China shuts down 13 cities as virus toll climbs

Chinese authorities rapidly expanded a mammoth quarantine effort aimed at containing a deadly contagion on Friday to 13 cities and a staggering 41 million people, as nervous residents were checked for fevers and the death toll climbed to 26.   

While the World Health Organization (WHO) held off on declaring a global emergency despite confirmed cases in half a dozen other countries, China expanded its lockdown to cover an area with a total population greater than Canada’s.   

A range of Lunar New Year festivities have been cancelled, while temporary closures of Beijing’s Forbidden City, Shanghai’s Disneyland and a section of the Great Wall were announced to prevent the disease from spreading further.   

The previously unknown virus has caused alarm because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed hundreds across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.   

The WHO said China faced a national emergency but stopped short of making a declaration that would have prompted greater global cooperation.   

The outbreak emerged in late December in Wuhan, an industrial and transport hub of 11 million people in China’s centre, spreading to several other countries including the United States.   
China is in the midst of its Lunar New Year holiday, a typically joyous time of family gatherings and public festivities.   

But on Friday Wuhan was a ghost town, its streets deserted and stores shuttered. Hospitals bustled with worried patients being screened by staff wearing full-body protective suits.   
WUHAN AFP, 
24 Jan, 2020