of having contracted the virus. In Tehran, 10 hospitals were designated to receive suspected cases, state media reported.
BEIJING — The coronavirus may never disappear fully and instead come around seasonally like the flu, a Chinese expert said Thursday.
Wang Chen, vice director of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in a popular state television talk show “News 1+1” that unlike its viral sibling, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus that spread for several months before fading away in 2003, the novel species may simply never go away.
“It could become chronic and coexist with humans like the flu,” Wang said. “We have to make good preparations for this.”
Wang said the new coronavirus, technically known as SARS-CoV-2, appears less lethal to humans than its predecessor. The disease caused by the virus has been named covid-19 by the World Health Organization.
The original SARS “kills its host, and then it’s eliminated itself,” said Wang, as he called for more resources to be spent on researching the pathogen.
Researchers worldwide are racing to study the structure of SARS-CoV-2 and develop a vaccine after Chinese scientists shared its genome in a database earlier this month. An approved vaccine remains far off.
Two firms, Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen pharmaceutical unit and Sanofi Pasteur, said this week they are partnering with the Department of Health and Human Services to work on a vaccine.
SEOUL — South Korea reported its first death from the coronavirus outbreak on Thursday.
Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said in a statement that the dead patient who tested positive for the virus was linked to a preexisting cluster centered on a hospital in Cheongdo, North Gyeongsang Province, where 15 patients are believed to have contracted the virus.
He was in his early 60s and died at the hospital on Wednesday. He tested positive for the virus posthumously on Thursday, according to the KCDC.
The KCDC said the cause of his death is identified as pneumonia, at the moment, but the exact cause is under investigation.
South Korea’s national tally of coronavirus infections more than doubled to 104 on Thursday from 51 the previous day.
MANILA — Airlines in the Philippines will offer tickets on sale in a bid to make up for lost revenue caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
One major airline, Cebu Pacific Air, posted on Thursday lower prices for flights to Hong Kong, Macao, and Taipei, where a travel ban was recently eased.
International travel dropped by around 16 percent from the same period last year, according to airport authorities. There was also a 3 percent drop in domestic travel.
The Department of Tourism said lower prices for domestic destinations will be available soon — and Air Asia and Philippine Airlines would follow suit.
It added the sale is the first leg of a recovery campaign targeted toward domestic travelers. Upcoming plans will cover lower rates with partner hotels, tour operators and malls.
The department is also mounting a month-long, nationwide sale in March with over a dozen partner malls and associations. Officials clarified that this effort was already planned ahead of the outbreak.
Tourism officials initially estimated around $790 million in losses between February and April.
The global epidemic has taken a hit on Southeast Asian countries that rely heavily on tourism. In the Philippines, an archipelago known for its beaches, the sector accounted for over 12 percent of the economy in 2018.
BEIJING — To minimize the economic impact, Chinese officials have been trying to kick-start businesses after weeks of near-total paralysis. But it’s not easy.
Chinese businesses have been slowly getting back to work in the past 10 days, and local governments have rolled out favorable policies to facilitate the process. Some manufacturers have offered cash rewards to workers that agree to come back and man production lines.
But stories are cropping up around the country of companies resuming work, only to send employees home or to quarantine after infections are discovered.
A company with more than 400 employees in the southwest metropolis of Chongqing was forced to halt production this week after the discovery of cluster of coronavirus cases. At least three employees have been confirmed to have been infected and more than 100 have been quarantined at Chongqing Titanium Industry Co., Ltd., Caixin reported.
In eastern China, four companies reported new clusters of infection this week, according to Hangzhou Daily. More than 200 employees resumed work but were quickly quarantined after one employee became unwell in a Suzhou company, the paper said.
On Wednesday, the Chinese e-commerce company Dangdang reported a case within its ranks and promptly sent all its workers home again.
The epidemic has already deeply affected countless businesses. Chinese Internet has been awash with reports of businesses cutting wages or laying off staff. A survey by Tsinghua University and Peking University showed that 85 percent of businesses did not have cash to survive longer than three months under current conditions, and many were already cutting positions, according to the Chinese tech news blog 36KR.
TOKYO — Japan’s government said two more government officials working on board the Diamond Princess had fallen sick with the new coronavirus, bringing to six the number of support staff who have contracted covid-19 and reinforcing concerns about inadequate infection controls on board the cruise ship.
The latest cases were a Health Ministry official in his 40s, and an official from the cabinet office in his 30s, both of whom fell sick with fevers on Feb. 18, between six and seven days after starting work on board the boat.
Earlier the government reported that a quarantine officer, a Health Ministry official, an ambulance driver and a medical staffer had all fallen sick after entering the boat or dealing with infected passengers or crew.
A leading infectious disease expert published a damning video this week after visiting the ship, complaining of chaotic and scary conditions on board, and a “completely inadequate” system to control the spread of the virus.
The video received well over a million views, and became a major embarrassment for the government. On Thursday, Kentaro Iwata of Kobe University removed his video from YouTube, saying it had served its purpose, that procedures had since been improved and leaving it up any longer would be “divisive.”
The government vigorously pushed back against the criticism, with the Health Ministry insisting infection control experts had been involved in establishing proper infection control measures on board the ship, including proper zoning between areas where protective suits are needed and areas free of the virus. It denies forcing Iwata to remove his video.
But the latest test results showing two more officials fell sick will reinforce the impression that Iwata’s criticisms were valid, and may raise the question of whether people who worked on board the ship should themselves be placed in quarantine.
The Health Ministry said both officials diagnosed with the virus wore gloves and masks while carrying out their duties.
At least 65 crew members are among the 621 people who have contracted the virus on board the ship. The Japanese government says its data analysis shows that most of the passengers who contracted the virus did so before the quarantine was imposed on Feb. 5, apart from people who shared cabins with infected people.
That shows, it said, that the quarantine was effective.
But it acknowledged that crew members apparently continued to pass the virus to each other during the quarantine period, noting that it was not possible to isolate them from each other as they needed to keep working to maintain the ship’s operations.
The crew will have to undergo a further quarantine period.
On Thursday, Japan continued to allow passengers to disembark from the ship and rejoin the general population provided they have tested negative for the virus.
The United States and other nations take a different view about the effectiveness of the quarantine, insisting that their citizens from the ship undergo a further 14-day quarantine period in their home countries.
On Thursday, Japan said two passengers from the cruise ship had died, a man and a woman both in their 80s who had contracted the virus on board the vessel.
Read more about criticism of conditions on board the ship here: Japan’s coronavirus response on cruise ship ‘completely inadequate,’ says health expert
A major Korean electronics company has instructed hundreds of employees to stay home out of concerns regarding coronavirus, a spokesperson for SK Hynix said.
The order was put in place following an orientation session for new employees on Wednesday, during which one person reported feeling ill and another confirmed they had been in contact with a coronavirus patient. Neither individual has tested positive for the virus so far.
The company, which is the world’s second-largest maker of memory chips, employs 27,000 people across three locations in South Korea. The quarantine applies to just one building at its headquarters in Icheon, the country’s third-largest city.
Yet SK Hynix is nonetheless taking precautions with all of those who may have come in contact with the two possible patients, said the spokeswoman, Hyun Kyung Olivia Lee, whether in the training building or on shuttle buses that take workers to the Incheon campus.
The order was in effect on Thursday, and SK Hynix is awaiting the two individuals’ test results before determining whether to extend the quarantine.
Elsewhere in South Korea, a home shopping TV network had reportedly closed earlier this month after one of its employees was confirmed to have contracted covid-19.
BEIJING — One of the world’s most notorious fugitive financiers may have gotten out of the frying pan and into the hot zone: Wuhan.
Malaysian officials said Wednesday they have intelligence showing that Jho Low, the businessman wanted by several governments and accused of siphoning more than $4 billion from a public Malaysian fund, had been hiding in the Chinese city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak.
“Previously, he [Low] was confirmed to have been hiding in Wuhan, based on international investigations,” Malaysian Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Bador told reporters, according to the New Straits Times. “There has been no new information on whether he has fled the city following the covid-19 outbreak.”
Low was widely rumored to be hiding in either China or Cyprus the last four years since the unraveling of an extraordinary scheme involving the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB. In one of the biggest heists in history, Low allegedly spent billions from the fund on art and jewelry purchases, real estate investments, a super yacht — and the production of the Martin Scorsese film “Wolf of Wall Street.” Aside from Malaysia, Low is also wanted by the United States and Singapore.
It’s unclear why Low has enjoyed Chinese state protection, but Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told reporters in November that Malaysia did not have enough leverage to pressure Beijing to hand over the fugitive because “we are not a very strong nation.”
Inspector general Abdul Hamid joked Wednesday that Low should voluntarily come home if he contracted the coronavirus.
The Malaysian Health Ministry is “among the best,” he quipped. “They cured nine people already.”
Thailand called on Israel to reconsider its travel ban on the country in light of the novel coronavirus outbreak, according to local reports.
Thousands of Thai nationals work as laborers in Israel’s agricultural sector under a pact between the two countries, providing a vital source of remittance income, but the Israel restrictions have officials in Bangkok worried.
Israel has implemented restrictions on entry for noncitizens who have been in China in the past 14 days, but this week extended that to also cover those coming from Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macao.
The Bangkok Post on Thursday quoted Foreign Affairs Ministry deputy spokesperson Natapanu Nopakun as saying the Thai ambassador in Israel explained Thailand’s efforts to control the spread of the virus to their counterparts.
“Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs listened and understood,” said Natapanu. “It will contact other agencies, particularly Israel’s Ministry of Public Health.”
In an earlier statement, the Thai Embassy in Tel Aviv stressed that the country had no reported deaths and was contributing to research on treating the virus.
Thailand has 35 recorded cases of the coronavirus.
SEOUL — After a sudden jump in coronavirus cases, the mayor of South Korea’s fourth largest city, Daegu, urged all its 2.5 million residents Thursday to stay indoors.
“Dear citizens, from today, please refrain from going out,” Kwon Young-jin said after 30 new cases of the virus were reported in the city and surrounding North Gyeongsang Province on Thursday.
Daegu has temporarily shut nurseries in the city. Schools could also have their winter holiday extended to prevent the spread of the virus, according to the city’s education authorities.
Posts on social media reported that malls and restaurants in downtown Daegu were nearly empty following the spike in virus cases.
Some 23 out of the 30 cases were linked to a Daegu church that a 61-year-old patient had attended, according to Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The church has been shut down and the churchgoers are being tested for the virus, according to Kwon.
South Korea has confirmed 82 cases of covid-19.
A chartered flight carrying more than 150 Australian citizens and permanent residents from Japan landed home on Thursday morning, local media reported.
Passengers on the Qantas repatriation flight had been quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship off the coast of Yokohama, Japan, which had been put on lockdown for two weeks amid hundreds of new cases.
The evacuees, including many elderly people, were required to pass a health check to disembark the vessel and go through several additional screenings before boarding the Boeing 747 at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.
On the plane, passengers had no in-person contact with Qantas crew members, and food was waiting for them at their seats as they boarded, according to news.com.au. Upon landing in Australia, they were screened for the virus several times and will now spend two weeks at a quarantine facility near Darwin, on the country’s northern coast.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the evacuees will be quarantined at a separate part of the facility from more than 250 evacuees who had been brought home from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the virus, and who are expected to be released on Sunday.
About 10 of the Australians set to leave the ship and join the repatriation flight were ordered at the last minute to stay behind after being told they had tested positive for coronavirus, the Australian reported.
Another 15 potential passengers decided against joining, largely to stay with family members who are receiving medical treatment in Japan, Morrison said. They will not be allowed to return home for another two weeks. About 220 Australians were initially aboard the Diamond Princess.
Separately on Thursday, Australia’s government extended a ban on arrivals from mainland China for another week, until Feb. 29.
HONG KONG — The Hong Kong government on Thursday said it would further extend work-from-home arrangements for civil servants until March 1, and would continue providing only limited public services to control the spread of the coronavirus infection.
The city has recorded 65 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection, but there are fears this number will continue to increase. More than 100 Hong Kong passengers aboard the Diamond Princess, a coronavirus-hit ship that has been moored near Tokyo under quarantine, returned home on Thursday. They will have to spend 14 days in a quarantine center.
The government said work-from-home arrangements could be further extended beyond March 1 depending on the spread of the epidemic. Schools have been closed since the Lunar New Year holiday in late January, and will continue to be shuttered until mid-March.
The city has recorded two deaths from the coronavirus outbreak.
