Fear mounting as coronavirus cases rise outside China
The latest:
- WHO chief says rapid rise of cases in places like Iran, Italy and South Korea is ‘deeply concerning.’
- Iran’s health minister says 12 have died of COVID-19, but lawmaker in Qom cites much higher number, saying there have been 50 deaths.
- Italian news agency reports at least 220 confirmed cases and 7 coronavirus deaths.
- South Korea reports more than 833 cases, health workers plan to test everyone in Daegu with cold-like symptoms.
- China’s national health commission says the novel coronavirus has infected more than 77,000 people and killed more than 2,500 — most in Hubei.
- Read why some experts are questioning China’s coronavirus claims.
Fears of a potential coronavirus pandemic grew on Monday after sharp rises in new cases reported in Iran, Italy and South Korea, but China relaxed restrictions on movements in several places including Beijing as its rates of new infections eased.
The virus has put Chinese cities into lockdown, disrupted air traffic to the workshop of the world and blocked global supply chains for everything from cars and car parts to smartphones.
At a news conference in Geneva on Monday, World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the increase in the number of cases in Iran, Italy and South Korea are «deeply concerning.»
As case numbers increase outside China, however, Tedros urged countries around the world to prioritize three things:
- Protecting health-care workers.
- Engaging communities to protect the elderly and people with underlying health conditions, who have been most at-risk from COVID-19.
- Protecting vulnerable countries with weaker health-care systems by having countries with more robust health-care systems do the «utmost» to contain the virus.
Tedros, who declined to label the growing outbreak a pandemic, said that preparation is key as the world faces a shared threat. The WHO has already declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
«Alone, we lose. Together, we win,» the WHO chief said as he and other Geneva-based health officials urged countries around the world to prepare.
Dr. Mike Ryan head of the WHO emergency program, said a team is arriving in Iran on Tuesday.
He said the WHO is reaching out to «all affected countries,» to make sure countries had the technical expertise they need.
Ryan noted that all countries could be vulnerable, because every nation has elderly people and others who are at risk. He also noted that even in countries with stronger health-care systems, many health-care facilities are already dealing with high patient loads, particularly during flu season.
«All systems have vulnerabilities,» he said. «There is no zero risk. We cannot shut down the world.»
Conflicting case numbers in Iran
Iran’s government said Monday that 12 people had died nationwide from the new coronavirus, rejecting claims of a much higher death toll by a lawmaker from the city of Qom that has been at the epicentre of the virus in the country.
The conflicting reports raised questions about the Iranian government’s transparency concerning the scale of the outbreak.
Five neighbouring countries reported their first cases of the virus, with those infected all having links to Iran, including direct travel from a city where authorities have not even reported a confirmed case.
Iran’s Health Ministry said the total number of infections has risen to 61 while deaths stood at 12. But a lawmaker from Qom, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, was quoted by the semi-official ILNA news agency as saying that the death toll was 50.
Even with the lower toll of 12, the number of deaths compared to the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country, including China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.
The WHO chief said Monday that experts found that the fatality rate has been between two and four per cent in Wuhan, and less than one per cent outside the hard-hit Chinese city. In Iran, according to the Health Ministry’s figures, the death toll represents nearly 20 per cent of total infections.
Authorities in Iran closed schools across much of the country for a second day. Movie theatres and other venues were shuttered through at least Friday. And daily sanitizing of the metro in Tehran, which is used by some three million people, was begun.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, Bahrain and Iraq reported their first cases and Kuwait reported three cases involving people who had been in Iran.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan imposed restrictions on travel and immigration from Iran. Afghanistan also reported its first case, officials said.
Oman’s health ministry reported on Monday the first two cases of coronavirus infections in the Gulf Arab state, Oman TV said. The two Omani women diagnosed with the disease had visited Iran and are in stable condition, the report said.
The WHO has been saying for weeks it dreads the disease reaching countries with weak health systems.
Italy reports 220 cases, 7 deaths
In northern Italy, authorities sealed off the worst-affected towns and banned public gatherings across a wide area, halting the carnival in Venice, where there were two cases.
Austria briefly suspended train services over the Alps from Italy after two travellers coming from Italy showed symptoms of fever. Both tested negative for the new coronavirus, but Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said a task force would meet on Monday to discuss whether to introduce border controls.
News agency ANSA reported on Monday that a seventh person has died in the coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy, while the number of confirmed cases rose to more than 220.
ANSA said the latest person to die was an 80-year-old man who had been taken to hospital last week in Lodi after suffering a heart attack. Doctors believe he caught the virus there from another patient.
South Korea and Japan responding to increasing numbers
Japan had 773 cases as of late Sunday, mostly on a cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo. A third passenger, a Japanese man in his 80s, died on Sunday.
At least 47 Canadians are still under quarantine in Japan after testing positive for COVID-19 while aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
WATCH: Red Cross worker talks about helping Canadians with COVID-19 in Japan
South Korea reported 231 new cases, taking its total to 833, as its hard-hit fourth-largest city of Daegu became more isolated, with Asiana Airlines and Korean Air suspending flights there until next month. In South Korea, authorities reported a seventh death and dozens more cases on Monday. Of the new cases, 115 were linked to a church in the city of Daegu.
Drone footage showed what appeared to be hundreds of people queuing in a neat line outside a Daegu supermarket under the winter sunshine to buy face masks
Health workers said they planned to test every citizen in Daegu who showed cold-like symptoms for the coronavirus, estimating around 28,000 people would be targeted.
Epidemic ‘severe and complex,’ China’s president says
Scientists around the world are scrambling to analyze the virus, but a vaccine is probably more than a year away.
«Worryingly, it seems that the virus can pass from person to person without symptoms, making it extremely difficult to track, regardless of what health authorities do,» said Simon Clarke, an expert in cellular microbiology at Britain’s University of Reading.
China postponed the annual meeting of its parliament and would ban the illegal trade and consumption of wildlife, state media reported. The virus originated late last year, apparently in an illegal wildlife market in the city of Wuhan. But there was a measure of relief for the world’s second-largest economy as more than 20 province-level jurisdictions, including Beijing and Shanghai, reported zero new infections, the best showing since the outbreak began.
President Xi Jinping urged businesses to get back to work, though he said the epidemic was still «severe and complex, and prevention and control work is in the most difficult and critical stage.»
The coronavirus has infected nearly 77,000 people and killed more than 2,500 in China, most in Hubei. Overall, China reported 409 new cases on the mainland, down from 648 a day earlier, taking the total number of infections to 77,150 cases as of Feb. 23.
The death toll rose by 150 to 2,592. Xi said on Sunday the outbreak would have a relatively big, but short-term, impact on the economy and the government would step up policy adjustments to help cushion the blow.
WATCH: Infectious disease expert talks about efforts to contain coronavirus
