China Bans Travel From City at Center of Virus Outbreak as Death Toll Rises
There have been 440 confirmed cases across 13 provinces as of Jan. 21, and 1,394 patients are under medical observation.
(Bloomberg) -- China will start nationwide screening to tackle the growing outbreak of a new respiratory virus, with hundreds of millions set to travel during the looming Lunar New Year holiday.
Officials are stepping up the monitoring of transportation links in China as the death toll increased to nine from six previously, the National Health Commission said in a briefing in Beijing Wednesday. There have been 440 confirmed cases across 13 provinces as of Jan. 21, and 1,394 patients are under medical observation, the commission said.
Health officials around the world are racing to control the SARS-like virus that emerged in Wuhan, a city in central China, last month. Confirmed cases have stretched to five additional countries, including the first diagnosis in the U.S. -- a resident of Washington state. Macau on Wednesday also reported its first case.
While China said it’s reacting at the highest levels to the outbreak and pledged daily updates and full information-sharing, officials acknowledged that they’re still grappling to understand the pathogen, which has infected multiple medical workers despite heavy protective gear.
“We are still on a learning curve,” said Gao Fu, head of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “The disease will continue to develop.” It has already changed from the early stages of detection, he said in the briefing.
Investors showed some relief that officials were taking action to control the disease. Asia stocks mostly recovered after Tuesday’s sell-off, while haven assets steadied following previous gains.
The World Health Organization will decide Wednesday whether to declare the virus an international public health emergency, a designation used for complex epidemics that can cross borders.
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At Wednesday’s briefing, China said it had seen no evidence yet of “super spreaders,” infected people who pass on the disease rapidly to many other people, but could not rule out that some would emerge. Super spreaders played a key role in the SARS pandemic 17 years ago, which killed almost 800 people and hurt economies across the region.
All of the nine deaths so far have been from Wuhan, a city of 11 million people at the center of the outbreak. They include eight men, aged 61 to 87, and a 48-year-old woman -- with almost all of them having pre-existing illnesses.
That suggests the virus poses the greatest danger to people whose health is already compromised, while children and younger people are not easily susceptible. The coronavirus symptoms include fever, cough or chest tightness, and difficulty breathing.
Wild Animals
Both the Wuhan virus, known as 2019-nCoV, and SARS belong to the family of coronaviruses, so called because of their crown-like shape. Many such viruses cross the barrier between animals and humans.
Gao said in the Beijing briefing that the source of the virus is wild animals sold in the wet markets. Some of the first group of patients in Wuhan worked or shopped at a seafood market where live animals and wildlife parts were reportedly sold.
As they did during the SARS and Ebola outbreaks, health officials and scientists globally are tracking patients and testing samples of saliva and other fluids to determine the exact cause and severity of their ailments. They’re identifying and monitoring people with whom the patients were in contact to see if the virus is spreading easily from person to person. And they are placing restrictions on travel to try to limit the exposure to scores of new people.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded its inspection of airline passengers who had spent time in China to airports in Atlanta and Chicago on Tuesday, building on the 1,200 people who had been screened in California and New York over the weekend. No new cases were uncovered.
The U.S. case is a man in his 30s who was traveling in Wuhan and arrived back in the U.S. on Jan. 15, Washington state health officials said on a call with the CDC Tuesday. The resident of Snohomish, Washington, said he hadn’t spent any time at the live-animal market where the virus is believed to have originated and didn’t have contact with anyone who was sick.
The officials said the man sought care quickly after monitoring news about the virus and is in good condition, though he has been hospitalized out of an abundance of caution.
“This is an evolving situation,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “We do expect additional cases in the United States and globally.”
Officials said Wednesday that Wuhan has been placed under heavy supervision. Chinese citizens from elsewhere should not go to the city unless necessary, and public gatherings through the holiday period have been canceled, while tour groups have been banned from leaving.
Officials also urged Chinese citizens to open the windows to ventilate their homes, wash their hands regularly and wear protective masks.
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Dong Lyu in Beijing at dlyu3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rachel Chang at wchang98@bloomberg.net, Jeff Sutherland
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With assistance from Bloomberg