Wuhan Shutdown, Death Doubled, Things Are Escalating So Fast

Until 5pm, January 23th, the official number of confirmed case of the novel coronavirus goes up to 617 with 17 deaths, and plus 427 suspected case. New 172 cases added within 24 hours. 

In Shanghai, 16 cases are confirmed by now, and 22 suspected cases. only in yesterday, the number was 9 and 10.

This is what the outbreak looks like yesterday: 445 infected, 9 deaths.

This is what it looks like today: 617 infected, 17 deaths. And numbers goes up in almost every province and and it spreads to new provinces. 

The good news? The Chinese authorities have banned travel from Wuhan, including shutting down subways, buses, flight/train departure, highways and ferries starting 10am, Janaury 23th, 2020.

11 million people prevented from leaving as Wuhan shuts down

People in Wuhan are posting their first day being isolated on Weibo.

The bad news? The first few cases was confirmed this morning “witho no Wuhan travel history ”. All the infected patients confirmed before have been had Wuhan travel history or had close contact with those who had. But this morning on January 23th, the first case show up without ever been to Wuhan.

Also, the Chinese medical expert, Guan Yi, who was one of the leaders during SARS in 2003, claimed this morning after he returns from Wuhan that “The outbreak might goes worse than everybody’s worst expectations. The scale of the infection, with conservative estimate, might goes 10 times than SARS. ”

The topic “Cut your used mask into pieces before you throw it away ” goes viral on China’s main social media – Weibo. Because there might be people resell the used masks to make profits since there are right now huge shortage in the mask market.

Remember to throw your used masks in the Hazardous Waste!

Let's take a look at the latest updates of the novel coronavirus situation:

1. Wuhan City Shutdown

cancelling flights and trains and suspending subways, buses, ferries, and highways

Chinese authorities closed off Wuhan starting from January 23th 10am — a city of more than 11 million people — by canceling planes and trains leaving the city, and suspending buses, subways highways, and ferries within it.

The announcement, shared on Chinese state media just hours before it was to take effect, was a significant escalation from just the day before, when the authorities had urged people not to travel to or from the central Chinese city but had stopped short of shutting down transportation.

Expert says “the stunning scale of the shutdown, isolating a major urban transit hub larger than New York City, was without precedent.”

2. The situation is escalating fast.

Until 5pm January 23, The official confirmed cases have reached  617, with 17 deaths. The number is going up faster than ever before of the past two months. A majority of the provinces in China has found new cases in the last 24hours, and only in Wuhan there are 62 more.  

Expert domestic and broad both estimate that the actually number may be ten time than the official number or even more, since a huge number of suspected cases were persuaded to go home unregistered due to lack of space in the hospital.

3. The epidemic might goes worse than SARS

Chinese virologist Guan Yi,  one of the medical experts who leaded the country overcome SARS in 2003, who has returned from Wuhan on January 22th, claimed “the situation might be worse than SARS. There will be more people infected than 2003 and there’s nothing I can do this time.”

SARS is a similar coronavirus epidemic that infected more than 8,000 people and killed 774 in a pandemic that ripped through Asia in 2002 and 2003.

Guan Yi claims: 60-70% percent of the SARS cases are caused by individual “Super-spreader”. There was a clear transmission chain of SARS, by isolating the super-spreader that the virus can be controlled. But this time, the Wuhan Coronavirus is already spread on a full-scale across the country. There’s few we can do to block the source now.

4. New Cases confirmed with no Wuhan travel history

There have been confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in patients with no travel history to Wuhan, China's National Health Commission said this morning on January 23th.

Meanwhile, cases of the new coronavirus without exposure to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market are increasing, said the bureau.

How deadly is it? 

There are already hundreds of confirmed cases of the virus and at least 17 people are known to have died. And it is unclear how many unreported cases there are.

And although seventeen people died are just over 3% of the known cases.But the infection seems to take a while to kill, so more of those patients may yet die.

How easily does it spread between people? 

At the beginning of the outbreak, the Chinese authorities said the virus was not spreading between people - but now, such cases have been identified.

"It is crystal clear there is human-to-human transmission," says Prof Peter Horby, from the University of Oxford.

"The critical question is how transmissible is it, is this going to be sustainable?"

Sars spread between people but Mers finds it quite difficult and requires close contact.The new virus infects the lungs, so coughs and sneezes are a likely route of transmission.

When the virus is infectious is unknown.

Is it before symptoms appear, which is when flu spreads, or when they are most severe?

How fast is it spreading?

It might appear as though cases have soared, from 40 to 660 in less than a week. But this is misleading. Most of the "new" cases were already out there but have only just been detected as China steps up its surveillance.

There is actually very little information on the "growth rate" of the outbreak.

But experts say the number of people becoming sick is likely to be far higher than the reported figures.

A report by the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London said: "It is likely that the Wuhan outbreak of a novel coronavirus has caused substantially more cases of moderate or severe respiratory illness than currently reported."

There are concerns that the virus could be spread by the hundreds of millions of people travelling for Chinese New Year later this month.

Could the virus mutate?

Yes, you would expect viruses to mutate and evolve all the time. But what this means is harder to tell.

The novel coronavirus has jumped from one species to another. It could mutate to become easier to spread from one person to another or to have more severe symptoms.This is something scientists will be watching closely.

How can the virus be stopped?

There is no vaccine, so the only way of stopping the virus spreading is to diagnose people early and treat them in isolation.

Tracing and monitoring people who have come into contact with patients can help prevent further spread. Further measures could include travel restrictions and banning mass gatherings.

How worried are the experts?

Dr Golding says: "At the moment, until we have more information, it's really hard to know how worried we should be.

"Until we have confirmation of the source, that's always going to make us uneasy."

Prof Ball says: "We should be worried about any virus that explores humans for the first time, because it's overcome the first major barrier.

"Once inside a [human] cell and replicating, it can start to generate mutations that could allow it to spread more efficiently and become more dangerous.

"You don't want to give the virus the opportunity."

Can wearing masks stop the spread of viruses?

Virologists are sceptical about their effectiveness against airborne viruses.

But there is some evidence to suggest the masks can help prevent hand-to-mouth transmissions.

Dr David Carrington, of St George's, University of London, told BBC News "routine surgical masks for the public are not an effective protection against viruses or bacteria carried in the air", which was how "most viruses" were transmitted, because they were too loose, had no air filter and left the eyes exposed.

But they could help lower the risk of contracting a virus through the "splash" from a sneeze or a cough and provide some protection against hand-to-mouth transmissions.

Covering your mouth while sneezing, washing your hands, and not putting your hands to your mouth, eye, or nose before washing them, could help limit the risk of catching any respiratory virus.

Click here to see what exactly is the novel coronavirus and how to protect yourself

Click here to see what to prepare for a trip during this situation and OKDeal's emergency refund poliy

Click "Read More" to see the Live Real-Time situation of the outbreak