Page 11 - AHATA

A8 WORLD NEWS
Friday 24 January 2020
Continued from Front the world, China parked
Normally bustling streets, patients in hotels and
shopping malls, restaurants drove them around in am-
and other public spaces in bulances to conceal the
the city of 11 million were true number of cases and
eerily quiet. Police checked avoid WHO experts.
all incoming vehicles but In the current outbreak,
did not close off the roads. China has been credited
Authorities announced sim- with sharing information
ilar measures would take rapidly, and President Xi
effect Friday in the nearby Jinping has emphasized
cities of Huanggang and that as a priority.
Ezhou. In Huanggang, the- "Party committees, govern-
aters, internet cafes and ments and relevant depart-
other entertainment cen- ments at all levels must put
ters were also ordered people's lives and health
closed. first," Xi said Monday. "It is
In the capital, Beijing, of- necessary to release epi-
ficials canceled "major demic information in a
events" indefinitely, in- timely manner and deepen
cluding traditional temple A militia member uses an thermometer gun to take a driver's temperature at a checkpoint at a international cooperation."
fairs that are a staple of highway toll gate in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. Health authorities were tak-
holiday celebrations, in or- Associated Press ing extraordinary measures
der to "execute epidemic to prevent additional per-
prevention and control." will or it will not work." navirus first appeared last transmission of the virus was son-to-person transmissions,
The Forbidden City, the Jonathan Ball, a professor month in Wuhan, an in- confirmed. But things had placing those believed in-
palace complex in Beijing of virology at molecular vi- dustrial and transportation changed rapidly. fected in plastic tubes and
that is now a museum, an- rology at the University of hub in central China's Hu- Her boyfriend "didn't sleep wheeled boxes, with air
nounced it will close indefi- Nottingham in Britain, said bei province. Other cases much yesterday. He dis- passed through filters.
nitely on Saturday. the lockdowns appear to have been reported in the infected his house and The first cases in the Wuhan
Seventeen people have be justified scientifically. U.S., Japan, South Korea stocked up on instant noo- outbreak were connected
died in the outbreak, all of "Until there's a better under- and Thailand. Singapore, dles," Liu said. "He's not re- to people who worked at
them in and around Wu- standing of what the situa- Vietnam and Hong Kong ally going out. If he does, or visited a seafood mar-
han. Close to 600 have tion is, I think it's not an un- reported their first cases he wears a mask." ket, which has since been
been infected, the vast reasonable thing to do," he Thursday. The sharp rise in illnesses closed for an investigation.
majority of them in Wuhan, said. "Anything that limits Most of the illnesses outside comes as millions of Chi- Experts suspect that the
and many countries have people's travels during an China involve people who nese travel for the Lunar virus was first transmitted
begun screening travelers outbreak would obviously were from Wuhan or had New Year, one of the from wild animals but that it
from China for symptoms of work." recently traveled there. world's largest annual mi- may also be mutating. Mu-
the virus, which can cause But Ball cautioned that any Images from Wuhan grations of people. Chi- tations can make it dead-
fever, coughing, trouble such quarantine should showed long lines and nese are expected to take lier or more contagious.
breathing and pneumonia. be strictly time-limited. He empty shelves at supermar- an estimated 3 billion trips WHO convened its emer-
Chinese officials have added: "You have to make kets, as residents stocked during the 40-day spike in gency committee of inde-
not said how long the sure you communicate ef- up for what could be travel. pendent experts on Thurs-
shutdowns will last. While fectively about why this is weeks of isolation. That ap- Analysts predicted cases day to consider whether
sweeping measures are being done. Otherwise you peared to be an over-re- will continue to multiply, the outbreak should be
typical of China's com- will lose the goodwill of the action, since no restrictions although the jump in num- declared a global health
munist government, large- people." were placed on trucks car- bers is also attributable in emergency, after the
scale quarantines are rare During the devastating rying supplies into the city, part to increased monitor- group failed to come to a
around the world, even West Africa Ebola outbreak although many Chinese ing. "Even if (cases) are in consensus on Wednesday.
in deadly epidemics, be- in 2014, Sierra Leone im- have strong memories of the thousands, this would The U.N. health agency de-
cause of concerns about posed a national three- shortages in the years be- not surprise us," the WHO's fines a global emergency
infringing on people's liber- day quarantine as health fore the country's recent Galea said, adding, how- as an "extraordinary event"
ties. And the effectiveness teams went door-to-door economic boom. ever, that the number of that constitutes a risk to oth-
of such measures is unclear. searching for hidden cases. Local authorities in Wuhan those infected is not an in- er countries and requires a
"To my knowledge, trying to Frustrated residents com- demanded all residents dicator of the outbreak's coordinated international
contain a city of 11 million plained of food shortages wear masks in public plac- severity, so long as the mor- response.
people is new to science," amid deserted streets. Buri- es. Police, SWAT teams and tality rate remains low. A declaration of a glob-
Gauden Galea, the World al teams collecting Ebola paramilitary troops guard- The coronavirus family in- al emergency typically
Health Organization's rep- corpses and people trans- ed Wuhan's train station. cludes the common cold brings greater money and
resentative in China, said porting the sick to Ebola Liu Haihan left Wuhan last as well as viruses that cause resources, but may also
in an interview. "It has not centers were the only ones Friday after visiting her boy- more serious illnesses, such prompt nervous govern-
been tried before as a allowed to move freely. friend there. She said ev- as the SARS outbreak that ments to restrict travel to
public health measure. We In China, the illnesses from erything was normal then, spread from China to more and trade with affected
cannot at this stage say it the newly identified coro- before human-to-human than a dozen countries in countries. The announce-
2002-03 and killed about ment also imposes more
800 people, and Middle disease-reporting require-
Eastern respiratory syn- ments on countries.
drome, or MERS, which is Declaring an international
thought to have originated emergency can also be
from camels. politically fraught. Coun-
China is keen to avoid tries typically resist the no-
repeating mistakes with tion that they have a crisis
its handling of SARS. For within their borders and
months, even after the ill- may argue strenuously for
ness had spread around other control measures.q