As Japan evacuates citizens from Wuhan
Chinese authorities urge citizens to avoid travel abroad as death toll climbs to 106 On January 28, 2020 10:43 am.
Authorities on Tuesday have urged all Chinese to avoid travelling abroad in a bid to stop the new coronavirus as the death toll in the country climbed to 106. Twenty-six people died since Monday morning, including a first casualty in the capital, Beijing, health authorities said.
They said 4,515 cases were confirmed and many more were suspected of carrying the virus. In order to reduce the movement of people across the border and thus curb the coronavirus, citizens who want to go abroad should choose the time of the trip with reason.
“If there is no particular need, it is recommended to postpone the time of the trip.’’ China has already cordoned off entire cities in central Hubei province, where the virus was first identified in December, in an effort to contain the spread of the disease.
The government also extended the Lunar New Year holiday for three extra days until Sunday in order to discourage people from travelling.
And the eastern metropolis of Shanghai has ordered many of its companies to stay closed for another two weeks.
An additional 6,973 people were suspected of carrying the disease, authorities said, adding that they were keeping track of more than 47,000 people who may have come in contact with the virus.
Twenty cases were also reported in the Chinese semi-autonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau and in self-ruled Taiwan.
The virus, which belongs to the same family of coronaviruses that caused an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002, has also spread to at least 12 countries on four continents.
Germany has confirmed its first case in Bavaria on Tuesday, according to health officials in Munich. The patient is a man from the Starnberg area of Bavaria, some 30km south-west of Munich.
He is in a stable condition, according to a statement from the Bavarian office for health and food security.
Meanwhile, Japan’s government said it plans to send a chartered flight to Wuhan to bring back about 200 citizens.
The government plans to send doctors, nurses and quarantine officers who will do health checks on the plane.
The country’s foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi said about 650 Japanese citizens would like to return home, so the government is making plans for additional flights to be sent to the area.
Meanwhile, Japan will send a chartered flight to the epicentre of the outbreak of the virus, Wuhan later in the day to repatriate about 200 of its citizens, the government says.
The government will also send doctors, nurses and quarantine officers so that those Japanese citizens can undergo checkups on a plane, according to the health ministry.
The aircraft is scheduled to come back to Japan on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi says.
Since a total of 650 Japanese in Wuhan wish to return, the government will send more flights to take them home, Motegi says.
More than 56 million people in almost 20 Chinese cities – including Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province and the epicentre of the virus – have been prevented from travelling in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus during the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, traditionally China’s busiest travel season.
The director general of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is currently in China.
The agency has acknowledged that the respiratory illness is an emergency in China but said last week that it was too early to declare the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
It has described the global risk from the virus as high.
