Coronavirus: World must prepare for pandemic, says WHO - BBC News
Feb 27, 2020There are now fears that the corona virus outbreak could become a
pandemic
. We now know that there are confirmed cases in 35 countries. It's already classified as an epidemic, but it's an update from BBC medical correspondent Fergus Walsh whosays
the combined situation in South Korea, Iran and Italy. He points out that the early stages of apandemic
are when a disease has spread throughout theworld
. Here is the assessment from the World Health Organization. This is not the time to focus on what word we use that will not prevent a single infection today or save a single life today.This is a time for all countries, communities, families and individuals to focus on preparing. We do not live in a black and white binary
world
. It's not one thing or the other. Wemust
focus on containment while doing everything we can toprepare
for a possible pandemic. According to these statistics, the corona virus has far surpassed the 2003 SARS epidemic and the Middle East respiratory syndrome MERS, both in the number of cases and the number of deaths: the SARS outbreak lasted about eight months. Here is the WHO again explaining why it is so difficult to put a deadline on this virus, we don't know what the reality will be in two or six months.There is still a chance that we can contain the virus and the interrupted strands interrupt its transmission, but the virus may establish itself in an endemic pattern of transmission in a seasonal pattern of transmission or it could accelerate into a full-blown global pandemic and in this point it is not possible to say which of those realities is going to happen well. Italy is one of the countries where numbers are increasing there has been a fifth death today there have been more than 200 new cases since Friday several cities in Lombardy and Veneto are on lockdown, meaning around 50,000 people cannot leave without permission and see how it works in these images It is a police checkpoint that has been monitored to prevent people from entering or leaving.
It is just outside a town called Cassell. Push ahead and keep going if you go a little further north. Well, this is a train heading to the Alps, but it was prevented from crossing. from Italy to Austria because two passengers were suspected of having the virus hours later they tested negative and the train was able to continue below these photos are from Milan just look at these empty shelves that's because people have been stocking up on food and supplies they want be
prepare
d in case a lockdown is imposed here, and the city is already taking different types of measures: famous cathedrals are being closed, as are some schools and some universities.Well, let's focus on a city that is closed, the city of Cadaux, not only for the south-east of Milan and the BBC's Lowen brand is right outside, well, this is the exclusion zone, now on the way to the cordon, you are the center of the outbreak and you can see there stopping all the cars that try to enter here and all those that try to enter. to leave depends on where they have me, they have authorization if they can pass and the Carabinieri and the military are deciding whether or not to expand this exclusion zone in an attempt to control the spread of the
coronavirus
and Mark has been using his phone to talk to some of the residents who are trapped on the other side of that barrier.I feel a little abandoned. The
news
we receive comes through WhatsApp or Facebook. There are many false rumors in Uralla. Mild panic in people. He panicked. Yes, people are panicking. some convince themselves that this will happen others are worried and cannot sleep this perspective a school teacher also in a city that is closed called San Fiorano supports the step our economy is not a simple call Sheila can answer we can take walks we can walk our dogs we can go for a run we can ride a bike, but the authorities suggested us to avoid contact with other people, in fact, about them we all know that we may be infected and that we may have already contracted the Corona fire and We wait these days. spend living day by day if these symptoms appear we know what we have to do waiting for the emergency numbers to be free because, as far as I know, it is very difficult to contact health professionals, so we have heard from Catania.I have heard from San Fiorano that it is a little further south, just outside the closure area, to a place called PHN South and Bethany Bell from the BBC is there, there is certainly a lot of concern that we have been wandering around, think that today the People are worried about the possible spread of this, they don't know how long the quarantine will last in neighboring cities, since we are only a few kilometers from the exclusion zone here, many of the cafe and restaurant owners we have spoken to here say They are worried about the impact on their businesses, there are very few people out and in some areas a little closer to the exclusion zone, cafes and restaurants are completely closed.
It is made from Italy to South Korea. It has the highest number of infections outside of China at over 830 and most of them are linked to a religious group in the city of Daegu, just in the south of South Korea, this was the scene on Monday. How many people are there in this queue? It's outside a supermarket and all these people want to buy. surgical masks and other supplies. The BBC's Laura Baker was in Daegu over the weekend. Here she explains how technology is being used in an effort to restrict this virus. They are using your phone to locate where you are and then they will send you. an emergency alert if you are close to where a confirmed
coronavirus
patient is well, let's now move from South Korea to the Middle East because we have a series of new infections and deaths throughout the region, in Afghanistan, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq, as well as in all.Reporting their first cases, we know that those cases are linked to a cluster of cases in Iran centered around the religious city of Qom, which is just south of Tehran, visited by millions of Shia Muslim pilgrims each year. They run it bought at the BBC. Based on what we know about what is happening in the city, Persian is introducing some measures about security at the shrine, the Shia shrine there and they said there will be no more public prayers for a while and they put some some fences between the shrine so that people don't touch it, but the problem is that they lack infrastructure and they lack accurate reporting.
Let's look at that last point because the official death toll in Iran is currently 13, but a calm MP claims the real number is at least 50 in the city alone and accuses authorities of lying about the magnitude of the problem. Deputy Minister of Health has responded saying if the number of deaths in calm reaches 1/2 or 1/4 of this figure I will resign but that local parliamentarian has responded. I have given the names of 40 dead people to the Deputy Minister Now we are waiting for his resignation well your Rahner again in at least seven provinces of Iran cases of coronavirus have been confirmed and many of them are religious hotspots, for example, the city of Mashhad, which houses one of the shrines of the office years, is open and the authorities do not even They have confirmed no cases in Mashhad, but we know that Kuwait had to evacuate 700 P of their people.
They have confirmed that there were three cases that came from Iran, but that sanctuary is open tonight, thousands of people are holding a shyah shyah celebration. and they are side by side celebrating this event. It's amazing how many people are there. While we know that a virus is growing and how you and your colleagues at BBC Persian get good information about the virus inside Iran, given that it is difficult to get good information about anything related to the government, it is very difficult for the numbers we warm hearing from our viewers is much more than what the Iranian authorities are confirming and it is a serious concern because they say that 61 confirmed cases and 13 people have died, but what people tell me is much more than that and when the proportion between The confirmed cases and deaths are much higher than in the rest of the world, so almost 20% of people have been killed, which shows that there is a lack of transparency as a result, people are very worried and contrast everything What the authorities and us say.
We have other cases in other parts of the Middle East that we believe are related to the outbreak in Iran, so are there restrictions on movement between Iran and other neighboring countries? Most of the neighbors have closed their borders and suspended their flights to several cities in Iran and remember. because Qom city is a religious city, Masch Hive is a religious city, they have many foreign pilgrims there and in the way city there is a seminary, which is the most important seminary there, so there are many Shia students there and then they have traveled back. to their countries this is how it has spread rapidly in many of the Muslim countries in the region now this crisis is very much a cause for global concern of course but China remains at its center these are the latest statistics on the situation there , more than 77,000 confirmed cases more than two and a half thousand deaths and the Chinese government has now made the hugely symbolic decision to postpone its annual parliamentary meeting, which is the National People's Congress, which was due to take place in Beijing next month.
Steve McDonald's there, this is the most important political meeting of the year and postponing it will really make everyone pay attention in China, I certainly mean I would have had to go back to probably the Cultural Revolution for the last time that the National People's Congress didn't go ahead. as planned at the right time, but you know you can understand why imagining three thousand delegates coming to Beijing from all over the country, including those from a province that is now at the center of the problem, as well as potentially getting infected, some of they could be infected. bringing the corona virus to the Great Hall of the People where the senior leaders of China, our climate, you know, the heads of military business leaders and the like are in that meeting, now imagine potentially infecting all of those people with yours, this disease that can be so deadly.
With a political dimension to the story, Stephen makes his Sad John count in Beijing too with an update on what China is doing to combat the spread of the virus more widely. China is doing everything it can to contain the virus. This is an infection control team in training, but there are still questions about its early response and the silencing of doctors trying to raise the alarm today, although the World Health Organization was full of praise. China has deployed probably the most ambitious and I would say agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history. To what extent do you think cover-up and censorship played a role in allowing this virus to accelerate at the rate it did?
I don't know, frankly, I didn't look at it to be completely honest, but what worries me most is this has the rest of the world learned the lesson of speed once China realized the danger: it pushed for a rapid quarantine in the cities and effectively shut down its economy while the virus was allowed to get out of control in the Hebei province where it spread. Smaller but significant pockets for each province in China this is the picture of a disaster and forced the government to act and this is what happened, the official figures show that in who, although the numbers are still high, they are stabilizing and to the rest of China.
Even better
news
, the numbers remained low due to those containment measures and if we look closer for over a week, they have been falling. China has been so effective that the World Health Organizationsays
it is now safe to restart the economy, good news. on this farm with the roads blocked, of course, has reduced sales. Wei Hong kun tells me that if China's control of information helped start the crisis, its control over its people could help solve it. John said it's worth BBC News Beijing almost every day we do. These full summaries of the coronavirus crisis and if you want to watch them again, you can get them in the UK via iPlayer, but anywhere in the world via the BBC News YouTube channel.If you have any copyright issue, please Contact