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The closure starts on Thursday morning at local time. The metropolis has asked its inhabitants not to leave the city from Thursday unless there is a special need.
But many hope to leave the city behind before that time, according to the crowds at the international airport.
“There are long lines at the airport in Wuhan,” Huijgen says on Wednesday, while she is standing in a line where there seems to be no movement. Around her it is a “chaos” of worried travelers who, almost without exception, have their mouth covered. “Everyone looks nervously at the signs. Several flights have already been canceled. “
The Telegraaf correspondent is forced to fight for a flight because of the news troubles. “While I was rebooking my flight to Beijing, I saw the price fly over. I have no idea if I will get out of here, “she said at some point yesterday.
Eventually she caught a flight. People in white suits still checked everyone for the corona virus. There seemed to be a contamination for a moment. False alarm, happy.
Huijgen was intensively checked during a switch. A new flight must eventually bring her safely to Beijing.
Corona
Wuhan is a city with approximately 11 million inhabitants, 1000 kilometers south of Beijing in the central province of Hubei. 444 cases of lung disease related to the SARS virus have been reported in that province.
After the outbreak in Wuhan, infections have since been found in other places in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the US. The number of people who died in China is seventeen.
A traveler with a mask in the arrival hall of Tokyo International Airport.
Ⓒ EPA
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The UN World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Thursday whether the outbreak of the virus is a global emergency. The organization met on Wednesday about the situation in Geneva, Switzerland. If the corona outbreak is bombarded into an emergency, the UN organization will coordinate combat internationally.
So far, the WHO has declared an emergency situation six times. That happened, among other things, during outbreaks of zika, polio and ebola.
View the latest tweets from Cindy Huijgen here:
