Don’t go to China, nations appeal
Credit to Author: Agence France-Presse| Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 16:18:09 +0000
BEIJING: Several nations, led by the United States, Japan and Canada, have told their citizens to avoid non-essential travels to China after the World Health Organization (WFO) declared a global coronavirus emergency, as the death toll rose to 213 and total infections surpassed SARS or its the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic two decades ago.
The State Department raised its warning alert to the highest level, telling Americans “do not travel” to China and urged those already there to leave.
Hours earlier, the WHO, which was criticized for initially downplaying the virus threat, changed tack after crisis talks in Geneva.
“Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as the emergency was declared.
“We must all act together now to limit further spread… We can only stop it together.” Tedros said travel and trade restrictions involving China were unnecessary.
But, with the disease spreading to more than 20 nations, authorities, businesses and worried people around the world were taking matters into their own hands.
Japan on Friday urged its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to China, following similar warnings by Germany, Britain and other nations in recent days.
Those warnings are not as definitive as the US directive against all travel to China. Among the array of other extraordinary containment efforts, many major airlines this week suspended or reduced flights to China.
Mongolia also halted cross-border traffic with its huge neighbor and Russia sealed its remote far-eastern frontier.
Some countries banned entry for travelers from Wuhan, the city in central Hubei province where the virus first surfaced. Italy and Israel on Thursday barred all flight connections with China.
Impoverished Papua New Guinea went so far as to bar all visitors from “Asian ports.”
China said Friday it planned to send charter planes to bring back Hubei residents who are now abroad, citing the “practical difficulties” that they have encountered overseas. Those from Wuhan will be returned to their quarantined city, the foreign ministry said.
The US reported its first case of person-to-person transmission of the virus on American soil — a man in Chicago who got it from his wife, who had travelled to Wuhan.
In a sign of growing global fears, more than 6,000 tourists were temporarily confined aboard their cruise ship at an Italian port after two Chinese passengers fell ill. They later tested negative for the coronavirus.
And a pilot union in the US sued American Airlines to demand it halt all flights to China.
China has taken extreme steps to stop the spread of the virus, including effectively quarantining more than 50 million people in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province.
But the number of new deaths and cases continues to swell.
AFP