China extends travel restrictions in effort to contain coronavirus
Hospitals in Wuhan overwhelmed and cases confirmed in US and across east Asia
China has expanded travel restrictions from Wuhan to at least two nearby cities, as authorities battle to contain a viral outbreak that has overwhelmed local hospitals and sparked global alarm.
In Wuhan, a city of more than 10m people where the coronavirus is believed to have originated, all public transport in and out of the city was closed on Thursday morning ahead of the lunar new year holiday, when hundreds of millions typically travel across the country.
The authorities later extended similar restrictions to Huanggang city, south-east of Wuhan, where residents were told not to leave without a special reason, according to an announcement on a city government website. In nearby Ezhou, trains were stopped from leaving or entering the city.
The lockdown in Wuhan to curb the outbreak — China’s worst since the Sars epidemic 17 years ago — coincided with an announcement that Beijing was cancelling large public events, including lunar new year celebrations, because of the coronavirus. Beijing’s Forbidden City, one of China’s biggest tourist attractions, said it would close until further notice.
During the 2003 Sars outbreak, thousands of people in Beijing were quarantined in their homes, but a city-level travel ban was not imposed.
The coronavirus outbreak has officially killed 18 people in China and infected more than 630. State television on Thursday reported three new cases in the north-west Shaanxi province.
China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported doctors in Wuhan as saying that there were too many people presenting at hospitals with fevers and they were unable to treat them all. Late on Thursday China’s finance ministry allocated Rmb1bn ($144m) to Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, to help control the virus.
Cases have also been confirmed in the US, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong.
At least three people were being tested for the virus in the UK after arriving on flights from Wuhan. A UK government official said information flows with the Chinese authorities were not as open as the UK might like and that they were liaising with the World Health Organization. Matt Hancock, UK health secretary, said there was an “increased likelihood” cases might arise in Britain but “we are well-prepared and well-equipped to deal with them”.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and a former professor of tropical medicine at Oxford university, said he believed the coronavirus started in animals, probably bats, in Wuhan’s market.
Subsequent human-to-human transmission “will make it very difficult to bring the virus under control”, he explained, particularly because it was likely to proliferate due to the huge number of people on the move for the lunar new year.
“We can expect many more cases in China,” he said, adding that he expected the virus to continue to spread. “This is now a global issue,” he concluded.
Residents of Hong Kong, which was hit hard during the Sars outbreak, rushed to buy face masks as news broke of the city’s first confirmed case on Wednesday. One pharmacy said it had sold out of its latest order of 200 boxes of masks within half an hour. Hong Kong authorities confirmed a second case in the city on Thursday.
Taiwan stepped up its border control measures. Chinese citizens who were Wuhan residents would be blocked from entering Taiwan with immediate effect, said Chen Shih-chung, health minister. In addition, daily monitoring of people with respiratory symptoms has been broadened from recent arrivals from Wuhan to travellers from anywhere in China, including Hong Kong and Macau.
Singapore’s health ministry confirmed the city-state’s first coronavirus case, a 66-year-old Wuhan man who travelled there from China this week. Two other suspected cases, both from Wuhan, had been identified. Preventive measures at land and sea checkpoints had been stepped up, the ministry added.
China’s benchmark CSI 300 index closed 3.1 per cent lower, marking its worst one-day performance for several months. In Hong Kong, Macau casino operators were among the big fallers with SJM Holdings down 4.5 per cent and Galaxy Entertainment dropping 3.5 per cent.
The World Health Organization was later on Thursday set to meet in Geneva to decide whether to declare a global emergency over the outbreak. If it goes ahead with such a measure, it would be only the sixth time in the past decade.
In Wuhan, some residents said they had attempted to leave before the ban was implemented but were unable to do so. “I heard about the train cancellations in the middle of the night, but came to the station anyway in case I could change my ticket. It looks like that is not possible,” said Li Lei, 24. Private transport by road was still allowed.
Another Wuhan resident said her 57-year-old mother had been experiencing symptoms of the virus for a week but was turned away from several hospitals. “When we arrived at the hospital in the morning, staff said the pulmonology department was closed after four doctors had been diagnosed with coronavirus,” said the person, who asked not to be named.
Beijing is under mounting pressure to prevent a repeat of the Sars crisis, when nearly 800 people died. The reaction this time has been considered somewhat better. While the Sars virus was thought to have emerged in late 2002 it was only reported officially in February 2003 — a delay that gave it more time to spread.
Chinese internet users took to social media to discuss how authorities were handling the outbreak, commenting on the rapid response from the Hong Kong government and condemning the lack of transparency and openness from mainland authorities.
The People’s Daily, the official Chinese Communist party mouthpiece, reported the outbreak far down on its homepage on Thursday, below news about President Xi Jinping wishing the Chinese people a happy new year. A report on the virus appeared more than 30 minutes into state television’s nightly news show the previous day.