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China's travel limits to contain coronavirus now cover 35 million people

Authorities on Friday greatly expanded a travel lockdown in central China to include 12 cities near the center of a coronavirus outbreak, effectively penning in 35 million residents -- nearly the population of Canada -- in an effort to contain the dangerous virus.

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The New York Times
, New York Times

Authorities on Friday greatly expanded a travel lockdown in central China to include 12 cities near the center of a coronavirus outbreak, effectively penning in 35 million residents — nearly the population of Canada — in an effort to contain the dangerous virus.

The new limits — abruptly decreed before the Lunar New Year holiday, China’s busiest travel season — were an extraordinary step that underlined the governing Communist Party’s deepening fears about the outbreak of a little-understood coronavirus.

Just one day after China restricted travel in and from the center of the outbreak, Wuhan, a city of 11 million and the capital of Hubei province, and four nearby towns, the government announced plans to suspend public transportation services covering more than half the population of the province.

The rapidly expanding outbreak has overwhelmed the province’s hospitals and fueled fears of a global pandemic. Chinese health officials reported Friday that there had been 26 deaths from the outbreak and 830 cases of the coronavirus, a sharp increase.

On Thursday morning, authorities imposed a travel lockdown in Wuhan, and airlines canceled hundreds of flights to the city, leaving thousands of people stranded.

Later in the day, officials said they would also halt public transportation in the nearby cities of Huanggang, Ezhou, Zhijiang and Chibi, which are together home to more than 9 million residents. By Friday, restrictions had been announced in eight other cities.

Anxiety hangs over residents on Lunar New Year’s Eve.

The Lunar New Year is the most important holiday in the traditional Chinese calendar, and celebrations start on the eve, which this year falls on Friday. Chinese were expected to travel home in time to help wrap dumplings or fry sticky rice cakes for all-important reunion dinners with their extended families. At midnight, families around the country usually set off firecrackers and fireworks.

But these celebrations are set to be far more muted this year, particularly in Wuhan and other parts of Hubei province where authorities have imposed travel restrictions.

In Wuhan, people waited anxiously Friday outside Hankou Hospital, one of the medical facilities designated to test for the coronavirus, as their relatives sought treatment inside.

Several said the Lunar New Year would pass without the usual celebrations or vacation travel. They and other residents said that the city was now also confronting food supply problems because so many shops and markets had closed, adding to the hardships caused by the city shutdown.

“We won’t have a new year celebration tonight. There’s no feeling for it, and no food,” said Wu Qiang, a resident in his 50s who was waiting outside the hospital entrance for word about his son.

Wu said he understood the need to close off the city, but added that city authorities should ensure that enough shops and markets were selling fresh food. He said his son had been sneezing, setting off alarm at home.

“I think he’s OK, but now even an ordinary sneeze makes you worry,” Wu said. “You start to think every cough or sneeze might be the virus.”

China reports two deaths outside the center of the outbreak.

The official death toll from the mysterious coronavirus increased by more than a half-dozen in 24 hours, to 26, while the number of confirmed cases jumped by more than 200.

The majority of the deaths have occurred in Hubei province, in central China, but two deaths have been confirmed outside the center of the outbreak.

One patient died in Hebei province, more than 600 miles north of Wuhan, authorities announced Thursday. Another death was confirmed in Heilongjiang, a province near the border with Russia, more than 1,500 miles from Wuhan.

The youngest victim of the outbreak so far has been a 36-year-old man identified only as Li. He died Thursday after being admitted to the hospital Jan. 9, the Hebei Health Commission said. He suffered a cardiac arrest less than two hours before he died, officials said.

The disease has also been detected in Nepal, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States, in travelers who had visited China.

On Friday, authorities in Nepal said a student who had returned to the country from China had been confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus. He has already been treated and released.

Dr. Anup Bastola, a spokesman for the government-run Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Diseases Hospital, said a 32-year-old doctoral student was admitted to the hospital Jan. 13 after having some respiratory problems.

Concerned over his symptoms, the doctors sent sample of his blood and sputum for testing. Later, he was found to be infected with the virus that emerged from Wuhan.

After spending four days in the hospital, the student was discharged.

In the aftermath, Nepal’s Health Ministry has activated health screenings at Tribhuvan International Airport.

Experts are preparing for an outbreak that could last months.

Dr. Gauden Galea, the representative of the World Health Organization in Beijing, said i Friday that while much was uncertain, health officials were preparing for an outbreak that could last for months. He said that eventually thousands of people would most likely be infected, citing models produced by public health experts.

“My own office is gearing up for a number of months,” Galea said. “We do not expect it to disappear in a number of days.”

He said much would depend on the patterns of infection over the holiday travel season. He said that there was little precedent for the travel restrictions imposed by Chinese authorities but that public health experts were hopeful that they could help contain the virus, along with efforts to expand screening, promote the use of masks and isolate sick patients.

Still, he acknowledged, health officials were being forced to improvise.

“Part is science and part is hope,” he said.

Britain and the U.S. warn citizens to avoid the outbreak zone.

The U.S. and British governments Friday urged travelers to avoid the city of Wuhan and the surrounding area amid growing signs that the outbreak of the coronavirus was worsening.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing advised travelers from the United States to avoid Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital. It said the State Department had already ordered nonemergency government personnel to leave the city. It further warned that the Chinese government might prevent travelers from arriving or leaving.

The State Department notice was a Level 4 advisory, the sternest warning the U.S. government issues regarding travel. Other Level 4 warnings issued by the State Department cover travel to Syria, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela and Yemen, among other places.

The warning is a step up from Washington’s earlier cautions. Just a day before, the U.S. government had been advising travelers to “exercise extreme caution” when traveling to the Wuhan area.

The British government, in a notice dated Thursday, similarly advised against all but essential travel to Wuhan. The warning came a day before the government’s Cobra committee was to meet in Downing Street to discuss the threat posed by coronavirus to Britain, according to local news reports.

Nine people in Britain were awaiting results on whether they have contracted the coronavirus; 14 people total have been tested for the disease, with five given the all clear.

Some British universities have also warned students considering traveling home to China that they could face quarantine on their return. The University of Chester had warned its Chinese students that if they return to their homeland, they would not be readmitted without a quarantine period, The Guardian reported.

In a statement Friday, however, a spokeswoman for the university said in an email: “The University of Chester has a relatively small Chinese student cohort and they are being appropriately supported. All students have been advised they must not interrupt their studies to return to China at this point.”

Universities UK, which represents 136 universities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, said in an emailed statement Friday: “U.K. universities have been monitoring the coronavirus situation as it unfolds and universities with students in affected areas are working to identify appropriate actions. Universities will continue to follow the latest FCO advice and to monitor the situation, which is evolving rapidly.”

Shanghai Disneyland and other major attractions will shut down.

Shanghai Disneyland, one of the biggest tourist attractions in China, will shut down Saturday as Chinese authorities and others look for ways to reduce crowds to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

In a notice on its website Friday, Shanghai Disney Resort, the arm of the Walt Disney Co. that runs Shanghai Disneyland, blamed the outbreak for the shutdown and said it would reopen at an unspecified date.

On Friday, authorities operating the Badaling section of the Great Wall of China, a popular tourist destination north of Beijing, said it would temporarily close beginning Saturday. Shanghai Huangpu River Cruise, the company that operates boat tours along Shanghai’s scenic Bund area, said the same. On Thursday, film companies said they would pull new releases planned for the peak film-going period.

A Texas student may be infected, health officials say.

A Texas A&M University student was being isolated at home Thursday as health officials said they were examining whether he could be the second-known case of the coronavirus infection in the United States.

The man had traveled from Wuhan, and health care providers determined that he met the criteria for coronavirus testing, health officials in Brazos County, Texas, said. They said they would promptly announce if testing confirmed the patient’s illness was a case of the coronavirus.

Texas A&M said in a statement that the immediate health risk to those on its campus in College Station was considered low.

The case signified a growing roster of people being monitored around the United States since officials identified the country’s first confirmed coronavirus patient in Washington state this week.

Officials have been working to contact people who were on the man’s flight home from the Wuhan region, and Thursday they increased the number of people identified as having had close contact with that patient in recent days to 43. Those people will get daily check-ins from medical personnel to monitor their health.