Wuhan virus: 26 dead, 13 cities shut down

WUHAN – Chinese authorities rapidly expanded a mammoth quarantine effort aimed at containing a deadly contagion yesterday to 13 cities and a staggering 41 million people, as nervous residents were checked for fevers and the death toll climbed to 26.

Chinese authorities said the number of cases leapt overnight to more than 800, with 177 in serious condition. There were another 1,072 suspected cases. Officials also said that a virus patient died in Heilongjiang province in China’s far northeast, the second death outside the Wuhan epicenter.

While the World Health Organization (WHO) held off on declaring a global emergency despite confirmed cases in half a dozen other countries, China expanded its lockdown to cover an area with a total population greater than Canada’s.

A range of Lunar New Year festivities have been cancelled, while temporary closures of Beijing’s Forbidden City, Shanghai’s Disneyland and a section of the Great Wall were announced to prevent the disease from spreading further.

The previously unknown virus has caused alarm because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed hundreds across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002 and 2003.

The WHO said China faced a national emergency but stopped short of making a declaration that would have prompted greater global cooperation, including possible trade and travel restrictions.

The outbreak emerged in late December in Wuhan, an industrial and transport hub of 11 million people in China’s center, spreading to several other countries including the United States.

China is in the midst of its Lunar New Year holiday, a typically joyous time of family gatherings and public festivities.

But yesterday Wuhan was a ghost town, its streets deserted and stores shuttered.

Worried patients

Hospitals visited by AFP journalists bustled with worried patients being screened by staff wearing full-body protective suits.

At a temperature-check station, a medical staffer in bodysuit, face mask and goggles took a thermometer from a middle-aged woman, pausing to examine the reading before quickly turning back to the patient.

“Have you registered? Then go and see the doctor,” the staffer said.

One 35-year-old man surnamed Li voiced the fears of many.

“I have a fever and cough, so I’m worried that I’m infected,” he said. “I don’t know the results yet.”

With hundreds of millions of people on the move across China for the holiday, the government has halted all travel out of Wuhan, shut down its public transport and told residents to stay home. Deepening the isolation, there were few flights available to the city.

“This year we have a very scary Chinese New Year. People are not going outside because of the virus,” said a taxi driver in the city, who asked not to be named.

But a prolonged shutdown should not pose food-shortage problems because many Chinese had stocked up for the holiday.

Besides Wuhan, 12 other smaller cities nearby have battened down the hatches, with most of them going public yesterday with various measures ranging from closing public venues and restricting large gatherings to halting public transportation and asking citizens not to leave their cities.

Several of the cities have populations numbering several million, led by Huanggang, which has 7.5 million.

The pathogen –- 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) –- has caused many outlets in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities to sell out their stocks of face masks.

As reports surfaced of bed shortages in Wuhan hospitals, state media said authorities were rushing to build a new facility devoted to the outbreak in a mind-blowing 10 days.

The Wuhan hospital is targeted to be ready by Feb. 3. Dozens of excavators and trucks were filmed working on the site by state television.

To discourage nationwide travel, the government has said all tickets for rail, air, road, or water transport could be exchanged for a refund.