China to help key industries to return to work as soon as possible – CCTV

China’s cabinet says workers in key industries must be helped to return to work as soon as possible in order to resume the production of vital food and medical supplies disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak, state broadcaster CCTV said on Sunday.

The State Council’s special coronavirus group ordered railways, airlines and other public transport to take a coordinated approach and minimise the risk of transmitting disease. It will also expand the coverage and speed of screening procedures.
It also said workers should return in “batches” and not all at once in order to reduce infection risks.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/China-to-help-key-industries-to-return-to-work-as-soon-as-possible-CCTV–29967689/?countview=0

Coronavirus death toll tops SARS as China goes back to work

Factories in China will slowly begin getting back online tomorrow following an extended Lunar New Year break that saw two-thirds of China’s economy stay closed last week.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the new coronavirus outbreak has now surpassed that of the SARS epidemic nearly two decades ago, as the number of fatalities from the virus topped 800.

China’s National Health Commission has also confirmed 2,656 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 37,198. SARS infected 8,098 people during its outbreak.

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https://seekingalpha.com/news/3539872-coronavirus-death-toll-tops-sars-china-goes-back-to-work

China scrambles to keep cities in virus lockdown fed

The manager of the Wushang Mart in Wuhan, the locked-down city at the heart of China’s virus outbreak, says its shelves are loaded with 50% more vegetables and other food than usual to reassure jittery customers.

Communist leaders are trying to keep food flowing to crowded Chinese cities despite anti-disease controls and to quell fears of possible shortages and price spikes following panic buying after most access to Wuhan was cut off Jan. 23.
Employees at the Wushang Mart wear masks and protective suits. Customers wash their hands with disinfectant and are checked for the virus’s telltake fever, said the manager, who would give only her surname, Lu.
“It is normal for people to worry about supply, but we explain there will be enough,” Lu said by phone.
Food stocks in supermarkets ran low shortly after Beijing imposed travel curbs and extended the Lunar New Year holiday to keep factories, offices and other businesses closed and the public at home in an attempt to prevent the virus from spreading.
That also kept trucks off the road, disrupting supplies of food to markets, feed to farmers and poultry to slaughterhouses. As the shutdown of Wuhan expanded to cover cities with a total of 60 million people, villagers set up their own roadblocks to keep outsiders and possible infection away.

This week, a Cabinet official acknowledged vegetable supplies were uneven and some “daily necessities” were sold out.
“These problems are being coordinated and resolved,” Lian Weiliang, deputy chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a Feb. 3 news conference in Beijing.
Later that day, state TV announced the ruling Communist Party order local authorities nationwide to “ensure the supply of daily necessities” including vegetables, meat, eggs, milk and grain.
The following day, the Agriculture Ministry told officials to unblock transportation and “ensure normal operation” of livestock and feed production. Unauthorized roadblocks were banned.
Merchants were warned earlier against hoarding and price-gouging. The Shanghai city government said it fined a supermarket 2 million yuan ($270,000) for raising the price of cabbage by 400%.

To reassure the public, state media are filled with photos of boxes stuffed with eggplants, cauliflower and other vegetables being loaded onto trucks for delivery to markets.
Party leaders in Shenzhen, a city of 15 million people adjacent to Hong Kong that is a center for finance and technology, sent officials to rural Yunnan province in the southwest to make sure vegetable shipments resumed quickly after the holiday, the Shenzhen News Net reported.
China already was struggling with surging food prices due to an outbreak of African swine fever that began in 2018. Millions of pigs died or were destroyed, disrupting supplies of pork, the country’s staple meat.
The price of pork doubled in December from a year earlier, pushing up overall food costs by double digits. The government has released pork from stockpiles but industry analysts say prices and the size of Chinese pig herds are unlikely to return to normal until at least next year.
In quarantined areas, trucks with government permits are allowed through roadblocks every day to bring in food. Soldiers from the ruling party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, have taken over delivery of medical supplies.

Some trucking companies are shorthanded because drivers who returned to their hometowns for Lunar New Year are stranded there by the suspension of bus and train links in some areas.
“We have eight trucks and three of them are operating now,” said an employee of a vegetable delivery company in the eastern city of Nanjing. She would give only her surname, Yao.
The Wushang Mart cut its daily opening hours from 13 to seven and put the whole staff to work in one shift, said Lu, the manager. That includes unloading 1,000-kilogram (2,000-pound) truckloads of green beans, spinach, potatoes and other vegetables.
“The stock we have now is 50% more than normal,” Lu said.
Even getting out to shop is a challenge in some cities that are under almost total quarantine.
Only one member of each household is allowed out each day to shop for food in Hangzhou, an industrial metropolis of 10 million people southwest of Shanghai, and in Huanggang, a city of 1 million near Wuhan.
Millions of households are relying instead on online grocery shopping, already a booming Chinese consumer trend.
JD.com, Alibaba Group and smaller rivals say they are delivering meat, vegetables and other supplies in locked-down cities. Employees have been given masks, goggles, protective clothing, disinfectant and other supplies.
JD.com, the country’s biggest online direct retailer, said its sales of fresh food in Wuhan were up 280% from a year ago in the week ending Feb. 2. Nationwide, it says sales of beef, pork and eggs were up 400%. The company said it sold 1.8 million bottles of disinfectant.
In Nanjing, an outlet of the Huarun supermarket chain is stocking more than usual “to make sure people have enough to eat,” said an employee who answered the phone there. He refused to give his name.
“There were some people who tried to buy a lot, but they no longer do it after seeing the abundant supply,” said the employee.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-02-china-scrambles-cities-virus-lockdown.html

WHO: Number of coronavirus cases ‘stabilizing’ in China

The number of cases of the deadly novel coronavirus being reported on a daily basis in China is “stabilising”, the World Health Organization said on Saturday.

The UN health agency said this was “good news” but cautioned that it was too early to make any predictions about whether the virus might have peaked.
“There has been a stabilisation in the number of cases reported from Hubei,” Michael Ryan, head of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said at a briefing in Geneva.
The central Chinese province of Hubei has been at the epicentre of the virus outbreak and has been placed under lockdown by the authorities in an effort to contain the virus.
“We’re in a four-day stable period where the number of reported cases hasn’t advanced. That’s good news and may reflect the impact of the control measures that have been put in place,” Ryan said.
But he added that it was “very early to make any predictions”.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the trend was “not really accelerating” but also called for “caution”.
The coronavirus has infected more than 34,500 people and killed more than 700.
Tedros warned against misinformation about the virus, saying it made the work of healthcare staff harder.
“We’re not just battling the virus, we’re also battling the trolls and conspiracy theorists that push misinformation and undermine the outbreak response,” he said.
Asked about a planned WHO-led international mission to China, he also said a list of names had been submitted to Chinese authorities and the team leader would be travelling there on Monday or Tuesday.
“The rest of the experts will also follow after that,” he said.
Asked if the mission would include members of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he said: “I hope so”.
China has been critical of measures taken by the United States in response to the virus and has so far rejected an offer of assistance from the CDC.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-02-coronavirus-case-stabilising.html

Cal. hospital pushed end-of-life care on cancer patients, oncologist’s suit claims

An oncologist is suing a California medical center, claiming that physicians there pressure patients to opt for end-of-life care and that the hospital has retaliated against him for speaking out against its practices, according to The Modesto Bee.
Dr. Robert Williams, who has had privileges at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto since 2003, alleges in the lawsuit that there have been several instances where in-house physicians at the hospital told patients to begin end-of-life care. In some of these cases, the patients were not given cancer treatments or care they needed, and in some, hospital providers recommended hospice care for cancer patients who were not terminally ill or were in cancer remission, the suit, which was filed last week, claims.
Dr. Williams also claims that he faced repercussions when he spoke out about these policies at the hospital. Nurses and hospitalists told patients he was crazy and did not follow his orders for treatment, Dr. Williams alleges.
He also claims the medical center wants to revoke his privileges. It restricted his hospital privileges in July 2018, and the suit alleges he was told not to speak with his patients once they were admitted. Dr. Williams claims he was informed Jan. 9 that the hospital’s medical executive committee was investigating him for “creating (a) hostile work environment,” the Bee reports.
Dr. Williams’ attorney filed moved to prevent disciplinary action against him, and a hearing on the matter is scheduled for March 19 in Stanislaus County Superior Court in California.
In his lawsuit, Dr. Williams seeks an unspecified amount of general, special and punitive damages for several reasons, including “emotional distress.” Fifty-one unamed defendants are also included in the lawsuit.
The hospital issued the following statement Feb. 5 to the Bee: “While we don’t comment on pending litigation, at Doctors Medical Center, decisions on end-of-life care are made by the patient, the family or its representative and the treating physician.”
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/california-hospital-pushed-end-of-life-care-on-cancer-patients-oncologist-s-lawsuit-claims.html

Coronaviruses can remain on surfaces for up to 9 days

Coronaviruses can persist on inanimate surfaces and remain infectious at room temperature for up to nine days, according to a study published Feb. 6 in the Journal of Hospital Infection. 
Researchers analyzed 22 studies on coronaviruses, including literature on SARS and MERS. An analysis revealed that the viruses normally survive on surfaces between four and five days, but can remain infectious for up to nine days. Low temperatures and high air humidity increase the lifespan.
In human-to-human transmission, coronaviruses incubate for two to 10 days and can spread via airborne droplets and contaminated hands or other surfaces. However, surface disinfection procedures using 62 to 71 percent ethanol, 0.5 percent hydrogen peroxide or 0.1 percent sodium hypochlorite are effective against coronaviruses within 1 minute.
“Different coronaviruses were analysed, and the results were all similar,” Eike Steinmann, study author and head of the Department for Molecular and Medical Virology at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany, said in the news release.
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/coronaviruses-can-remain-on-surfaces-for-up-to-9-days-study-finds.html

‘We’re definitely not prepared’: Africa braces for new coronavirus

At a Chinese-run hospital in Zambia, some employees watched as people who recently returned from China showed up with coughs but were not placed in isolation. A doctor tending to those patients has stopped coming to work, and health workers have been ordered not to speak publicly about the new virus that has killed hundreds around the world.

The virus that has spread through much of China has yet to be confirmed in Africa, but global health authorities are increasingly worried about the threat to the continent where an estimated 1 million Chinese now live, as some health workers on the ground warn they are not ready to handle an outbreak.

Countries are racing to take precautions as hundreds of travelers arrive from China every day. Safeguards include stronger surveillance at ports of entry and improved quarantine and testing measures across Africa, home to 1.2 billion people and some of the world’s weakest systems for detecting and treating disease.

But the effort has been complicated by a critical shortage of testing kits and numerous illnesses that display symptoms similar to the flu-like virus.

“The problem is, even if it’s mild, it can paralyze the whole community,” said Dr. Michel Yao, emergency operations manager in Africa for the World Health Organization.

Those growing worried include employees at the Sino-Zambia Friendship Hospital in the mining city of Kitwe in northern Zambia, near the Congo border. Chinese companies operate mines on the outskirts of the city of more than half a million people. One company is headquartered in Wuhan, the city at the center of the virus outbreak. Hundreds of workers traveled between Zambia and China in recent weeks.

“We’re definitely not prepared. If we had a couple of cases, it would spread very quickly,” physiotherapist Fundi Sinkala said. “We’re doing the best we can with what resources we have.”

The Sino-Zambia Friendship Hospital, or Sinozam, a low-slung facility near the city’s train station, has taken some precautions, including checking patient temperatures with infrared thermometers and establishing isolation areas. Employees wear masks. Gloves, disinfectant and oxygen inhalers have been stockpiled. Sinozam treats many Chinese in Kitwe and its precautions go further than other hospitals in the area.

But the employees and others familiar with the matter, some of whom spoke anonymously under the new rules, say some Chinese patients checked in with coughs and fevers but did not get placed in isolation.

Visiting Zambian health officials concluded the patients did not merit special treatment and did not take samples to test for the virus. After the people recovered, they were sent home with antibiotics, employees said.

On Wednesday, the hospital set up a new fever clinic, to which people arriving with a high temperature are now ushered to right away. It’s “unfortunate” the ward wasn’t set up earlier, Sinkala said.

Two people familiar with the matter say a doctor tending to the sick has fallen ill. Dr. Yu Jianlan has not come to work in the past week and hospital administrators have not explained her absence, Sinkala said. The other person spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Hospital administrator Li Zhibing said there were no patients with a fever and said Yu had a urinary tract infection, not a fever. But a notice posted by the Zambia-China Cooperation Zone, which manages the hospital, quoted an employee as saying on Jan. 27 that the facility “probably sees 120 fever patients a day, and at least 70 of them are carrying germs” of various diseases.

Earlier this week, a Zambian official acknowledged for the first time that his country was following up on an unspecified number of suspected cases. Zambia is one of 13 African countries identified by WHO as a high priority because of busy travel links with China.

Copperbelt provincial health director Dr. Robert Zulu, who oversees Kitwe and the surrounding region, told The Associated Press he would not discuss details, citing privacy. But he added, “when any case is confirmed, you will be informed.”

Crucially, no one in Zambia has been able to test for the virus so far. Like most African countries, it has been waiting for a substance known as a reagent, which labs require to confirm whether a patient is infected. Labs in just six of Africa’s 54 countries were equipped as of mid-week. That means a wait of two or more days to know whether a sample shipped to South Africa or even outside the continent tests positive.

Without testing, officials are “just relying on the symptoms” and whether they persist. “But from what we are learning right now, some people show hardly any symptoms at all,” Sinkala said, calling that the hospital’s biggest worry.

Zambia is one of the additional countries WHO planned to equip by the end of the week. As of Friday, WHO emergencies chief Dr. Mike Ryan said 28 labs across the continent could diagnose the new virus.

Adding to concerns at Sinozam, three employees say Zambian health officials visited on Tuesday and have been testing the bodies of two Chinese patients that have been in the morgue for days, though some added it was out of an overabundance of caution.

Li, however, dismissed the accounts of testing the bodies as “rumors.” He said one died last month of malaria and the other of a heart attack. The bodies are still there because family members in China wish to come and pay respects but cannot because of the outbreak, he said.

Zambia’s health ministry spokesman, Dr. Abel Kabalo, called the employee accounts of events at the hospital “very strange.” He vowed that if Zambia confirms a case, authorities “will definitely inform the world.”

It’s “pointless to hide information,” Kabalo said.

The WHO says countries are obligated to inform it of any confirmed cases and are requested to report suspected cases as well. The WHO chief has publicly urged countries to share information. So far, African countries appear to be complying, a WHO adviser on health security, Dr. Ambrose Talisuna, told reporters.

Several African nations such as Ghana, South Africa and Ethiopia have announced their precautions, including updates on negative test results for suspected cases and demonstrations of surveillance and quarantine capabilities. Ethiopian Airlines, however, faces questions by some in Africa about why it continues to operate more than 30 China flights a week while other African airlines have suspended theirs.

Adding to the difficulties in diagnosing the new virus are numerous diseases in Africa with symptoms that include fever or coughing or both.

It’s impossible to diagnose the new virus by symptoms alone, Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said, adding that there is a “significant likelihood” that the virus will be confirmed in Africa. And there is a risk that “panic overtakes good public health and good science.”

The foundation has committed up to $20 million to help health authorities in Africa and South Asia, another vulnerable region, improve their disease surveillance, isolation and treatment for the virus.

Concerns are high among some in Kitwe. A local pharmacy manager, Edward Goma, estimated that his business had sold more than 800 face masks in the past few days.

“So far everyone is scared,” he said. And yet he has not noticed the stricter surveillance measures seen in other countries, beyond temperature checks at the international airport an hour’s drive away.

The 15th Metallurgical Construction Group, based in Wuhan, said on its website that its overseas operations in Zambia and Congo must purchase masks, disinfect living quarters and workspaces daily and check workers’ temperatures three times a day.

Chinese employees are temporarily barred from returning to Africa, while those in Zambia are not allowed to go to China, said Li, the hospital administrator.

Chinese embassies in Zambia and elsewhere in Africa have been unusually outspoken, giving news conferences and television interviews to discuss their response to the outbreak. Embassies require arriving Chinese citizens to declare where they have been in China. They also urge citizens to voluntarily isolate themselves for 14 days.

“We are now practicing hygiene, even in the mines,” said the Kitwe-based president of the Mine Workers Union of Zambia, Joseph Chewe. “Any report of a person with coronavirus here will be very disastrous.”

‘We’re definitely not prepared’: Africa braces for new coronavirus