AFP
CORONAVIRUS – The north of Italy is barricaded. After the death of two Italians infected with the new coronavirus, the first European victims of Covid-19, at least eleven cities have taken drastic measures. Bars, schools, churches, stadiums, shops, town halls … closures and semi-containment measures were decided by the Ministry of Health after a first indigenous home was identified in Codogno, near Lodi, with the contamination of about fifteen people.
“It’s incredible: now the (situation in) China that we see on television is at home,” the owner of a Codogno bakery told Agi. In this area, located about 60 km southeast of Milan, more than 50,000 people are asked to stay at home and avoid closed places. The AFP photographer saw deserted streets in Codogno, a town of 15,000 people. No one in the local hospital emergency room other than the masked nurses when changing rotations.
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These deaths are announced against the background of an increasing number of outbreaks of the disease, with a first confirmed case in Lebanon and Israel, three additional deaths in Iran (five in total), a doubling of the number of people affected in South Korea and some 500 contaminated prisoners in China.
New “transmission models”
In Geneva, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, sounded the alarm on Friday: “As we speak, we are still in a phase where it is possible to contain the epidemic”. But the “window of fire is narrowing,” he warned, lamenting the lack of international financial support.
WHO is particularly concerned about the emergence of cases outside of China “without a clear epidemiological link, such as travel history and contact with a confirmed case”.
“We see that the situation is changing,” said Dr Sylvie Briand, director of the department for global preparedness for infectious risks at WHO: “Not only is the number of cases increasing, but we are also seeing different models of transmission in different places “. The WHO currently refuses to speak of a pandemic, but considers that there are “different epidemics, showing different phases,” she said.
In this regard, the specialized agency of the United Nations has announced the appointment of six special envoys, including David Nabarro, the former UN coordinator for Ebola during the epidemic in West Africa between late 2013 and 2016.
The number of new daily cases goes up again
Highlighting once again the “serious” measures taken by China to contain the epidemic in Hubei province and especially in the city of Wuhan, where the new coronavirus appeared in December, the WHO boss called on “Other countries” to be also “very, very serious”.
The epidemic has already claimed more than 2,200 lives and infected more than 75,000 people in China and more than 1,100 elsewhere in the world. If the number of new daily cases in China fell for four consecutive days, it started to rise again (at least 889, against 673 the day before), the Ministry of Health announced on Friday. Over 50 million Hubei residents are in quarantine, however.
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In addition, although several states have banned the entry of travelers from China and many airlines have suspended flights to that country, this has not prevented the emergence of new cases elsewhere in the world.
In South Korea, their numbers nearly doubled on Friday for the second day in a row, bringing the total to over 200, including some 120 members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a Christian sect, in the city of Daegu (southeast).
In Japan, the controversy swelled Friday around the Diamond Princess cruise ship, quarantined in the suburbs of Tokyo in Yokohama and which remains the most important center of contagion outside of China. Two Australian ex-passengers, initially tested negative when they got off the ship, were declared carriers of the virus on their return to their country. Enough to fuel questions about the procedures of the Japanese health authorities, which this week enabled hundreds of allegedly uninfected passengers to disembark.
The peak of the epidemic “not yet reached”
Participants in a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), chaired by Head of State Xi Jinping, stressed that the “peak (of the epidemic) has not yet been reached” and that the situation remained “complex ”In Hubei. In Beijing, where the situation had previously seemed to be under control, authorities also reported on Friday that 36 people tested positive at Fuxing Hospital.
But above all, many prisons are affected: 200 detainees and seven guards contracted the virus in Jining in Shandong province (east) and 34 cases were reported in an establishment in Zhejiang (east). In Hubei, massive contaminations were recorded in a women’s prison (230 cases) and a penitentiary center (41 cases).
If the Chinese are gradually returning to work, their country is still largely idling, most shops, restaurants and schools remain closed.
Encouraging news, however: even though WHO does not expect an operational vaccine in at least a year, China has announced that its researchers could realize at the end of April early human trials.
See also on The HuffPost : Coronavirus: Ukrainian village rebels for not welcoming people evacuated from China
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