Hong Kong to quarantine all visitors from China as coronavirus death toll soars
All travelers arriving from mainland China will face a “compulsory” 14-day quarantine on reaching Hong Kong, as the number of deaths from the Wuhan coronavirus spiked again in China.
The city’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who has been under intense public pressure to stop anyone crossing into Hong Kong from mainland China, said the legislation will come into effect at midnight on February 8.
This is only the second time the measure, known officially as the “Prevention and Control of Disease Ordinance,” has been enacted, she said.
The number of deaths from the Wuhan coronavirus jumped again in mainland China, as confirmed cases topped 24,500 worldwide and there were worrying signs of new outbreak clusters in Hong Kong and Japan.
As of Wednesday morning, the number of deaths from the virus stood at 492, an increase of 67 from the previous day, including a second death outside of mainland China.
The number of confirmed cases grew to 24,543 worldwide, an increase of almost 4,000. The majority of cases are still centralized in Hubei, the Chinese province of which Wuhan is the capital, where more than 12,600 people remain in hospital.
China’s National Health Commission said Tuesday that the death rate from the virus stands at 2.1% nationwide. The figure is higher for Hubei, at 3.1%. A spokeswoman for the commission said 80% of victims were over the age of 60 and 75% had some form of underlying condition.
Outside mainland China, Hong Kong reported its first death from the virus on Tuesday, as authorities also confirmed three “local infection cases,” who had not recently returned from China.
Authorities said an ongoing strike by healthcare workers has had a “serious impact on services.” Unions have demanded that the border be fully closed and extra support provided for frontline staff before they will end their walkout action — though most doctors and nurses continue to work.
Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Hong Kong health authority’s communicable disease branch, told reporters Tuesday the new cases showed “there could be invisible chains of infection happening within communities.”
“We are not ruling out a large spread (of the virus) in the future,” she said.
Cruise ships quarantined
Also under quarantine are thousands of passengers on board two cruise ships. The Diamond Princess cruise ship, currently sitting in Yokohama Bay, south of Tokyo, and a second ship, docked in Hong Kong’s Kai Tak terminal.
Ten people on board the Diamond Princess have been confirmed to have the virus, and were being taken to the hospital, as authorities waited for test results of other passengers. There are 2,666 guests and 1,045 crew members on board the ship, owner Princess Cruises said in a statement. Of those, 428 passengers are American, the US embassy in Japan confirmed to CNN.
The ship has been held at the Japanese harbor since early Tuesday, after the virus was detected in a Hong Kong man who had previously disembarked from the cruise.
The second ship in Hong Kong is holding more than 1,800 passengers on board, after it was revealed passengers from the previous voyage became infected with the virus, according to officials speaking at Hong Kong’s Health Ministry press conference Wednesday.
The ship, which previously sailed from Nansha, China to Vietnam and back, had more than 4,000 passengers on board who all disembarked on January 24. Roughly 4,400 disembarked in mainland China while another 200 disembarked in Hong Kong. Three of those 4,600 passengers were confirmed to be infected with the Wuhan coronavirus shortly after the cruise.
The ship’s crew stayed on for the next trip which docked and departed from Kaoshiung, Taiwan on February 4 but Taiwan’s Ministry of Health said passengers were not allowed to leave the ship.
All passengers and crew are currently being held on the ship while health checks continue and cannot leave without the Health Department’s permission.
Cruise ships can become hotbeds for viral infections, typically norovirus and other gastrointestinal bugs — this time last year, a cruise in the Caribbean had to return to port early after more than 400 passengers got sick.
“Commercial maritime travel is characterized by the movement of large numbers of people in closed and semi-closed settings,” according to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). “Like other close-contact environments, these settings can facilitate the transmission of influenza viruses and other respiratory viruses from person to person through droplet spread or potentially through contact with contaminated surfaces.”
As the Yokohama ship remains under quarantine and testing, attention will turn to other vessels in the region. Hong Kong is a major cruise ship terminal, with routes to much of southeast Asia, Taiwan and Japan.
Where is Xi?
With at least three cities in China reporting more than a thousand cases, there are signs that the stringent controls put in place to try and contain the virus may not be working.
In a front page editorial Tuesday, the People’s Daily — the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party — called for a “people’s war” against the virus, adding that people should “more closely rally around the CCP with comrade Xi Jinping as the core.”
Xi himself, however, has been missing in recent days, not appearing on front pages or in the nightly newscast on state broadcaster CCTV. This is extremely unusual for the Chinese leader, who typically dominates media coverage even when his activities are relatively routine.
His disappearance has led to a great deal of speculation in China and abroad. However, due to the opaque nature of the Communist Party’s internal politics, it is difficult to do much more than speculate as the likely reason. Even though he has not been appearing, Xi’s name continues to feature in state media coverage, which has emphasized his role in chairing meetings related to the virus and overseeing relief and containment methods.
Treatment methods
With fear of the virus — and reported cases — growing worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday urged governments not to impose travel and trade restrictions, though many already have.
“We reiterate our call to all countries not to impose restrictions that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday during a briefing to the UN’s executive board in Geneva.
“Where such measures have been implemented, we urge that they are short in duration, proportionate to the public health risks, and are reconsidered regularly as the situation evolves,” he added.
He also called on member states to “facilitate rapid collaboration between the public and private sectors to develop the diagnostics, medicines and vaccines,” in order to bring the outbreak under control.
Those efforts are under way globally, with slow progress being made both on treatment methods and vaccines. The lack of both throughout this outbreak is one factor which makes it far scarier than seasonal influenza and similar bugs — while the flu kills more people annually, there is a vaccine and hospitals are well acquainted with treating and containing it.
Officials in Thailand said Monday that a second patient has been treated with a new combination of HIV and flu drugs, after doctors said the cocktail had been successful in treating a 71-year-old woman from China with the virus. Officials have yet to provide an update on the success of the treatment for the second patient.
A purpose-built hospital dedicated to treating the virus also opened in Wuhan Monday. The institution was constructed in under a week, and a second is due to open Thursday. Both will only handle coronavirus patients, helping to take the pressure off the severely stretched Wuhan healthcare system.
Chinese health officials said that the average time needed for a patient to recover is nine days. However, in Hubei province, the average recovery time is currently at 20 days because there are more severe cases.
The death rate has also been higher in Hubei because of a lack of hospital beds and large number of cases creating delays in treatment.
