China celebrates Tet amid fears of epidemics
China yesterday confirmed: The third patient died from infection with the new coronavirus;
The seafood market in Wuhan was closed after the discovery of a new epidemic.
The origin of the virus has not yet been clarified and the possibility of the epidemic spreading faster is that people in China and many Asian countries travel a lot during the Lunar New Year.
China’s National Health Commission said yesterday that two patients in Beijing were confirmed to be infected with this virus strain, along with one case in Shenzhen.
Wuhan city, where the first cases of infection were discovered, also said a third case died from coronavirus and more than 130 new cases of infection over the weekend alone, bringing the total number of infections in this city.
Information about the spread of coronavirus in China causes a lot of concern as hundreds of millions of people in this country are moving across the country and abroad during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control said on January 18 that this epidemic `can be prevented and controlled`.
A representative of the center denied that hospitals outside Wuhan were secretly treating people infected with the virus and affirmed that all known cases were being treated in the city.
Despite efforts to dispel rumors, the announcement left many Chinese netizens saying it raised more questions than it answered.
“How contagious is this virus, how serious is it and can it be transmitted from person to person?
Many people ask the same question: how can there be no cases outside Chinese cities when two Chinese tourists to Thailand and one Chinese person working in Japan have been confirmed?
Many doubts
Hospitals in Shanghai and Zhejiang province have both strengthened comprehensive examination procedures.
On the afternoon of January 20, more than 100 people with symptoms lined up waiting to be tested at Xiehe hospital in Wuhan, Guardian said.
At a hospital in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, patients were given masks and a form to declare whether they had recently traveled to Wuhan.
In an announcement posted on Twitter yesterday, WHO said: `Animal sources may be the initial origin of this coronavirus outbreak, with limited human-to-human transmission occurring through close contact.`
Up to this point, signs show that the new virus is not as virulent as SARS, but experts have not yet determined its exact origin and how it spreads.
Xi Chen, an assistant professor at the School of Public Health at Yale University, USA, said that there is a high possibility that the virus is transmitted from person to person because there have been many confirmed cases.
The Huanan seafood market, which has thousands of stalls, has been closed since early January. But some sick patients have never been to this market.
On January 19, China’s National Health Commission affirmed that this epidemic `can be prevented and controlled`, but also said that the origin of the virus has not been determined and its path of spread is unknown.
According to Binh Giang
Pioneer