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#China  #Coronavirus #Outbreak #Quarantine #Pandemic #Wuhan At an emergency meeting in Beijing held last Friday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke about the need to contain the coronavirus and set up a system to prevent similar epidemics in the future. A national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place “to protect the people’s health,” Xi said, because lab safety is a “national security” issue. Xi didn’t actually admit that the coronavirus now devastating large swaths of China had escaped from one of the country’s bioresearch labs. But the very next day, evidence emerged suggesting that this is exactly what happened, as the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new directive titled: “Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus.” Read that again. It sure sounds like China has a problem keeping dangerous pathogens in test tubes where they belong, does...

#China  #Coronavirus #Outbreak #Quarantine #Wuhan #Airlines #Handwashing Forget face masks and rubber gloves. The best way to avoid the coronavirus is frequent hand washing, according to a medical adviser to the world’s airlines. The virus can’t survive long on seats or armrests, so physical contact with another person carries the greatest risk of infection on a flight, said David Powell, a physician and medical adviser to the  International Air Transport Association . Masks and gloves do a better job of spreading bugs than stopping them, he said. As concern mounts about the scale of the outbreak, carriers from  United Airlines Holdings Inc.  to  Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd.  have  scrapped  thousands of flights to China. Here is an edited transcript from an interview with Powell.  IATA  represents about  290 airlines  and more than 80% of global air traffic. Q: Is there a risk of becoming conta...

#China  #Coronavirus #Outbreak #Quarantine #Wuhan  #SARS #Epidemic  By James Griffiths, CNN The number of Wuhan coronavirus deaths in mainland China has overtaken the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in the country, as  Beijing injected billions of dollars  into an economy hit by weeks of effective shutdowns to major cities. More than  360 people have died  of the disease in China, the country's health authorities said Monday. The total number of cases in mainland China stood at 17,205 as of Sunday evening, an increase of over 2,800 on the previous day, or almost 20%. The 2003 outbreak of SARS -- another coronavirus strand -- infected 5,327 people in mainland China, with 349 deaths. The first death from the virus outside China  was confirmed over the weekend . Philippine health officials said that a 44-year-old Chinese man died Saturday after flying into the country from Wuhan. So far, more th...

#China, #Coronavirus #Outbreak #Quarantine #MarchAirReserveBase #OntarioCalifornia #OntarioInternationalAirport #RiversideCounty ONTARIO (CBSLA)  — A plane carrying more than 100 United States citizens being evacuated from Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak — is scheduled to arrive at March Air Reserve Base Wednesday morning, after being diverted from Ontario International Airport. On Tuesday afternoon, preparations in Ontario were well underway as the airport brought in showers, bathrooms and a truck full of drinking water to a hangar that was expected to house up to 240 quarantined U.S. citizens being evacuated from China. San Bernardino Supervisor Curt Hagman  posted a video on social media confirming that a chartered plane would be arriving in the United States this week, arriving in Alaska to refuel, before making its way to Ontario. “We’re prepared for this,” Hagman said in the video. “We’re not at risk whatsoever.” But in a Tue...

#Coronavirus #HongKong #Outbreak #Wuhan #Quarantine Hong Kong announced the shutdown of major rail passenger links and limits on flights coming from the mainland. China will stop issuing visas for individual travelers to the territory. The two Hong Kong protesters were dressed head to toe in black, their faces covered in masks. They smashed their Molotov cocktails into the lobby of a public housing estate, and flames and smoke began spewing out. This was no scene from the protest violence last year over Beijing’s dominance of Hong Kong’s affairs. This was on Sunday, and the firebombing was incited by anger over the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China — and plans by the Hong Kong government to use the unoccupied housing block as a quarantine area. Angst and anger fueled by the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 100 people on the mainland and has eight confirmed cases in Hong Kong, is compounding the bitterness from months of protests against Chief Ex...

#Coronavirus #China #Wuhan #Outbreak #Quarantine WUHAN, China — A top Chinese health official warned on Sunday that the spread of the dangerous new coronavirus, already extraordinarily rapid, is accelerating further, deepening global fears about an illness that has sickened more than 2,700 people worldwide and killed at least 80 people in China. The grim diagnosis came amid concerns that China’s efforts to contain the spread of the disease, despite a lockdown of unprecedented scope affecting 56 million people, may not only have come too late but could even make the situation worse, including by exacerbating shortages of medical supplies. Adding to the growing global alarm, people who are carrying the virus but not showing symptoms may still be able to infect others, according to the Chinese official, Ma Xiaowei, the director of China’s National Health Commission. Such asymptomatic transmissions would make the disease much more difficult to control, as seemingly healthy peo...