A young boy reacts as he and thousands of others line up to purchase face masks from a makeshift stall after waiting for hours in Hong Kong on Feb. 5. ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

he outbreak of the new coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China, with all the misinformation and conspiracy that has followed it, has put the major social media companies to the test as they try to combat panic and paranoia.

The big U.S. companies have moved quickly to try to quell criticism that their platforms are turning into cesspools of bad information and fear. So have their Chinese counterparts—which are also under considerable government pressure as Beijing faces its worst legitimacy crisis in years. As the virus has spread, their platforms have played host to theories that the deadly virus is a lab-made bioweapon and that the streets of Wuhan are littered with thousands of dead bodies.

Some are responding better than others.

Twitter has been a significant vector for misinformation around the virus, but the company has taken steps to actually put reliable medical information in the hands of users.

Twitter has been a significant vector for misinformation around the virus, but the company has taken steps to actually put reliable medical information in the hands of users.

Anyone searching for “coronavirus” or “Wuhan” on Twitter will be met with a message encouraging them to “know the facts,” with a link to a local health authority, and the platform is prioritizing countries’ health authorities in the search results.

Twitter has also moved to ban certain accounts spreading conspiracy theories—most prominently the long-running conspiracist site ZeroHedge. Twitter said in a statement that there was no evidence of coordinated efforts to spread disinformation on the platform but added: “[W]e will remain vigilant and have invested significantly in our proactive abilities to ensure trends, search, and other common areas of the service are protected from malicious behaviors.”

Google has taken a similar approach. Users using the search giant to look up information on the virus receive information from the World Health Organization, including details on how the virus is transmitted, as well as sensible precautions people can take, such as hand-washing tips. Google is generally cagey about how and when it removes or deprioritizes search results from its service, but searches for various coronavirus conspiracy theories turn up news agencies debunking those claims ahead of unreliable sites like Infowars and ZeroHedge.

On Reddit, where several communities dedicated solely to the coronavirus have popped up, there have been mixed results. The two largest virus-related subreddits, with about 50,000 users apiece, both have official rules asking users to use reliable information and to avoid sensationalism. On r/China_Flu, which sprung out of the long-standing r/China subreddit, moderators have been judicious about ensuring those rules are followed. On r/Coronavirus, the community is lousy with moderating posts stoking fears of a government-made biological weapon and making claims of a mass cover-up.

Another subreddit, r/Wuhan_Flu, was quarantined by the platform for trading in misinformation—meaning it isn’t discoverable by searching the platform and comes with warnings about the conspiratorial nature of the community.

Another subreddit, r/Wuhan_Flu, was quarantined by the platform for trading in misinformation—meaning it isn’t discoverable by searching the platform and comes with warnings about the conspiratorial nature of the community.

What’s more, the company has put a banner ad on its homepage directing users to a megathread on r/AskScience where people can talk to real researchers and public health professionals.

Facebook has deployed its fact-checkers to rate information being shared in its news feed, limiting information deemed to be inaccurate or false. It has also leveraged reliable public health information and provided free advertising credits to health agencies.

But a quick Facebook search shows the limits to that work.

The top two hits for the coronavirus on Facebook are private groups, which require approval to join. The groups are rife with unverified videos, conspiracy theories, and general panic.

On joining one of those groups, you may be welcomed by a post asking: Is it true that the United States invented the coronavirus to destroy China’s economy? The top comment: “True.” (Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.).

Chinese sites are following similar models to their Western counterparts. Searches for “coronavirus” on Baidu, the country’s most frequently used search engine, bring up health information, official statistics, and other tidbits, while the site’s main banner links to a hub page on the topic. (Baidu has gotten into hot water for promoting shady health information in the past.) Many sites are partnering with Dingxiang Yuan, an online physician-orientated information site known for reliable information; its tracker of virus numbers has reached 1.3 billion page views.

For Chinese sites, of course, there’s little choice but to remove supposedly false information—even if it’s just stories the government doesn’t like. With around a third of personnel devoted to self-censoring content even in normal times, removing stories and links is par for the course. Nevertheless, some scandalous stories have broken through, such as the death of a disabled child under quarantine, and some state-backed claims have seen significant and successful pushback. Overseas Chinese groups on uncensored apps such as WhatsApp, however, are full of wild claims about the extent of the virus.

That raises a difficult issue for Western social media apps—coping with misinformation in languages other than English. Googling in languages other than English for the coronavirus, for instance, often doesn’t bring up the extra information. Facebook, in particular, has a record of dealing poorly with the range of countries the site dominates, while WhatsApp has had significant problems with dangerous rumors in India and elsewhere. Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia are all seeing a flood of misinformation about the virus, much of it directing hate at ethnic Chinese citizens or visitors.

One particularly virulent conspiracy theory shows just how difficult stemming the flow of fake news can be—in any language.

On Jan. 31, researchers from the Kusuma School of Biological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi published an article noting an “uncanny similarity” between certain protein chains found within the coronavirus and those found in HIV. The paper clearly explains that the “exchange of genetic material among the viruses is well known” and their preliminary discovery proved “the need to investigate the relations between seemingly unrelated virus families.”

The report was preliminary, meaning it was not peer-reviewed. The scientific archive hosting the paper, bioRxiv, added a disclaimer warning that it “should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or be reported in news media as established information.”

The same day the paper went online, it was shared by the Indian author and columnist Anand Ranganathan, who tweeted that the authors “hint at the possibility that this Chinese virus was designed.” Later that day, after checking with researchers, he opted to delete the tweet. Ranganathan’s original tweet, however, had already propelled the fringe study to go viral.

Amid concerns with the underlying science, the paper was even withdrawn. It, however, still lives on the bioRxiv website—and has spread widely.

The social media analytics platform CrowdTangle reports that the paper has been shared thousands of times across Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram in an array of different languages. Many of the most popular shares are still live, save for Reddit, where the link has been removed and a disclaimer has been added to the post, warning that the information came from an unconfirmed source.

The preliminary paper, however, found pickup on ZeroHedge, which has been known to peddle Russian propaganda. On Saturday, the site’s pseudonymous manager, Tyler Durden—a group identity, one member of which is the former investment banker Daniel Ivandjiiski, according to Bloomberg—posted a link to the study, with the supposition that the coronavirus “might have been genetically engineered for the purposes of a weapon, and not just any weapon but the deadliest one of all.” (The post was updated to acknowledge that the paper was withdrawn, even as it continued advancing the conspiracy theory.) It followed up with a post claiming to identify the Chinese researcher behind the virus.

The ZeroHedge posts racked up more than 15,000 shares on Facebook and have been shared extensively in the two most popular private groups dedicated to following the virus. On Twitter, the articles earned ZeroHedge a ban from the platform—that didn’t stop the articles from being shared thousands of times, however, including from Infowars host David Knight. (Infowars is also banned from the platform.) The ZeroHedge posts were also shared, albeit not as widely, on Reddit and Instagram.

This most recent proliferation of fake news lays out just how tricky tackling misinformation can be online, but it also shows that certain strategies are more effective than others. Facebook continues to be the most fertile ground for conspiracy theories and bad information, but Twitter continues to be a prime incubator for fledgling conspiracy theories.

Justin Ling is a journalist based in Toronto.

Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/05/coronavirus-epidemic-wuhan-misinformation-online-social-media/

The post An Epidemic of Wuhan Virus Misinformation Is Spreading Online first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The latest from inside China thanks to our on-the-ground expert: “While residents of Wuhan have been blocked from leaving the city ever since it was quarantined on January 23, the approximately 5 million Wuhan locals who were stuck outside of Wuhan when the quarantine was implemented face their own unique challenges. They have been turned away from hotels, shunned by peers, and put into lockdown by local governments.”

n January 28, a woman from Wuhan was waiting for her flight from Japan back to China when she became aware of an escalating conflict between the passengers hailing from Shanghai and those hailing from Wuhan and Hubei province. A Shanghai passenger, having overheard someone speaking in Wuhan dialect, became concerned about the potential spread of coronavirus. Another Shanghai passenger claimed to have seen one of the Wuhan passengers taking anti-fever medications. The standoff received widespread attention around China. Even Wuhan people outside of Wuhan are not immune to the consequences of the epidemic that started in their city and has now infected more than twenty thousand people and killed more than four hundred.

Eventually, China Southern Airlines flight CZ380, landed seven hours later in Shanghai, after the Shanghai municipal government had stepped in to help resolve the situation. The 16 Wuhan residents were stuck together in the back of the plane and greeted by health professionals to be put into isolation for fourteen days.

The Weibo post by Wuhan passenger ‘Pomello’ about the incident, in which she accused the angry Shanghai passengers of not acting like compatriots, went viral, generating 2.1 million likes and 107,000 comments.

While residents of Wuhan have been blocked from leaving the city ever since it was quarantined on January 23, the approximately five million Wuhan locals who were stuck outside of Wuhan when the quarantine was implemented face their own unique challenges. They have been turned away from hotels, shunned by peers, and put into lockdown by local governments.

Asked about the discrimination Wuhan people are facing, Wuhan Communist Party Secretary said at a press conference, “The vast majority of people treat Wuhan people well.”

Many of the measures to contain the virus that hit Wuhan people hard, moreover, are necessary, given the severity of the problem. In the controversy over flight CZ380, many Chinese sided with the Shanghai passengers.  A poll posted to Weibo of 1,038,000 web users showed 83.3 percent said the reactions of those who did not want to board was “understandable,” and just 8 percent decried the actions as “not understandable.”

Right or wrong—and sometimes it is difficult to judge in a quickly-developing situation when health and safety are on the line—it is undeniable that Wuhan people, both inside and outside the city, are having a tough time. And at least some of the reactions have been unjustifiable discrimination.

For example, after the news about the flight went viral, quite a few angry netizens attacked the Wuhan folks for “running around” outside of their hometown. ‘Pomello’ quoted one such critic and responded, “We are also victims. When we left, the city wasn’t quarantined. We didn’t flee. We were ordinary travelers. Who could have predicted it would have become this circumstance?”

Indeed, it is a misnomer to say that five million Wuhan people “fled” the city. The epidemic began spreading like crazy over Spring Festival travel rush, a period before the holiday during which hundreds of millions of Chinese return to their ancestral hometowns to celebrate the lunar new year or take the time off with international travel. The quarantine was not imposed until long after travel plans had been made. An analysis by The Paper (Pengpai News) found that the five million figure, which was asserted by Wuhan’s mayor, was approximately equal to the number of people who had left Wuhan over the same time frame during 2017’s Spring Festival travel rush. At most, only about three hundred thousand people—a drop in the bucket in Chinese terms—left Wuhan in the ten hours between when the quarantine was announced, and when it was implemented, The Paper found.

Many of those Wuhan travelers were caught off guard when the city was quarantined and left with few options, neither able to stay put nor return home. For a few days after the quarantine, air and rail travel into Wuhan was also suspended. Stories of Wuhan people having their hotels kick them onto the streets came out. One story of a Wuhan woman who couldn’t find a hotel room went viral, but it was later removed.

Many local governments ended up designating lodging, mostly cheap motels, for stranded Wuhan travelers, some of whom were required to stay for fourteen days—in most cases, the expenses paid for by the governments—before they can be released. After two flights from Thailand landed in Nanjing with a few dozen travelers who had previously passed through Wuhan landed in Nanjing, all passengers had to be tested, and many were put in quarantine. After the CZ380 flight controversy went viral, the Chinese embassy in Japan arranged for charter flights to take over one hundred Wuhan people still in Japan back to Wuhan.

One Wuhan man’s story, which was published by a finance website and shared on leading news aggregator Sina, remains online. It recounts how he and his parents had to take a train to a city thirty miles away to find a hotel that would accept them.

They had long before planned a trip to Macau for January 20–24. On January 23, the quarantine was imposed (after having been announced the day before), and their flight back to Wuhan was abruptly canceled. One hotel rejected them outright. The next said they would need to get checked first by a hospital. The hospital said it could only confirm they had no fever but not that they had not been infected by the novel strain of coronavirus, which can take two weeks to show symptoms.

His father recommended they go to Zhongshan, a city to the north almost halfway between Zhuhai and Guangzhou, where he had a friend. While the friend’s home proved too small for three people, they did find a hotel—but they could only stay two nights. After the first day, they were told to leave; they remained for one more night despite power and water to their room being shut off. The next day, they decided to return to Wuhan, but they could not buy a ticket.

Finally, only after being taken in by the police, who filed two reports, were they able to be on their way. After the first report, another police officer stopped them on their way out and told them they had to be taken to the authorities at the next level up and have a report filed with them. They were offered to be taken to a government-designated hotel, where they would be allowed to stay for 138 yuan per night (less than US$20, a low price in China). They declined and opted to buy train tickets back to Wuhan instead.

The ticket office would not sell tickets directly to Wuhan. To get to Wuhan, they were told, they would need to buy tickets to Xinyang, a city north of Hubei, on the southern border of Henan province.

Before boarding the train, the author wrote, he warned his parents not to speak too much, as their thick local dialects would reveal them to be Wuhanites. Finally, the train did in fact stop at Wuhan station, sparing the three another tiring leg of their saga.

The author concluded by writing, “As far as I know, there were many whose journeys home were more torturous than mine.”

Currently based in China, Mitchell Blatt is a former editorial assistant at the National Interest, Chinese-English translator, and lead author of Panda Guides Hong Kong. He has been published in The Korea Times, Silkwinds magazine, and Areo Magazine, among other outlets. Follow him on Facebook at @MitchBlattWriter.

Source: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/coronavirus-chaos-torturous-journey-home-5-million-homeless-wuhan-people-120506

The post Coronavirus Chaos: The Torturous Journey Home for 5 Million ‘Homeless’ Wuhan People first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The thousands of coronavirus cases in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the center of the epidemic, is likely “just the tip of the iceberg,” a medical expert said.

David Hui Shu-cheong, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the official count of 5,000 only reflects severe cases of the virus where patients have been admitted to a hospital, the South China Morning Post reported.

“There are many community cases that remain undiagnosed — unlike in Hong Kong, where cases are more carefully handled, including the mild ones,” Hui said.

Li Lanjuan, China’s National Health Commission’s coronavirus committee, said that lack of supplies is preventing the country from doing more aggressive tests for the virus, according to state media.

Li said Monday that that “not everyone can get tested” since there are not enough testing kits.

“Early detection, early diagnosis, early isolation, and early treatment cannot be done in Wuhan at the moment,” Li said. “I hope that the country can support Wuhan [more].”

Medical workers transfer patients to the newly completed Huoshenshan temporary field Hospital in Wuhan on Tuesday. -EPA

The virus has killed 425 people in China and infected more than 20,000 others.

Most of the deaths have been in the Hubei province, which contains the city of Wuhan and where the virus was first detected in December.

With Post wires

Source: https://nypost.com/2020/02/04/coronavirus-cases-in-wuhan-may-be-just-tip-of-the-iceberg-expert-says/

The post Coronavirus cases in Wuhan may be ‘just tip of the iceberg,’ expert says first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

UK authorities have faced criticism over the time taken to track down recent arrivals from Wuhan. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

About 100,000 people could be infected with the new coronavirus around the world, experts have warned, as the UK government faced calls to reassure people that the NHS is ready to deal with any British cases within days.

Prof Neil Ferguson, a public health expert at Imperial College, said his “best guess” was that there were 100,000 affected by the virus even though there are only 2,000 confirmed cases so far, mostly in the city of Wuhan in China where the virus first appeared.

“Sooner or later we will get a case,” he said. “There are very large numbers of Chinese tourists across Europe right now. Unless the Chinese manage to control this, and I’m skeptical about whether that is possible, we will get cases here.”

Although no one has yet tested positive for coronavirus in the UK, Labour called on the government to reassure the public that the NHS could cope with an outbreak when it is already struggling with the winter flu season.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: “The NHS is currently under immense strain this winter with staff already working flat out and hospitals overcrowded. We need urgent reassurance from ministers they have a plan to ensure we have capacity in place to deal with coronavirus should we need to.”

Priti Patel, the home secretary, insisted on Sunday that the government was taking “all precautions”, despite criticism it had been slow off the mark to find and give information to the thousands of people in Britain who had flown back from Wuhan in recent weeks.

Prof Martin Dove, a British academic, said no one from the UK government had tried to contact him regarding the coronavirus outbreak despite recently returning home from working in Wuhan.

Others have said the UK authorities have been difficult to contact with the British embassy in Beijing shut on Friday and over the weekend, as well as Monday and Tuesday for the lunar new year. A Foreign Office spokesman said there would be some staff working despite the official closure and pointed to its 24-hour emergency assistance number.

There was also no clarity on Sunday over whether the government would evacuate the estimated 200 Brits trapped in Wuhan, with the Foreign Office advising against all travel to Hubei province but providing scant information on how to leave the affected areas. This is in contrast to France, the US, and Japan, who are putting in place logistics to get their citizens out.

Patel said the government was “looking at all the options”, which could include airlifting UK citizens out of the worst-affected area.

So far there are around 40 cases outside China, including three each in the United States and France. All 56 deaths have occurred in China, mostly in people who were older and had underlying health problems that made it hard to fight off the virus.

The Department of Health and Social Care said on Sunday that 52 people had been cleared after testing in the UK and the “risk to the public remains low”.

But in spite of the rigorous containment measures China has taken, its ban on flights and the UK checks on travelers from China at Heathrow, experts say it is only a matter of time until there is a case in the UK, given the ease with which the new coronavirus is now believed to pass from one person to another – possibly transmitted by people with mild or even no symptoms at all.

Ferguson, whose team has been modeling the disease for the World Health Organization, said they estimated the virus had a reproductive rate of 2.5-3, meaning that each person infected would potentially transmit it to up to three others.

“My best guess now is perhaps 100,000 cases right now,” he said, although it could be between 30,000 and 200,000. “Almost certainly many tens of thousands of people are infected.”

Most of the cases that have been exported to other countries from China have been mild, he said. That could mean mild cases of disease spread more easily than severe, life-threatening cases, which sounds like good news. But on the other hand, it means it is possible there will be a reservoir of mild disease in the country that goes unnoticed and can spread until it affects somebody vulnerable because of underlying poor health, who becomes seriously ill.

“People looking for people with a travel history to China are not necessarily looking in their local population,” he said.

There is a lot still unknown, he explained. “We don’t have reports as yet as to the extent to which children are becoming infected, probably because of the bias towards severe cases.”

Unlike Sars, which made everyone who contracted the virus severely ill, the new virus appears to be able to slip under the radar, he said. Firstly, there are the many mild carriers, who will infect other people without necessarily being recognized. Secondly, there are reports from China of people who have infected others before they have experienced any symptoms.

Ferguson said it was possible this is not quite as it appears. It may be that the authorities have not actually identified the index case – the person who infected a group of people – making it look as though they picked up the virus from someone who had no symptoms.

But although only people with symptoms of illness spread Sars, scientists point to other diseases, such as influenza and some colds, that can be passed on by those who appear well. These viruses “are carried into the air during normal breathing and talking by the infected person”, said Prof Wendy Barclay of the department of infectious disease at Imperial College London.

“It would not be too surprising if the new coronavirus also does this. If this does prove to be the case then controlling the spread does become more of a challenge, and measures like airport screening are unlikely to stem the virus effectively.”

Note: See currently posted coronavirus cases and deaths: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/26/coronavirus-could-infect-100000-globally-experts-warn

The post Coronavirus: 100,000 may already be infected, experts warn first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened during the 2002-2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. On Wednesday, the number of cases jumped to 5974, surpassing the 5327 people diagnosed with SARS.

The death toll, which stood at 132 on Wednesday, is lower than the 348 people who died in China from SARS.

Doubts have been raised about the official death toll, however, with claims Chinese authorities have been cremating bodies in secret.

Chinese-language news outlet Initium interviewed people working at local cremation centres in Wuhan, who said bodies were being sent directly from hospitals without being properly identified and added to the official record.

“So there are reasons to remain sceptical about what China has been sharing with the world because while they have been more transparent about certain things related to the virus, they continue to be sketchy and unreliable in other aspects,” said DW News East Asia correspondent William Yang.

Scientists say there are still many questions to be answered about the new virus, including just how easily it spreads and how severe it is.

The World Health Organisation’s emergencies chief told reporters that China was taking “extraordinary measures in the face of an extraordinary challenge” posed by the outbreak.

Dr. Michael Ryan spoke at a news conference after returning from a trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior government leaders.

He said the epidemic remained centred in the city of Wuhan and in Hubei province, but “information is being updated and is changing by the hour”.

The post Coronavirus: China accused of ‘burning bodies in secret’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post The Heat: Fighting coronavirus first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The country is facing a “grave situation” Mr. Xi told senior officials.

The coronavirus has killed at least 56 people and infected almost 2,000 since its discovery in the city of Wuhan.

The US has announced that staff at the Wuhan consulate will be evacuated on a special flight on Tuesday.

The State Department said that private Americans most at risk will also be able to board the flight to San Francisco.

Meanwhile, UK-based researchers have warned of a real possibility that China will not be able to contain the virus.

Travel restrictions have come in place in several affected cities. From Sunday, private vehicles will be banned from the central districts of Wuhan, the source of the outbreak.

A second emergency hospital is to be built there within weeks to handle 1,300 new patients, and will be finished in half a month, state newspaper the People’s Daily said. It is the second such rapid construction project: work on another 1,000-bed hospital has already begun.

Specialist military medical teams have also been flown into Hubei province, where Wuhan is located.

The urgency reflects concern both within China and elsewhere about the virus which first appeared in December.

• How can China build a hospital so quickly?
• Coronavirus sparks anxiety among Chinese overseas

Lunar New Year celebrations for the year of the rat, which began on Saturday, have been canceled in many Chinese cities.

Across mainland China, travelers are having their temperatures checked for signs of fever, and train stations have been shut in several cities.

In Hong Kong, the highest level of emergency has been declared and school holidays extended.

Several other nations are each dealing with a handful of cases, with patients being treated in isolation.

What is the coronavirus, and what does it do?

A coronavirus is a family of viruses that include the common cold.

But this virus has never been seen before, so it’s been called 2019-nCov, for “novel coronavirus”.

New viruses can become common in humans after jumping across the species barrier from animals.

The Sars [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] outbreak of 2003 started in bats and transferred to the civet cat which passed it on to humans.

Queues have been growing at hospitals in Wuhan – AFP

This new virus also causes severe acute respiratory infection.

Symptoms seem to start with a fever, followed by a dry cough and then, after a week, lead to shortness of breath and some patients needing hospital treatment.

There is no specific cure or vaccine.

Coronavirus: How worried should we be?

Based on early information, it is believed that only a quarter of infected cases are “severe”, and the dead are mostly – though not exclusively – older people, some of whom have pre-existing conditions.

The Chinese authorities suspect a seafood market that “conducted illegal transactions of wild animals” was the source of the outbreak.

Why is there concern about containing the virus?

Scientists at the respected MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis in the UK have warned that it may not be possible to contain the virus to China.

They say self-sustaining human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus is the “only plausible explanation” for the scale of the epidemic.

Their calculations estimate each infected person is passing it onto, on average, 2.5 other people.

The centre praised the efforts of the Chinese authorities but said transmission of the virus needed to be cut by 60% in order to get on top of the outbreak.

Image copyright AFP – Image caption: The coronavirus has killed at least 56 people

---

This is a massive challenge, the scientists suggest, which will require finding and isolating even patients with only mild symptoms that could easily be confused with other diseases.

Elsewhere, a team at Lancaster University have published their estimates of the number of cases suggesting 11,000 have been infected this year. If true, that would be more than Sars.

Where has it spread?

There are now 1,372 confirmed cases across China, though most are concentrated in those provinces closest to Hubei.

But it has also spread abroad – in isolated cases affecting small numbers of patients.

On Saturday, Australia confirmed its first four cases – first in Melbourne, and then three more in Sydney.

It has also spread to Europe, with three cases confirmed in France. Tests in the UK on 31 people have come back negative, the government has said. Officials are trying to trace around 2,000 people who have recently flown to the UK from Hubei province.

• Wuhan woman who ‘cheated’ checks found in France
• Fourteen people in UK tested for new strain

The cases largely involve people who had recently traveled from the affected region in China.

China’s neighbours in the Asia region are on high alert, however, with cases reported in Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea, and Nepal.

There are also two cases in the United States, including a woman in her 60s who had returned home to Chicago from Wuhan on 13 January.

Canada has a “presumptive case” of the virus, but the condition of the person suffering from it is deemed stable, according to a government statement.

 

---

What’s happening at the source?

The city of Wuhan is effectively on lockdown, with heavy restrictions on travel in and out, and public transport options from buses to planes canceled.

It is a major population centre with up to 11 million inhabitants – comparable in size to London.

Pharmacies in the city have begun to run out of supplies and hospitals have been filled with nervous members of the public.

Officials have urged people to avoid crowds and gatherings.

“The whole transport system has been shut down,” Kathleen Bell, who is is originally from the UK and works in Wuhan, told the BBC. “From midnight tonight private cars are not allowed on the road. And taxis aren’t running.”

• Wuhan: The London-sized city where the virus began
• How do you quarantine a city – and does it work?

Major Western brands such as McDonald’s and Starbucks have closed in the city and in others nearby.

The US, France, and Russia are among several countries trying to evacuate their nationals from Wuhan, reports say.

China is also suspending from Monday all foreign trips by Chinese holiday tour groups, state media reported.

The outbreak has severely restricted Lunar New Year celebrations in China when millions of people normally travel home. Major public events have been canceled and tourist sites shut.

• China’s travel industry counts cost of coronavirus

• How is China coping with the coronavirus outbreak?

Learn more about the new virus

Image copyright GETTY

• Your questions: You asked, we answered
• The story explained: How worried should we be?
• Wuhan profiled: The city now in lockdown
• In detail: Follow all our coverage here

Are you in China? Have you been affected by the lockdown in various cities? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:

• WhatsApp: +44 7756 165803
• Tweet: @BBC_HaveYourSay
• Send pictures/video to yourpics@bbc.co.uk
• Upload your pictures/video here
• Please read our terms & conditions and privacy policy
  

  ---

  Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51249208

  [Disclaimer]

The post China coronavirus spread is accelerating, Xi Jinping warns first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.