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© Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.China building a hospital to treat virus; expands lockdowns to 25 mil people
By YANAN WANG BEIJING©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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KnowBetter
This one has already gotten away from them and now China figures its best face is to appear en masse to be doing their best to contain it. Let's hope they actually do but with people couped up like chickens now, sadly, this is only going to get worse before it gets better.
Yubaru
Only in a country like China could they stop the movement of literally millions of people! I can think of one country where the people would be damn near rioting if the government tried to stop people from going somewhere!
kurisupisu
So, 18 million under quarantine and the WHO won’t declare a public emergency?
Meanwhile, more cases are popping up domestically and internationally.
At present, the virus has not been linked to any particular vector other than it was first detected near a wet market.
The proof of origin has not been accurately established.
CrazyJoe
Recipe for mass panic: a reputation for suppressing bad news combined with trapping people in place.
Their shutting down an entire area means it's probably way worse than what they're telling the world.
Maria
I wonder - Is this going to bugger up the Olympics?
I know that is completely irrelevant compared with the loss of health and life; but it must be on the IOC's minds.
Kobe White Bar Owner
Ordo Ab Chao.
Yrral
They say snakes may be the source of the virus, all open market selling wild animals meat.
theFu
Most countries have laws that allow drastically restricting freedoms during an epidemic. https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/specificlawsregulations.html in the USA. Canada has similar legal requirements.
Restricting movement of 18 million people is hard. It would be bad to keep families apart for New Years celebrations, but if that is necessary, hopefully folks will cooperate.
The best way to fight this is to be open, honest, and share both data and samples. China doesn't have the best reputation for those things. Last year, they didn't share all Flu samples with the the US-CDC, for example.
rgcivilian1
toto late.
Laguna
I've been to many Chinese "bush meat" markets. One scene still seared into my memory was some kind of ungulate shivering with disease and fear, unable to stand, collapsed in an alley behind a restaurant, waiting to be butchered, cooked, and served.
If China wants to crack down on these Groundhog Day viruses, they must stop these practices.
mariasjapan
Don’t go to China!!!
Tokyo-Engr
It is good that China is taking this action and being somewhat proactive but I think (many think) this is quite a bit worse than we are being told.
I have an acquaintance in Wunan and he told me that the hospitals are "overflowing" and do not have enough beds for all of the patients. This is problematic as some patients who potentially have this virus are travelling back and forth to the hospital using taxis or other means.
The virus appears to be mutating and again has come from a market where exotic animals are sold which is similar to how other such virus' have jumped to humans. Hopefully the containment measures will work and I would hope that China would take a hard look at these markets and consider changes to reduce the risk of this happening again. We (humanity) has been lucky so far....
1glenn
What choice is there?
For some reason, most new virus outbreaks seem to occur in China or Western Africa. Maybe because animals and humans live in close quarters? The bubonic plaque originated in Asia in the 1300s, and ended up killing hundreds of millions of people.
Pukey2
Laguna:
The mainland Chinese just haven't learnt any lessons from SARS. These wet markets are a total breeding ground from all sorts of diseases. Firstly, because of the animals kept there - civet cats, porcupines, snakes, domesticated cats and dogs, and the list goes on. Secondly, the complete lack of hygiene, including preparing food on the ground. I can't help thinking that this is some kind of karma because of the way humans treat animals and the suffering animals endure.
Madden
If it is found that the virus was distributed due to lax controls at the market or some other shady business I hope all the people responsible are heavily punished!
MSR Japan
Quarantine the whole of China , you can be sure this is very much worse than the authorities are saying and everyone knows how the chinese govt restricts the free flow of the truth.
It is already too late to stop this becoming a major problem you can see the signs of it in every new news release.
ulysses
My thoughts are with the people who are suffering because of the incompetence of their local administration . The Chinese New Year is the time for people to travel back to their hometowns, but now they are stuck inside their cities with possible shortages of food and supplies.
I hope this gets contained at the earliest.
InspectorGadget
China - "Nothing to see here, Nothing to see here. All normal"
International Community - "Err China? Why are we getting reports of a virus outbreak, and why are sick people from Wuhan showing up at our borders?"
China - "Oh, you mean that viral outbreak! Quick lock everything down!"
Jonathan Prin
I believe it to be totally useless.
One contaminated person is sufficient to spread it elsewhere. Either you put in a prison like perimeter millions of people, or let them be.
Prevention about spreading is what is vital, whereever is the virus carrier.
And mass panic is the worse.
If I was quarantined this way, I would pay to do the Goshn's trick to leave.
Andrew Crisp
There's a video recently uploaded on youtube showing Chinese eating bats, if the virus comes from animals is that another source of the disease.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8h6XLNWaWQ
nandakandamanda
Andrew, a report has just been published where they have narrowed this one down to snakes, two species being hung up for sale in the Wuhan market place. Of course, bats were cited for earlier outbreaks, but snakes eat bats too.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-01-coronavirus-outbreak-china-snakes.html
Chip Star
Repugnant practice.
Not the same. We were able to freely drive around during this time.
rgcivilian1
My question is why did SARS and now this virus start in China? What was the root cause. Yesterday a documentary showed them eating what looked like a rodent. Please keep in mind too me it looked like a big size rodent but could have been some other animal instead that looked much like a rodent. Did anyone out there see this documentary.
rgcivilian1
As I pointed out earlier, aside the HazMat suit, which this virus is not HAZMAT, but a micro virus can easily penetrate its way into the suit via the mask. The only way to reduce the introduction is wearing the proper level suit with breathing apparatus, a full decon station and incubation period. The temperature and thermal scanner are ineffective against Tylenol, Aspirin, Bufferin, etc. These medicines reduce high fever so what good does this do, nothing except let the possible infected person pass through.
nandakandamanda
There's a good editorial article in Japanese explaining why the central government have taken so long to realize what the Wuhan government were hiding.
It includes a photograph of a menu of all the exotic animals that were on sale in the market for human consumption, many endangered species like 'koala' included apparently. (Photo taken from Jan 22, Beijing 新京報 local paper.)
タケネズミや蛇だけでなく、アナグマ、ハクビシン、キツネ、コアラ、野ウサギ、クジャク、雁、サソリ、ワニ……など、野生の動物が「食品」として日常的に売られているようだ。
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/endohomare/20200124-00160069/
(Hoping the linked article stays up and available.)
nandakandamanda
Translation of above: "Not only bamboo rats and snakes, but badgers, civits, foxes, koala, hare, peacock, geese, scorpion, crocodile, etc., showing that wild animals were being sold for human consumption on a daily basis."
WilliB
25 mil more than a lot of countries. Still, this thing already got out. Thanks so much, China! Yeah, lets keep bashing orangeman and trying to get a swamp figure in the WH who continues the sellout to the CCP.
ksteer
This is definitely more serious than China is letting the world believe, even though they are trying to show an air of transparency.
The fact that Beijing is indefinitely cancelling all public gatherings make me suspicious. That and they are making a field hospital (or multiple ones) that hold more than 1000 beds?
Not much of a conspiracy theorist but they know more about this virus then they are letting on... Possible research center breach in Wuhan?
MSR Japan
UK announcing people there now have it too.
China was too slow to act, how many people have now come into contact with this virus, wait to find out !
otherworldly
This will be the new normal. People are big and the world is very small now. It is very easy to move around. Lockdown is the correct thing to do.
nandakandamanda
MSR Japan, any links?
All I can find is that people are still being tested for it. Likelihood seems high though.
CrazyJoe
The country simply needs to go on a more aggressive campaign on hand washing, to make spitting a faux pas, and to teach hundreds of millions of people basic hygiene and safe food prep/storage. There are still a huuuuuge number of people in China living in 3rd world like conditions in the post-Mao era in the countrysides that are living in a different China than modern urbanites in major cities like Shanghai, Beijing, etc.
rgcivilian1
Question if this was so new, mysterious and strange, how did the find a cure/vaccine so quickly?
Bugle Boy of Company B
How is it that they’ve Corentine three cities and none of the cities already have a completed hospital in them? Since they’re pretty much counting on everyone in the cities been sick, wouldn’t it be easier, quicker and cheaper to simply use the existing facilities?
Bugle Boy of Company B
Quarantined
nandakandamanda
rgcivilian1, link please. My understanding was that there is no cure/vaccine yet.
MSR Japan
It was on the news i listen to on the radio.
No doubt there will be more info on it and more countries to add to the list in coming days / weeks .
OssanAmerica
To be accurate:
"The plague that caused the Black Death originated in China in the early to mid-1300s and spread along trade routes westward to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. It reached southern England in 1348 and northern Britain and Scandinavia by 1350."
https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death
Bugle Boy of Company B
It seems the idea is not entirely a unique one.
https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/a4RWA31_700bwp.webp
starpunk
It makes me wonder if the CCP will use this as an excuse to dust off say, the 'pesky' Uighurs or squelch the HK democracy movement. Either way, they're going to try to keep it dark and all out of sight. You can count on it.