There has been a large increase in new coronavirus infections in Hebei and Heilongjiang, China, with one fatal case in Hebei province, the first in eight months. Meanwhile, a WHO expert team arrived in Wuhan to investigate the source of the new coronavirus.
China’s health and Welfare Commission said at a press conference on Thursday (Jan. 14) to inform about the new coronavirus outbreak that as of Jan. 13, there were 138 new confirmed cases in China, including 14 imported cases from abroad, 81 local cases in Hebei and 43 cases in Heilongjiang. There was one new fatal case in Hebei.
China’s health commission said the 13th day of new cases was the highest number of new cases since March 5 last year, and the first death since mid-May last year. The deceased was a woman from Hebei province with an underlying disease. The Health and Welfare Commission reported 115 new cases in China on Jan. 12.
To control the spread and spread of the epidemic, authorities in Hebei and Heilongjiang, where this outbreak is severe, have imposed strict city closures on affected cities and counties, and more than 28 million people have been asked to confine themselves to their homes.
The Chinese Lunar New Year is currently less than a month away on Feb. 12. Around New Year’s is the busiest time of the year for China’s Spring Festival, when hundreds of millions of Chinese people usually travel home from all over the world to celebrate the New Year or go on a trip. To control the epidemic, health authorities in Heilongjiang province on Feb. 14 advised the province’s 37 million residents to stay home as much as possible during the Spring Festival and not to make unnecessary trips.
Authorities in Hebei Province took measures to implement traffic control in key areas such as Shijiazhuang, Xingtai and Langfang, and personnel and vehicles were not allowed to enter or leave the area unless necessary to prevent the export and spread of the disease from outside.
Authorities in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, which is the hardest hit area of the outbreak, began building a centralized quarantine site on Wenzheng Street in Zhengding County on the 13th, with a total of 3,000 integrated houses (movable and detachable) for quarantined people.
Meanwhile, a WHO national expert team arrived in Wuhan, the first key disaster area of this global New Coronavirus pandemic, on the 14th to prepare for an investigation into the source of the New Coronavirus. But the experts will be quarantined for 14 days after undergoing nucleic acid testing at Wuhan airport. Two other experts tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in Singapore before leaving for China and were unable to enter the country, WHO said.
For the past year, the United States and other countries have been asking the WHO to send experts to the field to investigate the origin of the new coronavirus, but China has refused.
A member of the WHO panel said he expected the trip to yield details and new information about the origin of the virus, but did not expect to get all the answers to his questions.
Chinese authorities described the WHO expert group’s visit to China as a study tour to collaborate with Chinese scientists in joint scientific research on the source of the new coronavirus.
The new coronavirus pandemic, which has spread worldwide, has infected at least 92.4 million people and killed more than 1.98 million, according to statistics from Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
Recent Comments