Thread: UN agency declares global emergency over virus from China

UN agency declares global emergency over virus from China

by KEN MORITSUGU, Associated Press
Thursday, January 30th 2020

BEIJING (AP) — The World Health Organization declared the outbreak sparked by a new virus in China that has been exported to more than a dozen countries as a global emergency Thursday after the number of cases spiked tenfold in a week.

The U.N. health agency defines an international emergency as an “extraordinary event” that constitutes a risk to other countries and requires a coordinated international response.

China first informed WHO about cases of the new virus in late December. To date, China has reported more than 7,800 cases including 170 deaths.

Eighteen other countries have since reported cases, as scientists race to understand how exactly the virus is spreading and how severe it is.

Experts say there is significant evidence the virus is transmitting among people in China and have noted with concern several instances in other countries — including Japan, Germany, Canada and Vietnam — where there have also been isolated cases of human-to-human spread.

A declaration of a global emergency typically brings greater money and resources, but may also prompt nervous governments to restrict travel and trade to affected countries. The announcement also imposes more disease reporting requirements on countries.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

BEIJING (AP) — China on Thursday raised the death toll to 170 and more countries reported infections from a worrisome new virus, including some spread locally, as foreign evacuees from China's worst-hit region returned home to medical tests and even isolation.

Russia announced it was closing its 2,600-mile border with China, joining Mongolia and North Korea in barring crossings to guard against a new viral outbreak. It had been de facto closed because of the Lunar New Year holiday, but Russian authorities said the closure would be extended until March 1.

Train traffic between the countries was halted except for one train connecting Moscow and Beijing, but air traffic between the two countries continued, at least for now. Russia has not confirmed any cases of the virus.

Meanwhile, the United States and South Korea confirmed their first cases of person-to-person spread of the virus. The man in the U.S. is married to a 60-year-old Chicago woman who got sick from the virus after she returned from a trip to Wuhan, the Chinese city that is the epicenter of the outbreak.

There have been cases reported of the infectious virus spreading to others in a household or workplace in China and elsewhere. The case in South Korea was a 56-year-old man who had contact with a patient who was diagnosed with the new virus earlier.

Human-to-human spread of the virus outside China has also occurred in Germany, Japan, Canada and Vietnam, and was a major reason the World Health Organization has convened its committee of experts Thursday to assess whether the outbreak warrants being declared a global emergency.

The committee last week had advised the U.N. health agency it was too early to make that pronouncement.

The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, a cousin of the new virus.

The latest figures for mainland China show an increase of 38 deaths and 1,737 cases for a total of 7,736 confirmed cases. Of the new deaths, 37 were in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, and one was in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Outside China, there are 82 infections in 18 countries, according to WHO.

A second Japanese flight carrying 210 evacuees landed in Tokyo. Reports said nine of those aboard the flight showed signs of cough and fever. Three of Japan's confirmed cases were among a group of evacuees who had returned on a government-chartered flight the previous day.

A flight was also en route to China to bring back 350 Europeans. The U.S. said additional flights were planned for early next week after it evacuated 195 Americans from Wuhan on Wednesday. They are being tested and monitored at a Southern California military base.

South Korea, Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and other countries were also trying to get their citizens out.

Taiwan, the self-governing republic China considers its own territory, has also asked to be able to repatriate its passport holders from Wuhan, but it was awaiting approval from Beijing.

Israel's El Al , Spain's Iberia, Scandinavian Airlines, Egypt Air and Korean Air joined the growing list of airlines suspending or reducing service to China.

In South Korea, residents in two cities where quarantine facilities were being prepared threw eggs and water bottles at government officials to protest plans to isolate in their neighborhoods 700 South Koreans the government plans to evacuate from China.

Amid reports of shortages in food and daily necessities in hot-spot areas, Chinese authorities are “stepping up efforts to ensure continuous supply and stable prices," the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

It cited Ministry of Commerce data showing current reserves in Wuhan can ensure a secure supply of rice and cooking oil for more than 15 days, pork and eggs for more than 10 days and vegetables for about five days.

China's highly developed online shopping and home delivery businesses were important in ensuring those confined to home by choice or by order could get food and other essentials.

China extended its Lunar New Year holiday to Sunday to try to keep people home, but the wave of returning travelers could potentially cause the virus to spread further.

Transport ministry spokesman Wu Chungeng outlined a series of rigorous temperature checks and other “severe measures" to detect possibly infectious passengers.

Transport restrictions such as those isolating Wuhan and suspending inter-provincial bus services would remain in place, Wu said.

“It's definitely very challenging, but we're confident we can exert effective control," Wu told reporters at the briefing.

The WHO emergencies chief, Michael Ryan, speaking in Geneva Wednesday after returning from Beijing, said China was taking “extraordinary measures in the face of an extraordinary challenge" posed by the outbreak.

To date, about 99% of the cases are in China. Ryan estimated the death rate of the new virus at 2%, but said the figure was very preliminary. With fluctuating numbers of cases and deaths, scientists are only able to produce a rough estimate of the fatality rate and it’s likely many milder cases of the virus are being missed.

In comparison, the SARS virus killed about 10% of people who caught it. The new virus is from the coronavirus family, which includes those that can cause the common cold as well as more serious illnesses such as SARS and MERS.

Chinese authorities have demanded anyone who traveled from or through Wuhan report to health authorities and self-quarantine themselves for 14 days, the maximum incubation period during which patients can be infectious even if they don't show symptoms.

China has been largely praised for a swift and effective response to the outbreak, although questions have been raised about the police suppression of what were early on considered mere rumors — a reflection of the one-party Communist state's determination to maintain a monopoly on information in spite of smart phones and social media.

That stands in stark contrast to the initial response to SARS, when medical reports were hidden as state secrets. The delayed response was blamed for allowing the disease to spread worldwide, killing around 800 people.

https://valleycentral.com/news/natio...2020-195954846

Thanks for this post.

I added the Coronavirus tag.

State Department elevates China travel advisory to 'Do Not Travel' due to coronavirus

Wall Street Journal

U.S. Plans to Evacuate More Americans by Aircraft From Wuhan


Washington Post

Americans stranded in virus-hit Wuhan await evacuation as U.S. plans extra flights

NATION-WORLD
New virus has infected more than 9,800 globally

A viral outbreak that began in China has infected more than 9,800 people

1 hour ago

• BREAKING NEWS
• 
  US declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency, HHS Secretary Alex Azar announces
  
  Click here for more
• For more news, please go to FoxNews.com and watch Fox News Channel.

The flu has already killed 10,000 across US as world frets over coronavirus

While the new coronavirus ravages much of China and world leaders rush to close their borders to protect citizens from the outbreak, the flu has quietly killed ...

CNBC 6 hours ago

Two more flights carrying Americans fleeing coronavirus are expected to arrive in CA.

www.cbsnews.com › news › coronavirus-diamond-princess-cruise-shi...

3,700 people are quarantined on a Princess cruise ship in ...

16 hours ago - Tests were pending on 273 people aboard the ship who had symptoms or had contact with a man who was diagnosed with the virus after ...

Four hospitalized as coronavirus quarantine starts in San Diego

[]A charter plane with 167 U.S. citizens and their family members on board returning from China landed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar about 9:30 on Wednesday morning to begin 14 days of federally mandated quarantine after possible exposure to the coronavirus in China. Crews proceeded to unload passengers into waiting buses and luggage in to a rental truck.
(John Gibbins/John Gibbins)


Plane delivers 167 people from China for 14-day quarantine

By PAUL SISSON
FEB. 5, 2020 6:52 PM
Shortly after touching down in San Diego, four of 167 passengers on a quarantine flight that landed Wednesday morning at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar were transported to local hospitals after showing signs and symptoms of coronavirus infection, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement Wednesday night.

None of the American citizens and their family members aboard the commercial airliner, who were evacuated from Wuhan City or its surrounding province, showed any symptoms when they boarded the flight.

However, medical screenings performed after their arrival at Miramar Wednesday morning found that three adults and one child had fever or a cough, possible symptoms of infection with the novel virus that has now sickened more than 25,000 people worldwide and killed nearly 500 in China, according to the latest update from the World Health Organization.

To be clear, there is no proof yet that any of the four actually has a coronavirus infection.

Many different illnesses, including the common cold, can cause the symptoms that the repatriated travelers exhibited. Additional DNA-based testing at the CDC will be necessary to determine what exactly is causing those symptoms. In the meantime, all four were transported to medical facilities out of an abundance of caution and to keep any possible infection from spreading in the two quarantine locations on base.



Meanwhile, the flu continues to be the most significant threat in San Diego and throughout the United States. The San Diego County public health department announced 11 new flu-related deaths in its regular weekly snapshot report Wednesday, pushing the local season total to 50.

But, because of the novel nature of the coronavirus, it is receiving attention around the globe and is sure to get additional notice in San Diego now that the region has possible cases in local hospitals.

Two patients, the CDC said, have been transported to a UC San Diego Health hospital with an adult and a child sent to Rady Children’s Hospital near Kearny Mesa.

Dr. Francesca Torriani, medical director of infection prevention and clinical epidemiology at UCSD, said Wednesday afternoon, just hours before she was notified that two patients were headed her way, that care would be handled under special protocols specified by the CDC. They include isolation in special “negative pressure” rooms with special equipment that keeps the air inside from entering the rest of the hospital.

Because the virus travels for up to six feet inside large water droplets made airborne when an infected person coughs or sneezes, all medical personnel will wear gowns, gloves, facemasks or goggles and custom-fitted N95 masks to cover their mouths and noses when they enter patients’ rooms.

Overall, she said, caring for a patient with coronavirus is similar to caring for a patient with the flu, which spreads in the same way. These kinds of precautions, she said, are common, especially with patients who have conditions such as tuberculosis, and their use requires no additional training.

“This is what we do normally,” Torriani said. “We have patients in contact precautions for other reasons very often and so hospital personnel is very familiar with those rules.”

She said that potential corona cases are not a severe enough threat to require the use of a special isolation ward created at UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest during the ebola outbreak scare of 2014. Regular negative-pressure isolation rooms available at the hospital, or Jacobs Medical Center, its sister facility in La Jolla, would be adequate to the task, and the university is not planning to say which of the two hospitals the two adults will be transported to.

The location is more clear for the child and adult because Rady Children’s operates the only pediatric medical center in the region.

Dr. Nick Holmes, chief operating officer at Rady, said Wednesday afternoon that handling such cases should be well within the capabilities of all hospital personnel. Like UCSD, Rady increased its infectious disease control and isolation capabilities in 2014 during the ebola scare.

“For these cases we’re using the regular personal protective equipment that we would use for any other airborne pathogen because its transmission is similar to influenza,” Holmes said. “We use this equipment each and every day at the hospital. It’s our normal course of business, and our staff and nurses have standard competencies in being able to do this.”

Given that Rady generally treats only children, it was not clear Wednesday night how the hospital would handle receiving an adult. An official at the hospital directed all questions to the CDC.

Earlier in the day, Dr. Christopher Braden, a deputy director with the CDC deployed to handle repatriation flights from China to California, said during a news conference that the strategy is to isolate anyone with symptoms because doing so is the best way to prevent such a virus from starting the kind of person-to-person path that can eventually result in a pandemic.

Braden met with base personnel at Miramar Tuesday night, letting them know how the quarantine would work and letting them know that all arriving from China would be housed in two locations: The Bachelor Enlisted Quarters and the Inns of the Corps at Miramar. The BEQ normally houses transient military personnel while the Inns of the Corps operates as a hotel. Both have been vacated to facilitate the quarantine, according to Capt. Matthew Gregory, a base spokesman.

Braden said Wednesday afternoon that some were concerned about the notion of having potential coronavirus cases in their midst, mainly around whether such a situation might put their children at risk. The physician noted that no base personnel are allowed to visit the two buildings under quarantine, so there should be no worries about contamination.

“We know this situation may be concerning to people in the Miramar base (and) in the surrounding community; however, based on our experience with other coronaviruses, we don’t believe these individuals pose a risk to the community because we’re doing all we can to take measures to minimize any potential exposures,” Braden said.

While waiting out their 14 days, the CDC has directed those inside the cordon to stay six feet away from each other if they’re concerned about infection, though that precaution is not considered essential because it generally takes prolonged exposure for viral transmission and anyone with preliminary symptoms would be removed to a hospital immediately.

Pains are being taken, Braden added, to make this quarantine, the first that the CDC has undertaken in 50 years, comfortable. All are to be provided with three meals per day plus snacks and on-premises medical care if they need it. One of the two locations has a playground that quarantined children can use, and a second is to be installed soon.

“We hope to provide for children that they would have somewhere where they could play and grow while they’re here,” Braden said.

The number of people who touched down at Miramar Wednesday, Braden said, was smaller than he first expected. When the flight was first envisioned, he said, it looked like it would have about 290 people on board. Chatting with some of the newly-arrived travelers Wednesday, Braden said, it appeared that some who originally intended to evacuate changed their minds at the last minute.

“They thought that actually, for some people, they may have signed up to come and be evacuated but it was a very hard decision because they are leaving family behind and maybe they changed their mind,” Braden said.

CDC and military officials said Wednesday that they expected Miramar to receive another flight from China this week. But Braden warned that literally everything about the current evacuation plan is fluid.

“This mission changes, if not by the day, then by the hour,” he said.

Miramar is one of three California military bases being used as quarantine sites — the others are Travis Air Force Base and March Air Reserve Base.

Travis received another aircraft with quarantined Americans Wednesday and March is housing 198 people who arrived Jan. 29.

Three bases outside California are also designated quarantine sites. Those are: Fort Carson, Colorado, Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas and, as the Pentagon announced Wednesday, Camp Ashland, Nebraska.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...s-in-san-diego