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February 27, 2020

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WHO: New cases emerging faster outside than in China

THERE are now more new cases of the coronavirus reported each day outside China than inside the hardest-hit country, the World Health Organization said yesterday.

“Yesterday (Tuesday), the number of new cases reported outside China exceeded the number of new cases in China for the first time,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva, according to a written version of his speech.

The United Nations health agency put the number of new cases in China at 411 on Tuesday and those registered outside the country stood at 427. Governments worldwide are scrambling to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus after a surge of infections in Italy, Iran and South Korea.

Tedros said the “sudden increase of cases” in those countries was “deeply concerning,” adding that a WHO team would travel to Iran this weekend.

While new case numbers and deaths are dwindling at the disease epicenter in China, the country remains by far the hardest hit.

WHO has said the epidemic in China peaked on February 2 and has been declining since.

President Xi Jinping said the positive trend in preventing and controlling the epidemic is expanding and economic and social development is rapidly recovering, but the situation in Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan remains complex and grim, and the risk of a rebound of the epidemic in other regions cannot be overlooked.

The State Council, China’s Cabinet, on Tuesday unveiled a string of measures to facilitate the employment of college graduates and rural migrant workers to reduce the epidemic’s economic impact.

China will expand the enrollment of postgraduate and degree top-up programs, create more medical and social service jobs at the community-level and strengthen support for micro and small firms to hire more college graduates, according to a statement released after a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang.

Employment of rural migrant workers will be enhanced by creating more job opportunities at the laborers’ hometowns or places nearby and approving a group of new projects providing a large number of posts. Key construction projects should prioritize poor laborers in recruitment.

Bruce Aylward, who headed a WHO-backed expert mission to China, hailed the drastic quarantine and containment measures, saying the country had “changed the course” of the outbreak.

But he said in Geneva that other nations were “simply not ready.”

Brazil’s health ministry said yesterday that a Sao Paulo resident has been diagnosed with coronavirus, the first such case recorded in Latin America.

The 61-year-old had returned on February 21 from the Lombardy region of Italy, the epicenter of an outbreak in that country, Health Minister Luiz Henrique said.

New cases linked to Italy have emerged in several countries in Europe and beyond, amid warnings that nations are not ready to contain a global outbreak.

Greece also confirmed its first case yesterday, a woman who had recently been to northern Italy

Croatia, Austria and Algeria have all reported cases linked to Italy, while a hotel in Spain remained under lockdown yesterday after an infected Italian tourist was hospitalized with the virus.

Italy has confirmed 374 cases of the disease and 12 deaths, and says the virus has spread to some southern regions as well.

Elsewhere, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for sports and cultural events to be scrapped or curtailed for two weeks, as two more deaths heightened concerns the contagion might scupper the summer Tokyo Olympics.

Abe’s call came as Tokyo’s baseball league said it will hold games without fans until March 15.

An 80-year-old man who had not been overseas and had no known contact with an infected person died in a Tokyo hospital, while the northern island of Hokkaido — the region most affected after Tokyo, reported a death, taking Japan’s total to six, including four from a cruise liner, media reported.

“Taking into account that the next one to two weeks are extremely important in stopping the spread of infection, the government considers there to be a large risk of transmission at sports, cultural events and large gatherings of people,” Abe told parliament.

By mid-afternoon yesterday, Japan had close to 170 cases of infections, separate from the 691 reported from a cruise ship quarantined off Tokyo this month.

South Korea reported 284 new coronavirus cases yesterday, including an American soldier.

The new cases pushed the total tally to 1,261, with the numbers expected to rise as the government widens its testing.

Of the new cases, 134 were from Daegu City, where a branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, which has been linked to outbreaks, is located, the Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention said.

The US military reported its first case of the coronavirus in a 23-year-old soldier based in Camp Carroll, about 20km from Daegu.

In yesterday’s speech, Tedros acknowledged that the hike in cases outside China had prompted a push for a pandemic to be declared.

“We should not be too eager to declare a pandemic,” he said, stressing that such a call could “signal that we can no longer contain the virus, which is not true.

“We are in a fight that can be won if we do the right things.”




 

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