Coronavirus: Senior Chinese officials 'removed' as death toll rises- BBC News

Well, the statistics on the

coronavirus

have been revised upwards. A further 250

death

s have been recorded, almost all of them in Hubei province where this outbreak began and, as you can see from this graph, there has been a large increase in the number of cases; There are now more than 48,000 in Hubei, that's 15,000 more and the upward shift is partly due to a broader definition of the virus and how it is diagnosed. Here's the World Health Organization, crucially: we understand that most of these cases relate to a period going back more than days and weeks and our cases reported retrospectively from the beginning of the outbreak itself, well, Here is the number of cases in China going up and up, now we are close to 60,000, the number of

death

s in China exceeds one thousand three hundred and fifty. but in reality that figure is higher.

Those who die at home are not counted in the official figures and the BBC knows from speaking to people in Wuhan that this is what people choose to do. Here is a quote from an article on the BBC News website. I would rather die at home than go into quarantine, and as this crisis escalates, there is increasing pressure on the authorities, which is why

senior

officials

in Hubei have now been fired. Let's get more information from Steven MacDonald in Beijing now about whether or not the firing of those two

senior

Communist Party

officials

on this very day is a coincidence, I'm not sure, but it doesn't seem right to them.

I mean, the Bay Party secretary and the Wuhan city party secretary have been

removed

, but someone had To fall for this, I mean there is a lot of public anger. A lot could have been done to control this before millions of people left Wuhan and in fact there is a lot of evidence to show that in those early days they tried to stop the information. and here is Celia Hatton on who could replace those officials, there are two new men in place and in Hebei and in Wuhan they are loyal to see Jinping, especially the man in charge of the province's genome, he comes from Shanghai now he is a man known for his strict security. measures, but also last year he implemented a city-wide recycling program in Shanghai.

Now I know that probably doesn't sound that impressive, but in a city of 23 million almost overnight to get all those people to suddenly follow new rules, he managed to pull it off. The program is still in effect and is being carried out all over China, so here we have a man who is known for his confidence and for implementing really big projects overnight, while all those skills will be necessary because the Scientists and officials are trying to work together to create a fashionable and effective factor. answer for more information on this, this is David Heyman who led the WHO response to the SARS virus in 2003.

We are all worried about what we don't know, so far we know what is happening and what we can see, but what not. We know the real potential of this virus if this could eventually become an endemic disease in humans like TB influenza or others because influenza also comes from animals to humans and sometimes becomes a permanent resident. Another important detail is that we know that this virus is not spreading particularly fast outside of China here's David Heyman again, well it certainly spread throughout China and China is making every effort to stop the disease, but the important thing is those 24 sites outside of China and also the cruise.

That's where the information about the severity of the disease is really coming from because the patients here are being monitored very closely as are their contacts and we're learning a lot as we see what happens in these situations that will hopefully block the illness. in these countries and not allow it to spread further, let's shift our focus from China further south to Vietnam because a city in the far north of Vietnam of about 10,000 people is now under quarantine after five cases of the virus. This is an image we have. From the checkpoints that have been established on the outskirts of the city since Vietnam, we then moved to Cambodia because that American country.

The cruise ship that had been rejected by five countries was finally able to dock here. He spent two weeks at sea looking for a place to stop even though there are no confirmed cases on board and it's a picture we saw online. of passengers applauding and toasting with their glasses when they finally arrived at the port and although they could celebrate, if not for the engine, they will still have to stay on board as a precaution. Next we have to talk about maybe the cruise ship that has been getting the most attention is that the Diamond Princess is currently stuck in Yokohama in Japan, it has over three and a half thousand people on board and no one is getting off, that's because All of those people, at least 200 passengers and crew, are infected.

Wingfield Hays is right next door. so the number of infections on board the Diamond Princess behind me here in Yokohama has increased again today: 44 new cases confirmed today, followed by 39 cases yesterday and that brings the ship's total number of infections to 218, which means As we now know, this is now the largest outbreak of the Cova 19 virus outside of mainland China. The Japanese government has made a small concession to the criticism that has been mounting over the way it is handling this outbreak. They have said that very old people in recent years Over 80s will be allowed to disembark if they have underlying health conditions or if they are in one of those inside cabins that don't have windows or outside balconies, so let's hope that starts to happen maybe tonight or Friday, but there are many questions that remain, first of all obviously if our infection is still happening, if the virus is still circulating on the ship, no one really knows and the other big question is why the Japanese government has not yet managed to test all passengers and crew on board.

Two weeks ago, a group of British citizens were evacuated from Wuhan and China and spent two weeks in a hospital in northwest England. Well, now all 83 have been discharged. You can see one of them celebrating there that they have been discharged. Fiona's trot, all clear, was there when they left, something strange to eat, for them they were evacuated from China, coming here, we all signed a form agreeing to be quarantined, asking if I have the virus and then getting used to the confinement itself, a man here, Leah shouting I'm free, so there is relief here this afternoon, but also what is very, very clear is that the 83 people here are very, very grateful to the NHS staff for the care they have received, the man celebrating his launch here is Matt Raw and he's been giving his reaction to the BBC.

It's lovely, absolutely lovely, to be out and about and I'll no doubt go out for a pint a little later and well, who would blame him? Not that Matt is complaining. about your ordeal, I should say that 99.9% of us, if not 100% of us, are very happy to have been here, we are very grateful to have been here, you know, the last thing any of us would have wanted It's having transmitted that virus if we were infected, transmitting it to someone else, you know you have to live with it, you know, if someone gets sick from it and dies, we would have to live with it to gain knowledge. for the rest of our lives and of course you know that's not who we are most of us travel a lot we travel a lot and you know there are risks associated with that so we take ourselves seriously as expats and Of course, I want to be as responsible as possible and if that means staying in quarantine for a couple of weeks, so be it.