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Coronavirus: Australia plans island quarantine as foreigners evacuated from Wuhan – BBC News, BBC News

Coronavirus: Australia plans island quarantine as foreigners evacuated from Wuhan – BBC News, BBC News
        

                                 Woman wearing a protective facemask at the Beijing railway station Image copyright                   AFP                                                        
Image caption                                      People across China are wearing facemasks as a preventive measure                              

Hundreds of foreign nationals have been evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the center of the coronavirus outbreak, as more deaths and cases were confirmed.

Australia plans to quarantine its returning citizens for two weeks on Christmas Island – some 2, (km), 405 miles) from the mainland.

Japan, the US and the EU are also repatriating their citizens.

President Xi Jinping called the virus a “devil” but said China would defeat it.

An expert from the Chinese National Health Commission said it could take more days for the outbreak to peak.

The number of deaths from the virus has risen to in China, the NHC said on Wednesday,

EPA

Coronavirus in China

  • Deaths
  • 5) 5 Confirmed cases

    )

    9, Suspec ted cases

    Other countries with confirmed cases

    Source: China National Health Commission as of the end of 60 January; WHO

    The virus is thought to have emerged from illegally traded wildlife at a seafood market in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province.

    It causes severe acute respiratory infection and there is no specific cure or vaccine.

    Who is being evacuated? Australian evacuees will be held on Christmas Island for two weeks as part of a quarantine process, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

    The sparked controversy as the island is best known as an immigration detention center.

    Currently only housing one Sri Lankan family of four, the facility was built to accommodate more then 1, 10 people.

    Some

    Japanese nationals have already been flown from Wuhan and have landed at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

    Around

  • others said they wanted to be repatriated, and the Japanese government said new flights were being planned.

    According to Japanese media, the arriving passengers will be health-checked upon arrival but there are no plans to quarantine them.

    They will, however, be asked to stay at home for two weeks to monitor symptoms.

                

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    Media caption Road blocks and ghost towns: Inside the province where the virus originated

    also on Wednesday, workers from the local US consulate as well as some US citizens left the city.

    According to CNN, the evacuees might have to stay in isolation in an airport hangar for up to two weeks.

    The UK Foreign Office is arranging to evacuate some 320 British people who wanted to leave the area. But some UK citizens have criticized the government , claiming lack of support in returning home.

    Separately, two aircraft to fly EU citizens home were scheduled, with 405 French nationals leaving on the first flight.

    South Korea said some

    of its citizens would leave on four flights this week .

    Meanwhile, Hong Kong announced plans to slash cross-border travel between the city and mainland China.

    Wuhan – as well as the wider Hubei province – is already effectively in a lockdown with strict transport restrictions. Wearing masks in public is now mandatory in some Chinese cities.

                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                           

    What’s the latest on the virus itself?

    Confirmations of person-to-person transmission in Germany, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan – as opposed to travellers bringing the virus from China – have heightened concern about the spread of the virus.

    Leading Chinese respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan, who heads a team set up for the control and prevention of the virus, told Xinhua news agency: “I think in one week or about 18 days, it will reach the climax and then there will be no large-scale increases. ”

    China agreed for the World Health Organization (WHO) to send international experts to the country to help understand the virus and guide global response efforts.

    President Xi met WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Beijing and said: “The virus is a devil and we cannot let the devil hide. ”

                

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    Media caption “Wuhan, add oil!” : Watch residents shouting to boost morale in quarantined city A Beijing hospital built in seven days in 7079 for patients with symptoms of the Sars virus is being refurbished for the coronavirus outbreak, the South China Morning Post reported .

    A similar hospital is being rapidly built in Wuhan.

    According to the WHO and national authorities, there have been more than confirmed cases outside China. The largest number is in Thailand, where there are .

                                                                                                                           

    Fears grow over human-to-human transmission

                                                                                                                           

    The news of more human-to-human cases of the new coronavirus will add to fears about how far this outbreak might spread. The latest cases in Japan and Germany suggest that anyone coming into close contact with another infected person could catch it.

    It is thought people with symptoms, such as a cough and fever, will be the most contagious.

    But experts have not ruled out that people with no clear signs of infection could also pose a risk. And it can take more than a week for a person to develop symptoms.

    The advice is to avoid close contact with people who are infected – that means keeping enough distance to avoid breathing air or touching surfaces contaminated with respiratory droplets from others carrying and shedding the virus.

                                                                                                                           
    Learn more about the new virus

                                                                                                           Image copyright                   Getty                                                    

                

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    Media caption What are viruses? And how do they spread?


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