The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has reached 20,209, with 426 deaths, according to the interactive map provided by Johns Hopkins CSSE (Center for Systems Science and Engineering).
Another city has been quarantined: Wenzhou, which is nearly 600 miles from Wuhan. Only one designated person within each family household will be allowed to go outdoors, once every two days, to shop for basic necessities.
Crematoria are working constantly. Hong Kong-based Initium Media reported on Jan 26 that all 14 cremation chambers in one large funeral home are operating 24 hours a day, seven days per week, rather than four hours per day, five days per week, as before the outbreak.
China is furious about the expanding U.S. travel ban, claiming that it is unnecessary, in the opinion of the World Health Organization (WHO).
For all the claims about transparency, police reportedly arrested the Chinese doctors to raise the alarm about a disease they at first suspected of being SARS (severe acute respiratory distress syndrome) on WeChat, a popular social network. The authorities said these eight doctors and medical technicians were “misinforming” the public, and that everyone in the city must remain calm. Authorities are still actively censoring social-media posts and news articles that question the government’s response to the outbreak.
In the U.S., Facebook is censoring what it deems to be misinformation. Facebook’s head of health, Kang-Xing Jin, said in a blogpost Thursday that it has a third-party team of fact-checkers reviewing content related to the virus. Google and Twitter are directing traffic to official sources such as WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Twitter said it would remove users “who attempt coordinated spreads of disinformation about the health crisis.”
A report on travelers returning to Germany from China states that digestive symptoms occur in some patients, presenting another mode of transmission. Infective virus in diarrheal fluid may be aerosolized when flushing a toilet. (Closing the lid is suggested.)
It is becoming difficult or impossible to buy personal protective items. Home Depot informed a customer that it was unable to process an order for N95 protective masks “due to the drastic increase and restrictions put in place by the [CDC].”
For further information, with links to information on protecting yourself and your family, see Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, September 2019.