Medical workers on Friday at a convention center in Wuhan, China, that has been turned into a makeshift hospital.Credit...Cnsphoto, via...
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| Medical workers on Friday at a convention center in Wuhan, China, that has been turned into a makeshift hospital.Credit...Cnsphoto, via Reuters |
Few details about the American, who died on Thursday, were immediately available. The person was around 60 years old and died at Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, according to the United States Embassy in Beijing. Two people familiar with the matter said the person was a woman and had underlying health conditions.
“We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss,” said a spokesman for the embassy. “Out of respect for the family’s privacy, we have no further comment.” Japan also said on Saturday that one of its citizens had died in a Wuhan hospital, from what was suspected to be a case of the coronavirus.But the Japanese Foreign Ministry said that based on the information it had received from the Chinese authorities, it could not confirm whether the man, who was in his 60s, had been infected with the virus. The ministry said the cause of death was viral pneumonia.
Car factories are idling in China, raising global concerns.
Chinese car and auto-parts factories may stay closed longer than expected because of the coronavirus, increasing the chances that assembly lines in Asia, Europe and the United States could grind to a halt because of shortages of components. Several automakers including BMW, PSA and Toyota have delayed restarting their assembly lines in China by another week, and others appear likely to follow suit. Even a relatively brief interruption in the flow of parts and materials could have far-reaching effects, analysts said.
The shutdowns at Chinese factories have hit automakers from several angles. The virus is already causing them to lose sales in China, the world’s largest car market by far. If they are forced to shut down factories outside of China because of parts shortages, as Hyundai has already done in South Korea, they could also lose sales in other regions.
The blow to the auto industry, which employs eight million people worldwide, comes at a time when output from the world’s factories is already sagging. It is likely to amplify the human and economic cost of the outbreak.The Chinese government has announced a temporary name for the illness caused by the coronavirus, ordering the local authorities and state news media to adopt it. In English, it will be called NCP, for novel coronavirus pneumonia, the national health commission said on Saturday.
The blow to the auto industry, which employs eight million people worldwide, comes at a time when output from the world’s factories is already sagging. It is likely to amplify the human and economic cost of the outbreak.The Chinese government has announced a temporary name for the illness caused by the coronavirus, ordering the local authorities and state news media to adopt it. In English, it will be called NCP, for novel coronavirus pneumonia, the national health commission said on Saturday.
A final, official name will eventually be chosen by the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses. The organization has submitted a name to a scientific journal for publication and hopes to reveal it within days, the BBC reported.
The naming of viral illnesses is a complicated matter that involves both science and public relations. Past names, like the Spanish flu or Rift Valley fever, have been seen as contributing to the stigmatization of countries or regions. In 2015, the World Health Organization issued new guidelines, after the choice of the name for Middle East respiratory syndrome was criticized.
Those guidelines recommend not using place names (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Chagas disease), animal names (swine flu, equine encephalitis), cultural or occupational references (Legionnaires’ disease) or words that induce fear (unknown, death, fatal, epidemic). The W.H.O. has recommended its own temporary name for the new illness: 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease, or 2019-nCoV. But the name is difficult to pronounce, and has been less popular than “coronavirus,” which describes a larger category of viruses.
One concern is that a place name like “China coronavirus” or “Wuhan coronavirus” could fuel discrimination. “We thought it was very important to put out an interim name so that no location was associated with the name,” Maria van Kerkhove, a W.H.O epidemiologist, told the body’s executive board on Friday.
Hangzhou, a Chinese city with a population of 10 million, said it would temporarily ban the sale of flu and cough medicine at pharmacies, in an effort to compel people who might be sick to see a doctor. In a statement, which was issued at midnight Friday and took effect immediately, the local government said the policy was created to “strengthen the supervision of those with fevers and coughs.”
Hangzhou, a Chinese city with a population of 10 million, said it would temporarily ban the sale of flu and cough medicine at pharmacies, in an effort to compel people who might be sick to see a doctor. In a statement, which was issued at midnight Friday and took effect immediately, the local government said the policy was created to “strengthen the supervision of those with fevers and coughs.”
To stop the spread of the coronavirus, the Chinese authorities have taken increasingly draconian measures to curb travel, impose social distancing and track those who might be sick. Several cities in the eastern province of Zhejiang, including some sections of Hangzhou, have set limits on how often people can leave their houses, generally allowing one person to leave every few days to buy groceries. Paper passports have been printed to keep tabs on residents.
As such restrictions have increased, so have people’s fears about being suspected to have the virus. Some have complained that hotels set up for quarantines do little to separate people who are already sick from those who have no symptoms, but who are from an area that experienced an outbreak.
In recent weeks, several articles in Chinese news media have told of people who used medicine to suppress coronavirus symptoms in order to get through the country’s now ubiquitous fever-screening checkpoints. Online, many people vented frustration about Hangzhou’s ban on medicine sales, though some said it was a good way to identify cases of the coronavirus that otherwise might not surface.
In recent weeks, several articles in Chinese news media have told of people who used medicine to suppress coronavirus symptoms in order to get through the country’s now ubiquitous fever-screening checkpoints. Online, many people vented frustration about Hangzhou’s ban on medicine sales, though some said it was a good way to identify cases of the coronavirus that otherwise might not surface.
“Going to the hospital for a regular cold?” wrote one skeptical user. “What if you go to the hospital and get infected?
Hong Kong, a wounded city, sustains another blow.
Hong Kong, a wounded city, sustains another blow.
Hong Kong had already suffered through months of political protests. Its economy is shrinking, and mistrust divides its people from its leaders. Now the coronavirus is dealing Hong Kong, Asia’s financial capital, another devastating blow. Airlines are cutting service. Schools are closed. Panicked residents are hoarding rice, face masks and — in the latest run — toilet paper. In the air is a new emotion for a city where the glimmering skyline once seemed to promise riches and opportunity: fear.
“We don’t know when it will end or how much worse it will get,” said Amber Suen, a flight attendant with Cathay Pacific, the beleaguered Hong Kong airline that on Wednesday asked its 27,000 employees to take three-week unpaid furloughs to save money.
The new coronavirus, which has killed hundreds and sickened thousands in mainland China, has been much less prevalent in Hong Kong. One person has died and at least 25 have been infected, mostly while traveling in the mainland. Its hospitals are respected around the world. The world is not drawing a distinction, however, in part because the city has tightened but not fully closed the border with the mainland.
The multinational companies that helped make the city global are restricting travel there. Some are advising or requiring returning employees to quarantine themselves. And getting to Hong Kong is becoming increasingly difficult. Virgin Australia joined United Airlines and American Airlines in cutting service. Italy has suspended flights from Hong Kong, while the Philippines and Taiwan are requiring arrivals to go into quarantine.
Deaths in China reach 722, and infections climb past 34,000.
Deaths in China reach 722, and infections climb past 34,000.
How Bad Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Get? Here Are 6 Key Factors
Here’s what early research says about how the pathogen behaves and the factors that will determine whether it can be contained. The death toll and the number of infections have grown again, according to official data released early Saturday. Across China, 86 new deaths and 3,399 new cases emerged in the previous 24 hours, the national health authorities said.
The new figures brought the total number of deaths in China to at least 722. And the total number of confirmed cases rose to 34,546. Most of the newly reported deaths, 81, occurred in Hubei Province, the heart of the outbreak. Many doctors believe that deaths and infections in China are undercounted because hospitals and laboratories are under severe strain to test for the virus.
A Wuhan native feels ‘innocent, but implicated.’
Julie Zhong, a 24-year-old from Wuhan, knows she has had to endure less than many other people from her city, where the coronavirus first appeared. She had planned to move to Shanghai after a three-week trip with her family to Hainan, a holiday island off China’s southern coast. But then the outbreak happened. After Hainan officials took the family’s temperature, they began a self-imposed quarantine for 14 days.
The quarantine is over. But her plans to move to Shanghai, where she is supposed to start a new job on Feb. 17, are in limbo. Hotels she called in the city told her that people from Hubei Province, which includes Wuhan, were not welcome. One said she could have a room, but only if she underwent another 14-day quarantine.
“I’m innocent, but implicated,” she said. “It makes me really angry.” Many people from Wuhan have fared worse under a countrywide campaign to identify and isolate anyone who has recently been to the city. Ms. Zhong said that prejudice and anger directed toward people from her hometown was misplaced.
“Is it the fault of people from Wuhan? It’s not. If it comes from eating wild meat, then the problem is the government didn’t control it well enough,” she said, referring to the food market in Wuhan where the illness is thought to have originated. “You can’t just dump everything on the heads of those from Wuhan,” she said.
The Communist Party sends high-ranking officials to the epicenter.
China’s ruling Communist Party sent two senior officials to Wuhan to reinforce efforts to bring the coronavirus outbreak under control, amid rising public anger over the handling of the crisis.
“Is it the fault of people from Wuhan? It’s not. If it comes from eating wild meat, then the problem is the government didn’t control it well enough,” she said, referring to the food market in Wuhan where the illness is thought to have originated. “You can’t just dump everything on the heads of those from Wuhan,” she said.
The Communist Party sends high-ranking officials to the epicenter.
China’s ruling Communist Party sent two senior officials to Wuhan to reinforce efforts to bring the coronavirus outbreak under control, amid rising public anger over the handling of the crisis.
State media reported on Saturday that a deputy head of the National Health Commission, Weng Hesheng, and the general secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, Chen Yixin, would take charge of the fight to contain the epidemic in Hubei Province, where Wuhan is situated.
It was not immediately clear if the appointments amounted to a reshuffling of the provincial and city leadership or were simply an effort to reinforce officials on the front line. Still, it appeared to be an acknowledgment that the authorities in Wuhan have been overwhelmed as deaths and infections continue to soar. Mr. Chen was previously party secretary in Wuhan and deputy party secretary for the entire province. Mr. Weng has held a variety of positions overseeing public health and family planning in the city of Tianjin and, since 2016, on the national level.
The appointments came a day after the State Supervisory Committee, a powerful anticorruption body, announced that it would send a team to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a Wuhan doctor, Li Wenliang. Dr. Li was punished by health officials and the police for privately warning colleagues in December about the mysterious new illness that was appearing in Wuhan’s hospitals. It is rare for the party to react directly to public pressure, but Dr. Li’s death provoked such an outpouring of public anger and grief that it appeared to force the party’s hand.
Travel to Asia slows, even to destinations far from China.
Travel to Asia slows, even to destinations far from China.
Travelers to Asia, even to countries far from the epicenter of the virus in China, are beginning to reconsider their plans. Hard data on cancellations is scarce, as airlines, hotels and travel boards say they do not yet have numbers or will not share them. But tour operators, travel insurance brokers and airline employees say they are facing growing numbers of customers changing their plans.
Brian Fitzgerald, president of Overseas Adventure Travel, a company providing group tours to travelers mostly over 50, said it encountered cancellations to China through April in the wake of the outbreak’s announcement. But this week, he said, tourists scheduled to go to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were reconsidering as well.
January data from April Travel Protection, an insurance provider, which tracks residents in the United States traveling to every country in the world, shows that claims with an Asian country in the itinerary more than doubled compared to January 2019. More than 20 international carriers have suspended or restricted routes that ended in Wuhan and other major Chinese cities, including Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Overwhelmed by flu, U.S. hospitals fear coronavirus will be next.
With an intense flu season in full swing, hundreds of thousands of coughing and feverish patients have already overwhelmed emergency rooms around the United States. Now, hospitals are bracing for a potential spread of coronavirus that could bring another surge of patients.
Overwhelmed by flu, U.S. hospitals fear coronavirus will be next.
With an intense flu season in full swing, hundreds of thousands of coughing and feverish patients have already overwhelmed emergency rooms around the United States. Now, hospitals are bracing for a potential spread of coronavirus that could bring another surge of patients.
So far, only a dozen people in the United States have become infected with the coronavirus, but an outbreak could severely strain the nation’s hospitals.
“We’re talking about the possibility of a double flu pandemic,” in which a second wave starts before the first is over, said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Public health experts are also closely watching reserves of vital medical supplies and medications, many of which are made in China. Some hospitals in the United States are already “critically low” on respirator masks, according to Premier Inc., which secures medical supplies and equipment on behalf of hospitals and health systems.
“All the hospitals are taxed with a large flu season and other bugs,” said Dr. Mark Jarrett, the chief quality officer for Northwell Health, which operates 23 hospitals across Long Island and elsewhere in New York. About 400 patients are coming to its emergency rooms each day with flulike symptoms.“Everybody is at maximum capacity,” Dr. Jarrett said.
Reporting and research were contributed by Raymond Zhong, Jack Ewing, Steven Lee Myers, Claire Fu, Paul Mozur, Motoko Rich, Hisako Ueno, Alexandra Stevenson, Austin Ramzy, Tiffany May, Emily Palmer, Reed Abelson and Katie Thomas.