Tag: Outbreak

Beijing coronavirus cases to see ‘cliff-like’ drop this week: expert | Reuters

“China’s capital will see a “cliff-like” drop in new cases in a recent outbreak of the novel coronavirus by the end of this week with efforts to cut chains of transmission underway, a disease control expert said. The city of more than 20 million people reported its first case of a new spike in infections on June 11, linked to a sprawling wholesale food centre. In all, 236 people have been infected in the worst outbreak in Beijing since the novel coronavirus was identified at a seafood market in the central city of Wuhan late last year.

Beijing reported on Monday nine new cases had been confirmed the previous day, sharply down from 22 a day earlier.”

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Beijing coronavirus cases to see ‘cliff-like’ drop this week: expert
China’s capital will see a “cliff-like” drop in new cases in a recent outbreak of the novel coronavirus by the end of this week with efforts to cut chains of transmission underway, a disease control expert said.

Anxiety in Beijing as officials battle new coronavirus outbreak | The Guardian

“In the last eight days, Beijing has recorded almost 200 new cases of coronavirus, linked to a sprawling wholesale market in the city’s south-east. That market and two others have been shut and at least 33 neighbourhoods have been put under varying levels of lockdown. Schools and sports and entertainment venues have been closed.

Officials have ordered all residents to avoid non-essential travel outside of the capital, and suspended hundreds of flights and all long-distance buses. Other cities and provinces have begun to impose quarantine measures on travellers from Beijing.

The city had lowered its Covid emergency response level on 6 June, only to raise it again 10 days later, and residents have reacted with a mixture of frustration and anxiety. Roads that were crowded as offices and businesses reopened are emptier again.”

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Anxiety in Beijing as officials battle new coronavirus outbreak
Chinese capital abruptly imposes lockdowns after fresh cases threaten official narrative of success

Coronavirus: WeChat, Alipay deny helping government identify 350,000 users who visited Beijing food market | SCMP

“The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated China’s collection of big data, especially for contact tracing. Posts on Weibo claimed that WeChat Pay and Alipay helped identify people who had visited Beijing’s Xinfadi market using their payment data.”

Full article @ SCMP:

WeChat, Alipay deny identifying users who visited Beijing food market
Chinese digital payment apps

Beijing battles ‘explosive coronavirus outbreak’ as food market cases mount | SCMP

“Scientists struggle to track source of cluster linked to massive food wholesale centre. Mass testing and strict lockdowns imposed in some parts of the capital while other cities order isolation for travellers from Beijing.”

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Beijing battles ‘explosive Covid-19 outbreak’ as market cases mount
Beijing is battling an “explosive outbreak” of

Parts of Beijing sealed off due to new corona infections | Die Zeit

“Beijing is experiencing a major outbreak of the corona virus for the first time in many weeks. According to health authorities, 45 infections were already detected in 500 tests in a wholesale market in the Chinese capital. The Xinfadi Market in the Fengtai district, which supplies around 90 percent of the vegetables and fruits of the 20 million metropolis, was closed. 10,000 dealers and employees of the market are still to be tested..”

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ZEIT ONLINE | Teile von Peking wegen neuer Corona-Infektionen abgeriegelt
Chinas Regierung meldet neue Corona-Fälle im Zusammenhang mit einem Fleischmarkt in der chinesischen Hauptstadt. Wohngebiete, Schulen und Kindergärten wurden abgeriegelt.

China’s Wuhan revises coronavirus death toll up by 50 percent | Al Jazeera

“Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus first emerged late last year, revised sharply upwards its death toll from the disease, admitting people died at home and cases were missed as hospitals struggled to cope in the early days of the outbreak.

The adjustment, detailed in a social media post by the city government on Friday, increased the death toll by 1,290 – about 50 percent – bringing the total to 3,869. The revision brought the number of dead across China to 4,632.”

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China’s Wuhan revises coronavirus death toll up by 50 percent
City says 1,290 more people died of COVID-19 than previously thought after cases were missed in early days of outbreak.

China’s initial coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan spread twice as fast as we thought, new study suggests | SCMP

“The new coronavirus could have been twice as contagious as previously thought when it spread from its initial epicentre in central China, a fresh look at the early stages of the outbreak has suggested.

Epidemiologists had previously estimated that each person with Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, infected two to three people on average, based on early cases in the city of Wuhan.

[…]

The new estimation by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is that those who carried the coronavirus in Wuhan were passing it on to 5.7 people on average.”

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Covid-19 twice as contagious as previously thought, study finds
The

How Europe failed the coronavirus test | Politico

“They could have known. They should have prepared. They didn’t listen.

Europe, in early April, remains the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic — where the outbreak, uncontrolled, morphed into catastrophe. Nearly 50,000 dead. More than 600,000 infected. And the devastation is far from over.

The world’s largest economy is paralyzed. The planet’s most open societies are frozen in fear — with the Continent’s treasured freedoms blamed for accelerating the spread of the most pernicious contagion to afflict humankind in more than 100 years.

It is a crisis with no end in sight. And it is one that Europe’s top leaders failed to see coming.

They failed to hear the warnings that containment would prove ineffective. They failed to heed experts who said no country could fight the virus on its own, failed to perceive that the world’s most advanced health care systems were at grave risk of being overwhelmed. They failed to understand that drastic measures would be needed until Italy — patient zero among EU member countries — frantically imposed travel restrictions that impeded European leaders’ own movements.”

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How Europe failed the coronavirus test
Contagion’s spread is a story of complacency, overconfidence and lack of preparation.

China: Truth In A Pandemic | 101 East | Al Jazeera

“With people desperate for information, 101 East investigates the cover-ups and missteps by Chinese authorities that have sparked criticism of the government rarely seen in China.

Government announcements and Chinese state media downplayed the spread of the virus, but citizen journalists hit the ground to expose the reality. However, they incurred the wrath of authorities and have since disappeared.

A journalist, hiding his identity for fear of reprisal, tells 101 East hat, if the media were allowed to investigate and report on the virus, it might not have reached its pandemic level.”

Read the full article @ Al Jazeera:

Searching for truth in the COVID-19 pandemic
Four people tell their stories of the Covid-19 outbreak in China.

China three months after the outbreak – It is not over yet | Der Spiegel

“The Beijing leadership wants to slowly reopen the country. Where does it get confidence from?
Beijing is currently a confusing picture. There are first traffic jams on the five ring highways in the morning and evening, but during the day many streets are so empty that motorcyclists and sports car drivers compete in races.”

Read the full article @ Der Spiegel:

China drei Monate nach Seuchenausbruch: Es ist noch nicht vorbei – DER SPIEGEL – Politik
Die Führung in Peking will das Land langsam wieder öffnen. Woher nimmt sie die Zuversicht?