Every day, the macabre countdown continues. With the announcement, Sunday, February 2, of 45 additional deaths directly related to the new coronavirus, the toll of the epidemic in China now exceeds 300 deaths, while a man died in the Philippines, the first death outside the China. Update on the latest developments in the epidemic.
- In China, the epidemic continues to spread
The Hubei health commission in central China said Sunday that 45 people have died in the past 24 hours. These new deaths in this province, whose capital Wuhan is the cradle of the coronavirus, bring the total number of deaths recorded across the country to 304.
The number of confirmed infections in China has also increased, exceeding Sunday 14,300, according to the national health commission. Nearly 150 infections are also reported in more than 20 other countries, from Asia and the Pacific to Europe and North America.
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In the Philippines, the first death outside of China
The Philippines, for its part, reported on Sunday the first death outside of China of a person suffering from the new coronavirus, announced the World Health Organization (WHO). The victim is a Chinese native of the city of Wuhan and it would have been infected before his arrival in the Philippines.
“This is the first death reported outside of China”Rabindra Abeyasinghe, WHO representative in the Philippines, told the press. “However, we must keep in mind that this is not a case that has been locally contaminated. This patient came from the epicenter of this epidemic “, said Abeyasinghe.
The man, who died in a hospital in Manila, arrived in the Philippines with a Chinese woman who also tested positive for the virus, said Secretary of State for Health Francisco Duque. This woman, currently recovering from a hospital in the capital, is the first case of coronavirus reported in the Philippines.
- China increasingly isolated
Since Saturday midnight, all Chinese must obtain a visa for tourism in Russia, while those traveling in groups have been exempt since 2000, and no more work visa will be granted, announced Moscow.
The United States will also ban from Sunday (at 10 pm GMT) the entry on its territory to foreigners who have visited China in the last fourteen days. And a quarantine of up to fourteen days will be imposed on Americans who have been in the past two weeks in Hubei.
As for Australia, it has not accepted since Saturday on its soil non-residents arriving from China. Similar measures have been taken, in particular, by Italy, Singapore, Israel and Mongolia. Beijing criticized these decisions. “There is no need to panic unnecessarily, nor to take excessive measures”, said Chinese Ambassador to Geneva (Switzerland) Xu Chen, saying that WHO was doing “Fully trust China”.
In Wuhan, the heart of the epidemic, a de facto city quarantined since January 23, hospitals are overwhelmed. A new facility that will have a thousand beds, built in a few days, is due to welcome its first patients on Monday.
The city of Huanggang, a suburb of Wuhan, said that only one member from each household would now be allowed to vacate their accommodation, once every two days, in order to go out and buy basic necessities.
The city of Wenzhou (East), one of the most affected by the epidemic of viral pneumonia outside the epicenter, imposed on Sunday the confinement of its more than 9 million inhabitants and drastically restricts car traffic . It is located more than 800 km from Wuhan.
Elsewhere in China, the fear of the virus has seized the population who prefer to stay at home, while the wearing of the mask is becoming widespread. At the entrance to a large, unusually deserted park in Beijing, a warden was taking the temperature of the few strollers using an electronic thermometer and ordered them to cover their faces. “If you exceed 37.3 ° C, we put you in solitary confinement”he warned. For lack of customers, most shops remain closed. In this context, and by “Precaution” In the face of the epidemic, the US computer giant Apple has announced that it will close all of its stores in mainland China until February 9.
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