Chinese Virus

Chinese Virus www.infralive.com 32 Infra LIVE April 15, 2020 from Wuhan. An estimated 300,000 people were reported to have left Wuhan by train alone before the 10 AM lockdown. By the afternoon of January 23, the authorities began shutting down some of the major highways leav- ing Wuhan. The lockdown came two days before the Chinese New Year, the most important festival in China, and traditionally the peak travel- ing season, when millions of Chi- nese travel across the country. By the end of January 24, pub- lic transportation systems in two of Wuhan's neighboring prefec- ture-level cities, Huanggang and Ezhou, were also placed on lockdown. A total of 12 other county to prefecture-level cities in Hubei, including Huangshi, Jingzhou, Yichang, Xiaogan, Jingmen, Suizhou, Xianning, Qianjiang, Xiantao, Shiyan, Tianmen and Enshi, were placed on traveling restrictions, bringing the number of people affected by the restriction to more than 50 million. On February 1, Huanggang city in Hubei implemented a measure whereby only one person from each household was permitted to go outside for provisions once every two days, except for medical reasons or to work at shops or pharmacies. Many cities, districts, and counties across mainland China implemented similar mea- sures in the days following, including Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, Harbin, and the whole of Jiangxi. On February 13, 2020, when China reported for 15,141 Covid-19 Positive patients, its highest in a day, the Chinese government issued extension of order to shut down all non-essential companies, including manufacturing plants, in Hubei Province until February 20. This order was extended till March 10 and included shut down of all schools in Hubei Province. On March 13, Huangshi removed controls and permits on road traffic within its urban area; Qianjiang did the same for its entire administrative area. On March 14, Hubei Sanitation and Health Committee Vice- Chairperson Liu Dongru announced that only Wuhan remains a "high-risk area", and that the entirety of the rest of the province is considered medium- or "low-risk areas". Any low-risk township-level divisions, in addi- tion to those medium- and high- risk divisions with no confirmed active cases, could lift their block- ades and other mobility controls. By March 14, besides the afore- mentioned, Huangshi and Qianjiang, Yichang, Huanggang, Suizhou, Xiantao, Jingzhou, Jingmen, Shiyan, Xiangyang, Tianmen and Shennongjia had announced "measures to lessen controls" and for industries to incrementally resume work and production. On March 17, Jingzhou removed its permit requirements for transport, resuming normal transport operations, and also removed entry/exit controls on xiaoqu (residential complexes). On March 18, the Hubei taskforce to control COVID-19 announced that, with the excep- tion of exit/entry into Wuhan and the province as a whole, all anti- COVID-19 traffic checkpoints within the province are to be removed. On March 22, Wuhan loosened its two-month lockdown. On March 25, Hubei lifted the lockdown outside of Wuhan, although people still needed to confirm their "Green Code" health classification, designated by Alipay's monitoring system, to travel. On March 27, Wuhan too lifted its lockdown, resumed all trans- portation, with residents intend- ing to leave the city facing similar "Green Code" requirements as those in the rest of the province. Symptoms & Treatment A median incubation period for virus to spread ranges from 5 to 6 days for COVID-19, with a range from 1 to 14 days. A recent model- ling study confirmed that it the seventh-most populous Chi- nese city, and one of the nine National Central Cities of China. Wuhan lies in the eastern Jianghan Plain, on the confluence of the Yangtze River and its largest tributary, the Han River. It is a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and expressways passing through the city and connecting to other major cities. Because of its key role in domestic transport, Wuhan is known as the “Nine Provinces' Thoroughfare” and sometimes referred to as “the Chicago of China”. In mid-December 2019, an emerging cluster of people, many linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, were infected with pneumonia with no clear causes. Chinese scientists subsequently linked the pneumo- nia to a new strain of coronavirus that was given the initial designa- tion SARS-CoV-2. On December 29, Chinese authorities identified a cluster of similar cases of pneumonia in the city. These cases were soon deter- mined to be caused by a novel coronavirus that was later named SARS-CoV-2. On January 10, the first death and 41 clinically con- firmed infections caused by the coronavirus were reported. The first cases of COVID-19 outside of China were identified on January 13 in Thailand and on January 15 in Japan. By 22 Janu- ary, the novel coronavirus had spread to major cities and prov- inces in China. China lockdown At 2 AM on January 23, 2020, authorities issued a notice inform- ing residents of Wuhan that from 10 AM, all public transport, including buses, railways, flights, and ferry services would be sus- pended. The Wuhan Airport, the Wuhan railway station, and the Wuhan metro were all closed. The residents of Wuhan were also not allowed to leave the city without permission from the authorities. The notice caused an exodus