Covid-19 News & Updates (Thailand and Southeast Asia only)

[HHTel]

As screening is useless for anyone within the first 2 weeks of the virus and has likely affected passengers on their flight, I propose quarantining all Chinese arrivals for 2 weeks to be safe!!

[handdrummer]

Maybe China shouldn't let anyone leave the country until the virus has been contained or is this a nefarious plot? (that's a joke, son)

[PeteC]

...."But when the researchers performed a more detailed bioinformatics analysis of the sequence of 2019-nCoV, it suggests that this coronavirus might come from snakes."......

Makes interesting reading, and rather shocking.


Snakes could be the source of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/22/heal ... index.html

[thecolonel]

Apologies if this question has already been raised....

Are we in Thailand at a significantly greater risk than anywhere else in the world?

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[PeteC]

Are we in Thailand at a significantly greater risk than anywhere else in the world?

At present places where there is a significant presence and flow of people from China the risk would be greater than places where there is not. That statement goes out the window once and if this virus becomes established in new areas and begins spreading from a local source other than from people coming from China or people who have visited China.

[Lost]

How braindead, dumb and stupendously selfish are these people?

6 Chinese nationals turned up in Scotland from Wuhan with flu like symptoms. Now in quarantine. U can Google for news articles.

[pharvey]

Are we in Thailand at a significantly greater risk than anywhere else in the world?

At present places where there is a significant presence and flow of people from China the risk would be greater than places where there is not. That statement goes out the window once and if this virus becomes established in new areas and begins spreading from a local source other than from people coming from China or people who have visited China.

Would agree, but Thailand has to be the top "overseas" trip for the Chinese at the moment and with the Chinese New Year coming in the next few days, the odds of further cases in Thailand must increase.

[pharvey]

How braindead, dumb and stupendously selfish are these people?

6 Chinese nationals turned up in Scotland from Wuhan with flu like symptoms. Now in quarantine. U can Google for news articles.

5 in Scotland, 1 in Northern Ireland (not that it makes a difference!)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... infection/

[thecolonel]

How braindead, dumb and stupendously selfish are these people?

6 Chinese nationals turned up in Scotland from Wuhan with flu like symptoms. Now in quarantine. U can Google for news articles.

Extremely!

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk

[thecolonel]

How braindead, dumb and stupendously selfish are these people?

6 Chinese nationals turned up in Scotland from Wuhan with flu like symptoms. Now in quarantine. U can Google for news articles.

Extremely!

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk

Would like to think that in similar circumstances the UK would stop people from travelling out of the country....

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[dtaai-maai]

Of course, we don't know whether these people travelled with said symptoms or they developed after arrival. As has been mentioned, there is a substantial incubation period.

[Nereus]

Virus-hit Wuhan to build 1,000-bed hospital over the weekend

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/18428 ... he-weekend

BEIJING: The Chinese city of Wuhan is express-building a new 1,000-bed hospital to treat victims of the new coronavirus, and plans to have it ready by early next week, state media said.

Meanwhile, a total of 10 cities in China's central Hubei province have suspended some public transportation over the coronavirus outbreak, the Hubei Daily reported on Friday.

The virus has killed 25 people in China and infected more than 800, the government said on Friday, as the World Health Organisation declared it an emergency but stopped short of declaring the epidemic of international concern.

Most of the cases are in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated late last year.

The new hospital is being built around a holiday complex originally intended for local workers, set in gardens by a lake on the outskirts of the city, the official Changjiang Daily reported on Friday. Prefabricated buildings which will have 1,000 beds will be put up, it said.

Building machinery, including 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers, arrived at the site on Thursday night, with the aim to get the new facility ready by Monday, the paper added.

"The construction of this project is to solve the shortage of existing medical resources" the report said. "Because it will be prefabricated buildings, it will not only be built fast but it also won't cost much."

The hospital aims to copy the experience of Beijing in 2003, when the city battled Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). As many as 774 people died in the SARS epidemic, which reached nearly 30 countries.

At the time, Beijing built the Xiaotangshan hospital in its northern suburbs in just a week. Within two months, it treated one-seventh of all the country's SARS patients, the Changjiang Daily said.

The Beijing hospital, built by 7,000 workers, was originally designed only to take people who were in recovery from SARS to relieve pressure on other hospitals.

In the end it treated nearly 700 SARS patients.

Buses in cities of Chibi, Xiantao, Zhijiang, Qianjiang, Xianning, Huangshi and Enshi have suspended services.
In Zhijiang city, all public venues have been shut down except hospitals, supermarkets, farmers' market, gas stations and drug stores, it said.

Indoor entertainment venues in Enshi city have also been shut down, it said.

Provincial capital Wuhan city, the epicentre of the outbreak, and Huanggang city have been locked down while Ezhou city has shut its train stations.

Hubei has confirmed 549 cases of the new coronavirus, with 24 death as of Jan 23, the provincial health authorities said.

[Nereus]

'End of the world': Inside the locked down epicentre of deadly coronavirus

https://au.news.yahoo.com/inside-locked ... 54848.html

Photos at link:

The World Health Organisation called the decision “unprecedented”.

On Thursday the city of Wuhan, home to 11 million people, was placed into lockdown as China confirmed 18 people have now died from the coronavirus, including one person 1000km from the epicentre in Hebei, while more than 600 had been infected.

There were eerie scenes across Hubei province’s capital as all public transport was shut down, including flights out of the city.

Images from Wuhan’s main train station show a normally bustling station filled with thousands of travellers completely empty on Thursday.

The city’s busy airport was also unrecognisable with just a handful of travellers trying to find a way out of the city.
However people were ordered not to leave and hours later, neighbouring Huangang, with a population of 7 million, was also placed into lockdown.

As the city slipped into isolation, residents thronged into hospitals for checks and scrambled for supplies, clearing out supermarket shelves and queuing for petrol.

Roads were congested and traffic piled up as all drivers and passengers were tested at road stops.

Images show others parts of the city with little road or pedestrian activity.

Authorities in Huanggang ordered indoor entertainment venues including cinemas and internet cafes to close and were asking citizens not to leave other than under special circumstances.

Medics in the ICU of Wuhan’s top hospital heightened safety procedures, communicating through sealed windows with walkie talkies while treating patients.

"The lockdown of 11 million people is unprecedented in public health history,” Gauden Galea, the World Health Organisation's (WHO) representative in Beijing, told Reuters.

As news of the city’s lockdown spread, others began taking the precautionary measure. As of Friday morning, eight other towns and cities had followed suit with Wuhan.

Footage from Fuzhou’s airport shared by South China Morning Post journalist Xinyan Yu shows a man in a sealed quarantine box being wheeled away by authorities.

One resident in Wuhan told the BBC the restrictions implemented felt like they were nearing “the end of the world”.

Chinese New Year travel likely to spread coronavirus
Health officials fear the transmission rate will accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel at home and abroad during week-long holidays for the Lunar New Year, which begins on Saturday.

Beijing news outlets are reporting that the city is cancelling major public events including Chinese New Year temple fairs over the outbreak.

The previously unknown virus strain is believed to have emerged late last year from illegally traded wildlife at an animal market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

There is no vaccine for the virus, which can spread through respiratory transmission. Symptoms include fever, difficulty in breathing and cough, similar to many other respiratory illnesses.

Preliminary research suggested the virus was passed on to humans from snakes, but government medical adviser Zhong Nanshan has also identified badgers and rats as possible sources.

Deadly virus hits second continent
Chinese authorities gave no new details on the numbers of virus infections but it has been reported in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and several other countries including the United States, stoking fears it is already spreading worldwide.

Of eight known cases worldwide, Thailand has confirmed four, while Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States have reported one each.

In a report on Wednesday, Imperial College London said it estimated a total of 4000 cases of the coronavirus in Wuhan alone as of January 18, an infection rate based on the number of cases reported in China and elsewhere.

Despite this, the WHO says it is "a bit too early" to declare a new coronavirus a global health emergency.

"Make no mistake, though, this is an emergency in China. But it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one," he said.

In contrast with its secrecy over the 2002-03 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that killed nearly 800 people, China's Communist Party government has provided regular updates to avoid panic ahead of the holidays.

Some experts believe the new virus is not as dangerous as previous coronaviruses such as SARS and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has killed more than 700 people since 2012.

"The early evidence at this stage would suggest it's not as severe," Australia's Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy told reporters.

Despite China's response, stock markets across Asia were on the back foot on Thursday, led by drops of roughly 1.5 per cent in Hong Kong and Shanghai while China's yuan fell to a two-week low.

Airports globally stepped up screening of passengers from China and the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said the further global spread of the virus was likely.

[HHTel]

Going by the scale of the 'lockdowns' and other measures, I'd hazard a guess that the numbers the Chinese government are willing to admit are way way off the mark. I read somewhere that there are estimates of 7,000 people infected.

[Nereus]

I doubt that this is fake news as there is a photo of what appears to be a bat.
...………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The animal eaten in China that may have sparked deadly coronavirus

https://au.news.yahoo.com/chinese-eatin ... 07083.html

WARNING – DISTURBING CONTENT: There are fears the new strain of coronavirus that has now killed 25 people may have been caused by bats carrying the deadly virus being eaten by Chinese diners.

While the responsible species of animal for the coronavirus has yet to be confirmed, scientists in China said bats carry the virus and the mammal is one of the leading potential causes of the latest strain, Business Insider reported.

The origin of the strain, which has infected 830 people, is understood to be at Huanan Seafood Market which was closed down on January 1.

While the market’s name indicates only seafood is sold at the premises, it has been confirmed other animals were illegally sold there.

While it is not clear if bats were sold at the market, bats may have infected other animals on sale at the market including rats, hedgehogs and snakes.

Wuhan authorities moved on Wednesday to ban the sale of live animals at other wet markets in the city with police on the ground enforcing the rule, the BBC reported.

The first fatality from the latest strain was known to shop at the market.

In Hubei the consumption of bat by Chinese diners is common and is a known delicacy. Unconfirmed footage that has spread across Chinese social media shows a woman eating a cooked bat at a restaurant.

In the video a man tells the woman to eat the meat of the bat and not its wing.

The clip is understood to be in the city of Wuhan, where the majority of the confirmed deaths from the strain have been.

Another video shared to Twitter shows a cooked bat sitting in a bowl of soup.

Christian Walzer, executive director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s health program, said Chinese governments need to act on the dangers posed by the consumption of certain animals.

“Governments must recognise the global public health threats of zoonotic diseases,” he said in a statement.

“It is time to close live animal markets that trade in wildlife, strengthen efforts to combat trafficking of wild animals, and work to change dangerous wildlife consumption behaviours, especially in cities.”

Bats are believed to be the original cause of SARS with the disease spread from a wet market in Guangdong in China’s south. The virus resulted in the death of 774 people.

Health officials fear the transmission rate could accelerate as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel at home and abroad during week-long holidays for the Lunar New Year, which begins on Saturday.

Scrambling to contain the outbreak, the local government in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in Hubei province, suspended most transport on Thursday, including outgoing flights, and people were told not to leave.

Hours later, neighbouring Huanggang, a city of about seven million people, announced similar measures.

The woman eating the bat at what is believed to be a Wuhan restaurant. Source: Douyin

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