China can defeat ‘devil’ virus
President Xi Jinping yesterday said China was sure of defeating a “devil” coronavirus that has killed 106 people, spread across the world and rattled financial markets.
Despite his confidence, alarm was rising, with nations from France to Japan organising evacuations and Hong Kong - scene of anti-China unrest for months - planning to suspend high-speed rail and ferry links with the mainland.
Among countries pulling nationals out of Wuhan, the central city of 11 million people where the outbreak started, the United States’ Embassy in Beijing said a chartered plane would take its consulate staff away on Wednesday.
South Korea is also planning to fly out their citizens later this week, and several other countries, including Germany, were considering doing the same.
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Xi met in Beijing to discuss how to protect Chinese and foreigners in areas affected by the virus and “possible” evacuation alternatives, a WHO spokesman said.
“The virus is a devil and we cannot let the devil hide,” state television quoted Xi as saying.
“China will strengthen international cooperation and welcomes the WHO participation in virus prevention ... China is confident of winning the battle against the virus.”
At a meeting with authorities in Beijing, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he approved of the Chinese government’s measures to curb the outbreak so far, according to a statement posted on the foreign affairs ministry’s website.
The WHO called the epidemic “an emergency in China” on Jan 23, but stopped short of declaring it a global public health emergency.
Tedros said he does not advocate the evacuation of foreign nationals currently in China, and urged people to stay calm.
The flu-like virus has spread overseas, but none of the 106 deaths has been beyond China and all but six were in Wuhan, where the virus emerged last month, probably from illegally-traded wildlife.
The WHO said only one of 77 confirmed cases in 14 countries outside China involved human-to-human transmission, in Vietnam.
But a Japanese official said there was a suspected case of human-to-human transmission there and Germany confirmed a case after a man contracted the virus from a colleague visiting his workplace from Shanghai.
Chinese-ruled Hong Kong said high-speed rail services to the mainland will be suspended from midnight on Thursday, while the number of flights would be halved.
Thailand confirmed six more infections among visitors from China, taking its tally to 14, the highest outside China. Far eastern Russian regions would close their borders with China until Feb. 7, Tass news agency said.
Wuhan is under virtual quarantine, with a lockdown on transport and bans on gatherings. Tens of millions of others in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, live under some form of travel curbs.
The number of confirmed cases in China surged to 4,610 as of Tuesday from 2,835 of Sunday, according to CNN tally.
Meanwhile, a top Chinese government expert yesterday said the viral outbreak t could reach its peak in around 10 days.
Zhong Nanshan, a renowned scientist at China’s National Health Commission, told the official Xinhua news agency that the outbreak “will not increase at a large scale”.
“I believe it should reach a peak in a week or around ten days,” Zhong said.
Known as “2019-nCoV”, the newly identified coronavirus can cause pneumonia and, like other respiratory infections, it spreads between people in droplets from coughs and sneezes.
It has an incubation of between one and 14 days.
Comments