Eddy Edson
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New coronavirus infections may drop to zero by end-March in Wuhan - Chinese government expert
Wuhan, the epicentre of China's coronavirus epidemic, will likely see new infections drop to zero by the end of this month, an expert with the country's top panel on battling the illness said on Thursday, even as the city reported a quicker rise in new confirmed cases.
www.reuters.com
Wuhan, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus epidemic, will likely see new infections drop to zero by the end of this month, an expert with the country’s top panel on battling the illness said on Thursday, even as the city reported a quicker rise in new confirmed cases.
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Zhang Boli said almost all regions outside Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital, had managed to halt new infections by the end of last month, according to an interview with the official People’s Daily.
He estimated other cities in Hubei will hit such a target by mid-March, based on data on how the outbreak has evolved, but did not give details.
New infections in Wuhan climbed to 131 from 114 a day earlier. There was no immediate elaboration.
After what some critics said was an initially hesitant response to the new virus, China imposed sweeping restrictions to try to stop it, including transport suspensions, lockdowns of cities and extending a Lunar New Year holiday across the country.
The number of new confirmed cases in Hubei, excluding Wuhan, has remained in single digits for seven consecutive days, with three new infections recorded on Wednesday.
In the rest of mainland China, outside Hubei, there were only five new confirmed cases, the health commission said.
The death toll from the outbreak in mainland China had reached 3,012 as of the end of Wednesday, up by 31 from the previous day. Hubei accounted for all of the new deaths, including 23 in Wuhan.
In another sign things are starting to return to normal, Chibi, a small city just south of Wuhan, said it will remove road blocks and restore normal traffic within its jurisdiction by Friday morning, partly to facilitate spring ploughing.
Chibi would be among the first cities in Hubei to loosen traffic curbs on travel within city boundaries. Located on Hubei’s southern border with Hunan, Chibi has reported no new cases of infections for 19 days as of March 4.
However, traffic between Chibi and other counties and provinces remains forbidden, the official Hubei Daily said, citing a notice issued by Chibi epidemic control authorities.
This is consistent with all the data reported to the WHO, which says it thinks the data can be trusted. Ex-Hubei, there are now just a trickle - less than 20, less than 20 - new cases a day, and basically zero deaths.
Note that the WHO directly contradicts the common story you see floating around: that nobody knows the true infection rate because there must be lots & lots of asymptomatic cases out there. Nope, says the WHO: in fact there are very few asymptomatic coronavirus cases.
My question remains: If China can achieve this (assuming the data and forecasts are accurate) - and adding the South Korea seems to be achieving it also - why do people including national authorities seem to assume that other countries won't be able to?
If it's just that the benefits of containment are seen to be outweighed by the economic and social disruption downside - "taking it on the chin" - then that needs to be spelled out, and the trade-offs made explicit. What is the actual cost of adding another and apparently more serious endemic respiratory illness alongside flu, versus the costs of stopping it?
It's also worth thinking about the WHO's latest ex-China "epidemic curve". Outside of Iran ("Eastern Mediterranean") there's essentially no growth in new case reports over the last week or so, once the initial blow-up in Italy and South Korea ("Western Pacific") started to be reported.
To my non-expert eye it doesn't look like a situation out of control (except in Iran).
Of course it'll look a lot worse when the US testing ramps up and we can see what "taking it on the chin" looks like there.
