The coronavirus epidemic continues to worsen in China, where the authorities announced this Sunday nearly 2,000 patients and 56 dead. In an attempt to stem the contagion, several megalopolises have suspended their bus lines while the government has decided to ban the trade in wild animals.
The coronavirus epidemic continues to worsen in China. This Sunday, January 26, the authorities reported 56 dead, including a first in Shanghai, and 1,975 people infected. The crisis occurs in the middle of Chinese New Year, the time of year when the population travels the most to visit loved ones. The country is therefore multiplying initiatives to try to stem the progression of the coronavirus.
To the south, the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai (24 million inhabitants) for example announced this Sunday the immediate suspension of long-distance coach lines. In the north of the country, the cities of Beijing, Tianjin and Xian have already taken similar measures. As for Wuhan (center), where the epidemic started, it has been “in quarantine” since Thursday 23, trains and planes are no longer allowed to leave. Western countries are therefore mobilizing to organize the evacuation of their nationals in the coming days. Overall, the entire province of Hubei is cut off from the world: 58 million people are therefore confined there.
On Friday, 450 military doctors and other medical personnel landed by air in the red zone. Some of them have already battled Ebola in Africa and SARS, a strain 80% similar to the new coronavirus, which killed 774 people in Southeast Asia in 2002-2003. At the same time, the construction of a second hospital site began in Wuhan in order to take care of new patients. It should be finished within a fortnight.
Wildlife trade now banned
In Hong Kong, where five cases of contamination have been recorded, the maximum alert has been decreed. Schools have been closed as well as Disneyland. From Monday, Chinese travel agencies will no longer be able to sell hotel reservations or group holidays, local media reported.
Finally, the Chinese authorities announced this Sunday a temporary ban on the trade in wild animals. Remember that the epidemic would have started from the Wuhan market where this kind of animal was sold. The breeding, transport or sale of all wild animal species is prohibited “from the date of the announcement until the end of the national epidemic situation”.
“Faced with the serious situation of an accelerating epidemic…it is necessary to strengthen the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee,” President Xi Jinping said during a meeting of the standing committee. of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party.
A mortality rate of less than 5%
In addition to China, half a dozen Asian countries are now affected and two cases have been confirmed in the United States while a first suspected case has been detected in Canada. In France, the Ministry of Health announced three cases on Friday, the first detected in Europe. One of the patients is hospitalized in Bordeaux and the other two, as a couple, are in Bichat, in Paris. The three patients are in isolation and are doing well.
But if the whole world is on alert today, fortunately, it seems that the mortality rate of this virus, which scientists call 2019-nCoV, is quite low. For now, its mortality rate is less than 5%, according to Yazdan Yazdanpanah, a WHO expert who treated patients in France.
So far, the people who have died have been either elderly or immunocompromised. The incubation period lasts between two and twelve days and the first symptoms are fever, cough and breathing difficulties. If you feel concerned, do not go to the emergency room, immediately call 15, insist the French health authorities.
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