​ China knew about virus before outbreak ​

The deadly coronavirus outbreak which has infected people in over 60 countries and killed 3000 was identified in Chinese labs weeks before the rest of the world found out.

An investigation by Caixin has found the test results from multiple labs in December suggested there was an outbreak of a new virus, but it was weeks before a response was put in place to save lives.

It shows that a genomics company had sequenced most of the virus on December 27 from fluid samples from the lung of a 65-year old delivery man who worked at the seafood market where many of the first cases emerged — and it bore a worrying resemblance to the deadly SARS virus.

The highly-contagious SARS virus killed nearly 800 people between 2002 and 2003.
 

However, it took two weeks before China shared the virus’s genome sequence with the world. It took more than three weeks for Chinese authorities to confirm publicly that the virus was spreading between people.

It wasn’t until two days after this, on January 22 that Wuhan, a city of 11 million, was placed in lockdown.

Today, almost six weeks after that action was taken, the city remains quarantined.

Overnight, Chinese authorities reported 202 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections on Sunday, the country’s National Health Commission says, sharply down from 573 cases a day earlier.

That brings the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China so far to 80,026.

The death toll from the outbreak in mainland China reached 2912 as of the end of Sunday, up by 42 from the previous day.

The central province of Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak, accounted for all of the 42 new deaths, while 32 people died in the capital Wuhan.
 

However, the virus is now spreading more quickly around the world. Thirty-three nations have reported cases in the past nine days.

New fronts in the crisis opened rapidly over the weekend, deepening the sense of crisis that has already sent financial markets plummeting, emptied the streets in many cities of tourists and workers and rewritten the daily routines of millions of people.

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More than 87,000 worldwide have been infected, with the virus appearing on every continent but Antarctica.

Australia and Thailand reported their first deaths on Sunday, while the Dominican Republic and the Czech Republic recorded their first infections.

Italian authorities announced that the number of people infected in the country had surged 50 per cent to 1694 in 24 hours, and five more people had died, bringing the death toll there to 34.

Iran, Iraq and South Korea, among other places, also saw the number of infections rise. Cases in the US climbed to at least 72, with the first death inside the United States reported on Saturday – a man in his 50s in Washington state who had underlying health problems but hadn’t travelled to any affected areas.

Panic buying of daily necessities emerged in Japan, where professional baseball teams have played spring-training games in deserted stadiums. Tourist sites across Asia, Europe and the Middle East were deserted.

Islam’s holiest sites have been closed to foreign pilgrims. And governments have closed schools and banned big gatherings.
 

In France, the archbishop of Paris told parish priests to put the Communion bread in worshippers’ hands, not in their mouths. French officials advised people to forgo the customary kisses on the cheek upon greeting others.

And the Louvre closed after workers who guard the Mona Lisa and the rest of its priceless artworks expressed fear of being contaminated by the stream of visitors from around the world.

The Louvre, the world’s most popular museum, got 9.6 million visitors last year, almost three-quarters of them from abroad.

Louvre staffers were also concerned about museum workers from Italy who had come to the museum to collect works by Leonardo da Vinci that were loaned for a major exhibition.

“We are very worried because we have visitors from everywhere,” said Andre Sacristin, a Louvre employee and union representative. “The risk is very, very, very great.” While there are no known infections among the museum’s 2300 workers, “it’s only a question of time,” he said.

The shutdown followed a government decision on Saturday to ban indoor public gatherings of more than 5000 people.

Among the frustrated visitors was Charles Lim from Singapore. He and his wife, Jeanette, chose Paris to celebrate their first wedding anniversary and bought tickets in advance for the Louvre.

“We waited for about three hours before giving up,” he said. “It was incredibly disappointing.”