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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / China / Today’s Coronavirus Update

Today’s Coronavirus Update

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This is like cancelling Christmas, if Thanksgiving and maybe Amity Island‘s Independence Day were also celebrated at the end of December. (Despite the obvious snark potential for Westerners, remember that the astrological symbol for the new Year of the Rat does not have the same negative connotations in Asia.) Good news is, the relevant authorities are taking this with all due seriousness. Bad news — seems to be pretty damned serious.

It’s reached the stage where the NYTimes is running live updates:

The authorities greatly expanded a travel lockdown in central China on Thursday, essentially penning in more than 22 million residents in an effort to contain a deadly virus that is overwhelming hospitals and fueling fears of a pandemic.

The new limits — abruptly decreed ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, China’s busiest travel season — were an extraordinary step that underscored the ruling Communist Party’s deepening fears about the outbreak of a little understood coronavirus.

Chinese health officials reported on Friday that there had been 26 deaths from and 830 cases of the coronavirus, a sharp increase.

The official death toll increased by more than a half-dozen in 24 hours, while the number of confirmed cases jumped by more than 200.

On Thursday morning, the authorities imposed a travel lockdown in Wuhan, the industrial city of 11 million at the epicenter of the outbreak. Airlines canceled hundreds of flights to Wuhan, leaving thousands of people stranded. Later in the day, officials said they would also halt public transportation in the nearby cities of Huanggang, Ezhou, Zhijiang and Chibi, which are together home to more than nine million residents. And by Friday, restrictions had extended to Xiantao, Qianjiang and Enshi, three other cities that include large rural populations.

[Only] Two deaths have been confirmed outside the virus epicenter.

One patient died in the province of Hebei — more than 600 miles north of Wuhan — after contracting the coronavirus, the provincial authorities announced on Thursday. Another death was confirmed in Heilongjiang, a province near the border with Russia more than 1,500 miles from Wuhan.

The disease had also been diagnosed in patients in Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.

In Wuhan, where the outbreak began, anxiety and anger prevailed as worried residents crowded into hospitals and teams of medical workers in hazmat suits sought to identify the infected…

As a corollary, it’s becoming harder to pick up anything useful from a basic google or twitter search — there’s too many random individuals forwarding guesses, half-truths & conspiracy theories. From the first dozen mentions I saw, I figured the ‘special hospital construction’ story was fear-mongering, but the People’s Daily seems to be a legit news source:

Reader Interactions

31Comments

  1. 1.

    Mary G

    Scary shit. 23 million people locked down is going to cause major problems and disruptions. And the petrified expert is horrifying.

  2. 2.

    Martin

    I get the sense that things are worse than what’s being reported.

    That said, China’s ability to put up a hospital in 2 weeks is why so much manufacturing has moved there. That kind of urgency isn’t normally desirable, but compared to the glacial pace at which most things in the US happen, surely there’s a reasonable middle ground.

  3. 3.

    Ninedragonspot

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-taiwan-idUSKBN1ZL01V

    Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-Wen today asked China to share “correct” information about the unfolding epidemic and urged the country to let Taiwan participate in the global response to the new virus.   Currently, China blocks Taiwanese participation in the WHO.  WHO officials may not visit Taiwan.

    Taiwan has 23 million people.  It is an important transportation hub in the region.  They deserve to be a part of the World Health Organization.

  4. 4.

    opiejeanne

    @Mary G:  That picture with the shopping carts in the market reminds me of the panic-shopping here when we’re expecting a big snowstorm, and they may have good reason to stock up.

    Just watched Contagion. I hope the quacks don’t start suggesting forsythia as a cure.

  8. 8.

    Cermet

    So far, at least and unless the Chinese’s can really, really hid information of deaths easily, this just doesn’t seem anywhere at all as dangerous as SARs and appears – so far – not really much worse than the flu in its danger to people (which despite its apparent common nature, is far deadlier here in amerika than most people tend to realize; go figure.) On the other hand, the Chinese are taking this very seriously and that gives me pause to wonder if there is more to this than they are saying – why the extreme reaction – did SARs scare the official’s last time so they over react? The single case here in the US is doing just fine last I read.

  9. 9.

    Anne Laurie

    @Cermet: Right now, I get the impression this is being treated like the notorious Y2K bug — knowledgeable people are aware of how serious it could become, and are working to make sure it doesn’t.

    If they succeed (please Murphy the Trickster God), they’ll no doubt be rewarded like all the programmers who worked to avoid a catastrophe at the start of 2020; ten million idiots will make the same har-har-wotcha-nerds-skeered-of japes, and the rest of us will (mostly) forget it ever happened!

  11. 11.

    Martin

    @Ninedragonspot: Oh, I don’t expect it’d be a good hospital. In fact, China has quite a legacy of building things that fall down. But I do have to admire their ability to act quickly. I bit more of that here would be a good thing, as would a bit less of it there.

  12. 12.

    Martin

    @Cermet: So far, at least and unless the Chinese’s can really, really hid information of deaths easily

    China is exceptionally good at hiding death information.

  14. 14.

    dnfree

    @Anne Laurie: WOW!  I was reading along thanking you for your diligence and dedication in collecting information, and then a bonus reference to Y2K. Yes, I was one of the many many who participated, and was required by work to be home and sober that New Years Eve. I just sat there watching the lights stay in in cities around the globe and rejoicing. And now it’s thought of as a bunch of people spreading hysteria for no reason.

  15. 15.

    PenAndKey

    @Cermet: “So far, at least and unless the Chinese’s can really, really hid information of deaths easily”

    This is a country that treats it’s citizens like they’re an ant colony and that has little to no regard for anything we would recognize in the west as personal autonomy or freedom. They’re very good at hiding deaths. The fact that we’re hearing about this at all means it’s so bad it’s breached their information containment network and they could no longer cover it up.

    From all information to date it’s not to the stage of the common flu, but emergent flu-like coronavirus diseases are no joke. These things are at their absolute highest fatality rate when they’ve just crossed the species barrier, because they haven’t evolved enough yet to not outright kill their new host population. That’s a big part of why SARS was so dangerous, and you can be sure that the WHO and all other pandemic experts are doing their best to both combat this newest pandemic vector and prevent a public panic.

    In a way China’s whole “treat the citizenry as serfs” mentality may actually work in the worlds’ favor here. They’re willing to take measures that most of the world has long since considered barbaric, and in the face of a potential pandemic that… may not be a bad thing for the rest of the world. Only time will tell.

  16. 16.

    JGabriel

    @Martin: That said, China’s ability to put up a hospital in 2 weeks is why so much manufacturing has moved there. That kind of urgency isn’t normally desirable, but compared to the glacial pace at which most things in the US happen, surely there’s a reasonable middle ground.

    As far as coronavirus is concerned, I suspect the ability to put up a hospital in two weeks IS the reasonable middle ground right now.

  17. 17.

    arrieve

    @dnfree: Me too! We worked our asses off in the months leading up to Y2K, but there was a limit to how much could be tested. We had an office in Beijing, so were able to start real-life testing remotely twelve hours before midnight hit the East Coast, so we thought we were ok, but still had to be in the office at 6 am New Year’s Day for extensive testing. I still remember the brunch they provided as it was quite lavish. I hate to see it treated as a joke now because a lot of work went into making sure it could be laughed at.

  18. 18.

    smintheus

    There are a lot of Chinese students studying in the US, it could easily spread rapidly on American campuses. My own college is largely keeping mum; although I heard that they’ve identified at least 2 students who recently visited Wuhan, they aren’t saying who those students are or telling faculty whether any of their students were potentially exposed to the virus. It seems like a recipe for disaster. Ordinary illnesses spread like wildfire on campuses, and seem to evolve quickly into more virulent strains.

  19. 19.

    PenAndKey

    @smintheus: As long as the students have been tested and are clean there’s no compelling reason they should be identified. As long as the school and the proper medical personnel know, and are taking appropriate precautions in the background, that’s enough.

  20. 20.

    smintheus

    @PenAndKey: This is not a disease whose range of symptoms are well understood. And given that it is a small college medical staff doing the identifying and evaluating, I don’t have much faith that nobody affected could slip through. Every year I catch at least one nasty illness from students here.

  21. 21.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    As scary as this may seem from around the world, I cannot imagine how it must feel like for the folks living in the affected areas of China. My heart goes out to those who must feel so trapped, and separated from their loved ones at this special time of year.

  22. 22.

    piratedan

    aye… its one thing to build it in two weeks, can they do the same with rustling up the medical staff to work in it? Docs, nurses, and lab techs aren’t just sitting around waiting for phone calls.  radiology suites, pharmacy and lab instruments don’t get pulled from boxes and are simply plugged in and are good to go.

     

    If you’re pulling staff from all over, integration is a concern as well.  Everyone is familiar with the protocols that they work in, but you’d be surprised to learn just how much the details differ and at times, details matter.

  23. 23.

    PenAndKey

    @smintheus: The symptoms may not all be apparent, but the genome has been sequenced and potential patients can be tested against that. I have no doubt that people will slip through the cracks, but monitoring is good enough in this country that I’m not particularly worried yet.

  24. 24.

    dnfree

    @arrieve: it was a global effort. Every single device in every one of our factories had to be tested and the manufacturers of those devices had to test and certify them. My large company set up a whole data center in their headquarters city to bring in every single plant and its software and staff to test and remediate, starting early in 1998. We were fairly confident of our efforts, but didn’t know how well others had done.

    it should be a model for how to tackle climate change—governments and companies working together—but it was so successful it’s been forgotten.

    Edited to add  that I guess since I’m retired I could just say I worked for a subsidiary of Goodyear at the time.  What can they do, fire me?

  25. 25.

    Fair Economist

    @Mary G:

    23 million people locked down is going to cause major problems and disruptions. And the petrified expert is horrifying.

    It’s too late for quarantining Wuhan/Hubei. There are two dozen confirmed infections outside of China. There must be hundreds of infections in China but outside of Hubei. They’d have to lock down the entire country.

    China seems to be falling back to the only things possible at this point – minimize public gathering and hygenic measures. I don’t think it’s going to be enough at this point, but maybe it will. I hope so; otherwise we may be in for another Spanish Flu.

  26. 26.

    Bill Arnold

    @dnfree:

    And now it’s thought of as a bunch of people spreading hysteria for no reason.

    I use it as an identifier for people who are probably at the very least willfully ignorant propaganda consumers but who are still willing to pontificate.
    I was only peripherally involved but it still involved a month of code scouring and testing, for a code base at most 8 years old.

  27. 27.

    dnfree

    @Bill Arnold: I am actually proud (not that anyone cares) that I went to work for this subsidiary in 1986, when they were rewriting a lot of code for a new system, and I told them immediately that it all needed to be four-digit years. We had testing to do but very little remediation compared to other facilities.

  28. 28.

    eachother

    Around here we call it the crud.  Not the flu but close.  Not usually a quick recovery.  Often relapses.

    Wash you hands.  Drink water.  Ample exercise.  Adequate sleep.  Real food.  The usual.  And, hope you don’t catch it.

    The disruption is as disconcerting as the spread.

  30. 30.

    John Carter 1966

    52 years ago, many of us experienced a bad Chinese New Year.

    Here’s hoping this one isn’t nearly as bad.

  31. 31.

    PenAndKey

    @smintheus: I live in a college community with tons of Chinese exchange students and interact with those students daily at the gym and while shopping. It’s not a matter of personal exposure. It’s a matter of knowing that the CDC generally has a good handle on outbreak monitoring and that we’re not at the “everybody panic!” stage yet.

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