In Hong Kong, Chinese virus rekindles old animosities towards China

Chinese coronavirus outbreak adding to tensions in a city where trust in government has evaporated and China has zero friend.
by Violet Law
The coronavirus has sparked fear in Hong Kong where memories of the 2003 SARS outbreak remain vivid, but it has also reignited long-simmering animosities

Hong Kong -- Minnie Li has thrown herself into Hong Kong's protest movement for the past few years, even joining a hunger strike last summer.
But these days the Shanghai native and university lecturer is greeted with flyers warning that mainland Chinese like her are not welcome -- all in the name of shielding residents from Chinese coronavirus carriers from the mainland.
"I don't feel hurt," said Li. 

"I see this as the 'cross-infection' of politics in the current outbreak."
The coronavirus that emerged in central China in late December 2019 has ravaged the mainland, killing more than 1,100 people and infecting 45,000 others. 

Since Hong Kong confirmed its first case on January 22, there have been 49 reported cases and one death in the semi-autonomous territory.
The outbreak in Hong Kong comes right on the heels of seven months of anti-government protests, triggered in June last year by a now-abandoned extradition bill that would have allowed suspects to be sent for trial on the mainland.
The scale of the protests revealed increasing concern that Hong Kong's freedoms -- guaranteed under the "one country, two systems" framework governing the territory's transition from British to Chinese rule in 1997 -- was being undermined; a view only reinforced by the Hong Kong government's slow response to public anger over the extradition bill and its reliance on police brutality to address the unrest.
That outrage has increased since the Chinese viral outbreak, with Hong Kong residents complaining about officials' failure to prepare for a protracted epidemic and ensure adequate medical supplies. Last week, public hospital employees went on strike to try and force the authorities to close all border crossings with the mainland.

Staff from Hong Kong's Hospital Authority went on strike this month to demand the government close all borders with the mainland to contain the Chinese coronavirus.

Observers say the Chinese coronavirus outbreak has opened a new front in the campaign against interference from the mainland in Hong Kong's internal affairs. "The outbreak comes just when protesters have increasingly turned from mass mobilisation to everyday resistance," said Edmund Cheng, a political scientist at City University of Hong Kong who specialises in social movements. 

"They condemn the government as failing to protect the public's wellbeing so they see fit to take it upon themselves to act."

Renewed anxieties
Despite the protesters clamouring to completely seal the border, two crossings remain open, although visitors from the mainland are now required to go into a 14-day quarantine.
The pressure to close the borders reflects not only fear about a new and unknown infection but is also rooted in the long-simmering tensions between the people of Hong Kong and mainland Chinese after tourism and migration from the mainland boomed in the wake of the 1997 handover.
In the summer of 2003, a few months after the SARS epidemic had battered Hong Kong's economy, Beijing relaxed visa restrictions, enabling hundreds of millions of Chinese tourists to visit.

Under the "one country, two systems" framework, Hong Kong maintains border controls, but Beijing handles visa issuance.
The visa scheme soon mushroomed to cover 49 mainland cities, bringing in 51 million tourists in 2018, accounting for four in every five visitors to Hong Kong. 

By 2018, the city, which has a population of 7.5 million, had a higher visitor-to-resident ratio than even New York City, according to the Peterson Institute in Washington, DC.
The tourism boom contributed between 2 and 4 percent of the city's GDP but sowed anger and frustration in a densely populated city proud of its Cantonese language and identity. 

Mainland visitors mostly speak Mandarin Chinese.
The visitors were attacked as "locusts" -- infamously in a 2012 newspaper advertisement -- and blamed for adding to overcrowding and other social ills.
Hong Kongers came to resent parallel traders from mainland China who took advantage of multiple-entry visas to buy products in Hong Kong to sell at a profit back home.

Over the years, scandals over food safety on the mainland, including contaminated baby formula, milk and pork, fuelled a cottage industry of parallel trading, with people just across the border in Shenzhen taking advantage of a multiple-entry visa policy to buy supplies in Hong Kong and sell them on the mainland for a profit. 

Tensions flared as residents in Hong Kong's border neighbourhoods blamed the mainland shoppers for pushing up the price of basic necessities. 
By 2015, when the Chinese government put a brake on the expanding visa scheme and limited visits by Shenzhen residents, the issue had become fodder for nativists vowing to "defend" Hong Kong.
"[For the people of Hong Kong], our government's lack of autonomy is no longer simply a political problem but now also a public health issue," said Lee Siu Yau, who studies immigration policy and identity at Education University of Hong Kong.
"You can draw a straight line from the immigration issue to the current furore over keeping open some of the border crossings."

These days, as discussions of ballooning infections and mounting casualties on the mainland dominate the online forums where protesters used to strategise, there was little mention of the mainland Chinese who have played a significant role in Hong Kong's protest movement.
Wuhan-born Edward Leung, the founder of a nativist political party currently serving six years behind bars, coined the protest slogan: "Retake Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times," that has come to define the movement. 

Leung left his native Wuhan as a baby with his family a few years after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

Since the handover, there has been increasing friction between Hong Kong people and mainland Chinese.

Another student leader, Nathan Law -- who was invited to represent Hong Kong's protesters at US President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in Washington, DC -- was born in Shenzhen.
By some estimates, some 1 to 1.5 million Hong Kong residents are recent migrants from the mainland. 

In all, about 40 percent of the territory's population was born elsewhere, overwhelmingly in mainland China.
With the Chinese coronavirus outbreak adding to the sense that the mainland is the source of Hong Kong's woes, some in the territory see China's Communist Party and the Chinese people as one and the same and accuse all mainland Chinese of being complicit in opposing the Hong Kong protesters.
That includes the whistle-blower doctor who died last week from the infection. 

When news of his death filtered out late on Thursday night, words of mourning were soon drowned out by cynical remarks and outright condemnation of the deceased doctor. 

To make their case, some social media users dug out the doctor's postings in support of the Hong Kong police, the brutal enemy of Hong Kong protesters.
But when Li, the lecturer, called out the discrimination and pointed out how ineffective and misguided it would be as a "protective" measure, she said she was attacked in a barrage of nasty comments on Facebook.
"It seems in order to maintain the momentum of the movement it now has to be fuelled by Sinophobia," said Li. 

"That's a real shame."

Criminal Regime

As New Coronavirus Spread, China’s Old Bad Habits Delayed Fight

At critical turning points, China's communist regime put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis and risking public alarm or political embarrassment.

By Chris Buckley and Steven Lee Myers

Officials at the scene on Thursday where a man collapsed and died on a street near a hospital in Wuhan. 

WUHAN, China — A mysterious illness had stricken seven patients at a hospital, and a doctor tried to warn his medical school classmates. 

“Quarantined in the emergency department,” the doctor, Li Wenliang, wrote in an online chat group on Dec. 30, referring to patients.
“So frightening,” one recipient replied, before asking about the epidemic that began in China in 2002 and ultimately killed nearly 800 people. 

“Is SARS coming again?”
In the middle of the night, officials from the health authority in the central city of Wuhan summoned Dr. Li, demanding to know why he had shared the information. 

Three days later, the police compelled him to sign a statement that his warning constituted “illegal behavior.”
The illness was not SARS, but something similar: a coronavirus that is now on a relentless march outward from Wuhan, throughout the country and across the globe, killing at least 362 people in China and infecting more than 17,380 worldwide.

The government’s initial handling of the epidemic allowed the virus to gain a tenacious hold. 

At critical moments, officials chose to put secrecy and order ahead of openly confronting the growing crisis to avoid public alarm and political embarrassment.
A reconstruction of the crucial seven weeks between the appearance of the first symptoms in early December and the government’s decision to lock down the city, based on two dozen interviews with Wuhan residents, doctors and officials, on government statements and on Chinese media reports, points to decisions that delayed a concerted public health offensive.
In those weeks, the authorities silenced doctors and others for raising red flags. 

They played down the dangers to the public, leaving the city’s 11 million residents unaware they should protect themselves. 

They closed a food market where the virus was believed to have started, but didn’t curb the wildlife trade.
The Wuhan Red Cross Hospital on Jan. 25 — five days after China acknowledged a new virus could pass from human to human, but weeks after it had started to spread.

Their reluctance to go public, in part, played to political motivations as local officials prepared for their annual congresses in January. 

Even as cases climbed, officials declared repeatedly that there had likely been no more infections.
By not moving aggressively to warn the public and medical professionals, public health experts say, the Chinese government lost one of its best chances to keep the disease from becoming an epidemic.
“This was an issue of inaction,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations who studies China. 

“There was no action in Wuhan from the local health department to alert people to the threat.”
first case, the details of which are limited and the specific date unknown, was in early December. 

By the time the authorities galvanized into action on Jan. 20, the disease had grown into a formidable threat.
Dr. Li Wenliang

It is now a global health emergency. 

It has triggered travel restrictions around the world, shaken financial markets and created the greatest challenge yet for Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. 

The crisis upends Xi’s agenda for months or longer, even undermining his vision of a political system that offers security and growth in return for submission to iron-fisted authoritarianism.On the last day of 2019, after Dr. Li’s message was shared outside the group, the authorities focused on controlling the narrative. 

The police announced that they were investigating eight people for spreading rumors about the outbreak.
That same day, Wuhan’s health commission, its hand forced by those “rumors,” announced that 27 people were suffering from pneumonia of an "unknown" cause.

Its statement said there was no need to be alarmed.“The disease is preventable and controllable,” the statement said.
Dr. Li, an ophthalmologist, went back to work after being reprimanded. 

On Jan. 10, he treated a woman for glaucoma. 

He did not know she had already been infected with the coronavirus, probably by her daughter. 

They both became sick. 

So would he.

Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan on Jan. 11. It was shut on Jan. 1 — for renovation, state media said.

Hazmat Suits and Disinfectants
Hu Xiaohu, who sold processed pork in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, sensed by late December that something was amiss. 

Workers were coming down with nagging fevers. 

No one knew why but, Mr. Hu said, several were in hospital quarantine.
The market occupies much of a block in a newer part of the city, sitting incongruously near apartment buildings and shops catering to the growing middle class. 

It is a warren of stalls selling meats, poultry and fish, as well as more exotic fare, including live reptiles and wild game that Chinese prize as delicacies. 

According to a report by the city’s center for disease control, sanitation was dismal, with poor ventilation and garbage piled on wet floors.
In hospitals, doctors and nurses were puzzled to see a cluster of patients with symptoms of a viral pneumonia that did not respond to the usual treatments. 

They soon noticed that many patients had one thing in common: They worked in Huanan market.On Jan. 1, police officers showed up at the market, along with public health officials, and shut it down. 

Local officials issued a notice that the market was undergoing an environmental and hygienic cleanup related to the pneumonia outbreak. 

That morning, workers in hazmat suits moved in, washing out stalls and spraying disinfectants.
It was, for the public, the first visible government response to contain the disease. 

The day before, on Dec. 31, national authorities had alerted the World Health Organization’s office in Beijing of an outbreak.

Revolutionary Optimism
City officials struck optimistic notes in their announcements. 

They suggested they had stopped the virus at its source. 

The cluster of illnesses was limited. 

There was no evidence the virus spread between humans.
“Projecting optimism and confidence, if you don’t have the data, is a very dangerous strategy,” said Alexandra Phelan, a faculty research instructor in the department of microbiology and immunology at Georgetown University.
“It undermines the legitimacy of the government in messaging,” she added. 

“And public health is dependent on public trust.”
Nine days after the market closed, a man who shopped there regularly became the first fatality of the disease, according to a report by the Wuhan Health Commission, the agency that oversees public health and sanitation.
The 61-year-old, identified by his last name, Zeng, already had chronic liver disease and a tumor in his abdomen, and had checked into Wuhan Puren Hospital with a raging fever and difficulty breathing.
The authorities disclosed the man’s death two days after it happened.
They did not mention a crucial detail in understanding the course of the epidemic. 
Mr. Zeng’s wife had developed symptoms five days after he did.
She had never visited the market.

The intensive care unit at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 24.

The Race to Identify a Killer
About 20 miles from the market, scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were studying samples from the patients checking into the city’s hospitals.
One of the scientists, Zheng-Li Shi, was part of the team that tracked down the origins of the SARS virus, which emerged in the southern province of Guangdong in 2002.
As the public remained largely in the dark about the virus, she and her colleagues quickly pieced together that the new outbreak was related to SARS.
The genetic composition suggested a common initial host: bats. 
The SARS epidemic began when a coronavirus jumped from bats to Asian palm civets, a catlike creature that is legally raised and consumed. 
It was likely that this new coronavirus had followed a similar path — possibly somewhere in or on the way to the Huanan market or another market like it.
Around the same time, Dr. Li and other medical professionals in Wuhan started trying to provide warnings to colleagues and others when the government did not. 
Lu Xiaohong, the head of gastroenterology at City Hospital No. 5, told China Youth Daily that she had heard by Dec. 25 that the disease was spreading among medical workers — a full three weeks before the authorities would acknowledge the fact. 
She did not go public with her concerns, but privately warned a school near another market.
By the first week of January, the emergency ward in Hospital No. 5 was filling; the cases included members of the same family, making it clear that the disease was spreading through human contact, which the government had said was not likely.
No one realized, the doctor said, that it was as serious as it would become until it was too late to stop it.
“I realized that we had underestimated the enemy,” she said.
At the Institute of Virology, Dr. Shi and her colleagues isolated the genetic sequence and the viral strain during the first week of January.
They used samples from seven of the first patients, six of them vendors at the market.
On Jan. 7, the institute’s scientists gave the new coronavirus its identity and began referring to it by the technical shorthand 2019-nCoV. 
Four days later, the team shared the virus’s genetic makeup in a public database for scientists everywhere to use.
That allowed scientists around the world to study the virus and swiftly share their findings.
As the scientific community moved quickly to devise a test for exposure, political leaders remained reluctant to act.

Wuhan on Jan. 27. The city went ahead with a giant potluck dinner in mid-January.

‘Politics Is Always No. 1’
As the virus spread in early January, the mayor of Wuhan, Zhou Xianwang, was touting futuristic health care plans for the city.
It was China’s political season, when officials gather for annual meetings of People’s Congresses — the Communist Party-run legislatures that discuss and praise policies. 
It is not a time for bad news.
When Zhou delivered his annual report to the city’s People’s Congress on Jan. 7 against a backdrop of bright red national flags, he promised the city top-class medical schools, a World Health Expo, and a futuristic industry park for medical companies. 
Not once did he or any other city or provincial leader publicly mention the viral outbreak.
“Stressing politics is always No. 1,” the governor of Hubei, Wang Xiaodong, told officials on Jan. 17, citing Xi’s precepts of top-down obedience.
“Political issues are at any time the most fundamental major issues.”
Shortly after, Wuhan went ahead with a massive annual potluck banquet for 40,000 families from a city precinct, which critics later cited as evidence that local leaders took the virus far too lightly.
As the congress was taking place, the health commission’s daily updates on the outbreak said again and again that there were no new cases of infection, no firm evidence of human transmission and no infection of medical workers.
“We knew this was not the case!” said a complaint later filed with the National Health Commission on a government website.
The anonymous author said he was a doctor in Wuhan and described a surge in unusual chest illnesses beginning Jan. 12.
Officials told doctors at a top city hospital “don’t use the words viral pneumonia on the image reports,” according to the complaint, which has since been removed. 
People were complacent, “thinking that if the official reports had nothing, then we were exaggerating,” the doctor explained.
Even those stricken felt lulled into complacency.
When Dong Guanghe developed a fever on Jan. 8 in Wuhan, his family was not alarmed, his daughter said.
He was treated in the hospital and sent home.
Then, 10 days later, Mr. Dong’s wife fell ill with similar symptoms.
“The news said nothing about the severity of the epidemic,” said the daughter, Dong Mingjing.
“I thought that my dad had a common cold.”
The government’s efforts to minimize public disclosure persuaded more than just untrained citizens.
“If there are no new cases in the next few days, the outbreak is over,” Guan Yi, a respected professor of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong, said on Jan. 15.
The Beijing puppet World Health Organization’s statements during this period obediently echoed the reassuring words of Chinese officials.
It had spread.
Thailand reported the first confirmed case outside China on Jan. 13.

Health officials in Hangzhou, China, taking train passengers’ temperatures after they arrived from Wuhan on Jan. 23.

A City Besieged
The first deaths and the spread of the disease abroad appeared to grab the attention of the top authorities in Beijing. 
The national government dispatched Zhong Nanshan, a now-semiretired epidemiologist who was instrumental in the fight against SARS, to Wuhan to assess the situation.
He arrived on Jan. 18, just as the tone of local officials was shifting markedly. 
A health conference in Hubei Province that day called on medical workers to make the disease a priority.
An internal document from Wuhan Union Hospital warned its employees that the coronavirus could be spread through saliva.
On Jan. 20, more than a month after the first symptoms spread, the current of anxiety that had been steadily gaining strength exploded into public. 
Zhong announced in an interview on state television that there was no doubt that the coronavirus spread with human contact. 
Worse, one patient had infected at least 14 medical personnel.
Xi, fresh from a state visit to Myanmar, made his first public statement about the outbreak, issuing a brief set of instructions.
It was only with the order from Xi that the bureaucracy leapt into action.
At that point the death toll was three; in the next 11 days, it would rise above 200.
In Wuhan, the city banned tour groups from visiting.
Residents began pulling on masks.
Guan Yi, the Hong Kong expert who had earlier voiced optimism that the outbreak could level off, was now alarmed. 
He dropped by one of the city’s other food markets and was shocked by the complacency, he said.
He told city officials that the epidemic was “already beyond control” and would leave.
“I hurriedly booked a departure,” Dr. Guan told Caixin, a Chinese news organization.
Two days later, the city announced that it was shutting itself down, a move that could only have been approved by Beijing.
In Wuhan, many residents said they did not grasp the gravity of the epidemic until the lockdown.
The mass alarm that officials feared at the start became a reality, heightened by the previous paucity of information.
Crowds of people crushed the airport and train stations to get out before the deadline fell on the morning of Jan. 23.
Hospitals were packed with people desperate to know if they, too, were infected.
“We didn’t wear masks at work. That would have frightened off customers,” Yu Haiyan, a waitress from rural Hubei, said of the days before the shutdown.
“When they closed off Wuhan, only then did I think, ‘Oh, this is really serious, this is not some average virus.’”
Wuhan’s mayor, Zhou Xianwang, later took responsibility for the delay in reporting the scale of the epidemic, but said he was hampered by the national law on infectious diseases.
That law allows provincial governments to declare an epidemic only after receiving central government approval.
“After I receive information, I can only release it when I’m authorized,” he said.

Dr. Li in Wuhan Central Hospital on Friday.

The official reflex for suppressing discomforting information now appears to be cracking, as officials at various levels seek to shift blame for the government’s response.
With the crisis worsening, Dr. Li’s efforts are no longer viewed as reckless.
A commentary on the social media account of the Supreme People’s Court criticized the police for investigating people for circulating rumors.
“It might have been a better way to prevent and control the new coronavirus today if the public had believed the ‘rumor’ then and started to wear masks and carry out sanitary measures and avoid the wild animal market,” the commentary said.
Dr. Li is 34 and has a child.
He and his wife are expecting a second in the summer.
He is now recovering from the virus in the hospital where he worked.
In an interview via text messages, he said he felt aggrieved by the police actions.
“If the officials had disclosed information about the epidemic earlier,” he said, “I think it would have been a lot better. There should be more openness and transparency.”

Building a temporary field hospital in Wuhan on Thursday.

Made In China Pandemic

Rapidly rising caseloads alarm researchers, who fear the Chinese virus may make its way across the globe. But scientists cannot yet predict how many deaths may result.
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.

Medical workers transporting a coronavirus patient into an isolation ward in Fuyang, China, on Saturday. Experts fear a coronavirus pandemic, but its severity is uncertain.

The made in China coronavirus is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the world’s leading infectious disease experts.
The prospect is daunting. 

A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause. 

But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted between humans.
The Chinese coronavirus is spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know.”
In the last three weeks, the number of lab-confirmed cases has soared from about 50 in China to more than 17,000 in at least 23 countries; there have been more than 360 deaths.
But various epidemiological models estimate that the real number of cases is 100,000 or even more. 

While that expansion is not as rapid as that of flu or measles, it is an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw when SARS and MERS emerged.
When SARS was vanquished in July 2003 after spreading for nine months, only 8,098 cases had been confirmed. 

MERS has been circulating since 2012, but there have been only about 2,500 known cases.

The biggest uncertainty now, experts said, is how many people around the world will die. 

SARS killed about 10 percent of those who got it, and MERS now kills about one of three.
The 1918 “Spanish flu” killed only about 2.5 percent of its victims — but because it infected so many people and medical care was much cruder then, 20 to 50 million died.
By contrast, the highly transmissible H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic of 2009 killed about 285,000, fewer than seasonal flu normally does, and had a relatively low fatality rate, estimated at .02 percent.
The mortality rate for known cases of the Chinese coronavirus has been running about 2 percent, although that is likely to drop as more tests are done and more mild cases are found.

Patients in a hospital ward in Fort Riley, Kan., during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. The Chinese coronavirus is transmitted much like influenza, scientists say. 

It is “increasingly unlikely that the virus can be contained,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who now runs Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit devoted to fighting epidemics.

“It is therefore likely that it will spread, as flu and other organisms do, but we still don’t know how far, wide or deadly it will be.”
In the early days of the 2009 flu pandemic, “they were talking about Armageddon in Mexico,” Dr. Fauci said. (That virus first emerged in pig-farming areas in Mexico’s Veracruz State.) 

“But it turned out to not be that severe.”
An accurate estimate of the virus’s lethality will not be possible until certain kinds of studies can be done: blood tests to see how many people have antibodies, household studies to learn how often it infects family members, and genetic sequencing to determine whether some strains are more dangerous than others.
Closing borders to highly infectious pathogens never succeeds completely, because all frontiers are somewhat porous. 

Nonetheless, closings and rigorous screening may slow the spread, which will buy time for the development of drug treatments and vaccines.
Other important unknowns include who is most at risk, whether coughing or contaminated surfaces are more likely to transmit the virus, how fast the virus can mutate and whether it will fade out when the weather warms.

Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Spread of the Outbreak. The virus has sickened more than 17,300 people in China and 23 other countries.


The effects of a Chinese pandemic would probably be harsher in some countries than in others. 

While the United States and other wealthy countries may be able to detect and quarantine the first carriers, countries with fragile health care systems will not. 

The virus has already reached Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines and rural Russia.
“This looks far more like H1N1’s spread than SARS, and I am increasingly alarmed,” said Dr. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. 

“Even 1 percent mortality would mean 10,000 deaths in each million people.”Other experts were more cautious.
Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergency responses for the World Health Organization, said in an interview with STAT News on Saturday that there was “evidence to suggest this virus can still be contained” and that the world needed to “keep trying.”
Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a virus-hunter at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who is in China advising its Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that although the virus is clearly being transmitted through casual contact, labs are still behind in processing samples.

In Hyderabad, India, doctors left an isolation ward for people kept under observation after returning from China.

But life in China has radically changed in the last two weeks. 

Streets are deserted, public events are canceled, and citizens are wearing masks and washing their hands, Dr. Lipkin said. 

All of that may have slowed down what lab testing indicated was exponential growth in the infection.
It’s unclear exactly how accurate tests done in overwhelmed Chinese laboratories are. 

On the one hand, Chinese state media have reported test kit shortages and processing bottlenecks, which could produce an undercount.
But Dr. Lipkin said he knew of one lab running 5,000 samples a day, which might produce some false-positive results, inflating the count. 

“You can’t possibly do quality control at that rate,” he said.Anecdotal reports from China, and one published study from Germany, indicate that some people infected with the Chinese coronavirus can pass it on before they show symptoms. 

That may make border-screening much harder, scientists said.
Epidemiological modeling released Friday by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control estimated that 75 percent of infected people reaching Europe from China would still be in the incubation periods upon arrival, and therefore not detected by airport screening, which looks for fevers, coughs and breathing difficulties.
But if thermal cameras miss victims who are beyond incubation and actively infecting others, the real number of missed carriers may be higher than 75 percent.Still, asymptomatic carriers “are not normally major drivers of epidemics,” Dr. Fauci said. 

Most people get ill from someone they know to be sick — a family member, a co-worker or a patient, for example.
The virus’s most vulnerable target is Africa, many experts said. 

More than 1 million expatriate Chinese work there, mostly on mining, drilling or engineering projects. 

Also, many Africans work and study in China and other countries where the virus has been found.
If anyone on the continent has the virus now, “I’m not sure the diagnostic systems are in place to detect it,” said Dr. Daniel Bausch, head of scientific programs for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, who is consulting with the W.H.O. on the outbreak.
South Africa and Senegal could probably diagnose it, he said. 

Nigeria and some other countries have asked the W.H.O. for the genetic materials and training they need to perform diagnostic tests, but that will take time.
At least four African countries have suspect cases quarantined, according to an article published Friday in The South China Morning Post. 

They have sent samples to France, Germany, India and South Africa for testing.
At the moment, it seems unlikely that the virus will spread widely in countries with vigorous, alert public health systems, said Dr. William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“Every doctor in the U.S. has this top of mind,” he said. 

“Any patient with fever or respiratory problems will get two questions. ‘Have you been to China? Have you had contact with anyone who has?’ If the answer is yes, they’ll be put in isolation right away.”
Assuming the virus spreads globally, tourism to and trade with countries besides China may be affected — and the urgency to find ways to halt the virus and prevent deaths will grow.

Men in protective suits greeted a plane carrying 32 Mongolian citizens evacuated from Wuhan, China, as it arrived in Ulaanbaatar.

It is possible that the Chinese coronavirus will fade out as weather warms. 

Many viruses, like flu, measles and norovirus, thrive in cold, dry air. 

The SARS outbreak began in winter, and MERS transmission also peaks then, though that may be related to transmission in newborn camels.
Four mild coronaviruses cause about a quarter of the nation’s common colds, which also peak in winter.
But even if an outbreak fades in June, there could be a second wave in the fall, as has occurred in every major flu pandemic, including those that began in 1918 and 2009.
By that time, some remedies might be on hand, although they will need rigorous testing and perhaps political pressure to make them available and affordable.
In China, several antiviral drugs are being prescribed. 

A common combination is pills containing lopinavir and ritonavir with infusions of interferon, a signaling protein that wakes up the immune system.
In the United States, the combination is sold as Kaletra by AbbVie for H.I.V. therapy, and it is relatively expensive. 

In India, a dozen generic makers produce the drugs at rock-bottom prices for use against H.I.V. in Africa, and their products are W.H.O.-approved.
Another option may be an experimental drug, remdesivir, on which the patent is held by Gilead. 

The drug has not yet been approved for use against any disease. 

Nonetheless, there is some evidence that it works against coronaviruses, and Gilead has donated doses to China.
Several American companies are working on a vaccine, using various combinations of their own funds, taxpayer money and foundation grants.
Although modern gene-chemistry techniques have made it possible to build vaccine candidates within just days, medical ethics require that they then be carefully tested on animals and small numbers of healthy humans for safety and effectiveness.
That aspect of the process cannot be sped up, because dangerous side effects may take time to appear and because human immune systems need time to produce the antibodies that show whether a vaccine is working.
Whether or not what is being tried in China will be acceptable elsewhere will depend on how rigorously Chinese doctors run their clinical trials.
“In God we trust,” Dr. Schaffner said. 

“All others must provide data.”

Coronavirus Is a Disease of Chinese Autocracy

When China’s leaders finally declare victory against the outbreak of the new and deadly coronavirus, they will undoubtedly credit the Communist Party of China's leadership. But the truth is just the opposite: the party is again responsible for this calamity.
By MINXIN PEI

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – An outbreak of a new coronavirus that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan has already infected over 6,000 people – mostly in China, but also in several other countries, from Thailand to France to the United States – and killed more than 100. 

Given China’s history of disease outbreaks – including of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Chinese swine fever – and officials’ apparent awareness of the need to strengthen their capacity to address “major risks,” how could this happen?

It should be no surprise that history is repeating itself in China. 

To maintain its authority, the Communist Party of China must keep the public convinced that everything is going according to plan. 

That means carrying out systemic cover-ups of scandals and deficiencies that may reflect poorly upon the CPC’s leadership, instead of doing what is necessary to respond.
This pathological secrecy hobbles the authorities’ capacity to respond quickly to epidemics. 

The SARS epidemic of 2002-03 could have been contained much sooner had Chinese officials, including the health minister, not deliberately concealed information from the public. 

Once proper disease-control and prevention measures were implemented, SARS was contained within months.
Yet China seems not to have learned its lesson. 

Although there are important differences between today’s coronavirus epidemic and the SARS outbreak – including far greater technological capacity to monitor disease – they have the CPC’s habit of cover-ups in common.
To be sure, at first glance, China’s government has appeared to be more forthcoming about the latest outbreak. 

But, although the first case was reported on December 8, the Wuhan municipal health commission didn’t issue an official notice until several weeks later. 

And, since then, Wuhan officials have downplayed the seriousness of the disease and deliberately sought to suppress news coverage.That notice maintained that there was no evidence that the new illness could be transmitted among humans, and claimed that no health-care workers had been infected. 

The commission repeated these claims on January 5, though 59 cases had been confirmed by then. Even after the first death was reported on January 11, the commission continued to insist that there was no evidence that it could be transmitted among humans or that health-care workers had been affected.
Throughout this critical period, there was little news coverage of the outbreak. 

Chinese censors worked diligently to remove references to the outbreak from the public sphere, which is far easier today than it was during the SARS epidemic, thanks to the government’s dramatically tighter control over the Internet, media, and civil society. 

Police have harassed people for “spreading rumors” about the disease.
According to one study, references to the outbreak on WeChat – a popular Chinese messaging, social media, and mobile-payment app – spiked between December 30 and January 4, around the time when the Wuhan municipal health commission first acknowledged the outbreak. 

But mentions of the disease subsequently plummeted.
References to the new coronavirus rose slightly on January 11, when the first death was reported, but then quickly disappeared again. 

It was only after January 20 – following reports of 136 new cases in Wuhan, as well as cases in Beijing and Guangdong – that the government rolled back its censorship efforts. 

Mentions of coronavirus exploded.
Yet again, the Chinese government’s attempts to protect its image proved costly, because they undermined initial containment efforts. 

The authorities have since switched gears, and their strategy now appears to be to show how seriously the government is taking the disease by imposing drastic measures: a blanket travel ban on Wuhan and neighboring cities in Hubei province, which together have a population of 35 million.
At this point, it is unclear whether and to what extent these steps are necessary or effective. 

What is clear is that China’s initial mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak means that thousands will be infected, hundreds may die, and the economy, already weakened by debt and the trade war, will take another hit.But the most tragic part of this story is that there is little reason to hope that next time will be different. 

The survival of the one-party state depends on secrecy, media suppression, and constraints on civil liberties. 

So, even as Chinese dictator Xi Jinping demands that the government increase its capacity to handle “major risks,” China will continue to undermine its own – and the world’s – safety, in order to bolster the CPC’s authority.
When China’s leaders finally declare victory against the current outbreak, they will undoubtedly credit the CPC’s leadership. 

But the truth is just the opposite: the party is again responsible for this calamity.

Chinese Killer Virus

China Expands Travel Restrictions to 2 More Cities as Outbreak Grows

• The authorities enacted strict travel bans for the central Chinese cities of Huanggang, Ezhou and Wuhan, collectively home to nearly 20 million people. 
• At least 17 people have died and more than 570 have been sickened by a mysterious illness.

By The New York Times

In addition to canceling flights and trains, the authorities also shuttered movie theaters, cafes and other public spaces.

Police officers guarding an entrance to the closed Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan, China, on Thursday.

The authorities ban travel from three cities at center of outbreak, affecting millions.
The authorities expanded travel restrictions to two central Chinese cities near Wuhan, the epicenter of a mysterious outbreak of coronavirus, hours after announcing that 17 people had died and more than 570 had contracted the disease.
The restrictions on train and other forms of travel will apply to tens of millions of people and come just days before the Lunar New Year holiday, when hundreds of millions of people travel around and out of the country.
The Chinese authorities on Thursday morning closed off Wuhan — a major port city of more than 11 million people and the center of a pneumonia-like virus that has spread halfway around the world — by canceling flights and trains leaving the city, and suspending buses, subways and ferries within it.
By evening, officials planned to close off Huanggang, a city of seven million about 30 miles east of Wuhan, and shut rail stations in the nearby city of Ezhou, which has about one million residents.
In Huanggang, public transportation and departing trains would were to stop service at midnight. Residents would not be allowed to leave the city without special permission, according to a government statement. 

In Ezhou, all rail stations were to be closed.
In Wuhan, residents said that a sense of fear was growing as the city went into lockdown.
The new virus, which first emerged at the end of December, has killed at least 17 people and sickened more than 570, including in Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, South Korea and the United States. 

It has raised the specter of a repeat of the SARS epidemic, which broke out in China in 2002 and 2003 and spread rapidly while officials obscured the seriousness of the crisis. 

That virus eventually killed more than 800 people worldwide.
Roughly 30,000 people fly out of Wuhan on an average day, according to air traffic data. 

Many more leave using ground transportation like trains and cars. 

The city is the hub of industry and commerce in central China, home to the region’s biggest airport and deepwater port.
The sudden restrictions could upend the travel plans of millions of Chinese citizens, who travel in huge numbers during the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins on Friday. 

The government said it would close Wuhan’s airport and train stations to departures, and it urged residents not to leave the city unless they had an urgent reason to do so.

Residents are nervous and angry.

A supermarket in Wuhan, on Thursday.

Across Wuhan on Thursday, residents — some wearing masks, some sniffing or coughing — visited hospitals and clinics seeking treatment. 

In interviews with a New York Times correspondent in the city, some said they were angry about the sudden lockdown. 

Others said they were confused by the restrictions.
Outside the Wuhan No. 3 Hospital, Yang Lin, said she had come to the hospital to see if a sniffling cold she had might be the coronavirus. 

She said that after a quick check, the doctors told her not to worry. 

But she was not reassured.
“They said it was just a common cold, and told me to get some medicine and go home,” Ms. Yang, 28, said. 

“But how am I to know? They didn’t even take my temperature. It’s just not responsible.”
The outbreak is testing Wuhan’s health care system. 

Several Wuhan residents said on social media websites that they had gone from hospital to hospital, waiting in lines for hours, only to be sent home with medicine and instructions to seek further treatment later if symptoms persisted in a few days.
“The government did not fulfill its duty,” Du Hanrong, 56, a retiree, said by telephone. 

“They just are doing things hastily and carelessly.”
Doctors told some patients that there was a shortage of hospital beds as well as testing kits, according to posts on Chinese social media sites.
Cheng Shidong, a doctor at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, said in an interview that his hospital had set up 100 beds to receive infected patients, but that it didn’t have enough protective material, such as masks and suits, for the medical staff.
In Wuhan, Ms. Yang said that while she was in a pharmacy buying medicine, another person complained that he thought he had the coronavirus but had not been isolated. 

The city’s medical system, especially its smaller hospitals, seems unprepared for the influx of patients, she said.
“I’m willing to accept that we have to stay in Wuhan, O.K., but the medical care needs to keep up,” she said. 

“You shouldn’t tell us we can’t leave, and then give us second-rate medical care. That’s unfair.”


Who are the victims?
Health workers wear protective suits at the Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan, China, on Wednesday.

China’s health commission, which has tightly controlled news about the toll of the outbreak, released on Thursday its most detailed list of the people who have died of the disease.
The first 17 people were largely older men, many with underlying health problems. 

All died in Hubei Province, which includes the city of Wuhan.
The first confirmed death was a 61-year-old man who went to a hospital in Wuhan on December 27, weak with a fever and a cough. 

He was transferred to another hospital as his condition worsened, and he was later attached to a machine that helped oxygenate his blood. 

But his condition worsened, and he died on Jan. 9.Of the first 17 deaths, 13 were men and four were women, officials said. 

The youngest victim was a 48-year-old woman identified only by her surname, Yin, who died on Monday. 

The oldest were two 89-year-old men who died on Saturday and Sunday.
Many had underlying conditions like cirrhosis of the liver, hypertension, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. 

Most had gone to the hospital with a fever and a cough, though at least three had no fever when they were admitted, according to the health commission.
While a full picture of the virus is still unknown, medical experts found some positive signs in the fact that the disease did not appear to be killing young and otherwise healthy people.It was a somewhat reassuring sign that “the majority of fatal cases are elderly and/or have a chronic disease that would increase their susceptibility to infectious diseases,” said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York.

‘I feel extremely powerless,’ says a SARS expert, raising an alarm.

Travelers arrive on Thursday at a nearly deserted train station in Wuhan.

In an unusually blunt interview, Dr. Guan Yi, a professor of infectious diseases in Hong Kong and expert on SARS, criticized the authorities in Wuhan for acting too slowly and obstructing his efforts to investigate the outbreak.
Dr. Guan, who helped successfully identify the coronavirus that caused SARS during the 2002-2003 outbreak in China, told the influential Chinese magazine Caixin that he was deeply frustrated by the city government’s response to the spread of the virus.
He and his team had visited Wuhan on Tuesday hoping that they could track the animal that was the source of the coronavirus but were shocked to find that residents at a market were not taking any precautions or wearing masks. 

No special measures were in place at the airport to disinfect surfaces and floors, either. 

This showed that the city government was being complacent despite the urgent orders handed down by Beijing, he said.
“I thought at the time, we had to be in a ‘state of war’, but how come the alarm has not been raised?” he told Caixin. 

“Poor citizens, they were still preparing to ring in the New Year in peace and had no sense about the epidemic.”
He also criticized the local authorities for disinfecting the market where many infections had been traced to, saying that made it difficult for researchers to investigate where the virus came from.
“I consider myself a veteran in battles,” he said, citing his experience with bird flu, SARS, and other outbreaks. 

“But with this Wuhan pneumonia, I feel extremely powerless.”

What is a coronavirus and why is it so dangerous?

Paramedics taking a man believed to be Hong Kong’s first coronavirus patient to a hospital on Wednesday.

Coronaviruses are named for the spikes that protrude from their membranes, which resemble the sun’s corona. 

They can infect both animals and people, and cause illnesses of the respiratory tract, ranging from the common cold to severe conditions like SARS, which sickened thousands of people around the world — and killed nearly 800 — during a 2003 outbreak.
Symptoms of infection include a high fever, difficulty breathing and lung lesions. 

Milder cases may resemble the flu or a bad cold, making detection very difficult. 

The incubation period — the time from exposure to the onset of symptoms — is believed to be about two weeks.
Little is known about who is most at risk. 

Some of the nine patients who have died also suffered other illnesses.

Chinese worry the government is underreporting cases.
A hospital worker washes the entrance to the Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, where some infected with a new virus were being treated.

There are growing concerns that the Chinese authorities are underreporting the number of people who are ill with the virus. 

Relatives of patients say that hospitals, strapped for resources as they deal with an influx of patients, are turning sick people away or refusing to test them for the coronavirus.Many people remain skeptical of the government’s official statistics, with memories of the effort to cover up the severity of the SARS outbreak in 2003 still fresh.
In Wuhan, Kyle Hui, an architect from Shanghai, said that doctors at Tongji Hospital declined to test his stepmother for the virus, even though she was showing symptoms like a cough and a fever. 

She died on Jan. 15 of “severe pneumonia,” according to a copy of her death certificate.Mr. Hui said that hospital workers treated his stepmother as if she had the coronavirus, wearing hazmat suits. 

After she died, the hospital instructed the family to cremate the body immediately. 

Mr. Hui said that after her death, doctors informed the family that they suspected his stepmother had the coronavirus.
“I’m very sad my stepmother left without any dignity,” Mr. Hui said during an interview this week in a cafe in Wuhan. 

“There was no time to say goodbye.”

Chinese state media plays down the crisis.
Health officials in Beijing take passengers’ temperatures as they arrive on flights from Wuhan on Wednesday. 

A sense of crisis is spreading through China as more people fall ill to the deadly virus. 

But you wouldn’t know it reading the front pages of China’s official newspapers.
As China grapples with one of its most serious public health crises in years, the ruling Communist Party’s most important news outlets seem oblivious to the emergency.
On Thursday, the front page of the People’s Daily featured stories about Chinese dictator Xi Jinping “visiting and comforting” villagers in Yunnan, a southwestern province, ahead of the Lunar New Year Holiday, describing a “warm and peaceful” scene. 

A photo showed New Year’s revelers aboard a train, smiling and snapping photos.
On Wednesday, China Central Television, the state broadcaster, treated the outbreak as a footnote in its evening newscast, one of the most watched television programs in China, instead focusing on Xi’s talks with world leaders.
While more commercially focused outlets, such as Caixin, a financial magazine, and the Beijing News, a newspaper, are covering the crisis extensively, the party’s flagship news outlets have been quiet.
Experts said Xi Jinping was trying to prevent a sense of panic and to limit criticism of the party’s response.“The top priority will be to keep coverage from asking more probing questions about how China’s institutions have responded, questions that might lead to criticism of the government,” said David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project.

A New York Times reporter travels to the epidemic’s ground zero.
Chris Buckley, our chief China correspondent, headed to Wuhan from Beijing to cover the outbreak. He is sending live dispatches from his trip.

9:25 A.M. — BEIJING
At the Beijing West Railway Station on Thursday morning there were noticeably more people wearing masks than have been seen around the city in recent days. 

Still, the number of travelers heading out for the Lunar New Year is still sizable. 

This is not the empty ghost city that Beijing became during the SARS epidemic of 2003. 

Hundreds of people lined up to take a train that passes through Wuhan and other cities on the way to Hong Kong. 

Almost all wore masks.

11 A.M. — ABOARD THE G79 HIGH SPEED TRAIN
The G79 high speed train from Beijing to Hong Kong, which stops in Wuhan, was crowded with holiday passengers. 

But few seemed to have plans to get off in Wuhan. 

The train was a hubbub of conversation, much of it about the deadly coronavirus and the lockdown around Wuhan.
Guo Jing, a worker from northeast China, was headed with two friends for a holiday in Macau. 

After some hesitation, they had taken off their masks. 

“They’re too uncomfortable inside,” Mr. Guo said. 

“My view is we have to be careful but not panic. If you’re the panicky type, then you wouldn’t be on this train.”


Chris Buckley 储百亮
✔@ChuBailiang
Time to get back onto Twitter. I’m about to arrive in Wuhan to see how the city is coping under the lockdown and the menace of the coronavirus. Also follow live updates at the Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share …
1,821
6:47 AM - Jan 23, 2020

1:37 P.M. — ABOARD THE G79 HIGH SPEED TRAIN
Half an hour out from Wuhan, the train is quite crowded with passengers, most of whom are wearing masks.
I haven’t been able to find any who say they are ending their journey at Wuhan, and when I explain that I’m getting off there the reactions vary from advice — wear masks, don’t go, drink lots of water — to mordant jokes that I may be there a long time.
“You should know that they probably won’t let people out until the New Year holiday is over,” said one woman, who would only give her family name, Yang. 

I had expected that there might be checks on the train, or guards checking people who planned to get off at Wuhan. 

But not so far.

2:29 P.M. — WUHAN
Wuhan Railway Station, usually thronging with people in the days before the Lunar New Year holiday, is very empty.
An announcement playing on a loop over the speakers tells the few people here that residents cannot leave the city and the station is temporarily closed. 

But there is, so far at least, no extraordinary security around the station. 

There was a fever detector at the exit from the train platform, but I’ve seen no other steps to check people.
Many residents tried to leave the city.
The announcement that the city of Wuhan would be temporarily sealed off from the outside world starting at 10 a.m. on Thursday came while most residents were asleep at 2 a.m.
Some decided to flee the city.
Residents were seen hauling their luggage to a train station in the early hours before the citywide lockdown took effect, the Chinese news outlet Caixin reported. 

Several people said they would buy tickets for any destination as long as they could leave Wuhan, the magazine reported.
Lines of passengers in masks and down jackets, lugging suitcases, formed outside the major Hankou railway station just 20 minutes before the cutoff time, a live video by media outlet The Paper showed.
Han Zhen and Wang Mengkai, two migrant workers from Henan Province, said they had rushed to the railway station in order to leave on Wednesday night, but missed the last train out.
Both said they were frustrated by the sudden lockdown and were scrambling to find a way home.
“It’s serious but not that serious,” said Mr. Wang, who works in an electronics parts factory. 

“We’re trying to figure out how we can get home. If we can’t get out on a train, we’ll try putting together a car with a driver.”
Asked if they were motivated to leave by fear of the virus, Mr. Han said: “No, we are not scared.”
“It’s the New Year, we just have to go home,” he added.

Pathological lying: China is covering up spread of Wuhan virus

World watches to see if country has learned painful lessons from Sars outbreak as one former World Health Organisation official accuses Chinese officials of ‘lying from the start’ of the outbreak
By William Zheng and Mimi Lau

Experts have questioned whether Chinese officials have tried to cover up the full extent of the outbreak. 

As medical practitioners race against time to contain the spread of the new coronavirus from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the country’s leaders have a second battle to fight – defending its credibility in the face of widespread scepticism about its commitment to transparency.
The outbreak, which had infected more than 400 people across China and around half a dozen overseas by Tuesday evening, apparently originated from a seafood market.
So far, at least nine people in Wuhan have died because of the virus.
It is believed to be less contagious than severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed more than 700 people worldwide.
But China’s poor handling of that outbreak in 2002 and 2003 – which was marked by cover-ups and an official reluctance to share information – has prompted sceptics to ask whether Beijing would again put politics ahead of protecting public health.

Health officials fear Wuhan coronavirus outbreak is larger than China’s letting on

Peter Cordingley, who was the spokesman for World Health Organisation during the Sars crisis, was one of those who raised the alarm on social media on Tuesday accusing Beijing of “lying about the spread of the Wuhan flu virus from the start”.
“I say this because I was the WHO spokesman in Asia at the time of the 2003 Sars outbreak, and I’m seeing precisely the same reckless behaviour now,” he wrote.
Aware of the widespread scepticism it faces, Beijing has moved fast to assure the international community and the public that it will not tolerate any cover up or withholding of sensitive information about the outbreak.
On Tuesday the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission – Beijing’s top political body responsible for law and order – ran a social media commentary telling Communist Party officials not to forget the painful lessons of Sars and to ensure timely reporting of the current situation.

The virus has affected more than 400 people and killed nine.

“Anyone who puts the face of politicians before the interests of the people will be the sinner of a millennium to the party and the people,” the commentary on its Chang An Jian account read.
The commentary cited an instruction issued by Xi Jinping on Monday that the virus must be “resolutely contained”.
In an online commentary, Hu Xijin, editor of Global Times, a tabloid affiliate of People’s Daily, criticised the Wuhan municipal government for its sluggish response to the crisis.
Hu even questioned if the Wuhan authorities would have been willing to take the responsibility for confirming the probable human-to-human transmission of the virus had it not been revealed by Zhong Nanshan, one of China’s experts on respiratory diseases, on Monday.
Wu Qiang, a Beijing-based political analyst and former Tsinghua University professor, said Wuhan’s slow response may have been due to an ingrained culture among Communist Party cadres who were not prepared to act on their own.
“All these campaigns that have been launched one after another since Xi Jinping came to power seven years ago have robbed cadres of the motivation to take the initiative and they have become accustomed to hiding behind the shadow of the strong man,” Wu said.
He added that Beijing’s tight control over free speech and intellectuals has also created a stifled environment discouraging experts to speak out during a public health crisis.
Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said local officials were apprehensive about taking sensible preventive measures without knowing what Xi and other top leaders wanted as they feared that any missteps would have serious political consequences.
“Who would dare to take on this responsibility without knowing whatever action to be taken would enjoy Xi’s blessings? So, I can’t say I was surprised by the basically passive responses until Xi came out ordering a robust response,” Tsang said.
“All important and sensitive issues will have to be decided by the top Chinese leader,” he said.
Professor Gabriel Leung, founding director of the University of Hong Kong’s WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control, said on Tuesday that politics should not be a factor in cases such as this.
“Science and epidemic control should not be linked with politics,” Leung said.
“If any places linked epidemic control measures... with other considerations including politics, there would definitely be a problem.”

Taiwan confirms case of killer Chinese coronavirus as six patients have now died from SARS-like infection in China as more than 300 patients across Asia have now caught the deadly illness

• Chinese officials yesterday confirmed the virus has spread between humans
• Fifteen healthcare workers have caught the respiratory virus, figures show
• A total of 304 people in Asia have now tested positive for the unnamed virus
• Three other countries have reported cases -- Thailand, Japan and South Korea
• Three more deaths have been announced today, taking the death toll to six.

By STEPHEN MATTHEWS

A total of 304 people are confirmed to have caught the illness, with another 54 cases suspected and more than 900 people under observation (Pictured: The most recently available breakdown of where cases have been diagnosed).

Taiwan has confirmed its first case of the lethal Chinese coronavirus, which has killed six and sickened more than 300 people.
Health officials in the Asian territory announced a woman, thought to be around 50 years old, had caught the never-seen-before virus.

She is currently in hospital receiving treatment, according to local media.
It comes after the mayor of Wuhan – at the centre of the outbreak – announced two more victims of the lethal SARS-like infection this morning.
A total of 304 people are confirmed to have caught the virus, with another 54 cases suspected and more than 900 people under observation.Australia and the Philippines have also reported suspected cases of the coronavirus, which China yesterday admitted has spread between humans.
The World Health Organization will hold an emergency meeting later in the week to discuss the outbreak, which has already spread to Thailand, South Korea, Japan and now Taiwan.
Fifteen healthcare workers have caught the respiratory virus while treating patients. 

Cases have soared six-fold in the space of a few days.
Public health officials in the UK have issued advice to the NHS on how to deal with potential cases – but renowned virologists say the outbreak is 'unlikely to go global'.
Stock markets in China and Hong Kong dipped today amid fears tourists will refrain from travelling, despite people being urged not to panic. 

But shares in firms which make surgical face masks have surged as investors expect sales to rise as people seek to protect themselves.

Workers at Almaty International Airport in Kazakhstan are using thermal scanners to detect travellers from China who may have symptoms of the coronavirus sweeping Asia
Malaysian officials use thermal imaging scanners and cameras to check passengers for fevers upon their arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport
Malaysia is one of many countries that have stepped up their passenger screening, with airport workers screening travellers for symptoms of the virus
Pictured: A close-up of travellers on the thermal imaging camera at Kuala Lumpur International Airport
South Korean cleaners prepare to disinfect the facilities at the customs, immigration and quarantine area at Incheon International Airport
Officials at Taiwan's Center for Disease Control use thermal scanners to screen passengers arriving on a flight from China's Wuhan province
A child wears a facemask at Daxing international airport in Beijing as he heads home for the Lunar New Year
The outbreak is believed to have started late last month among people connected to a seafood market in Wuhan, where all six fatalities have happened
An official uses an infrared thermometer on a traveler at a health screening checkpoint at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport. Wuhan is at the centre of the outbreak
Staff in biohazard suits hold a metal stretcher by the in-patient department of Wuhan Medical Treatment Centre, where patients are being treated for the new coronavirus
Quarantine workers spray disinfect at Incheon International Airport in South Korea. South Korea confirmed its first case on January 20 after a 35-year-old woman arriving at Seoul’s Incheon airport tested positive for the virus.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THIS OUTBREAK SO FAR? 
A total of 304 people are confirmed to have caught the unnamed coronavirus, which has never been seen before. 

Six patients have died.
Most of the cases have occurred in Wuhan, a city in Hubei province home to 11 million people. 

But patients have been diagnosed across China, including in Beijing and Shanghai.
The coronavirus, which is from the same family as SARS, has also spread to South Korea, Thailand, Japan and Taiwan.
Chinese officials yesterday confirmed the virus has spread between humans, suggesting it can be passed through coughs and sneezes.
The outbreak is believed to have started late last month among people connected to a seafood market in Wuhan, which has since been shut.
China is entering its busiest travel period due to the Lunar New Year, which sees many people travelling back to their home town or village.
Virologists fear the increased travel that will happen over the holidays will cause a surge in cases.
So where have cases been recorded?
IN CHINA
Hubei province, 270 cases, 6 deaths
Guangdong province, 14 cases
Zhejiang province, 1 case
Shanghai, 6 cases
Beijing, 5 cases
Tianjin, 2 cases
Zhengzhou, 1 case

ABROAD
Thailand, 2 cases
South Korea, 1 case
Japan, 1 case
Taiwan, 1 case

The outbreak is believed to have started late last month among people connected to a seafood market in Wuhan, where all six fatalities have happened.
State media reported on a fourth victim this morning – an 89-year-old is home to 11 million people, later revealed there had been two more deaths – a 66-year-old man, known only as Li, and a 48-year-old woman, known only as Yin. 

Both died from multiple organ failure. Zhou Xianwang said there has been a total of 258 cases in Wuhan. 

Twelve cases have been recorded elsewhere in Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital.
Other cases have been confirmed today in Tianjin – a port city just outside of Beijing, as well as one in Zhejiang province, one in Zhengzhou and four more in Shanghai.
Wuhan officials have today said they will pay for all medical costs for patients infected with the virus.
Professor John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary College, admitted he was 'quaking in my shoes' over the potential spread of the virus that could happen over the Chinese New Year.
He told LBC: 'None of us have faced a new virus faced with so many people in a community travelling around. That's what's going to happen in China at the end of the week. Once they are close together in taxis or small rooms, then there may be a problem.'

And Professor Oxford added: 'The only way to stop it is physical cleaning and social distance --keeping away from people.'
Locals have made more than four million trips by train, road and air since January 10 in the annual travel rush for the most important holiday in the country.
The transport peak season will last until February 18 and see three billion trips made within China, according to official statistics.
Australian officials today announced a traveller had been placed in quarantine with symptoms of the virus after returning home from a trip to China.

Two patients in southern China have caught the virus from infected family members, according to local media. Pictured, Chinese residents wear masks in Wuhan.

China reported on January 20 the mysterious virus had spread across the country from Wuhan. Pictured, medical staff at Jinyintan hospital, Wuhan.

CHINESE TOUR FIRMS OFFER FREE CANCELLATIONS ON TRAVEL BOOKINGS 
Chinese travel booking platforms are offering free cancellations on bookings made for Wuhan amid mounting fears over the coronavirus outbreak.
The firms offering customers the cancellations include Trip.com, Alibaba Group's Fliggy, Meituan Dianping and Qunar.com.
The travel booking platforms said that Chinese civil aviation and railway authorities had still to set a special cancellation policy.
But the firms added that they would try to meet the needs of customers wanting to cancel their trips.
China is entering its busiest travel period due to the Lunar New Year, which sees many people travelling back to their home town or village
The holiday is a high season for tourism and retail industries in China and overseas, but fears of the outbreak may mean many opt to stay home.

The man is being kept at his home in Brisbane as he awaits test results for the virus.

Earlier tests were inconclusive, Queensland health chiefs said.
The suspected case prompted Prime Minister Scott Morrison to warn Australians travelling to China to 'exercise a high degree of caution' in China’s Wuhan area.
The authorities in Wuhan are taking their own precautions and are using infrared thermometers to scan people from a distance to try and pick out possible cases.
Scanners have been put in place at airports, railway stations and coach stops around the city, which is home to some 11million people.
Medics have also been filmed reportedly scanning people's heads to take their temperatures on-board a flight leaving Wuhan on Monday.
The Philippines also announced today that it was investigating its first potential case of the coronavirus.
A five-year-old child arrived in the country on January 12 from Wuhan and has since been hospitalised with flu symptoms.
While the child tested positive for a virus, authorities in Manila said they were not sure if it was the same one that has killed four people in China.
Over the weekend, 136 fresh infections were reported in Wuhan, bringing the total number of cases China has confirmed to more than 200
The majority of patients have been traced to the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market (pictured)
Ash Shorley, 32, is fighting for his life in Thailand and is feared to be the first Western victim of the coronavirus sweeping across China
Mr Shorley is in critical condition in a hospital in Phuket after being struck down with the pneumonia-like lung infection while visiting Koh Phi Phi island.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE NEW CHINESE VIRUS? What is this virus?The virus has been identified as a new type of coronavirus.
Coronaviruses are a large family of pathogens, most of which cause mild respiratory infections such as the common cold.
But coronaviruses can also be deadly. 

SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, is caused by a coronavirus and killed hundreds of people in China and Hong Kong in the early 2000s.

Why hasn’t it been named yet?
The virus has not been named, although commonly goes by ‘nCoV2019’, which stands for novel (new) coronavirus 2019.
When a virus emerges slowly, as this one has, scientists have to work quickly to understand its severity, how it is spread and how deadly it is.
Jeremy Farrar, a specialist in infectious disease epidemics and director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity, said he thinks the virus will be named over the coming weeks and months because it is the ‘least important decision at the moment’.

What symptoms does it cause?
Its symptoms are typically a fever, cough and trouble breathing, but some patients have developed pneumonia, a potentially life-threatening infection that causes inflammation of the small air sacs in the lungs.
People carrying the novel coronavirus may only have mild symptoms, such as a sore throat. 

They may assume they have a common cold and not seek medical attention, experts fear.

How is it detected?
When the outbreak started in December 2019, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said hospitals across the city had treated a 'successive series of patients with unexplained pneumonia'.
After investigations, a never-before-seen strain of coronavirus was identified and reported on January 9.
The virus's genetic sequencing was released by scientists in China to the rest of the world to enable other countries to quickly diagnose potential new cases. 

This helps other countries respond quickly to disease outbreaks.
To contain the virus, airports are detecting infected people with temperature checks. 

But as with every virus, it has an incubation period, meaning detection is not always possible because symptoms have not appeared yet.
The incubation period of nCov2019 is not known. 

Research by Imperial College London suggested there is a 10-day window between someone being infected and detected, based on the evidence so far.

Can it kill?
Three people have so far died after testing positive for the virus. 

The first two patients who died suffered other health problems, so it is possible the virus is more lethal in vulnerable people.
The first patient, a 61-year-old-man, had abdominal tumours and chronic liver disease. 

The second, who was 69, had severe cardiomyopathy – a heart condition, abnormal kidney function, and seriously damaged organs.
Details about the third death have not been revealed.

How is it spread?
Investigations have focused on animals as the source because the majority of the first infected patients in Wuhan were traced to the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, which has been shut down since January 1.
On January 14, the World Health Organization said there is some 'limited' human-to-human transmission of the virus.
Professor Zhong Nanshan, a scientist at China’s National Health Commission, said human-to-human transmission is 'affirmative', in a press conference on January 20.
Two patients in southern China caught the virus from infected family members, according to local media. 

They had not visited Wuhan.

'The child is considered a person under investigation,' Philippine health secretary Francisco Duque told a press briefing in Manila.
Samples from the child were sent to a laboratory in Australia for further testing and authorities are awaiting the results.
The child had a fever, throat irritation and a cough before arriving in the central city of Cebu with a parent, the health department said.
Three other travellers from China were checked by authorities at another airport, but they did not show symptoms that corresponded with the coronavirus.
Increased control measures have been enforced at many places, with scientists still uncertain of the outbreak’s nature and mode of transmission.
But Professor Zhong Nanshan, of China's National Health Commission, said human-to-human transmission was 'affirmative' in a press conference yesterday.
'Currently, it can be said it is affirmative that there is the phenomenon of human-to-human transmission,' he said, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
Two patients in southern China caught the virus from infected family members, and had not visited a seafood market thought to be at the centre of the outbreak.
Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market has been closed and under investigation since January 1 as scientists scramble to determine where the virus has come from.
In the same interview with CCTV, Professor Nanshan said 14 medical workers had been infected after treating a patient with the coronavirus.
Details about the healthcare workers have not yet come to light and only been discussed by Professor Nanshan.
A total of 222 people in Asia have now tested positive for the virus, which marks a sharp increase from the 48 on January 17. 
The outbreak has spread within China, with cases recorded in Guangdong province, as well as Beijing and Shanghai.
People in China have been urged not to panic and to try and enjoy the festive season.
A piece in Chinese newspaper the Global Times said on Sunday: 'The entire Chinese society should be vigilant but should not be in panic. We should make the upcoming Spring Festival happy and peaceful, and also pay close attention to every link where the pneumonia may increase transmission.'
Three other countries have also reported cases of the virus -- Thailand, Japan and South Korea.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said earlier an animal source seemed to be 'the most likely primary source' of the virus.
Jeremy Farrar, a specialist in infectious disease epidemics and director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity, raised concerns about the number of people travelling through Wuhan.
He said: 'Wuhan is a major hub and with travel being a huge part of the fast approaching Chinese New Year, the concern level must remain high.
'There is more to come from this outbreak.'
He added that coughing is the 'quickest way to spread an infection around the world'. 'Whenever you get something new happening in humans, especially when it is spread by coughing, it is always a worry. It could get worse, it could get better – but you have to plan for it getting worse,' Mr Farrar told MailOnline.
China is entering its busiest travel period due to the Lunar New Year, which sees many people travelling back to their home town or village.
Countries including Japan, Australia and the US have adopted screening measures for those arriving from China due to concerns about a global outbreak like that caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which spread from China to more than a dozen countries in 2002 and 2003 and killed nearly 800 people.
An analysis from Imperial College London last week estimated the number of cases in Wuhan was probably around 1,700 – but could even be as high as 4,500.
The team did not look at how the virus may be transmitted, but said 'past experience with SARS and MERS-CoV outbreaks of similar scale suggests currently self-sustaining human-to-human transmission should not be ruled out.'
South Korea confirmed its first case on January 20 after a 35-year-old woman arriving at Seoul’s Incheon airport tested positive for the virus. She had been in Wuhan last week.

On Tuesday afternoon Mr Morrison urged Australians to 'exercise a high degree of caution'

Footage on social media purports to show medics in hazardous material suits checking Chinese passengers one by one with thermometers. The clip is reported to be filmed on an Air China flight from Wuhan to Macau on January 12 after the plane arrived at the airport in Macau.

Last week, one case was confirmed in Japan and two in Thailand, meaning the total number of confirmed cases outside of China now sits at four.
A British tourist fighting for his life in Thailand is feared to be the first Western victim, but this has not been confirmed.
Ash Shorley, 32, is in critical condition in a hospital in Phuket after being struck down with a lung infection while visiting Koh Phi Phi island.
Mr Shorley had to be transported to hospital by a specialised seaplane because his lung had collapsed and he could not cope with high altitude travel.
Doctors revealed his symptoms were consistent with the Chinese coronavirus. 

He has been in hospital for nearly a month.Public Health England maintains that the risk of travellers becoming infected is 'very low', and 'low' for those travelling specifically to Wuhan.
Dr Nick Phin, a deputy director at PHE, said: 'We have issued advice to the NHS and are keeping the situation under constant review.
'People travelling to Wuhan should maintain good hand, respiratory and personal hygiene and should avoid visiting animal and bird markets or people who are ill with respiratory symptoms.
'Individuals should seek medical attention if they develop respiratory symptoms within 14 days of visiting Wuhan, either in China or on their return to the UK, informing their health service prior to their attendance about their recent travel to the city.'

A plague to make panic go viral: 
As the Chinese coronavirus claims more victims, top historian PETER FRANKOPAN examines the lesson from the past that has a chilling resonance today
The nightmare is all too real. 

A man arrives at a health centre, complaining of a sore throat, fever and headache. 

Another person arrives soon after; then another. 

By lunchtime, there are dozens; within a week, hundreds.
The winter months usually see an onset of influenza. 

But this time far more people than normal are infected.
That is not the only strange thing. 

Usually, the flu virus flourishes among the young and the old, with less robust immune systems. 

But those turning up to see the doctor are primarily in the prime of life, aged 20 to 40, who usually have no problem seeing off what is usually a seasonal bug.

FACT BOX TITLE
December 31 2019: The WHO China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. 

Around 44 suspected cases were reported in the month of December.
January 1 2020: A seafood market was closed for environmental sanitation and disinfection after being closely linked with the patients.
January 5 2020: Doctors ruled out severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) as being the cause of the virus, as well as bird flu, Middle East respiratory syndrome and adenovirus. 

Meanwhile, Hong Kong reported
January 9 2020: A preliminary investigation identified the respiratory disease as a new type of coronavirus, Chinese state media reported.
Officials at Wuhan Municipal Health Commission reported the outbreak's first death on January 9, a 61-year-old man.
January 13 2020: A Chinese woman in Thailand was the first confirmed case of the mystery virus outside of China. 

The 61-year-old was quarantined on January 8, but has since returned home in a stable condition after having treatment, the Thai Health Ministry said.
January 14 2020: The WHO told hospitals around the globe to prepare, in the 'possible' event of the infection spreading.
It said there is some 'limited' human-to-human transmission of the virus. 

Two days previously, the UN agency said there was 'no clear evidence of human to human transmission'.
January 16 2020: A man in Tokyo is confirmed to have tested positive for the disease after travelling to the Chinese city of Wuhan.
A second death, a 69-year-old man, was reported by officials at Wuhan Municipal Health Commission. 

He died in the early hours of January 15 at Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan city having first been admitted to hospital on December 31.
January 17 2020: Thailand announces it has detected a second case. 

The 74-year-old woman had been quarantined since her arrival on Monday. 

She lived in Wuhan.
Scientists at Imperial College London fear up to 4,500 patients in Wuhan may have caught the virus. A report said if cases are this high, substantial human to human transmission can't be ruled out.
John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK), San Francisco International Airport and Los Angles International Airport (LAX) will start screening passengers arriving from Wuhan, US officials said.
January 20 2020: China reported a sharp rise in the number of people infected with a new coronavirus over the weekend, including 136 more cases in Wuhan city.
The outbreak spread across China, as authorities in Shenzhen in southern China reported one case, and Chinese state media said Beijing had reported two cases.
South Korea confirmed its first case -- a 35-year-old woman arriving at Seoul’s Incheon airport tested positive for the virus. 

She had been in Wuhan the week prior.
The total number of confirmed cases reached 205, including three deaths and four confirmed cases outside China.
Details were not revealed about the third death.

Soon it becomes clear that something is very wrong. 

It turns out that those who are sick are not coming just to one hospital in a single town; they are turning up everywhere. 

Literally everywhere. All over the world. 

A quarter of the world’s population report symptoms. 

And then people start dying. In large numbers.
The scale is frightening. 

In the U.S., where a third of the population are infected, hundreds of thousands die. India pays a terrible price as 18 million succumb.
This is no Hollywood blockbuster, hoping to scare its way to box office success. This is what happened 100 years ago as the Spanish flu took hold.
Between January 1918 and the end of the following year, 500 million people had become infected. By the end of the outbreak, perhaps as many as five per cent of all the men, women and children on the planet lay dead.
Only a century on, no wonder health officials have been so concerned about the emergence of ‘2019-CoV’, a new strain of coronavirus that emerged recently in the city of Wuhan in China and which has infected more than 200 people, killing at least three.
The true figure of the dead and infected may well be higher: the Chinese authorities have been accused of covering up the scale of the outbreak, while scientists at Imperial College London have suggested that ‘substantially more cases’ have taken hold.
The new coronavirus strain has been found in neighbouring Japan, Thailand and South Korea, and has infected at least one Briton, backpacker Ashley Shorley, 32, who fell ill while travelling in Thailand and was airlifted to hospital.
It does not even matter where an outbreak of an infectious disease originates. 

In our interconnected world, a disease can potentially infect billions in weeks or less.
Airlines carry infected people from one side of the planet to another, faster than at any time in history.
London is connected to Wuhan by three direct flights per week. 

Almost every other city on Earth is a maximum of 18 hours away.
So although the death toll from the new strain of coronavirus has, mercifully, so far remained low, the lesson of history is that global pandemics have struck many times, playing a key role in shaping — and ending — civilisations.
One will strike again: the only question is when. 

The World Health Organisation has been warning of these dangers for some time, reminding us that global pandemics represent a major threat to human existence.
Perhaps the most famous case was the Black Death that swept through Asia into the Middle East, Europe and Africa in the middle of the 14th century. 

Those infected with the yersinia pestis bacterium suffered terribly as their organs were attacked in turn, with bags of pus and blood pooling at the lymph nodes in the armpit or groin, then multiplying to cause swellings that could grow as large as an apple.
The haemorrhaging of poisoned blood that turned black gave the outbreak of plague its name.
Large-scale outbreaks of plague have been closely connected to climate change, meaning that the disease moves beyond its local habitat and spreads rapidly.
This is what happened in the AD540s, when the ‘Justinianic plague’ (named after the Byzantine Emperor Justinian) was so devastating that there were said to be not enough people to bury the dead in Constantinople (now Istanbul). 

Bodies were dumped in empty towers and left to rot, producing a foul smell across the city.
Plague kills quickly: when there is no one left, it dies out, which in turn means that quarantine is a useful strategy against it.

Wuhan residents have made made more than four million trips by train, road and air since January 10 during the annual Lunar New Year travel rush. Above, a screen grab from CCTV's news programme shows flocks of passengers leaving Wuhan Train Station on Monday
Experts from the country's National Health Commission have urged Wuhan's 11 million residents not to leave the city after finding 'affirmative' evidence that the fatal virus could spread between humans. The life-threatening virus has killed six people in the Chinese city
World Health Organization officials called an emergency meeting o Monday to discuss whether the coronavirus outbreak stemming from China comprises a global emergency (file).

Isolating the infected has been used regularly in Africa in recent decades to contain another devastating disease.
First identified in 1976, ebola virus causes bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea, weakening the liver and kidneys and often killing its host in a matter of days.
It is highly infectious, being passed through fluid exchange during sex, kissing, from sweat, breastmilk or exposure to an open wound via mucous membranes in the eyes, mouth and nose. Clothing contaminated with body fluids from someone infected can also spread the virus.

TOURISM STOCKS HIT BY VIRUS FEARS BUT FACE MASK MAKERS SURGE
Stock markets in China and Hong Kong saw share prices dip in tourism and retail sectors today over fears the outbreak will scare off tourists, the Financial Times reported.
Hong Kong's main index, the Hang Seng, fell by 2.8 per cent today, January 21, while the Shanghai Composite Index in China dropped by 1.7 per cent.
Analysts say the drop followed the Chinese health commission's announcement that the coronavirus outbreak was spreading between people, not just from animals. 

This raises the prospect of the outbreak becoming much more severe and fast-spreading.
The Chinese New Year will be celebrated this weekend and millions of people in East Asia are expected to travel during the festivities.
But tourism and shopping companies may see their profits take a hit if people change their plans for fear of the deadly virus spreading.
Major Chinese airlines saw their share values drop – Air China fell by 3.2 per cent and China Eastern by 3 per cent – and a company called Wharf Real Estate Investment, which runs shopping malls in Hong Kong, dropped by more than four per cent.
Economists told the FT the growing number of viral infections was 'extremely concerning' for businesses in China's big cities and Hong Kong.
While tourism firms saw their prospects hit, companies producing pharmaceuticals and those which make surgical face masks saw the opposite effect, surging over the weekend, according to CNBC.
The companies Jiangsu Sihuan Bioengineering, Shandong Lukang Pharmaceutical and Shenzhen Neptunus Bioengineering all saw stock values rise by about 10 per cent on Monday.
And shares in companies making face masks – notably Tianjin Teda and Shanghai Dragon – also jumped by between 9.8 and 10 per cent.
This happened after authorities revealed that the disease was able to spread between people, raising the risk of it developing into a serious outbreak.

There have been outbreaks in Africa — the most recent of which began in August 2018. In the past 18 months, at least 1,700 have died, with the situation becoming so worrying that last summer the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a global health emergency.
Mercifully, preventive measures seem to have stalled ebola’s progress — at least for now.
Few experts have any illusions, though, of how close we have sailed to the wind — or how poorly prepared we are to face a pandemic.
A study produced by Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. last year warned that there are ‘severe weaknesses in countries’ abilities to prevent, detect and respond to significant disease outbreaks’. Most countries have almost no systems or agreements in place on how to co-operate in the event of a serious pandemic.
So concerned is the WHO that it has identified diseases that demand special attention.
These include the zika virus, which sprang to public attention in 2015 after an outbreak led doctors to urge women thinking of becoming pregnant to wait, so great were the threats of neurological problems and birth defects to unborn children from the mosquito-borne disease.
Most chilling, however, is that alongside well-known illnesses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars, of which family the coronavirus is part), the WHO also includes another potential killer.
This is named simply Disease X: ‘a serious international epidemic’ that could be ‘caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease’.
Like something out of a dystopian film, this could come from a virus that has jumped the species barrier from animals and mutated to infect humans, killing us in huge numbers.
We live in a world where it is cheaper and easier to create and engineer new pathogens in laboratories, by mistake or on purpose. These can, of course, be released intentionally to cause harm — perhaps by a state seeking revenge for international humiliation or by a non-state perpetrator as an act of terrorism. 

Diseases can also escape by mistake or spill out of control. Any such scenario brings unknown, but potentially devastating, consequences.
The good news is that a century on from the Spanish flu, research capabilities, including the development of antibiotics, as well as improved sanitation, hygiene and medical care, mean we do have some weapons to wield against a major disease outbreak.
The internet and other modern channels for spreading information rapidly and widely would also prove important — but it is likely that, in the event of a new global pandemic, the authorities would have to spend a lot of time countering misinformation online.
In the event of Disease X emerging as a 21st-century plague, it is not inconceivable that airports and perhaps even cities would be shut down and quarantined — and not impossible that those within the quarantine zone would pay a terrible, deadly price.
The Wuhan outbreak may be just another tremor. 

But few should have any doubts. 

The problem about nightmares is that they are reflections of realities. As the past shows, sometimes they have come true.