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China coronavirus: Fear grips Wuhan as lockdown begins

A sense of anxiety is growing in Wuhan as the Chinese city goes into lockdown in an effort to control the spread of a new virus which has left 17 dead.

The authorities have suspended planes and trains in and out of the city of 11 million people, as well as buses, subways and ferries.

Residents have been told not to leave. Worried about a food shortage, one said it felt like "the end of the world".

There are more than 500 confirmed cases of the virus, which has spread abroad.

Wuhan is at the centre of the outbreak and believed to be where the virus originated.

The lockdown in the city comes as millions of Chinese people travel across the country for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday.

Another Wuhan resident said on social media site Weibo that they were on the "verge of tears" when they heard about the closures.

All outbound flights from Wuhan have been suspended as of Thursday. A handful of inbound flights still appear to be operating, though many flights have been cancelled.

Several regional airlines - including Malaysia's AirAsia and Singapore Airlines' budget carrier Scoot - have announced a temporary halt to flights to and from Wuhan.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51217455?fbclid=IwAR2O4qSCrZ2r9rTXQsHmqPH2wsLC4_7LpK6sWQ3CWLUsivZcAqsiAkg1mP4

 

Not to worry, this is China's century. The PRC is going to take over the world, if any of them survive. 

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Thai Tourist Returning From China Confirmed as Coronavirus Patient

BANGKOK — Health officials on Wednesday said they found the first case of a Thai national who contracted the new strain of coronavirus, and the fourth infection in Thailand.

Department of Disease Control director Sophon Iamsirithavorn identified the patient as a 73-year-old female native of Nakhon Pathom province who returned from a trip to the Chinese city of Wuhan back on Jan. 13. Wuhan is thought to be where the strain originated.

He said there have now been four confirmed cases of coronavirus infection in Thailand: three Chinese tourists and one Thai citizen. The announcement just as Macau and the U.S. also reported an infection.

Symptoms of the virus are similar to a flu: runny nose, cough, sore throat, headache, and fever.

The virus could also lead to illnesses like pneumonia or bronchitis if the patient has weakened immune system, such as children and the elderly.

 

 

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/crimecourtscalamity/2020/01/22/thai-tourist-returning-from-china-confirmed-as-coronavirus-patient/

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Wuhan's public transport lockdown came into force as of 10:00 local time (02:00 GMT), leaving normally busy train stations and airports empty.

One Wuhan resident said on social media site Weibo that people were on the "verge of tears" when they heard about the closures.

Health authorities are reported to have made wearing a mask mandatory in the city. They are advising people to avoid crowds and public gatherings.

Demand for rubber gloves and surgical masks has soared. Taobao, the Chinese online retail giant, has warned sellers not to profit from the outbreak by raising prices.

 - Huanggang. The city east of Wuhan announced a suspension of bus and rail systems and encouraged people not to leave the city. Cafes, cinemas, theatres and exhibitions are being shut
- Ezhou, just south of Huanggang, has shut its train stations
- Xiantao has cancelled gatherings, suspended transport and set up temperature detection stations,
- Chibi and Lichuan are suspending transport, AFP reports

The capital, Beijing, announced it had cancelled all major Chinese New Year celebrations. 

A doctor at a hospital in Wuhan spoke to the BBC

The virus is now spreading at an alarming rate. The hospitals have been flooding with thousands of patients, who wait hours to see a doctor - you can imagine their panic.

Normally Wuhan is a great place to live and we are proud of our work - specialists here have developed a guide for coronavirus diagnosis and treatment.

But I am scared because this is a new virus and the figures are worrying.

Two days ago we were told not to go to work because of the risk of contamination. If we leave our home on the hospital campus, we are required to wear masks.

We don't want to take our two-year-old son outside. He's sleeping now, and we are trying to protect him as much as possible - handwashing, airing the apartment, avoiding contact with people.

Outside I can barely see anyone on the streets. We have been told to avoid gatherings.

I went to the supermarket to buy food, but there was nothing left - no vegetables or biscuits. Some Lunar New Year celebrations are cancelled.

People had bought tickets to go home for Lunar New Year but they can't go now. Everyone is stuck here and can't leave.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51217455

 

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Wuhan quarantine expands as Chinese fear authorities not telling full story about coronavirus outbreak

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"A bigger outbreak is certain," said Guan Yi, a virologist who helped identify Severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003. He estimated - "conservatively" - that this outbreak could be 10 times bigger than the SARS epidemic because that virus was transmitted by only a few "super spreaders" in a more defined part of the country.

"We have passed through the 'golden period' for prevention and control," he told Caixin magazine from self-imposed quarantine after visiting Wuhan. "What's more, we've got the holiday traffic rush and a dereliction of duty from certain officials."

Authorities had initially said that the virus, which began in a Wuhan food market selling exotic animals for consumption, was mild and could not be transmitted between humans. But that changed this week when the numbers of people infected by the virus, which has an incubation period as long as 14 days, began to rise rapidly.

Now cases have been detected around the country, from Harbin in the north to Shenzhen in the south. The Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macao have both reported cases, as have countries including the United States, Japan, South Korea and Thailand.

The ruling Communist Party, which initially tried to show transparency after being criticized for covering up the SARS virus outbreak 17 years ago, has now shown signs of reverting to its default position of censoring bad news.

...

https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30380968?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=internal_referral

 

 

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China’s Chief Medical Consultant for the Wuhan Coronavirus Is Infected With the Disease

A Chinese medical expert who assured the public that the “Wuhan pneumonia is controllable” has been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus after visiting Wuhan City as one of the chief medical consultants for this new viral pneumonia.

Wang Guangfa, Director of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine at Peking University First Hospital, confirmed with Chinese state media on Jan. 21 that he was diagnosed with the coronavirus, also known as Wuhan pneumonia.

Wang stayed in Wuhan for at least eight days as a member of the National Health Commission’s expert team, to investigate the SARS-related pneumonia caused by a newly identified coronavirus.

However, even China’s major newspapers have difficulty obtaining the exact dates of Wang’s stay in Wuhan. Some say the medical expert team was dispatched to Wuhan on Dec. 31, 2019, while other media outlets said the delegation had arrived before Dec. 31.

The discrepancy in these reports is worth noting, because the Chinese public has become increasingly outraged and is demanding that authorities disclose the exact dates of the first diagnosed case and when Wuhan medical personnel became aware of the dangers of this mysterious new disease. Many people have expressed their suspicion that the public has been kept in the dark since last November.

In addition, none of the Chinese state media revealed the exact date when Wang was diagnosed. The fact he was infected could be a strong evidence of human-to-human transmission, and the Chinese medical authorities were not forthcoming in confirming human-to-human transmission at all.

On Jan. 10, Wang announced on China Central TV that the Wuhan patients’ condition and the overall situation of the disease spreading were controllable, adding: “The majority of patients are classified as mild to moderate. As of now, there has not been a single case of medical personnel being infected by patients.”

After Wang was found to be infected, he said he had visited patients twice during his stay in Wuhan.

Wang told Chinese state media that his first visit was at an ICU (intensive care unit) to check the status of a severely infected patient at Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital, a hospital dedicated to public health emergencies and contagious diseases under the direct jurisdiction of Wuhan Health Commission.

“Although I was close to the patient, I was completely protected, with a medical face mask (an acrylic shield covering the entire face). There was little chance that I would get infected from that patient,” Wang said.

On a different date, Wang visited several hospitals’ fever treatment clinics and temporary isolation wards for suspected pneumonia patients. This time, he was only wearing an N95 medical mask.

After his return to Beijing, the first illness symptom he noticed was conjunctivitis on the lower part of his left eye.

“A couple of hours later, I started to experience fever and catarrh symptoms,” Wang said.

[more]

http://www.efreenews.com/a/china-s-chief-medical-consultant-for-the-wuhan-coronavirus-is-infected-with-the-disease?fbclid=IwAR3xH500crHJkGbW8hI3J1tI5HIx5Kw7ShVOR7cKy7H2W9Go_MbfkWjZBoY

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China has a massive housing bubble that is the largest housing bubble in recorded history. It will dwarf ours by multiples when it pops. They have some other endemic issues as well. They grew way too fast. Will they have a massive recession? Sure. Will they implode? No. The largest economies in the world don't implode. As bad as the Great Depression was we didn't implode. Japan has been economically stagnant for 30 years and remained the 2nd largest economy for half that time and is still number 3. 

Also, any massive economic downturn in China will reverberate globally including America. We are symbiotically tied to each other economically. One crashes so will the others and the world will follow because America and China are usually the two biggest trading partners of the next biggest economies in the G20. 

What will make China come out of a global recession or depression easier than America is that they know they are going to get hit and are doing things to counter it. It won't stop it but it will lessen the blow and the pain. America on the other hand are doing nothing to prepare for it. China is buying up tons of gold. China and Russia are the biggest buyers of gold for the last few years. They have also been writing down a lot of the real estate. They have been weening themselves off America debt.They are looking to strengthen their currency or find alternatives to the dollar being the reserve currency. Trump is strictly  short term. It doesn't matter one iota if what he is doing short term will make things worse down the road, as long as he can put a sugar high in certain stats like the employment rate, the stock market, he will do whatever the effect. We are going to be royally fucked. 

But this is a China thread. The outbreak doesn't help at all but being authoritarian they can control things easier. 

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