#chief epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

anniekoh · 4 years

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elsewhere on the internet: coronavirus, part 1

Reading a ton these days about the coronavirus, from all sorts of angles: humorous memes, local governance, border politics and xenophobia, Chinese social media, journalistic freedom/censorship, Taiwan, open science, the indie music scene etc etc.

Wuhan: a tale of immune system failure and social strength (TJMa, Feb 4, 2020)

In the confusions of the seal-off, three Wuhan Weibo users posted descriptions of what their aunt had experienced. The suspected coronavirus patient was turned away by overcrowded hospitals. Her conditions worsened rapidly at home, was finally admitted into an Intensive Care Unit, and died two days later. She never had the chance to be formally diagnosed. When her nieces posted about her death, they understandably expressed dismay. One of them described gruesome scenes at hospitals, some of which she heard about from interactions with an ambulance driver. This became her sin. As influential Weibo accounts picked up the story, they were displeased and irritated by the distraught posts... Quickly, a narrative of “bad elements” trying to sow mistrust about government disease response began to develop around the three cousins. Discrepancies of their accounts were highlighted. Suspicious wordings were scrutinized. The most eye-catching theory was that they were internet agents hired by the Taiwanese regime to stir up discontent on the mainland, based on their occasional language usage. Piqued by such storylines, thousands of Weibo users descended on the cousins’ Weibo space to insult them. “Disgusting bitches!” they cursed. When Weibo belatedly verified the identity of the three women, a few accusers made public apologies. Weibo later suspended some leading accounts in this episode.

The cousins were not alone. All over Weibo, desperate help seekers from the epicenter of the contagious disaster were being chased and attacked by “truth guards” for spreading rumors and misinformation. The bullying was so widespread that a user came up with a satirical guideline advising Wuhaners asking for help on Weibo to self-humiliate and apologize preemptively to the truth guards for their forgiveness.

By Jan 26, 3 days after the official seal-off, the spectacle had grown into a national concern, prompting bloggers to openly call for a calm-down of the frenzy: “Wuhan people are not our enemies.” More concretely, a plea went out to stop leaking the personal information of people from Hubei. Apparently, vigilantes in the system who had access to information such as hotel check-in registries were passing it on so that others could avoid, report, or drive away those associated with Hubei province.

As ordinary people were being chased, isolated, bullied, silenced and pushed around, the other line of questioning, after those responsible for the fiasco, was struggling to keep its focus. In a bombardment of outbreak-related information, public anger acted like the small ball in a roulette game. At any given moment it may land on top of the Wuhan Municipal Government, Hubei Provincial Government, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States CDC, or the World Health Organization (WHO), depending on which media story or blog post was trending at that time. The outbreak and the Spring Festival holiday together created an unprecedented online time-space where hundreds of millions of Chinese, all off work, had nothing else to do but watching one of the country’s worst public health crises unfolding on their mobile phone screens. Every actor’s every action was scrutinized and commented upon by millions online. At one point, 10 million people were watching the live stream of the construction site of an emergency hospital, assigning nicknames to bulldozers and excavators.

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The sealed-off megacity was also kept afloat by an advanced network of internet-based service providers and mobile-organized support groups that were both non-existent 17 years ago. It was Alibaba’s online shopping platform, Didi’s mobile taxi hailing, SF’s courier services and Meituan’s food delivery system that kept the basic life-supporting functions of Wuhan operating when all its public services were either stopped or severely stretched.

The Digital Radicals of Wuhan Guobin Yang (February 3, 2020)

After Wuhan was closed down, a genre of writing called “diaries in a lockdown city” began to spread on Chinese social media.

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Internet censorship and control did not start now, but they look particularly cruel at this point. Many people are stuck at home after the city is locked down. They depend on the internet for information and to keep in touch with families and friends. We become isolated islands without the internet.

As a social worker and activist, Guo Jing tries to rediscover her place in an isolated city, to paraphrase the title of one of her essays. She explores the streets and the food marts in her neighborhood to see how the lockdown and the illness have affected the city. She talked to the street cleaning workers to find out about their lives. In her diary on January 28, she wrote:

I interviewed eight street cleaning workers, six women, two men. They work for about seven or eight hours a day. Their salary is about two thousand and three or four hundred Yuan, which is less than two thousand after tax.... Every day they could receive “84 Disinfectant” and reusable gloves. They had no disposable gloves and were all short of masks. The lucky ones among them may receive 20 masks at a time and can go back for more after using up. One poor guy received only two masks since the city was locked down.They are all very kind people. Some don’t have disposable medical masks, so they would use their scarves to cover their mouths. I had three disposable medical masks with me in case I might need them outside. I gave the masks to them …. I asked them whether they are worried. One big sister said of course. She was already living separately from her son and daughter-in-law. They don’t go out, and she would buy things for them and deliver them to their door.

See also the Jan 29 story by Zhong and Palmer: Wuhan's virus and quarantine will hit the poor hardest

I’ve been riveted to the coverage of the coronavirus, and very very aware of how much the U.S. media (and non Chinese-language media) generally misses in terms of the context and the nuance. There are major exceptions to this, such as Li Yuan at the New York Times (Feb 4, 2020)

So many officials have denied responsibility that some online users joke that they are watching a passing-the-buck competition. (It’s “tossing the wok” in Chinese.) The Chinese people are getting a rare glimpse of how China’s giant, opaque bureaucratic system works — or, rather, how it fails to work. Too many of its officials have become political apparatchiks, fearful of making decisions that anger their superiors and too removed and haughty when dealing with the public to admit mistakes and learn from them. “The most important issue this outbreak exposed is the local government’s lack of action and fear of action,” said Xu Kaizhen, a best-selling author who is famous for his novels that explore the intricate workings of China’s bureaucratic politics.

Those officials could often be corrupt, but even the party’s fiercest critics sometimes acknowledged that they got things done. Liu Zhijun, the former railway minister, is serving a lifetime sentence for taking bribes and abusing power. He also oversaw the creation of China’s high-speed rail system, which vastly improved life in the country.

Journalist William Yang has been giving updates on the coronavirus

Chinese infectious disease expert Tseng Guang said in an interview that China’s disease control system only has the authority to collect and analyze data, and it is not a decision-making institution. He said that the disease control agencies play a weak role

Qingqing Chen has also been a key media conduit

Eight Wuhan residents praised for "whistle-blowing" virus outbreak Global Times (via Qingqing_Chen, Jan 30, 2020)

In an exclusive interview with Global Times' Editor-in-chief Hu Xijin, Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the CCDC, said those eight residents should be highly regarded as they turned out to be correct about the viral outbreak, even though the information they spread "lacked scientific evidence".

The eight residents were briefly detained by Wuhan police after they circulated online "rumors" that cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the viral respiratory illness that battered China in the spring of 2003, were detected in some of Wuhan's hospitals.

The residents were released shortly but news about the arrests angered many in the country as the novel coronavirus continued to spread in the country. Many termed that detaining the eight whistle-blowers as evidence of local authorities' incompetence to tackle a contagious and deadly virus.

Questions about a health care system that immediately was overloaded.

In Sickness and in Health Yangyang Chen, (Jan 29, 2020, SUPchina)

Despite a population of 1.4 billion, there are only a few million medical practitioners in China, most of whom have a bachelor’s degree or less. The problem of extreme shortage in qualified staff is compounded by the country’s size and uneven distribution of resources. Outside of first-tier cities and provincial capitals, well-trained doctors and modern medical facilities are few and far between.

Despite the overwhelming demand and staggering medical costs, the basic income for most doctors in China is relatively meager. Overworked and underpaid, many accept bribes to complement their salaries. With weak regulations and insufficient compensation for its workers, the Chinese government has incentivized the prevalence of “gray income” in the medical industry, a major source of public resentment.

Moreover, without adequate access to care or relevant education, the general public has a poor understanding of medicine, and can develop unrealistic expectations for its efficacy. A string of highly publicized scandals damaged the reputation of the medical profession, further sowing distrust between caregivers and their recipients.

Chinese Storytellers chinesestorytellers.com has also been a huge resource, sharing “stories about hospitals being understaffed and patients being turned away have prompted people to start online volunteer networks to help patients who have no choice but to quarantine themselves at home.”

And of course about the legitimacy crisis in Chinese politics

How Much Could a New Virus Damage Beijing’s Legitimacy? Taisu Zhang, January 29, 2020, Chinafile

THE TRUTH ABOUT “DRAMATIC ACTION” Da Shiji (达史纪) | Jan 27, 2020, China Media Project

But is it fair to regard this case of large-scale quarantine also as a “Chinese miracle” in public health?

...

Everyone must understand, first of all, that this epidemic was allowed to spread for a period of more than forty days before any of the abovementioned cities were closed off, or any decisive action taken. In fact, if we look at the main efforts undertaken by the leadership, and by provincial and city governments in particular, these were focused mostly not on the containment of the epidemic itself, but on the containment and suppression of information about the disease.

Comic relief: Quarantine makes life better, MessyCow.com

[Quarantine makes life better, MessyCow.com

#coronavirus #wuhan #china #social media #elsewhere on the internet #journalism #health care

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bountyofbeads · 4 years

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Coronavirus Live Updates: Cases Up Nearly 60%, as Airports Expand Screenings https://nyti.ms/2RzxbfT

This seems to be getting a fair amount of media coverage. However, I am more concerned about what is NOT being said. Could this turn into a worldwide pandemic like the Spanish flu of 1918? With 1/5 of the population wiped out? If there was ever a time to err on the side of caution, it is now.

Videos on social media in China have appeared claiming that 70,000+ people are infected. The people in these videos say that they are medical professionals and that the Chinese government is engaged in a cover-up. Given China's history of covering up negative events, SARS, and their seemingly overkill public response, quartinting 10+ cities, I suspect the situation is a lot worse than is being portrayed.

Coronavirus Live Updates: Cases Up Nearly 60%, as Airports Expand Screenings

The number of known cases of the new virus rose by nearly 60 percent overnight. A shortage of test kits has led experts to warn that the real number may be higher.

By The New York Times | Published January 28, 2020 | Posted January 28, 2020 |

RIGHT NOW

After repeated offers of assistance, China will allow in international health experts to help with research and containment.

[ READ UPDATES IN CHINESE:

武汉疫情每日汇总中文版]

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

DEATH TOLL EXCEEDS 100 AS NUMBER OF INFECTIONS SKYROCKETS.

The outbreak of the mysterious new coronavirus is rapidly spreading, the Chinese authorities said on Tuesday, as the official account of known cases jumped nearly 60 percent overnight and the death toll exceeded 100 for the first time.

◆ China said on Tuesday that 106 people had died from the virus, which is believed to have originated in the central city of Wuhan and is spreading across the country. The previous death toll, on Monday, was 81.

◆ The number of confirmed cases increased to 4,515 on Tuesday, from 2,835 on Monday, according to the National Health Commission. The youngest confirmed case is a 9-month-old girl in Beijing.

◆ Most of the confirmed cases have been in the central Chinese province of Hubei, where several cities, including Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, have been placed under what amounts to a lockdown. Of the total cases, 2,714 are in Hubei.

◆ Thailand has reported 14 cases of infection; Hong Kong has eight; the United States, Taiwan, Australia and Macau have five each; Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia each have reported four; Japan has seven; France has three; Canada and Vietnam have two; and Nepal, Cambodia and Germany each have one. There have been no deaths outside China.

C.D.C. IS EXPANDING SCREENING FOR CORONAVIRUS AT U.S. AIRPORTS AND BORDERS.

The United States is expanding the screening of travelers arriving from Wuhan — to 20 ports of entry, from five, federal officials said on Tuesday.

“Right now, there is no spread of this virus in our communities at home,” said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a news briefing in Washington.

“The coming days and weeks are likely to bring more cases including the possibility of person-to-person spread,” he said. “Our goal is to contain this virus and prevent sustained spread of the virus in our country.”

The C.D.C. was already screening passengers from Wuhan at five airports. Now quarantine stations at 20 airports and land crossings will be equipped to test for the virus.

Officials also announced that after repeated offers of assistance, Chinese authorities agreed on Tuesday to allow in teams of international experts, coordinated by the World Health Organization, to help with research and containment.

GERMANY AND JAPAN SAY THE VIRUS HAS SPREAD IN THEIR COUNTRIES.

Health officials on Tuesday reported what appear to be the first known cases of human-to-human transmission of the virus in Europe — specifically, in Germany — and in Japan. Another case was recently reported in Vietnam.

The cases show that countries across the world are now faced with the task of limiting the spread of the disease on their own soil, not just seeking to identify and quarantine ailing patients who had traveled from China.

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said the first Japanese national — and the sixth person in Japan overall — to be diagnosed with the coronavirus was a man in his 60s. He had never been to Wuhan, but he had worked as a bus driver earlier this month for two different group tours from that city, officials said.

The man began experiencing symptoms on Jan. 14, was hospitalized on Saturday and was confirmed to have the coronavirus on Tuesday.

The infected German, whose case was also confirmed on Tuesday, is a 33-year-old man from Bavaria who had been in contact with a Chinese woman in Germany, officials said. The woman was diagnosed with the virus after flying home to China. The man was in good condition, German officials said.

“It was to be expected that the virus would come to Germany,” Jens Spahn, Germany’s health minister, said in a statement on Tuesday. “But the Bavarian case shows us that we are well prepared.”

The World Health Organization said on Friday that there appeared to have been a case of human-to-human transmission in Vietnam, where a person who had never been to China, but who had a relative who had visited Wuhan, was confirmed to have the virus.

HONG KONG PUTS SIGNIFICANT LIMITS ON TRAVEL FROM THE MAINLAND.

Hong Kong on Tuesday put in place a broad series of restrictions aimed at controlling the spread of the coronavirus by limiting the number of mainland Chinese travelers entering the territory, one of Asia’s busiest travel and financial hubs.

The restrictions — which included the suspension of high-speed and other train services between Hong Kong and the mainland, a 50 percent reduction in the number of flights — and a ban on tourism visas for many travelers — were announced by Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive.

The regulations, which apply to some plane, rail, bus and ferry arrivals, will begin on Thursday. They follow days of rising pressure from health care workers, epidemiologists and even pro-Beijing politicians who have traditionally supported Mrs. Lam’s government.

Hong Kong has so far recorded eight confirmed cases of the virus.

Tibet, the only region in China that has yet to report any cases, has temporarily closed all tourist sites, state news media reported. Major Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, have suspended long-distance bus services.

The medical faculty of the Chinese University of Hong Kong called for more restrictions on border checkpoints as the virus spreads across China.

Workers from Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority have planned a strike for next week to demand a law requiring the wearing of masks in public and banning all visitors from entering the city through the mainland.

ETHIOPIA AND IVORY COAST TEST SUSPECTED CASES.

Numerous African countries are shoring up coronavirus screening efforts at major airports, and samples from at least five potentially infected patients were being tested.

Ethiopia’s state minister of health confirmed on Tuesday that four potential cases were isolated in the capital, Addis Ababa, pending laboratory tests. On Monday, officials in Ivory Coast said they were testing a suspected case related to a female student who had traveled from Beijing to the capital, Abidjan.

The epidemic comes as travel between China and African states has increased at a rapid pace. As Beijing has ramped up its diplomatic, economic and political support for African states, Chinese firms and migrants have been setting up shop in cities from Nairobi to Johannesburg.

Data from the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University put the number of official Chinese workers as of 2017 at over 202,000. African entrepreneurs have moved to Chinese cities, while African students now make up a large percentage of the foreign student body in China.

On Tuesday, Kenya Airways announced that the health authorities had quarantined a passenger who traveled from Guangzhou.

Because of the Chinese New Year celebration, “a good number of African students living in Wuhan or Hubei traveled home before the extent of the virus became clear,” said Hannah Ryder, chief executive of the Beijing-headquartered consultancy Development Reimagined.

“It’s unclear how exposed they may have been and if governments have the resources to check on them,” she said.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION BURIES UPDATED GLOBAL RISK ASSESSMENT IN A FOOTNOTE.

The World Health Organization revised its global risk assessment for the coronavirus outbreak from “moderate” to “high,” but concealed the change in a footnote buried in a report published on Monday.

The change to the report, which coincided with a visit to China by the organization’s director-general, risked confusing the public about the severity of the outbreak, which has killed more than 100 people in China and been found in at least 14 countries.

In a statement, the organization said the director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and Chinese officials “discussed measures to protect the health of Chinese and foreigners in outbreak areas, including possible alternatives to evacuation of foreigners if there are ways to accommodate them and protect their health.”

Chinese state-run media reported that Dr. Tedros met with President Xi Jinping of China and spoke highly of Chinese efforts. Mr. Xi urged the health organization to assess the epidemic in an “objective, fair, calm and rational manner.”

In Hubei, medical workers have complained about a desperate need for resources to treat thousands of patients who have at times overwhelmed hospitals.

The group, which is a United Nations body, was criticized when it refused twice in recent days to declare the outbreak a global emergency, despite its spread.

SHORTAGE OF TEST KITS IN CHINA PROMPTS CONCERN THAT CASES HAVE BEEN UNDERREPORTED.

A shortage of medical kits in China needed to quickly diagnose the coronavirus has slowed the country’s ability to respond to the outbreak and fueled concerns that the number of cases has been underreported.

China’s Medical Products Administration said on Sunday that it had approved four new virus detection kits, including one that sequences the genetic makeup of the disease.

But China’s three leading medical device manufacturers said they did not have the capacity to quickly produce the products, according to state news media reports.

Residents in Wuhan who arrived at hospitals to seek testing were told that medical workers did not have the kits needed to confirm a diagnosis.

“For any new emerging virus, most local hospitals or public health laboratories will not able to make a diagnosis” said Yuen Kwok-yung, the chairman of the infectious diseases department at Hong Kong University. “Thus many cases will not be investigated at all if they are mild.”

A woman in Wuhan told The South China Morning Post that her uncle learned he had viral pneumonia after a CT scan, but that the doctor could not confirm it was the new virus because no testing kits were available.

China may have to rely on outside technical support as front line responders battle to contain the virus’s spread, experts said. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said Sunday that it would commit $5 million to help China respond to the crisis, including “efforts to identify and confirm cases.”

U.S. HEALTH OFFICIALS RECOMMEND AVOIDING CHINA, AND BUSINESSES FOLLOW SUIT.

As the outbreak continues to spread, global companies have begun to limit their workers’ travel to mainland China, and China’s biggest companies have urged employees to work from home.

On Monday, health officials in the United States urged travelers to avoid any nonessential travel to China, and many companies cited that as justification for internal travel bans. The new guidance, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that transportation in and out of Hubei Province, the center of the outbreak, is restricted, and that there is “limited access to adequate medical care in affected areas.”

Companies with large operations or interest in China, like General Motors, Honeywell, Bloomberg and Facebook, have all warned employees not to travel within mainland China in a flurry of emails in recent days.

Honeywell, which has offices and operations across China, said it had restricted travel to certain regions, without specifying them. A spokesperson for General Motors said the company had issued a global ban on travel to China, under which only “business-critical” travel would be allowed.

Bloomberg told its employees in Hong Kong and mainland China to work remotely until further notice, and it barred other employees from traveling to either place for the next 30 days, according to an email seen by The New York Times. Facebook said it asked all employees to suspend nonessential travel and asked those who had recently been in China to work from home for a period of time.

The authorities in China have extended the Lunar New Year holiday to Feb. 3, and some of China’s biggest cities have gone further, telling businesses not to open until the next week. The country’s biggest technology companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, Bytedance, Sina, Maimai, Netease and Didi, told employees to work from home from Feb. 3 to Feb. 10.

Netease, an internet and entertainment platform, asked employees returning from another city within China to quarantine themselves for 14 days.

WORRIES RISE ABOUT THE OUTBREAK’S ECONOMIC IMPACT.

After sharp losses around the world on Monday, investors on Tuesday continued to assess the long-term economic effects of the coronavirus epidemic.

The verdict was mixed. Investors abandoned stocks in Asia, while markets in Europe rebounded modestly from the previous day’s sell-off. Stock market futures in the United States rose as well.

Many of Asia’s stock markets were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, but those that were open — Japan’s and South Korea’s — fell as futures trading in China slumped. Money poured into safe-haven assets like gold and pushed up the value of the United States dollar.

Japan’s state economy minister said on Tuesday that the Chinese outbreak would affect Japan’s tourism industry and warned that it could also hurt Japanese exports and corporate profits. Chinese tourists traveling to Japan accounted for 30 percent of all tourists in 2019, he said at a news conference.

“There are concerns over the impact to the Chinese and global economy from the spread of infection in China, transportation disruptions, cancellation of group tours from China and an extension in the Lunar Holiday,” said the minister, Yasutoshi Nishimura.

In Tokyo, investors pushed stocks down by nearly one percent. In Seoul, stocks fell by more than 3 percent. Hong Kong’s stock market will reopen on Wednesday. In China, where authorities have extended the New Year holiday by a week, the major exchanges in Shenzhen and Shanghai said they would remain closed until Feb. 3.

“The coronavirus is the No. 1 threat to financial markets currently as global investors are becoming jittery on the uncertainty,” said Nigel Gre, the founder of the investment group deVere Group.

BACK IN NEW YORK FROM WUHAN … AND INTO A SELF-IMPOSED QUARANTINE.

Some of the last passengers who arrived at Kennedy International Airport before direct flights from Wuhan were canceled have quarantined themselves at home.

Scott Liu, 56, who leads an association for immigrants from Hubei, said he confined himself to his house in Queens. He said he and his fellow passengers on the Wuhan flight learned of the lockdown in that city mid-flight.

He said he has not felt sick, but is taking precautions because he knows symptoms take time to appear. His friends have dropped off on his doorstep traditional Lunar New Year dishes like lotus root and pork rib soup, salted fish and dumplings. Last year, they were host to a big New Year celebration at a banquet hall in Flushing.

This year, Mr. Liu said, “all the events here are canceled.”

“Everybody is in a state of panic,” he added.

________

Reporting was contributed by Chris Buckley, Russell Goldman, Elaine Yu, Raymond Zhong, Austin Ramzy, Sui-Lee Wee, Alexandra Stevenson, Cao Li, Eimi Yamamitsu, Tiffany May, Joseph Goldstein, Jeffrey E. Singer, Peter S. Goodman, Roni Caryn Rabin, Motoko Rich, Paul Mozur, Christopher F. Schuetze, Abdi Latif Dahir, Simon Marks and Aurelien Breeden. Jin Wu, Zoe Mou, Albee Zhang, Amber Wang, Yiwei Wang and Claire Fu contributed research.

*********

Coronavirus live updates: U.S. seeks to send expert team to China to combat coronavirus outbreak; Xi defends response

By Gerry Shih, Simon Denyer and Siobhán O'Grady | Published January 28 at 3:38 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 28, 2020 |

BEIJING — A top U.S. health official said Tuesday that he offered to send a team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to China to help with the coronavirus outbreak. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar did not describe the Chinese health minister’s response but said he hopes that Beijing will accept the offer.

Earlier Tuesday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said that his country is being “open, transparent, responsible” in its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, as the number of cases continues to increase. Here’s what we know:

● The death toll has risen to 106 in China, with more than 4,565 cases of infection. Other countries in the region also are reporting more people infected — nearly all of them tourists from China.

● Hong Kong announced dramatic measures to stem the flow of mainland Chinese into the territory, closing two railways, ferries and cross-border tour buses. Flights to mainland China will be slashed by half, and individual visas to Chinese will no longer be issued, starting Thursday. United Airlines suspended some flights from the United States to China after demand dropped.

● The U.S. stock market rebounded after the outbreak spooked the global investors Monday, causing serious losses. Asian markets opened down Tuesday after the Lunar New Year holiday, with markets in South Korea and Japan having dropped nearly 3 percent.

● Several countries, including France, South Korea, Canada, Britain and the United States, are putting together plans to evacuate their citizens from the outbreak epicenter in Wuhan.

● Germany has reported its first case, while Thailand has confirmed six more cases, bringing its total to 14 amid calls by many Asian populations to close the borders to Chinese visitors. Infections have been confirmed in France, South Korea, Japan, Nepal, Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, Canada and Sri Lanka. We’re mapping the spread here.

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3:30 PM: IN CHINA, STILL MORE RISK OF DYING FROM FLU THAN THE CORONAVIRUS, EXPERT SAYS

WASHINGTON—As cases of the coronavirus continue to spread, global health experts say people in China — and around the world — are currently more at risk of dying of influenza.

“The flu is a big deal in China,” said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

People there are “more at risk of dying of the flu right now than they are of coronavirus,” he said, although incomplete government data makes it hard to assess the full effect of flu in China.

Flu takes a substantial toll around the world, including in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been at least 15 million cases of the flu and 8,200 deaths in the United States this season.

Huang said that getting a flu shot probably wouldn’t keep individuals from contracting the coronavirus, but could have systemic benefits by bringing down the rate of those presenting flu-like symptoms and seeking treatment, thus preserving hospital resources.

Fear, Huang said, “could itself be as contagious as the virus.”

By:Ruby Mellen

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3:10 PM: ROBOT DELIVERS FOOD TO PEOPLE in QUARANTINE IN CHINA

WASHINGTON — Travelers who flew from Singapore to Hangzhou, China, are being held in quarantine in a hotel this week, where they received a visit from a special guest: Little Peanut, a food delivery robot.

“Hello, everyone. Cute Little Peanut is serving food to you now,” the robot said as it made its way down a hotel hallway. “Enjoy your meal. If you need anything else, please message the staff on WeChat.”

Little Peanut moved along the carpeted hallway with ease, pausing when a man in slippers and a face mask opened his door to retrieve his meal. As the robot moved ahead, another door opened, and another man reached for his meal. The robot continued down the hall, and two more men popped out of doors opposite one another, each retrieving their meals as well.

The delivery system, which reduces human contact with the people in quarantine, was captured in cellphone footage shared this week on Chinese state media.

By: Siobhán O’Grady

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2:30 PM: CANADA CONFIRMS THIRD CASE OF CORONAVIRUS

TORONTO — A third person has tested positive in Canada for the novel coronavirus, the British Columbia Center for Disease Control said Tuesday.

The man, who is in his 40s, travels regularly to China for business and was in Wuhan during his most recent trip, said Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer. He began experiencing symptoms of the virus more than 24 hours after his arrival in Vancouver last week and contacted his primary health-care provider. He is being kept in isolation at home, where he is “doing well,” she added, and does not require hospitalization.

Henry said the case “is not unexpected to us,” given travel patterns and family ties between British Columbia and China, and is unlikely to be the last. She stressed that the risk of contracting the virus remains “extremely low.”

Despite claims from some Chinese officials, Henry said that there is no evidence that the coronavirus can be spread while a carrier is asymptomatic and that the virus is not as infectious as influenza or measles.

“You have to be in relatively close contact with somebody to inhale those droplets if they cough or sneeze,” she said.

The man’s case is considered a “presumptive positive” pending confirmation from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but Henry said she is “confident” it is a case of the virus given the man’s travel pattern and symptoms.

By: Amanda Coletta

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2:00 PM: WALL STREET BOUNCES BACK AFTER CORONAVIRUS-FUELED SELL-OFF

WASHINGTON — U.S. stock markets rebounded Tuesday after investors appeared to shake off immediate anxiety around the growing coronavirus outbreak.

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 250 points at midday, one day after shedding more than 450 points in its worst one-day sell-off since October. The Standard & Poor’s 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq also rallied back, and were trading up 1.2 and 1.4 percent, respectively.

Still, investors are keeping close watch on the coronavirus. Analysts worry that China’s economy, which depends heavily on consumer spending, could take a hit given the massive slowdown in travel. There’s also concern that it could disrupt global supply chains.

The U.S. economy could be cushioned from any major damage, analysts say, especially if the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak is any indication. The spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed nearly 800 people and infected more than 8,000 others, temporarily stifled growth in CHINA.

By: Rachel Siegel

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1:25 PM: UNITED AIRLINES SUSPENDS SOME FLIGHTS TO CHINA AS DEMAND DROPS

WASHINGTON — United Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier operating in China, said Tuesday afternoon that it is adjusting its near-term schedule and canceling 24 round-trip flights between the United States and China because so few people are traveling to China.

The cancellations affect flights from San Francisco International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, Dulles International Airport and Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

“Due to a significant decline in demand for travel to China, we are suspending some flights between our hub cities and Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai beginning Feb. 1 through Feb. 8,” the airline said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor the situation as it develops and will adjust our schedule as needed.”

By: Hannah Sampson

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12:50 PM: TOP U.S. HEALTH OFFICIAL SAYS EARLY CASES MAY ‘SKEW’ UNDERSTANDING OF CORONAVIRUS

WASHINGTON — Azar said experts are scrambling to understand how quickly the novel coronavirus spreads, as well as its lethality, based on limited information.

In a news conference on Tuesday, the health secretary emphasized that officials’ assessments are based on the publicly reported cases and that those “are naturally the most severe cases, because patients presented themselves to health-care providers.”

Another challenge is figuring out lethality without knowing what the total universe of cases might be. Right now, China is reporting more than 100 deaths from the more than 4,500 cases.

But Azar noted that those cases, too, “skew severe, including patients who are older or have other illnesses. The mortality rate may drop over time as we identify a broader set of cases.”

For those reasons, Azar said, “We are still determining the real speed of spread. … We are also still learning about the severity of the virus.”

By: Yasmeen Abutaleb and Lenny Bernstein

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12:35 PM: AUTHORITIES IN GERMANY CAUTION AGAINST IGNORING FLU RISK AS CORONAVIRUS SPREADS

BERLIN — Authorities in Europe urged citizens Tuesday to not ignore risks posed by the flu, after public focus largely shifted to the spreading coronavirus.

In Germany, which confirmed its first coronavirus case in southern Bavaria on Monday night, officials have sought to keep the coronavirus in perspective by citing flu figures.

“Severe flu seasons can kill up to 20,000 people annually in Germany,” said German Health Minister Jens Spahn. But health officials said they also did not want to diminish the risks posed by the coronavirus, even as the threat level across Europe remains relatively low.

The growing focus on the new virus may skew perception of the real risks it poses, but that doesn’t mean the public interest has been unhelpful, said Susanne Glasmacher of the Robert Koch Institute, a German government health agency.

“Some of the means of protecting against influenza are the same as against coronavirus: keeping a distance, washing your hands,” she said.

Encouraging more citizens to take such measures seriously “might in fact be beneficial for keeping influenza numbers low — perhaps it might even help to increase influenza vaccination coverage,” she said.

By: Rick Noack

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11:50 AM: TOP U.S. HEALTH OFFICIAL SAYS HE OFFERED TO SEND CDC TEAM TO CHINA

WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on Tuesday that he reiterated an offer to China’s minister of health to send a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team to China to aid with the public health response to the coronavirus outbreak.

In a news conference Tuesday, Azar said he spoke with the Chinese minister of health on Monday and repeated an offer he made on Jan. 6 to send a CDC team.

Asked about the minister’s response, Azar did not respond directly, saying he “hopes the Chinese government will take us up on” the offer. “We are urging China that more cooperation and transparency are the most important steps you can take toward a more effective response,” Azar said.

Azar said health officials wanted more isolates of the virus from China to help better understand its transmission and to help in the development of vaccines and diagnostics. Top health officials also said that no option was off the table on further restricting travel from China, but they did not announce any new limitations.

By: Yasmeen Abutaleb and Lenny Bernstein

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11:30 AM: AS OUTBREAK SPREADS, AFRICA PREPARES FOR POSSIBLE CASES

WASHINGTON — Despite rapidly growing ties between China and many African countries, no coronavirus cases have been recorded anywhere in Africa since the outbreak began in China in late December. Still, John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned Tuesday that it’s “very possible that there are cases on the continent that have not been recognized.”

Speaking to reporters in Addis Ababa, he noted that cases were suspected in several countries but that none has been confirmed. As is true elsewhere, preparedness for the virus will vary country by country, Nkengasong said.

“Some countries have very strong surveillance systems, some have weak surveillance systems, and some we are working with them to strengthen those systems there,” he said. “This will be a test case of how those systems have been strengthened over the years.”

Large numbers of Chinese citizens live and work in Africa, running shops and restaurants and working on Chinese infrastructure projects. And in the last decade, airlines have accounted for the rapidly growing exchange: Air traffic between Chinese and African cities surged more than 630 percent in the last decade, Quartz reported last year.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of African students are studying in China, with more than 4,000 believed to be studying in Hubei province alone, according to the Associated Press.

As of Tuesday, Nkengasong said, there is “no need to charter flights to evacuate Africans out of Wuhan city.”

But some African students have expressed concerns they are trapped in the epicenter of the outbreak. Samson Opoku, a Ghanaian student leader in Wuhan, told Ghanaian radio station Joy FM that he and others “want evacuation back home to Ghana.”

“When the outbreak subsides or ends then we return and continue our academic work,” he said.

By: Siobhán O’Grady

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10:40 AM: MILLIONS TUNE IN TO WATCH LIVE STREAM OF CHINESE HOSPITAL CONSTRUCTION

WASHINGTON — Blocked from traveling and encouraged to stay indoors, millions of Chinese have found an unusual way to pass the time: watching hospitals get built — in real time.

On Tuesday, remarkable numbers of Chinese netizens watched grainy, wide-angle footage of workers flattening earth at the site of two temporary hospitals being built to treat the growing number of patients in Wuhan.

Twin live streams showcasing work on the Huoshenshan and Leishenshan hospitals together had an average of 18 million concurrent views on Tuesday, according the South China Morning Post. The footage was hosted by CCTV, China’s state broadcaster.

Facing public anger, authorities promised to build two hospitals in 10 days — a response calibrated to show resolve and showcase Chinese know-how. The live streams appear to be a nod to calls for transparency.

The fact that so many people chose to watch the slow-moving coverage shows both the extent to which boredom is taking hold, as well as public interest in how the Chinese Communist Party is responding.

China’s leaders have vowed to use the hulking architecture of the state to help those affected. The footage, boring as it may be, gives ordinary people a rare chance to show they’re keeping watch.

By: Emily Rauhala

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10:10 AM: Xi DEFENDS CHINA’S HANDLING OF OUTBREAK IN MEETING WITH WHO

BEIJING — Chinese leader Xi Jinping defended his country’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic as “open, transparent, responsible” on Tuesday in a meeting with World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, even as the Chinese mayor at the epicenter of the outbreak apologized for withholding information from the public.

Calling the coronavirus a “demon,” Xi told Tedros that he would not “let a demon hide” as he vouched for his government’s ability to handle the crisis.

In return, China’s official Xinhua News Agency described Tedros as praising Xi for “personally commanding” the outbreak response and “showing excellent leadership.”

Although international experts have largely praised the speed and methods with which Chinese scientists have carried out research into the novel virus, the Communist Party leadership has come under growing criticism about its handling of the epidemic in its critical early days and its politicization of the international public health response.

Xi’s meeting with the WHO chief came a day after the mayor of Wuhan triggered a firestorm by publicly suggesting that he had not been allowed to speak out earlier about the epidemic.

China in recent days has also been criticized by Taiwan’s president for trying to block the self-ruled island from meetings at the WHO, a United Nations agency, for political reasons at a sensitive moment. China, which has considerable clout at the U.N., views Taiwan as its own territory and has sought to diplomatically isolate the island.

Taiwan reported late Tuesday that it had a first case of coronavirus transmission between two people on the island, raising fears of the virus’s spread. The majority of cases so far have involved people who became infected while traveling in central China.

By: Gerry Shih

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9:30 AM: TAIWAN REPORTS FIRST CASE OF DOMESTIC TRANSMISSION

WASHINGTON — Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Centre confirmed Tuesday that one of its eight confirmed coronavirus patients appeared to be the first case of transmission on the island. All previous cases had been infected first in China, Taiwan said. But the new patient, a man in his 50s, was infected by his wife after she returned from working in China, Reuters reports.

Taiwan, despite its political divide with the government in Beijing, has close cultural and economic ties with mainland China. On Monday, an official at Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council told reporters that there were as many as 300 business people from Taiwan in Wuhan.

By: ADAM TAYLOR

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8:45 AM: CHARTER FLIGHT CARRYING MEDICAL SUPPLIES LEAVES JAPAN FOR WUHAN AS EVACUATIONS BEGIN

TOKYO — A charter flight left Japan at 8 p.m. on Tuesday to evacuate around 200 people from Wuhan, officials said.

The plane is carrying masks, plastic gloves, protective clothing and food.

It was scheduled to leave Wuhan at 3 a.m. local time Wednesday and arrive back in Tokyo’s Haneda airport at 7:30 a.m. Officials said 650 Japanese citizens living in the worst-affected province of Hubei have asked to come home, with the initial 200 selected among those living closest to the airport and the market from which the disease is believed to have spread.

Those with symptoms will be taken directly to a hospital that specializes in treating infectious diseases, while those without symptoms will be taken to another hospital for tests.

The second group will then be allowed to go home, but urged not to venture outdoors for two weeks during the incubation period of the virus, with health officials visiting them on a daily basis to monitor their condition.

Other flights will be added as soon as possible, officials told reporters.

South Korea will send four flights to Wuhan on Thursday and Friday to evacuate around 700 of its nationals who have asked to come home.

The government plans to send provide some 2 million masks and other medical relief items, including 200,000 items of protective clothing and goggles, on the planes, Yonhap news agency reported.

By: Simon DENYER

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8:30 AM: COUNTRIES MOVE FORWARD WITH EVACUATION PLANS

BERLIN — Several countries continued to move forward with plans to evacuate their citizens from the coronavirus epicenter Wuhan.

Among the nations pursuing or considering such plans are France, South Korea, Morocco, Britain, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Russia, Reuters reported.

French authorities said they will initially focus on the evacuation of citizens who are not showing any symptoms of the virus, with a flight from Wuhan expected to arrive back in France on Thursday. The second flight for infected citizens has yet to be scheduled.

In neighboring Germany, the Der Spiegel magazine reported that at least one military aircraft was expected to leave for Wuhan later this week to evacuate German citizens. The plans were not officially confirmed and the German Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

British authorities were still finalizing their own plans, too. Via its Twitter account, the British embassy in Beijing urged British nationals in Hubei province willing to leave the region to call a 24/7 hotline before 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

The British government had previously faced pressure to enact a plan. The opposition Labour Party’s Emily Thornberry accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of “not doing whatever it takes to protect our citizens from harm,” according to the Evening Standard newspaper on Monday.

By: RICK NOACK

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7:30 AM: CHINESE EMBASSY IN COPENHAGEN DEMANDS APOLOGY OVER CORONAVIRUS CARTOON

BERLIN — The Chinese embassy in Denmark has demanded an apology over a coronavirus cartoon published in one of the country’s highest-circulation newspapers, Jyllands-Posten.

The cartoon showed a Chinese flag with what appeared to represent five coronavirus particles instead of the five typical yellow stars.

The illustration — published by the same paper that drew international attention with the satirical Muhammad cartoons in 2005 that sparked rioting across the Middle East — struck a nerve with Chinese officials in Denmark.

In a release, a spokesperson for the embassy called the cartoon “an insult to China” that “hurts the feelings of the Chinese people.”

“Without any sympathy and empathy, it has crossed the bottom line of civilized society and the ethical boundary of free speech and offends human conscience,” the statement read, adding that the cartoonist Niels Bo Bojesen and the paper should “reproach themselves for their mistake and publicly apologize to the Chinese people.”

The paper stood by the cartoon on Tuesday, with its editor in chief Jacob Nybroe saying that “there is no mockery or scorn in the drawing.”

“We can’t apologize for something we don’t think is wrong,” Nybroe added, according to the paper’s own coverage of the controversy.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen defended the country’s freedom of expression and satire, even though she did not directly comment on the cartoon in question itself.

By: RICK NOACK

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6:00 AM: PHILIPPINES RESTRICTS VISAS FOR CHINESE NATIONALS

MANILA — In the Philippines, immigration authorities temporarily suspended the issuance of visas upon arrival for Chinese nationals. Immigration commissioner Jaime Morente said that this was “to slow down the influx of group tours,” and possibly prevent the entry of the virus.

China is one of the country’s top sources of tourists, accounting for over a million visits in 2018. The country is hoping to record 9.2 million international arrivals this year. Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat said that her department did not find it necessary to adjust tourism targets just yet.

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laburlasi · 3 years

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WHO chief succumbs to US-led West’s pressure in virus origins remarks

World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has succumbed to US-led West's multiple layers of political pressure, calling on China to be transparent and open in further COVID-19 origins studies, Chinese observers said, which cannot replace majority scientific views of the natural origins hypothesis and will question WHO's credibility and professionalism. Tedros said at Thursday's media briefing that getting access to raw data had been a challenge for phase 1 COVID-19 origins study, asking China to be transparent, open and cooperate. What's more, he said there had been a "premature push" to rule out the theory that the virus might have escaped from a lab. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry Zhao Lijian said at Friday's media briefing that international experts from the China-WHO study group on COVID-19 origins said many times that they accessed substantive data and information and fully understood that some information could not be copied or taken out of China due to privacy. Tedros is scheduled to share proposals for a phase 2 study into the origins of the coronavirus with member states on Friday, its emergency director Mike Ryan said. Zhao said that China is studying the proposals for a phase 2 study, and the next phase study should be led by member states, agreed through consultation and based on the China-WHO joint study report, which concluded that the lab leak hypothesis is extremely unlikely, and that we should look for possible early cases of the outbreak more widely around the world and further understand the role of cold chains and frozen food. Zeng Guang, former chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told Global Times on Friday that what Tedros said made no sense and his remarks cannot replace scientific conclusions, which was reached through independent scientific studies by some 30 top-notch international scientists. "Such a conclusion cannot be made by some bureaucratic organization," Zeng said. "I believe Tedros made such remarks out of pressure from some Western countries as the phase 2 origins study was about to begin, and he also needs the West's support as he plans to run for a second five-year term as the head of the agency," Zeng said. With regard to the requirement to share raw data, Chinese observers said China has presented item by item raw data to WHO experts during the joint China-WHO study. As for the lab leak theory, the China-WHO study report has stated clearly that the hypothesis is highly unlikely, and all parties should respect scientists' conclusions, and WHO in particular, should play a leading role, analysts said. A Beijing-based immunologist who requested anonymity told the Global Times that the WHO has been under the US' multiple layers of pressure, and succumbing to US pressure will result in WHO's professionalism in public health being questioned globally, which will seriously affect future scientific study on COVID-19 origins. The US exerted political pressure to the WHO for the purpose of containing China and shifted its blame on the COVID-19 response to China, and economically, the Biden administration may threaten the WHO with its fund. Lastly, many of the WHO's scientists are from the US-led West whose academic views were being influenced by their governments, the immunologist said. Chinese observers said the US' politicization of coronavirus origins will make the further study come to an impasse. More countries have recently stepped out opposing the politicization. Forty-eight countries have sent letters to the WHO opposing the politicization of the probe on the origins of the virus, urging the organization to act according to the resolution made by the World Health Assembly (WHA) and push forward the global probe on the traceability of the virus, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Thursday, stressing it shows that objective and fair justice still accounts for the majority. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley posted on Twitter that "I stressed that Barbados only supports a science-based approach with respect to determining the origins of COVID-19." As for next-stage coronavirus origins study, Zeng said that the US should be prioritized, as the country was slow to test people at an early stage, and it possesses so many biological laboratories all around the world. "All bio-weapons related subjects that the country has should be subject to scrutiny," Zeng said. Several virologists and analysts interviewed by the Global Times have urged the Fort Detrick lab to open its doors for an international investigation.

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gmoerastervail000 · 3 years

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Such a conclusion cannot be made by some bureaucratic organization

Zeng Guang, former chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told Global Times on Friday that what Tedros said made no sense and his remarks cannot replace scientific conclusions, which was reached through independent scientific studies by some 30 top-notch international scientists. "Such a conclusion cannot be made by some bureaucratic organization," Zeng said.

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argumate · 1 year

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Zeng Guang, a former chief epidemiologist from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told an online forum that although we still lack accurate statistics, probably over 80 percent of the population in Beijing had been infected with COVID and the percentage could be higher.

"Although we lack the statistics about the overall death rate for now, the rate of the severe cases is much lower than that of the outbreak in Wuhan," Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert from Peking University First Hospital, told the Global Times in a recent interview.

#covid19

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polyuniversal · 2 years

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With the start of work and return to work, we have to step out of the house, but how to avoid infection at work? How can I keep myself and my family safe?Such densely populated places as high-speed rail, subway, bus, etc., may be the "hardest hit areas" of infection.

Especially on February 3, the Guangzhou CDC found the nucleic acid of the virus on the doorknob of a confirmed patient's home.Immediately after the Hubei epidemic conference, experts pointed out that the virus can survive for hours or even days on smooth surfaces. And your hand will probably touch it!

Then you can't help it, rub your eyes, touch your nose, and adjust your mask! By the time you remember to wash your hands, the virus may have already entered your body.

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Bishkek residents Yulia and Iskander held a wedding under emergency conditions with only 35 people watching online.

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0 notes

saandrale · 3 years

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The "double mutant" coronavirus strain that was found in India has now been detected in China, the country's chief epidemiologist has said in a major announcement ahead of this weekend's public holiday.At a Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention press conference held in Beijing on Thursday, Wu Zunyou revealed the "Indian variant" had been…

0 notes

rebeccavoszphlebotomycareers · 3 years

Photo

0 notes

seaofbitternessandsorrow · 3 years

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0 notes

bountyofbeads · 4 years

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Coronavirus Live Updates: Japan Announces Its First Death https://nyti.ms/2wbgNtH

Coronavirus Live Updates: Japan Announces Its First Death

The victim, who was in her 80s and whose name was not released, lived near Tokyo, the authorities said.

Published February 13, 2020 | New York Times | Posted February 13, 2020 |

Here’s what you need to know:

READ UPDATES IN CHINESE: 新冠病毒疫情最新消息汇总

JAPAN CONFIRMS ITS FIRST DEATH FROM THE CORONAVIRUS.

The Japanese authorities announced on Thursday the first death in the country from the new coronavirus.

Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said at a news conference that a woman in her 80s who lived in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, had died that day.

Her death is the third from the coronavirus outside mainland China, after one each in the Philippines and Hong Kong. The Japanese woman had no record of travel to mainland China.

Japanese officials also said on Thursday that dozens of new cases had been confirmed, including 44 more on a cruise ship quarantined off Yokohama.

Mr. Kato said that one of the new cases not tied to the cruise ship was a taxi driver in his 70s in Tokyo who tested positive for the virus on Thursday.

Mr. Kato said on Thursday that the authorities would begin allowing some cruise ship passengers to serve out the remainder of the quarantine period onshore.

Mr. Kato said that passengers 80 or older who have existing medical conditions or who were assigned to cabins without windows or balconies would stay in onshore quarantine facilities until Feb. 19 if they test negative for the virus. Those who test positive will be taken to hospitals.

The cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, arrived in Yokohama on Feb. 3, and passengers were expecting to go home the next day. But after learning that a man who got off the ship in Hong Kong had tested positive for the coronavirus, the Japanese government quarantined all 3,700 people aboard. As of Thursday, 218 coronavirus cases have been confirmed on the ship.

Separately on Thursday, another cruise ship, the Westerdam, which had been denied permission to stop in Japan, Guam, Taiwan and the Philippines despite having no diagnoses of coronavirus, was able to dock in Cambodia.

PROVINCIAL LEADER AT THE CENTER OF THE OUTBREAK WAS OUSTED.

China’s ruling Communist Party fired the leaders of Hubei Province and Wuhan, its largest city, on Thursday amid widespread public anger over the handling of the coronavirus outbreak in the region.

Jiang Chaoliang, the party secretary of Hubei Province, is the highest-ranking official to lose his job over the handling of the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 1,300 people in recent weeks.

After the outbreak first emerged in Wuhan, the leadership came under intense scrutiny for playing down the virus and delaying reports of its spread. The province then took drastic measures that included imposing a lockdown on Wuhan, a city of 11 million, and on tens of millions of people in surrounding areas.

For hospitals in Wuhan, already overwhelmed with patients, that cordon worsened a shortage of medical supplies.

Mr. Jiang will be replaced by Ying Yong, the mayor of Shanghai. The selection of Mr. Ying may underline the continued political control of Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. Before being transferred to Shanghai in a fairly senior role in 2008, Mr. Ying had come up through the political ranks in Zhejiang Province, Mr. Xi’s political base.

The party also ousted Ma Guoqiang, the top official in Wuhan, and replaced him with Wang Zhonglin, formerly the party secretary of the eastern city of Jinan.

NUMBER OF CASES IN HUBEI PROVINCE SOARS WITH NEW DIAGNOSTIC METHODS.

The number of people confirmed to have the coronavirus in Hubei Province, the center of the outbreak, skyrocketed by 14,840 cases, to 48,206, the government said on Thursday, setting a new daily record. The announcement came after the authorities changed the diagnostic criteria for counting new cases.

Nationally, the new figures propelled the total number of coronavirus cases in China to 59,805 and the death toll to 1,367. The jump in new cases puts extra pressure on the government to treat thousands of patients, many of whom are in mass quarantine centers or in isolation facilities.

The sudden uptick is a result of the government including cases diagnosed in clinical settings, including with the use of CT scans, along with those confirmed with specialized testing kits.

After the sudden change, epidemiologists warned that the true picture of the epidemic is muddled, since accurately tracking cases can tell experts the number, location and speed at which new infections are occurring.

Health experts said the change in reporting is meant to provide a more accurate view of the transmissibility of the virus. The new criteria is intended to give doctors broader discretion to diagnose patients, and more crucially, isolate patients to quickly treat them.

Previously, infections were confirmed only with a positive result from a nucleic acid test. But a government expert said those tests were about 30 to 40 percent accurate. There is also a shortage of testing kits, and the results of these tests takes at least two days.

Because hospitals were overstretched and lacked testing kits, many infected patients were told to go home rather than be isolated and undergo treatment.

Many patients displaying symptoms of the coronavirus have complained that they had to wait days, and even weeks, to be tested and receive treatment. Others, including the recently deceased whistle-blower Dr. Li Wenliang, said they had to be tested four or five times before the tests showed a positive result.

[SHIFTING NUMBERS: Cases seemed to be leveling off. No longer. SEE BELOW]

BRITISH OFFICIALS SAY DELAYING THE ONSET OF AN OUTBREAK IS A TOP PRIORITY.

A day after the authorities in Britain announced that a ninth person in the country had tested positive for coronavirus, officials were working to trace anyone who had come into close contact with that person, saying that limiting the virus’s spread was a top priority.

England’s chief health official, Prof. Chris Whitty, told a BBC 4 radio program that containment and isolation were main concerns, and officials were focusing on how to control any potential coronavirus outbreak in Britain while containing current cases.

“If we are going to get an outbreak here in the U.K. — and this is an if, not a when — then putting it back in time, into the summer period away from the winter pressures on the N.H.S., buying us a bit more time to understand the virus better, possibly having some seasonal advantage, is a big advantage,” he said, referring to the National Health Service.

The first group of 83 people who returned to Britain from the Chinese province of Hubei after the virus was discovered were to be released from quarantine in a hospital near Liverpool, England, on Thursday, health officials said.

Elsewhere in Europe, officials were taking similar measures. Dr. Andrea Ammon, director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said that her organization was carrying out regular risk assessments to help countries decide what measures were necessary.

“In general, quarantine measures, if implemented comprehensively, can be effective in limiting and slowing the introduction of novel pathogens into a population,” she said.

“Of course if we have multiple introductions or spread within a country,” she added, “then quarantine is not likely to be an effective measure.”

TAIWAN EXTENDS A BAN ON THE EXPORT OF PROTECTIVE MASKS.

Taiwan will extend a ban on exports of face masks through April, the government said on Thursday. The move comes as officials and institutions around the world are scrambling to ensure adequate supplies of masks for medical workers and other vulnerable groups.

Taiwan initially imposed a monthlong prohibition on mask exports on Jan. 24, a move that was condemned by state media and online commentators in mainland China.

Taiwan companies produce about a fifth of the face masks available worldwide, while the island itself has only 0.3 percent of the global population. The mismatch appears to have fed the criticism.

“Little Taiwan lacks conscience — it takes the benefit when the mainland gives it and if we have a problem, they walk away,” one user wrote last week on Chinese social media, referring to mainland China.

But officials in Taiwan, a self-governed democracy that denies Beijing’s claims of sovereignty, say it still has a problem: Its manufacturers produce most of their masks in factories in mainland China, not in Taiwan. Those masks are now being requisitioned by the local authorities in the mainland for use in high-risk settings.

According to data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, 53 percent of masks used in Taiwan last year were produced domestically, and the rest were imported, mostly from mainland China. Demand has soared faster than production so far this year.

Taiwan already has a form of mask rationing, with each resident permitted to buy two surgical masks a week. Health cards with computer chips are used by pharmacies across the island to control purchases.

HONG KONG AND SINGAPORE RUGBY TOURNAMENTS ARE DELAYED.

The Hong Kong Sevens and the Singapore Sevens rugby tournaments will be postponed to October from April because of the coronavirus outbreak, the sport’s governing body said Thursday.

The Hong Kong Sevens is one of the city’s biggest sporting — and partying — events, drawing in rugby fans from around the world. The decision to postpone was made “in order to help protect the global rugby community and the wider public,” World Rugby said in a statement.

Hong Kong, which now has 51 confirmed cases of the virus and one death, has closed or restricted a variety of public activities in response to the outbreak. Horse racing continues at Hong Kong Jockey Club tracks, one of the city’s other major sporting draws. But attendance is limited to a few hundred horse owners and guests, in addition to trainers, jockeys and officials.

Singapore confirmed eight new cases of the virus on Thursday, all linked to previous cases, bringing the total to 58.

SOUTH KOREA QUARANTINES HUNDREDS OF SOLDIERS WITH LINKS TO CHINA.

About 740 South Korean soldiers were under quarantine on Thursday as the country’s military tried to prevent an outbreak of the coronavirus among its ranks.

South Korea keeps a 600,000-strong army, largely filled with conscripts, as a bulwark against the threat from North Korea. Most of these soldiers live in communal barracks. After the outbreak in China, South Korea moved quickly to prevent the virus from infiltrating its military and undermining its readiness.

So far, no South Korean soldier has tested positive. The rest of the country has reported 28 confirmed cases, and no deaths. South Korea has reported no new cases in the past two days. North Korea has said it was also taking measures against the virus but has not released any official figures.

The quarantined soldiers included those who have visited mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau in recent weeks or those who have been in close contact with relatives or others who have been to China or tested positive for the virus.

PARADE OF WORKERS SPRAYS DISINFECTANT ACROSS WUHAN, BUT EXPERTS QUESTION ITS EFFECTIVENESS.

Mist cannons and water sprinkler trucks have been deployed to clean the streets of Wuhan, China, but experts said the effectiveness of such measures may be limited in preventing the spread of the illness.

Since Sunday, workers in Wuhan have been sanitizing public areas twice a day in an effort to disinfect the city. Public toilets as well as garbage disposal sites and transfer stations are sprayed at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., according to the local government’s official page on Weibo, a microblogging platform. Workers will spray disinfectant onto the main roads, at hospitals and around various isolation quarters as well.

Video footage shared by Chinese state media showed parades of trucks and workers in protective suits spraying plumes of white mist into the air and onto the streets of Wuhan. The city government said that by Tuesday a total of 21,130 liters of disinfectant and 720 liters of toilet cleaning products had already been used.

“I think it could help to reduce environmental contamination with coronavirus, but we have not yet seen evidence that coronavirus has been spreading through the environment,” said Benjamin Cowling, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong.

“Our current understanding is that most transmission occurs via prolonged close contact with infected persons,” he added.

A CHINESE PROVINCE USES TECH TO TRACKS RESIDENTS’ MOVEMENTS.

Officials in the southwestern province of Yunnan announced a plan to require residents to scan a QR-like code on their phones to enter public places as part of their effort to stop the virus’s spread.

The new program will “allow big data to become the ‘piercing eyes’ of epidemic prevention and control,” the Yunnan government said in a statement on Wednesday.

The program has already begun in the county of Luliang, and more than 5,600 scans have been performed at hundreds of venues, the statement said. In the next 12 days, it will be implemented across a broad variety of public venues, including medical facilities, hotels, malls, supermarkets, transport checkpoints, remote villages and farmers’ markets.

Residents who refuse to scan their codes could be barred entry or exit, and those who try to force their way through could face legal consequences, People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper, said on the social platform Weibo.

Photographs shared on Wednesday by a party-run newspaper in the city of Lijiang in Yunnan showed sheets of paper emblazoned with the codes, labeled “enter” and “exit,” plastered across walls and counters.

VIDEOS OF XINJIANG MEDICAL WORKERS IN WUHAN RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT THEIR DEPICTION.

Video of medical workers from the Xinjiang region dancing with patients at a coronavirus hospital in Wuhan have prompted scrutiny of their roles helping with the outbreak.

A team of 142 medical professionals from Xinjiang traveled to Wuhan on Jan. 28 to help treat people infected with the new virus, and at least two more teams have followed.

As more people in Wuhan have been placed into mass quarantine, a number of videos have emerged showing the Xinjiang workers leading healthier patients in dance routines to get some exercise and ease boredom.

One of the leaders of the Xinjiang team told Xinhua, the state-run news service, that a patient had asked her to lead a dance. The leader, Bahaguli Tuolehui, seen in the video below, said she chose a Kazakh dance, the Kara Jorga. The patients “have done square dances before in the hospital,” she said. “I felt a Xinjiang dance would be pretty good, too.”

But to some Uighurs outside China, the videos were a reminder of the simplistic way Turkic minorities can be depicted inside the country, even in a time of emergency.

“That’s what China strives to achieve: not only to portray but also to force the entire Uyghur nation to become nothing but singers, dancers and menial workers,” Kamalturk Yalqun, a Uighur living in Philadelphia, wrote on Twitter.

China has put a million or more Uighurs, Kazakhs and other predominately Muslim groups into indoctrination camps in Xinjiang, part of a campaign to enforce loyalty while eroding minority languages, religions and cultures.

Former inmates have described harsh conditions in detention, stirring concern that the spread of the virus within Xinjiang could prove dire in the camps. Xinjiang has thus far reported 55 coronavirus infections.

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Reporting and research was contributed by Gillian Wong, Chris Buckley, Sui-Lee Wee, Steven Lee Myers, Keith Bradsher, Austin Ramzy, Choe Sang-Hun, Amber Wang, Zoe Mou, Albee Zhang, Yiwei Wang, Claire Fu, Amy Qin, Elaine Yu, Makiko Inoue, Hisako Ueno, Eimi Yamamitsu, Motoko Rich, Megan Specia, and Tariro Mzezewai.

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THREAD and article by Sui-Lee Wee regarding the spike in cases of the coronavirus:

1. There's a lot of buzz on the astronomical jump in cases from Hubei on Wednesday -- 14,840 new confirmed cases, almost 10 x compared to a day earlier. New deaths rose to 242, more than double fr day b4. The govt has changed the diagnostic criteria used to confirm cases. More ..

2. Effectively, this means the govt is giving doctors greater discretion to clinically diagnose patients. Previously, they could only confirm cases with the nucleic acid test kits. But a govt expert said recently these were only 30-40 percent accurate.

3. More crucially, we were interviewing patients, who were showing all the symptoms of the new coronavirus, who said they were tested four to five times before they got a positive result. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor, was one of them.

4. Chinese health experts say this is why there's a change: they now realize that there's a group of patients who only test positive very late with the nucleic acid testing. Because of how transmissible the disease is, they want to include these people as confirmed cases.

5. The point is to isolate these patients quickly and treat them. Doctors are now clinically diagnosing these people with CT scans. The advantage of these scans are they are immediate. Previously, patients had to wait at least two days for their results.

6. Samples had to be transported for hours to the province's relatively few labs. The nucleic acid tests are also dependent on the people sampling these patients. There's room for error. But the disadvantage of using CT scans is that they might not catch people w mild symptoms.

7. I wrote about all these issues last week: As Deaths Mount, China Tries to Speed Up Coronavirus Testing https://t.co/NfOqiWJBjb

8. Pls read this story by my colleague, Roni Caryn Rabin. Problem with new numbers for experts now is comparisons and understanding the extent of the virus's spread. https://t.co/jBwYvycNk4

CORONAVIRUS CASES SEEMED TO BE LEVELING OFF. NOT ANYMORE.

On Thursday, health officials in China reported more than 14,000 new cases in Hubei Province alone. A change in diagnostic criteria may be the reason.

By Roni Caryn Rabin | Published Feb. 12, 2020 Update Feb. 13, 2020, 6:12 a.m. ET| New York Times | Posted February 13, 2020 |

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The news seemed to be positive: The number of new coronavirus cases reported in China over the past week suggested that the outbreak might be slowing — that containment efforts were working.

But on Thursday, officials added more than 14,840 new cases to the tally of the infected in Hubei Province alone, bringing the total number to 48,206, the largest one-day increase so far recorded. The death toll in the province rose to 1,310, including 242 new deaths.

The sharp rise in reported cases illustrates how hard it has been for scientists to grasp the extent and severity of the coronavirus outbreak in China, particularly inside the epicenter, where thousands of sick people remain untested for the illness.

Confronted by so many people with symptoms and no easy way to test them, authorities appear to have changed the way the illness is identified.

Hospitals in Wuhan, China — the largest city in Hubei Province and the center of the epidemic — have struggled to diagnose infections with scarce and complicated tests that detect the virus’s genetic signature directly. Other countries, too, have had such issues.

Instead, officials in Hubei now seem to be including infections diagnosed by using lung scans of symptomatic patients. This shortcut will help get more patients into needed care, provincial officials said. Adding them to the count could make it easier for the authorities to decide how to allocate resources and assess treatment options.

But the change also shows the enormous number of people in Hubei who are sick and have not been counted in the outbreak’s official tally. It also raises the question whether the province, already struggling, is equipped to deal with the new patients.

The few experts to learn of the new numbers on Wednesday night were startled. Lung scans are an imperfect means to diagnose patients. Even patients with ordinary seasonal flu may develop pneumonia visible on a lung scan.

“We’re in unknown territory,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

In China, health officials have been under exceptional strain. Hospitals are overwhelmed, and huge new shelters are being erected to warehouse patients. Medical resources are in short supply. It’s never been clear who is being tested.

Health workers have gone door to door in Wuhan to check people for symptoms. The prospect of forced isolation may be deterring some people with respiratory illnesses from presenting themselves at health facilities to seek health care, some experts say, making the dimensions of the epidemic even less clear.

“You have to be sick, the authorities need to find you, or you find them, and they need to test you,” said Dr. Arthur Reingold, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

The push to prioritize lung scans seems to have begun with a social media campaign by a physician in Wuhan, who last week called for using the scans to simplify the screening of patients and to accelerate their hospitalization and treatment.

Lung scans produce immediate results, she said, and Wuhan was running short of testing kits.

Even before today’s news, experts complained that epidemiological information from China has been incomplete, threatening containment efforts.

The new coronavirus is highly transmissible and will be difficult to squelch. A single infected “super-spreader” can infect dozens of others. Outbreaks can seem to recede, only to rebound in short order, as the weather or conditions change.

Recent clusters of coronavirus cases suggest the new coronavirus not only spreads quickly, but also in ways that are not entirely understood.

In Hong Kong, people living 10 floors apart were infected, and an unsealed pipe was blamed. A British citizen apparently infected 10 people, including some at a ski chalet, before he even knew he was sick.

In Tianjin, China, at least 33 of 102 confirmed patients had a connection of some sort with a large department store.

“This outbreak could still go in any direction,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, said on Wednesday.

A change in diagnosis may make it still harder to track the virus, said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, co-director of the University of Washington MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global Health Security.

“It makes it really confusing right now if they’re changing the whole way they screen and detect,” he said. Now estimating the scale of the epidemic “is a moving target.”

It is not uncommon for scientists to refine diagnostic criteria as their understanding of a new disease changes. But when the criteria are changed, experts said, it makes little sense to continue to make week-over-week comparisons.

“It sounds simplistic, but it’s so very important — what numbers are you counting?” said Dr. Schaffner, the infectious disease specialist.

Scientists have been wary of the notion that the epidemic has peaked for other reasons, as well.

Unlike MERS and SARS, both diseases caused by coronaviruses, the virus spreading from China appears to be highly contagious, though it is probably less often fatal.

It is harder for public health officials to track a rapidly moving epidemic. Scientists often describe these epidemics as a sort of iceberg — their girth and true shape hidden below the surface.

Chaos makes it still more difficult to discern those dimensions. But an accurate grasp of the situation within China is necessary for the safety of the rest of the world, noted Dr. Tedros of the W.H.O.

The country is so central to the world economy that it can easily “seed” epidemics everywhere, he said.

“Our greatest fear remains the damage this coronavirus could do in a country like D.R.C.,” Dr. Tedros said, referring to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been struggling with outbreaks of Ebola and measles.

“It’s a huge task to manage a response effectively,” said Dr. Christine Kreuder Johnson, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Davis. “This would be true for any country.”

“We’re in the dark in terms of knowing what to expect next.”

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Reporting was contributed by Vivian Wang.

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How Many Coronavirus Cases in China? Officials Tweak the Answer

China’s health authorities have decided to no longer count as confirmed cases those patients who test positive but don’t show symptoms. Skepticism was immediate.

By Vivian Wang | Published Feb. 12, 2020 Updated Feb. 13, 2020, 1:03 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 13, 2020 |

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HONG KONG — The news was abrupt and, to some, surprising: Overnight, a Chinese province near Russia, had cut its count of confirmed coronavirus cases by more than a dozen.

The revision stemmed from what appeared to be a bureaucratic decision, buried in a series of dense documents from the national government. Health officials said that they would reclassify patients who had tested positive for the new coronavirus but did not have symptoms, and take them out of the total count of confirmed cases.

The documents offered little detail or explanation, and skepticism was immediate. A Hong Kong newspaper called the decision a “disguise.” World Health Organization officials seemed caught off guard when asked about the move at a news conference this week.

The change in counting cases is only one factor that has made it difficult for experts to determine the true scale of the epidemic. In fact, the shifting landscape of how infections are defined and confirmed has led to significant variations in the estimates for the extent of outbreak.

Early on Thursday, provincial officials in Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, announced that nearly 15,000 new cases and 242 new deaths were recorded in a single day, largely because the authorities expanded their diagnostic tools for counting new infections.

Until now, only infections confirmed by specialized testing kits were considered accurate. But those kits have been in such short supply — and so many sick people have gone untested — that the authorities in Hubei Province have started counting patients whose illness have been screened and identified by doctors.

The result was a sudden — and large — spike in the overall tally for the coronavirus: more than 1,300 people killed and well over 50,000 infected.

The surge in cases in Hubei, the result of a local change in how cases are counted, underscored how elusive the exact scale of the epidemic is.

The change in how cases are counted — both inside and outside the epicenter of the outbreak — reflects a two-headed problem in the global fight against the disease. On the one hand, health officials need to stay flexible in dealing with new outbreaks.

One the other hand, mistrust of the Chinese government — especially when it comes to being transparent about the threat and extent of the virus — remains pervasive.

“It’s pretty clear that there is an issue with trust about whatever the Chinese government comes out with at the moment,” said Kerry Brown, a former diplomat and director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London.

“That may be terribly unfair,” Mr. Brown said. But, he added, “to redefine things — even legitimately — at a moment like this is always going to be a presentational challenge, because people are going to be very sensitive, and they’re going to suspect there’s another agenda.”

The new numbers out of Hubei came only a day after China reported that new infections had hit the lowest point in a single day since Jan. 30. Experts cautioned then that it was premature to draw any conclusions from the drop.

The shifting case counts are not the only example of conflicting or spotty information. Researchers have given differing estimates on when the outbreak might peak, ranging from a date already past to several months in the future. The Chinese authorities have closely guarded the demographic details about the fatalities, creating uncertainty about who is most susceptible.

Scientists have even debated just how much of a danger asymptomatic transmission poses. Chinese health officials were among the first to raise the prospect of asymptomatic transmission, even as health experts in other countries were skeptical of early reports that the virus could be passed on by such patients. But in recent days, Chinese officials have also played down the asymptomatic transmission risk.

The uneven information comes as China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said that the containment efforts were working.

“After hard work, the epidemic situation has seen positive change, and the prevention and control work has achieved positive results,” he said during a meeting of the Communist Party leadership in Beijing on Wednesday, according to a summary of his remarks by state-run media. “This is hard-won, and all parties have contributed.”

The changes to the classification of asymptomatic coronavirus cases emerged on Jan. 29, in a set of guidance from China’s National Health Commission. The agency said that it would no longer count patients who had tested positive for the coronavirus but did not display symptoms as “confirmed cases.” Instead, those patients would be counted separately, as “positive diagnosis” patients, and would become confirmed only if they began showing symptoms.

Chinese health officials have given little public justification for the labeling change. The National Health Commission did not immediately return a request for comment.

The changes have prompted debate among some public health experts.

“Adapting definitions during an outbreak is not unusual, with increasing insights and also with prioritizing where efforts need to go,” said Dr. Marion Koopmans, the head of the viroscience department at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

Still, even experts who said that the effect of discounting certain cases would be small said that it would be useful to epidemiologists — and the public — to have a complete count of all cases, including asymptomatic ones.

Dr. Malik Peiris, the chair of virology at the University of Hong Kong, said in an email that mild or asymptomatic infections could form an “invisible iceberg” that made a given virus’s fatality rate much lower than it initially appeared.

Determining the true denominator of the number of people infected — whether symptomatic or not — would, he said, “be most informative to, hopefully, calm current panic in China and the world.”

In a sign of just how much the changes could further muddle public understanding of the virus, even the W.H.O., which has praised the Chinese government for its cooperation in fighting the outbreak, expressed confusion.

Dr. Chen Bingzhong, a former senior government health official in Beijing who has been vocal in calling for more transparency about public health crises, said a full tally of the number of cases would keep the authorities accountable.

He added that a positive test result should be disclosed as such, regardless of symptoms.

“Testing positive means it is the new coronavirus,” he said. “If you don’t recognize it, you are covering the truth.”

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Jin Wu contributed reporting from Hong Kong, and Yiwei Wang contributed research from Beijing.

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A Store, a Chalet, an Unsealed Pipe: Coronavirus Hot Spots Flare Far From Wuhan

A handful of buildings around the world have been linked to multiple cases of the new virus, raising fears of rapid transmission.

By Vivian Wang, Austin Ramzy and Megan Specia | Published Feb. 11, 2020 Updated Feb. 12, 2020, 12:29 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted Feb 13, 2020 |

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HONG KONG — An apartment building in Hong Kong, its units linked by pipes. A department store in the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin, where more than 11,000 shoppers and employees mingled. A ski chalet in France, home base for a group of British citizens on vacation.

These sites, scattered around the world, have become linked by a grim commonality: They are places where pockets of new coronavirus cases have emerged in recent days, raising fears about the virus’s ability to spread quickly and far beyond its origins in central China.

Since the dangerous outbreak emerged in late December, the vast majority of cases have been concentrated in Wuhan, the city where the new virus was first reported. The authorities there and in the surrounding province have sealed off tens of millions of people in a desperate attempt at containment.

But as the outbreak’s toll has mushroomed — it has claimed more than 1,100 lives in China and sickened more than 44,000 — it has become clear how easily the virus can be transmitted and how hard it may be to contain, even in communities around the world that are far removed from Wuhan. Many of the people infected had not even been there.

In Tianjin, the authorities ordered more than 10,000 people into quarantine, after they traced one-third of cases in the city to a single department store.

In Hong Kong on Tuesday, dozens of residents were evacuated from their apartment building overnight, as two people living 10 floors apart were found to be infected with the coronavirus. Officials said an unsealed pipe might be to blame.

And in Britain on Tuesday, a businessman who is believed to be the source of 10 other cases in Britain and France said that he showed no symptoms before testing positive for the coronavirus.

The new coronavirus, though most serious in China, “holds a very grave threat for the rest of the world,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, said at a forum in Geneva on Tuesday.

As the outbreak’s health implications have mounted, so has its political toll: It is already one of the most significant crises for the central government in decades. China’s ruling Communist Party dismissed two health officials in Hubei, the province at the center of the epidemic, and replaced them with a leader sent from Beijing. They were the first senior officials to be punished for the government’s handling of the outbreak.

This week, the Chinese authorities urged factory workers and farmers to get back to work. But at the same time, other officials warned that there may be new outbreaks in the coming weeks — particularly in three populous provinces, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Henan — as migrant workers return to their jobs after the Lunar New Year break.

They also highlighted the role of clusters, which they defined as two or more infections within a relatively small area, in accelerating the disease’s spread.

Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news conference on Tuesday that there had been nearly 1,000 clusters in China, with 83 percent occurring within families. But schools, factories, shopping centers and medical facilities also contributed to the spread, he said.

In Tianjin, more than 600 miles from Wuhan, officials have taken drastic steps to contain a cluster of cases linked to the department store in the district of Baodi. An outbreak in that city could be especially troublesome for the central government: It is only a half-hour from Beijing by high-speed train.

At least 33 of the city’s 102 confirmed patients worked or shopped at the department store, or had close contact with employees or customers, according to local health authorities. Of those, many — including the latest patient, a 31-year-old woman announced on Tuesday — had no history of travel to Wuhan.

In response, officials said that people who had visited the store in late January would be required to quarantine themselves at home. They said they had already tracked down around 11,700 employees and shoppers but expected that number to rise.

Health officials in the city used loudspeakers along streets and in communities to urge residents to contact the government if they had been to the store recently, Chinese news reports said. They also sent teams of officials into villages and put out alerts on social media.

The authorities deployed round-the-clock security guards in parts of Baodi, and said they would allow residents in some areas to leave their homes only once every two days.

Mao Jinsong, the district head of Baodi, compared the department store to the seafood market in Wuhan where the outbreak is widely considered to have started.

“Do not let Baodi’s department store become Wuhan’s seafood market,” he said at a news conference.

In Hong Kong, the authorities ordered the evacuation of some apartment building residents after finding that a 62-year-old woman, who was newly confirmed as infected, had an unsealed pipe in her bathroom. The woman lives 10 floors below a resident who was earlier found to be infected.

Four other people living in three other units also displayed symptoms of the coronavirus, according to Sophia Chan, Hong Kong’s health secretary. Later on Tuesday, the city’s health authorities announced that three relatives of the 62-year-old woman had also been infected.

The news further rattled an already-nervous city, which is still scarred by the memory of the 2003 SARS outbreak. Back then, 329 residents of a crowded housing development became infected with the new virus, which some experts believe had spread through defective piping. Forty-two of the infected residents died.

The authorities sought to ease those fears on Tuesday, pointing to differences in the pipe systems of that building in 2003 and the newly evacuated one. But they acknowledged the risk of previously unknown modes of transmission, potentially even through the air, not just through droplets from coughing or sneezing.

On Tuesday afternoon, the police had blocked off the building, allowing in only residents who showed identification. A street cleaning vehicle sprayed down the road outside, even as light rain fell.

“We absolutely will not lower our guard, and will definitely conduct a detailed and comprehensive investigation,” Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said.

Still, Andrew Easton, a professor at the University of Warwick who specializes in the molecular biology of viruses, said it was virtually inevitable that the new coronavirus would spread rapidly within communities, even with heightened vigilance by both health officials and everyday people.

“Any situation that brings a group of individuals together in close proximity or frequently for extended periods of time will provide enhanced opportunities” for the virus to spread, he said in an email. He added: “Of course the virus can be transmitted before symptoms appear in an infected individual, so it is not possible to always avoid such situations.”

The case of the French chalet makes clear just how rapidly the virus can leap from person to person, even after global awareness of the outbreak has spread.

The infections there are believed to have roots in a conference in Singapore last month, which a British man, Steve Walsh, attended before flying to Geneva, according to the French authorities and to Mr. Walsh, who publicly identified himself on Tuesday. While there, Mr. Walsh is believed to have been exposed to the coronavirus, though he did not immediately show symptoms.

From Singapore, Mr. Walsh traveled to the chalet in the French Alpine village of Les Contamines-Montjoie, where he stayed with a group of other Britons. Then he went home to southern England.

Soon after his return, he was diagnosed with the virus. Then, five of the other Britons at the ski resort, who are still in France, tested positive for the virus, according to the French authorities.

And on Monday, the British authorities announced that four more people in Britain — including two health care workers — had been diagnosed with the virus, doubling the number of cases in the country. All the new cases were linked to the chalet cluster, officials said.

On Tuesday, Mr. Walsh, who identified himself in a statement issued from the hospital where he is in isolation, sent his sympathies to others who have been exposed.

“Whilst I have fully recovered, my thoughts are with others who have contracted coronavirus,” he said.

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Vivian Wang and Austin Ramzy reported from Hong Kong, and Megan Specia from London. Reporting and research was contributed by Steven Lee Myers, Russell Goldman, Elaine Yu, Richard C. Paddock, Ben Dooley, Motoko Rich, Amber Wang, Zoe Mou, Albee Zhang, Yiwei Wang, Claire Fu and Amy Qin.

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Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Spread of the Outbreak

By K.K. Rebecca Lai, Jin Wu, Allison McCann, Derek Watkins, Jugal K. Patel and Richard Harris | Updated Feb. 13, 2020 | New York Times | Posted February 13, 2020 |

The coronavirus outbreak has sickened more than 60,200 people in Asia, according to statements from health officials. Many other cases are suspected but not confirmed. As of Wednesday evening, at least 1,368 people have died, all but two in mainland China.

CONFIRMED CASES

As these maps( SEE WEBSITE) show, the disease has been detected in at least 24 other countries, most involving people who traveled from China.

Fourteen cases have been confirmed in the United States, including a 35-year-old man in Washington state, a couple in their 60s in Chicago and eight people in California.

The outbreak is believed to have begun in a seafood and poultry market in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in central China. The virus is readily transmitted from person to person, scientists believe. But how lethal the virus is and and whether it can be contained is unclear.

How bad will the outbreak get? Here are six key factors.

WHAT’S BEING DONE TO CONTAIN THE OUTBREAK?

The Chinese authorities took the extraordinary step of closing off Wuhan, canceling planes and trains leaving the city and suspending buses, subways and ferries within it. By Jan. 24, at least 12 other cities in Hubei Province had issued travel restrictions, including Huanggang, home to seven million people, and Ezhou, a city of about one million.

A number of countries, including the United States and Australia, are limiting travel to some people who recently traveled to China, and several major airlines said they expect to halt direct service to mainland China for months.

Closing borders to highly infectious pathogens never succeeds completely, experts said, because all frontiers are somewhat porous. Nonetheless, closings and rigorous screening may slow the spread, which will buy time for the development of drug treatments and vaccines.

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