H5N1

Coronavirus: 70 more cases on Japan cruise ship as China infections pass 68,000

Via The Guardian: Coronavirus: 70 more cases on Japan cruise ship as China infections pass 68,000. The Diamond Princess is like a microcosm of the whole outbreak, except that the world has nowhere else to go. Excerpt:

A further 70 people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total to 355, as three countries say they will fly their citizens on the ship home. It comes as China’s National Health Commission announced the death toll inside the country had risen to 1,665, with 68,500 infections. 

The US embassy in Japan announced on Saturday that more than 400 US nationals would be flown home from the quarantined Diamond Princess, currently docked in the port of Yokohama, south of Tokyo.  

The US embassy said in a letter to passengers that, based on the high number of confirmed coronavirus cases, passengers and crew members were considered to be “at high risk of exposure”. US charter flights are expected to arrive on Sunday. 

Hong Kong, which has 330 citizens on board, said it will offer nationals an evacuation flight.  

The Canadian government said late on Saturday that it had chartered a plane to bring it citizens who are passengers on the ship home. 

Canadian passengers who exhibit symptoms of the coronavirus infection will not be permitted to board the flight and will instead be transferred to the Japanese health care system to receive appropriate care, the government said.  

After arriving in Canada, the passengers will undergo a 14-day period of quarantine, the statement added.  

The Diamond Princess has been stuck in Japan after a passenger who had disembarked in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus. 

The Australian embassy in Tokyo emailed citizens aboard the cruise ship to say the federal government was also examining options to assist Australians.

ECDC: Are European laboratories ready to detect COVID-19?

A news story from ECDC: Are European laboratories ready to detect COVID-19? Click or tap through to download the full assessment. The summary:

A first assessment looking at the preparedness of EU/EEA laboratories to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) demonstrates a fast implementation of molecular diagnostics by the European specialised laboratory networks. It also shows a good geographical coverage for testing. 

In January 2020, a survey among laboratories to assess the capacity and quality for SARS-CoV-2 (previously 2019-nCoV) diagnostics as well as implementation barriers was conducted. The data provided by 47 laboratories in 30 EU/EEA countries were taken into account in a study released by Eurosurveillance.   

The laboratories were asked to indicate their weekly capacity for molecular testing for SARS-CoV-2. Of the 47 participating laboratories, 38 indicated a capacity of minimum 8 275 tests per week.     

At the time of the survey, an additional eight laboratories were in the process of implementing molecular diagnostics and these laboratories would, all combined, add a minimum capacity of 875 tests per week once this process would be complete.  

Furthermore, the survey indicated a great willingness of laboratories to provide international diagnostic support and to share sequences to contribute to the monitoring of virus evolution and trace transmission chains.    

The main challenges for test implementation were an initial lack of positive control, lack of personnel/time and a lack of primers and/or probes. 

NHC COVID19 update, February 15: 68,500 confirmed cases, 1,665 deaths

The National Health Commission has published its February 15 COVID19 update. The Google translation, with my bolding:

At 04:00 on February 15th, 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported 2009 new confirmed cases, 219 severe cases, and 142 death cases (139 in Hubei and 2 in Sichuan). Cases, 1 case in Hunan), with 1918 new suspected cases. 　　

On the same day, 1323 cases were cured and discharged, and 29,788 close contacts were lifted from medical observation. 　　

As of 24:00 on February 15, according to reports from 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, there were 57416 confirmed cases (among which, 11,272 were severe cases), a total of 9,419 discharged cases were cured, and a total of 1,665 deaths. A total of 68,500 confirmed cases have been reported (1 in Jiangxi Province), and there are 8228 suspected cases. A total of 529,418 close contacts were traced, and 158,764 close contacts were still in medical observation. 　　

There were 1843 newly confirmed cases in Hubei (1548 cases in Wuhan), 849 newly cured cases (413 in Wuhan), 139 new deaths (110 in Wuhan), and 49,030 confirmed cases (35,314 in Wuhan). Among them, 10396 cases were severe cases (8530 cases in Wuhan). A total of 5,623 discharged patients were cured (2915 in Wuhan), 1596 were dead (1,233 in Wuhan), and 56,249 were confirmed (39,462 in Wuhan). There were 1036 new suspected cases (391 in Wuhan) and 5,243 suspected cases (2168 in Wuhan).　　

A total of 84 confirmed cases were reported from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan: 56 cases in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1 case discharged, 1 death), 10 cases in Macau Special Administrative Region (3 cases discharged), and 18 cases in Taiwan (2 cases discharged).

How Wenzhou, 900 km from Wuhan, went into total COVID-19 lockdown

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If you haven't bookmarked the news site Sixth Tone, you're missing some astounding COVID-19 coverage. Example: How Wenzhou, 900 km From Wuhan, Went Into Total Lockdown. Click or tap through for the full story and some vivid photos. Excerpt:

Lüzhang Village usually comes to life around the Lunar New Year holiday, with neighbors setting off firecrackers and gathering for mahjong games and boozy feasts. But for the past three weeks, Lüzhang’s 100 or so families have kept their doors firmly shut. Only the occasional rooster crow breaks the silence.  

The village, which sits on the edge of the eastern city of Wenzhou, is under a full lockdown as authorities take drastic measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus that has killed over 1,300 people in China as of Feb. 14. Residents are only allowed to leave their homes once every two days to buy groceries — and must present a specially issued pass to do so. 

The atmosphere among locals is tense, and their anxieties are focused on one house in particular: a four-story structure with a shiny SUV parked outside. The car’s license plate indicates it was registered in Wuhan, the city where the novel coronavirus emerged in December.  

The SUV’s owner is Xia Xiaochai, a 38-year-old Lüzhang native who has spent the past decade running a business in central China. His annual trips back to his hometown are normally filled with joyful reunions, but since Jan. 23, he and his family haven’t left the house once. 

“I know they (the villagers) are all afraid of me,” Xia tells Sixth Tone.

Xia is part of an enormous tribe of traveling Wenzhou entrepreneurs who have unwittingly brought their hometown to a standstill, with the coastal city facing one of the most serious COVID-19 outbreaks outside Hubei province — the center of the epidemic. 

Wenzhou is famous across China for its savvy businesspeople, who have moved across the world in vast numbers in search of new moneymaking opportunities. There are an estimated 1.6 million people from Wenzhou running businesses in other parts of China, and another 600,000 overseas.  

And one of the largest magnets for the city’s diaspora has been Wuhan. Migrants from Wenzhou set up a chamber of commerce in Wuhan in 1997, and within a decade there were an estimated 170,000 Wenzhou businesspeople working in the city. Xia made the move in 2009, setting up a beauty parlor in downtown Wuhan.  

“The street is full of beauty salons that are all run by Wenzhou businesspeople,” says Xia. “We also dominate the local shoe, garment, infrastructure construction, and hardware industries.” 

The thriving community, however, became a liability for their hometown after COVID-19 began to spread rapidly through Wuhan. As the situation deteriorated through January, thousands returned to Wenzhou to celebrate the Lunar New Year — or simply to escape the epidemic. The virus came with them.  

By Jan. 29, there were 172 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Wenzhou, the highest figure for any city outside Hubei province. Of the 58 people diagnosed with the disease that day, 60% were people who had recently returned from Wuhan.  

“We’ve found that the incidence of virus infections has risen in direct proportion to the number of returning Wenzhou people,” Tang Xiaoshu, Wenzhou’s deputy mayor, told reporters at a Jan. 29 press conference.  

The risks weren’t difficult to foresee given the size of Wenzhou’s diaspora. Wenzhou authorities started taking action to contain the risks of an outbreak Jan. 20 — the day Zhong Nanshan, the virus expert famous for his work during the 2003 SARS epidemic, revealed that COVID-19 was capable of human-to-human transmission. 

Four days before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, officials contacted the Wenzhou chamber of commerce in Wuhan, telling them to stop Wenzhou businesspeople from returning to their hometown. 

“We did issue a notice on Jan. 20, encouraging Wenzhou people not to return home for the upcoming holiday,” Yang Buqing, secretary-general of the Wenzhou chamber of commerce in Hubei province, tells Sixth Tone.  

The message, however, appeared to have almost no impact. By Jan. 29, 33,000 people had returned to Wenzhou from Wuhan and its neighboring cities. The flood of returnees continued even after Wuhan imposed a lockdown Jan. 23, cutting off almost all air, road, and rail transportation, with 3,600 people arriving from Wuhan each day on average. According to Yang, most — if not all — the Wenzhou people she knows have left Wuhan.   

Xia got out the same day the chamber of commerce issued its notice. He, his wife, two children, and over a dozen relatives drove the 900 kilometers back to Lüzhang in a convoy of four cars.

At that point, Wuhan didn’t feel like a city in the grip of a public health crisis, according to Xia. He was mainly concerned with getting home ahead of the holiday.

“The atmosphere in Wuhan was just like usual — nobody was wearing a mask,” says Xia, who is also deputy chairman of the Wenzhou chamber of commerce in Wuhan. “My thoughts back then were that my elderly mother was waiting for me at home, and I hadn’t seen her for a whole year. I had to go.”

After arriving home, Xia’s family started their traditional Lunar New Year routine: hosting big family gatherings. They ate and had fun together for two days.

The next day, however, Xia heard about the lockdown in Wuhan. He realized that the issue might be more serious than he’d imagined. The same day, his brother-in-law — who had also just returned from Wuhan — tested positive for COVID-19 after going to the hospital, saying he felt unwell.

“I was paying attention to the issue and wasn’t really worried (until then),” says Xia. “But I really freaked out after my brother-in-law was diagnosed. I started to receive numerous calls from disease control staff from the village, township, county, and city-level departments.”

Lüzhang immediately banned all cars with Wuhan license plates from entering the village, and refused entry to almost all outsiders — a practice enforced in many rural areas across China. Xia and around 20 family members, who had attended a dinner with the confirmed patient, were ordered to stay indoors for a two-week observation period — later extended to three weeks.

Village officials came to disinfect Xia’s car and his entire house. They told Xia to call an emergency number if any family members felt any form of discomfort. The local party secretary has been delivering food to Xia’s home each day, to ensure the family doesn’t go outside under any circumstances.

Xi Jinping ‘put China’s top echelon on notice’ in early days of COVID-19 outbreak

Via the South China Morning Post: Xi Jinping ‘put China’s top echelon on notice’ in early days of coronavirus outbreak. Excerpt:

President Xi Jinping told the Communist Party’s top echelon to tackle an outbreak of a previously unknown coronavirus almost two weeks before Chinese authorities announced that there had been human-to-human transmission of the disease, according to an internal speech released on Saturday. 

In the speech to the party’s most powerful body, the Politburo Standing Committee, Xi outlined a contingency plan to respond to a crisis that he said could not only hamper the health of people in China, but also jeopardise the country’s economic and social stability – even its open-door policy. 

The speech was delivered on February 3 and published in the party’s bimonthly journal Qiushi on Saturday. It was also featured on state television and other official mouthpieces. 

The release comes as Xi tries to rally support to counter the biggest crisis in his tenure, including an outpouring of public anger over the death a week ago of ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, who was reprimanded by police for alerting his friends about the virus in its early days. 

In his speech, Xi also accused local officials of not carrying out edicts from the central government, vowing to punish incompetent officials. 

“I issued demands during a Politburo Standing Committee meeting on January 7 for work to contain the outbreak. On January 20, I gave special instructions about the work to prevent and control the outbreak and I have said we have to pay high attention to it,” he said. 

The document did not say whether the Politburo was aware of human-to-human transmission of the disease at the time but research published by Chinese scientists said such infections occurred as early as December.  

The speech by Xi also indicated his desire to win international understanding and support through propaganda and diplomacy. 

“We have to liaise and communicate with other countries and regions, to share information about the outbreak and containment strategies to win international understanding and support,” he said. 

The release of the speech also came as China reported 2,649 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 849 new severe cases. The death toll on the mainland rose by 143 to 1,524. The total number of confirmed cases across the country stood at 66,581, of which 11,053 – 18 per cent – were severe.

China’s Hubei province reports 139 new COVID-19 coronavirus deaths and 1,843 newly confirmed cases

 

Credit: SCMP

Via the South China Morning Post, where it's just past 7:00 am Sunday morning (3:00 pm Saturday, PST): China’s Hubei province reports 139 new coronavirus deaths and 1,843 newly confirmed cases. Bear in mind that when they report cases and deaths "on Sunday," those numbers are for Saturday. Excerpt:

China’s Hubei province, the epicentre of coronavirus outbreak, reported 139 new deaths on Sunday. 

The central province also reported 1,843 newly confirmed cases, with 1,548 of those in the provincial capital of Wuhan, where the outbreak was believed to have started at a seafood and meat market in December. 

The new deaths were flat from the day before, and new case numbers were down from Saturday, when the province reported 2,420 newly confirmed infections. The new reported numbers brought the total deaths and cases attributable to the novel coronavirus to 1,596 and 56,249, respectively, in the province.

The COVID-19 crisis is driving a sudden thaw in Canada-China relations

Via CBC News: The coronavirus crisis is driving a sudden thaw in Canada-China relations. Excerpt:

Canada's response to the deadly novel coronavirus outbreak is winning unusual praise in China — a development that federal government sources here say is part of a broader re-engagement strategy aimed at repairing strained relations between the two countries.  

News reports in Chinese state-run media, official government statements and messages posted by Chinese citizens online all suggest a warming trend in the Canada-China relationship — a relationship that's been very tense since the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in 2018. 

On Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi applauded Canada for responding to China's request for medical equipment, such as face masks and protective gear.  

"On behalf of the people of China, we extend our appreciations. Thank you," Wang told his Canadian counterpart François-Philippe Champagne at the Munich Security Conference. "This is a special relationship." 

His remarks mark a notable shift in tone since January by the ruling Communist Party, and it's all the more remarkable given the overt animosity in the bilateral relationship over the past 14 months. 

Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were detained by Chinese officials just days after Meng's arrest; their detention is widely viewed as an act of retaliation for the arrest of the telecommunications executive on an extradition request from the United States. Another Canadian, Robert Schellenberg, was given a death sentence in January 2019 after having been previously sentenced to prison for drug smuggling. China also has blocked imports of Canadian agricultural products. 

Government sources in this country tell CBC News that the so-called public health diplomacy by Canada has resulted in a new climate of diplomatic détente — and that relations with China are better now than they have been since at least 2018.

The coronavirus outbreak seems to be driving the sudden thaw. Canada needed Chinese approval to send a plane to the Chinese city of Wuhan to collect Canadians there who asked for help to leave. China, meanwhile, needed the international community's help to grapple with the outbreak. 

Global Affairs Canada said it had shipped about 16 tonnes of personal protective equipment to China this month, including clothing, face shields, masks, goggles and gloves. Ottawa also agreed to provide $2 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) to help vulnerable countries prepare for a potential coronavirus outbreak beyond China. 

Renowned Canadian epidemiologist Bruce Aylward recently made his way to China to lead a team of WHO experts to study the origin of the virus and the severity of the disease. 

"This is Canada. And when in (times of) need, we want to be there and be able to provide assistance to the extent we can," Champagne said this week.  

That assistance, sources said, presented new opportunities for Ottawa to start repairing its relationship with China.  

"We are engaging with each other. I think every time you have a chance to have a dialogue it's something positive," said Champagne, who added he raises the plight of the Canadian detainees in every discussion with Chinese officials.

Another 67 people test positive for COVID-19 on cruise ship in Japan

Via CBC News: Another 67 people test positive for coronavirus on cruise ship in Japan. Excerpt:

Another 67 people have tested positive for the coronavirus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said on Saturday. 

The United States said earlier on Saturday it would send an aircraft to Japan to bring back U.S. passengers on the quarantined Diamond Princess, where the biggest cluster of infections outside China has occurred. About 380 Americans are on board the ship, docked in the port city of Yokohama. 

The United States urged its citizens on the ship to leave, "out of an abundance of caution," on a special flight due in Japan on Sunday, although they will face quarantine for another 14 days upon return, the U.S. embassy said in a letter.  

"We understand this is frustrating and an adjustment, but these measures are consistent with the careful policies we have instituted to limit the potential spread of the disease," the embassy said. 

American passengers will first be taken to the Travis Air Force Base in California and some will continue on to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.  

The ship owned by Carnival Corp has been quarantined since its arrival in Yokohama on Feb. 3. Of its 3,500 passengers and crew, 285 have tested positive for the infection.  

Japan's Health Ministry allowed 11 passengers to disembark on Friday. It said passengers above 80 years of age, those with underlying medical conditions and those who stayed in windowless cabins during the 14-day quarantine can move to a facility on shore.

MRC report 5: Phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2

Via the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis: Report 5: Phylogenetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2. The summary:

Genetic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 (formerly 2019-nCoV), the virus which causes COVID-19, provides information about epidemic origins and the rate of epidemic growth. By analysing 53 SARS-CoV-2 whole genome sequences collected up to February 3, 2020, we find a strong association between the time of sample collection and accumulation of genetic diversity. 

Bayesian and maximum likelihood phylogenetic methods indicate that the virus was introduced into the human population in early December and has an epidemic doubling time of approximately seven days. 

Phylodynamic modelling provides an estimate of epidemic size through time. Precise estimates of epidemic size are not possible with current genetic data, but our analyses indicate evidence of substantial heterogeneity in the number of secondary infections caused by each case, as indicated by a high level of over-dispersion in the reproduction number. 

Larger numbers of more systematically sampled sequences – particularly from across China – will allow phylogenetic estimates of epidemic size and growth rate to be substantially refined. 

How China-US mistrust pushed the WHO into a COVID-19 corner

Via the South China Morning Post: How China-US mistrust pushed the WHO into a coronavirus corner. Excerpt:

Mistrust between Beijing and Washington has tainted US offers of help to contain a deadly coronavirus outbreak, forcing the World Health Organisation (WHO) into a political corner, analysts said. 

US officials said they first offered to send American specialists to China as part of a WHO mission in early January but despite Chinese President Xi Jinping’s calls to deepen international cooperation in the public health crisis, that offer had yet to be accepted. 

US officials said on Thursday that no American had been invited to China to take part, despite Americans accounting for 13 of the 25 names that the WHO submitted to China for the mission. 

On Friday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the final WHO team comprised of 12 international experts and 12 from China, and would begin its investigation into the spread of the outbreak and its severity this weekend. 

Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO health emergencies programme, said he believed the mission would include health officials from the US, without elaborating.

Observers say growing strategic distrust between China and the US had influenced Beijing’s reaction to US offers of aid, with the Chinese foreign ministry earlier slamming the US for not providing “substantive assistance” and for having “inappropriately overreacted” with strict travel restrictions. 

“The perception that the US could be a substantive aid giver to China in this outbreak, I think that’s the issue for Beijing – the need for it to not portray the image of weakness and needing of help, especially to the Americans,” Adam Ni, co-editor of the China analysis newsletter China Neican, said.

The coronavirus illness, now known as Covid-19, spread initially from the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December and has been detected in two dozen countries. 

According to official figures released on Saturday, there have been more than 66,000 confirmed infections and 1,523 deaths in mainland China, with more than 500 other confirmed cases across the globe. 

Beijing has taken unprecedented measures to try to contain the outbreak, including locking down entire cities and restricting travel for tens of millions. But it has also faced domestic and international backlash over shortages of medical staff and supplies as well as accusations of government missteps and cover-ups. 

Wang Zhengxu, a professor of Chinese politics at Fudan University in Shanghai, said Beijing did not see the US government as being sincere in offering support to China, and likely felt the US government’s proposal to send medical experts in was either too small to be meaningful or not as significant as a “more clear effort of international solidarity”. 

“The US government has been doing a lot of talking – of supporting China – but in actuality, its overall intention or strategy appears to be taking this opportunity to put more stress on China,” Wang said. “There has been quite a bit of undercutting China's anti-epidemic efforts.” 

But Ni said it was useful for Beijing to target the United States at a time when it was facing both domestic and international criticism over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak. 

However, that left the WHO, which has praised China’s response to the epidemic, in a bind. “The WHO is in some ways caught in the middle,” he said. “On the one hand it has to take international public health seriously and on the other hand, it has to do so in a way that appeases Beijing because I think it’s not going to be able to function effectively without Beijing’s cooperation in this outbreak.”