Coronavirus infection spreads to more than 8,200 globally as China death toll hits 170
Aerial photo shows the construction site of Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan. The hospital, which will accommodate 1,600 beds and provide working space to over 2,000 medical staff, will be built in 10 days. More than 4,000 workers and around 1,000 vehicles and large pieces of machinery have been toiling away at the site day and night, in a race against time to curb the spread of the coronavirus epidemic.
Infection from China’s coronavirus spread to more than 8,200 people globally by Friday.
The vast majority of infections are in China where the virus originated in an illegal wildlife market in Wuhan and has also killed 170, latest official data showed.
Nearly 100 cases have emerged in other countries, from Japan to the United States.
The World Health Organization, which has so far held off declaring the flu-like coronavirus a global emergency, began another meeting in Geneva to reconsider. Such a declaration would trigger tighter containment and information-sharing guidelines.
Almost all the deaths have been in the central Hubei Province — Wuhan is its capital — where 60 million people are now living under virtual lockdown, only venturing outside with masks.
“Most of the shops are closed. We cannot go out and buy food,” Si Thu Tun, one of 60 students from Myanmar trapped in Wuhan, told online news outlet the Democratic Voice of Burma.
“Honestly, I have one big potato and three packs of instant noodles and some rice,” he said.
Chinese authorities yesterday sacked the health chief of a city near the epicenter of the outbreak whose appearance on state television being unable to answer basic questions sparked widespread public anger.
Tang Zhihong, who ran the health department in Huanggang, which has reported almost 500 confirmed cases and 12 deaths, appeared on China Central Television earlier in the day.
But on being questioned by a central government inspection team and a reporter on issues like how many people a certain hospital under her remit could handle, she could not promptly answer.
“I don’t know, I’m unclear,” she said, when being asked how many sick people there were. “I only know how many beds there are. Don’t ask me how many people are being treated.”
A few hours later, in a terse and brief statement, the city’s health department said Tang had been removed.
The original story featuring Tang generated more than half a million comments on the Weibo account of CCTV’s news channel within a few hours of it being posted, most of them in a very angry tone.
The number of cases in Huanggang is second only to that of nearby Wuhan, where the virus was first reported in December. Huanggang has also been largely shut off from the outside world.
Meanwhile, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand and Indonesia were quarantining evacuees for at least two weeks, though the US and Japan planned shorter, voluntary isolation.
Three Japanese, from 206 evacuated on Wednesday, were infected, and worryingly two of them had not shown symptoms, Tokyo said.
India was the latest nation to report a case, a student of Wuhan University. And South Koreans protested at facilities earmarked as quarantine centers, throwing eggs at a minister.
“The weapons that will protect us from the new coronavirus are not fear and aversion, but trust and cooperation,” said South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
In the corporate world, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Sweden’s IKEA were the latest big names to close China operations. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics extended holiday closure for some Chinese output facilities.
Airlines to suspend flights to China’s mainland include Lufthansa, Air Canada, American Airlines, Air India and British Airways.
