The Wall Street Journal reports China Orders City at Center of Virus Outbreak to Shut Public Transport.
Wuhan, the city in central China where a new coronavirus originated, will halt all outbound flights and trains and shut down its public transportation system from Thursday morning, the Chinese government said, a dramatic escalation in China’s battle to contain a pneumonia outbreak that has now killed 17 people.
The lockdown of the city of 11 million will begin at 10 a.m. local time for an indefinite period, China Central Television reported Thursday, the prevention and control center in Wuhan to combat the coronavirus said in a statement. Services of subways, city buses, long-distance coaches and ferries will also be suspended, it said.
Several provinces and territories in China, including Fujian, Anhui, Liaoning and Guizhou, announced their first confirmed infection cases on Wednesday, according to CCTV and local Chinese authorities. The province of Hubei, of which Wuhan is the capital and largest city, late Wednesday reported a total 444 confirmed cases, up from 270 announced the previous day.
The World Health Organization on Wednesday postponed for a day a decision on whether to declare that the outbreak of the new virus constitutes a public-health emergency of international concern.
This week, Zhong Nanshan, one of the country’s best-known epidemiologists, confirmed suspicions that the novel coronavirus was spreading between humans, which would allow the disease to be transmitted among people who don’t interact with any animals. The virus is believed to have spread to humans from animals at the Wuhan market.
Little is known about the new virus, making it more challenging for authorities to figure out the appropriate action to take, experts say. Chinese authorities have yet to determine which animal originally harbored the virus and passed it on to humans, although they have said it was likely a wild animal. They also have yet to announce what they believe is the incubation period for the disease, or the time it takes for infected patients to start showing symptoms.
Little Understood Disease
Authorities do not know the incubation period which makes it difficult to know how to respond. But we do know the virus spreads easily. One patient in Wuhan infected more than a dozen medical staff.
There is one confirmed case in the US. That person arrived by plane from China.
Potentially everyone on the plane could now be a carrier and we may not know for a week or more.
Fortunately, similar threats in recent memory were more hype than reality. Recall bird flu, swine flu, mad cow disease, and ebola,
Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as fruit bats, chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, forest antelope or porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.
It is too early and too little is known about this new virus to know what to make of the threat. But locking down an entire city of 11 million, shows the concern.
Imagine the consequences if all flight in China was grounded.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
It’s a cover for credible reports of brain eating re-animated dead people. And so it begins.
What about all the dog and cat served to unknowing Brits in the UK? My local take away was caught serving seagull
I have budlite virus
Dilly dilly
nothing that can be done to contain a virus of this nature at this point.
I think you might be right, it depends on how transmissible it is, and incubation period. If it has similar transmission properties to say flu, then it will be about limiting it, not containing it. Any city with a few tens of thousands or more people and they will not be able to catch up, and as all these are interconnected nowadays that means uncontained.
So following that logic and if it is easily transmissible , what happens next will I guess depend on how lethal it actually is.
The so called authorities have always been worried some sort of virus with an as yet unknown cure and is human to human transmissible will get out. Its only a matter of time really.
if this particular corona virus fizzles out then there certainly be one that will emerge in the fullness of time.
Those with compromised immune systems are really at risk.
Folks might want to get prepared for this.
The scare will be much worse than the virus but it could shut things down for a little while.
Get a few supplies.
I think they know the incubation period by now, at least a minimum period, but it doesn’t seem released. WHO will likely decide tomorrow on whether to call for increased response. CDC is also mute on specifics of the virus, using standard coronavirus recommendations for care.
For those interested, for now it is nicknamed 2019-nCoV , some call it beta coronavirus. The phylogenetics are available here
(edit in, site ate one link – search china cdc
a3907201-f64f-4154-a19e-4253b453d10c )
and
WHO has a sitrep that goes into better detail on the state of those infected. Noticed it has three strains already (found in same patient…maybe someone will explain if this is typical ) , the danger is maybe if it becomes more virulent and lethal, something more likely the more people it infects. For now I take it along the lines of other recent epidemics that have been contained, but a pandemic of some kind is very much likely eventually, if not this virus, then some other.
Does anyone here know how to say “Black Swan” in Mandarin? Or perhaps more importantly, in Cantonese?
And I thought the US was bad about being truthful.
“China Quarantines a City of 11 Million Over Deadly New Virus”
Probably the only selling point of a totalitarian regime: The top-down control of the population should be pretty effective at limiting the spread of a contagious disease! Of course, one hopes they don’t get too bonkers with eradication measures should the quarantine not be as effective as they desire.
Do you think this effort will be successful?
Love their podcast, I been a Patreon subscriber for years.
Like the Fukashima nuclear reactor… everything is under control. Nothing to see here, just move along
/sarc
Great. Now I have impeachment AND this to worry about. Pass the Xanax.
There will, one day, be some new virus that will eliminate large swathes of population. It will adapt rapidly and we will not be able to develop an anti-virus fast enough.
It will happen. Only a matter of time.
Current economic and environmental issues will be insignificant in comparison to the havoc it will bring.
A modern Black Death.
It might already be lurking in some lab, engineered as a weapon just waiting for accidental release or be an unintended mutation in some DNA experiment.