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Astonishing report identifies Covid’s alleged “patient zero”

A bombshell report has claimed the infamous Covid-19 "patient zero” was a Wuhan scientist carrying out experiments on souped-up coronaviruses. The scientist in question, Ben Hu, was conducting risky tests at the Wuhan Institute of Virology with two colleagues, Ping You and Yan Zhu, the report states. It is understood that all three suffered Covid-like symptoms and required hospital care weeks before China broke the news of the virus outbreak to the rest of the world. The Sun reported that the name of “patient zero" has never been disclosed until now. Many US government officials have now identified the three scientists in a shocking report by journalists Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi. Writing in the Substack newsletter Public, the pair alleged the scientists were experimenting with coronaviruses when they fell ill in 2019. Several experts and intelligence officials have long suspected scientists at the lab accidentally spread the virus during so-called “gain of function” experiments on bat coronaviruses. The naming of “patient zero” could prove to be the smoking gun, only adding to mounting circumstantial evidence of a lab leak. It is unclear who in the US government had the intelligence about the sick lab workers, how long they had it, and why it was not shared with the public. The Australian journalist and Sky News host Sharri Markson spoke to The Sun about the lab leak theory in 2021 and dubbed it an “explosive development”. Jamie Metzl, a former member of the World Health Organisation advisory committee on human genome editing, described it as a possible “game changer”. “It’s a game changer if it can be proven that Hu got sick with Covid before anyone else,” he said. “That would be the ‘smoking gun’. Hu was the lead hands-on researcher in (virologist Shi Zhengli’s) lab.” DRASTIC, an international team of scientists and sleuths attempting to piece together Covid-19’s origins, researched the three scientists in 2021. The Wuhan Institute of Virology’s website lists Hu’s biography showing he was working as an assistant researcher. He was said to be the “star pupil” of virologist Shi Zhengli — the virologist at the lab who became known as “batwoman” for her research on bat coronaviruses. Markson, the author of What Really Happened in Wuhan, said that Hu was running a state-funded project in 2019 to test if new coronaviruses could infect humans. The study involved souping up the viruses and experimenting with them on humanised mice. However, the results were never published and the study’s existence was erased from the internet as Covid-19 was spreading around the globe, which raised suspicion of a possible lab leak. A source told The Sun that footage from 2017 that was aired by Chinese state-run TV showed Hu working in the lab without protective gear. The same video shows scientists from the Wuhan lab searching for bat viruses with inadequate protective gear. Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at MIT and Harvard, told Public, “Ben Hu is essentially the next Shi Zhengli. “He was her star pupil. He had been making chimeric SARS-like viruses and testing these in humanised mice. “If I had to guess who would be doing this risky virus research and most at risk of getting accidentally infected, it would be him.” She noted, “If this info had been made public in May of 2020, I doubt that many in the scientific community and the media would have spent the last three years raving about a raccoon dog or pangolin in a wet market.” US scientist Dr Steven Quay, “He was always my first choice for one of the infected Wuhan Institute of Virology workers but it seemed too simple.” A bill signed by US President Joe Biden in 2023 called for the release of the names of the sick scientists, their symptoms, and whether they had been involved with or exposed to coronavirus research. The US is currently preparing to release previously classified material, which could include the names of the three Wuhan scientists. Earlier in 2023, FBI director Christopher Wray said, “the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan”. China has long been accused of attempting to cover up or distort its involvement with Covid-19, but they continue to deny claims. In March 2023, China’s former government scientist confessed the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn’t be ruled out, sparking uproar in Beijing. Professor George Gao, the former chief of China’s Centre for Disease Control, played a key role in the efforts to trace the origins of Covid-19, insisting scientists should “suspect anything”. Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 podcast Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origin, Professor Gao said, “You can always suspect anything. That’s science. “Don’t rule out anything.” Professor Gao retired from the CDC in 2022 after playing a key role in the pandemic response and efforts to find the mysterious origin of the virus. He would have had access to highly classified government information on the outbreak of Covid-19. According to Professor Gao, a formal investigation into the Wuhan Institute of Virology was carried out by a government department. The government scientist claimed the “lab was double-checked by the experts in the field”. Investigators believe scientists were working with the Chinese military to develop a mutant virus and pursue bioweapons just as the pandemic began. The findings followed a team of US investigators who combed through top-secret intercepted communications and research. In 2016, researchers discovered a new fatal type of coronavirus in a mineshaft in Mojiang, Yunnan province. However, they kept it under wraps, with the sample then transported to the Wuhan lab and dubbed as classified work. The virus is the only known immediate relative of Covid-19 known to exist prior to the pandemic. Speaking to The Times, one US investigator said, “The trail of papers starts to go dark. “That’s exactly when the classified program kicked off. “My view is that the reason it was covered up was due to military secrecy related to the army’s pursuit of dual-use capabilities in virological biological weapons and vaccines.” The findings came after a scientist who worked closely with the Wuhan lab claimed the virus was genetically engineered and leaked from the facility. Image credit: Getty

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Covid’s origin found

Amid accusations of it being made in a lab or purposefully made more infectious and fracturing faith in science, scientists say they have finally determined the origin of COVID-19. A team of scientists who have been investigating the virus’ origin have published their findings in two separate articles in Science (available to read <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> and <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8337" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>) and said they are at the end of their search. COVID-19 almost-certainly jumped from animals to humans in Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, with the researchers even pinpointing the most likely section of the market where it occurred. “The siren has definitely sounded on the lab leak theory,” Professor Edward Holmes, a world-leading expert on virus evolution and co-author of both papers, told the Sydney Morning Herald. “In terms of what we can reasonably do, with the available science and the science we’ll get in the foreseeable future, I think we’re at the end of the road frankly. There’s not a lot more to mine.” Professor Dwyer, the director of public health pathology in NSW and a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) team who travelled to Wuhan to investigate Covid’s origins, agrees with the findings. “That’s what we thought originally back when we did the first report,” he said. “This is yet another brick added to the wall of information around zoonotic infection.” <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> Analysis of spatial distributions of early <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> cases and environmental samples from the Huanan market point to the market as the epicenter of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SARSCoV2?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SARSCoV2</a> emergence, from activities associated with wildlife trade. <a href="https://t.co/tykjmEOGxW">https://t.co/tykjmEOGxW</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelWorobey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MichaelWorobey</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@K_G_Andersen</a> <a href="https://t.co/THYDkLualC">pic.twitter.com/THYDkLualC</a> — Science Magazine (@ScienceMagazine) <a href="https://twitter.com/ScienceMagazine/status/1551931253179514880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2022</a></blockquote> Using Chinese and WHO data, as well as public online maps, photos, business registries, and official reports, the scientists reconstructed a map of the market, including human cases and Covid-postive environmental samples from late 2019. The market wildlife section was found to have COVID-19 all over it, with eight of the earliest human cases working nearby. A stall where COVID-19 was found on a metal cage, a machine used to remove hair and feathers from animals, two carts used for moving animal cages, and a nearby water drain, was also visited by Professor Holmes on a trip to Wuhan in 2014 - where he snapped a photo of caged racoon dogs stacked on top of caged birds. “We can’t prove it is this exact stall but the data is very suggestive,” he said. Racoon dogs, along with badgers, hares, rats and foxes are among several species of animals that Covid moves easily among, all of which were being sold in the market in 2019. The racoon dogs supplied to the market came from farms in western Hubei, the Science papers note, which is an area known for extensive networks of caves filled with Rhinolophus bats that carry coronaviruses similar to the one that causes COVID-19. <img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/08/wuhan-racoon-dogs.jpg" alt="" width="601" height="533" /> Professor Edward Holmes photographed racoon dogs being sold in the Huanan Wildlife Market in 2014. Image: Edward Holmes “Raccoon dogs are a suspect,” Professor Holmes added. “I think, strongly, there are a whole bunch of animals out there who have viruses like this that we have not sampled yet.” In their second paper, the team even determined the two viral lineages that were detected a week apart in December 2019, and which one was the most likely one to have been transmitted from animals to humans. Using computers to simulate the most likely sequence of events that would produce the two strains, which differ by two small changes in their genetic codes, they found it exceedingly unlikely that the virus would jump into humans and then split into two strains. Instead, they found that it would be far more likely that multiple strains of Covid had already been circulating in animals, with two strains separately jumping to humans. As for the theory that Covid originated in a lab, you would expect it to be introduced into humans just once - rather than as two distinct lineages - with samples taken from the Huanan market also containing both strains. “That, I think, is pretty good evidence,” Professor Dwyer said. Though supporters of the lab leak theory argue that the market is a perfect super-spreader site, introduced by scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the scientists found that it isn’t the perfect spreader site that people may think it is. The scientists found that 155 cases in December 2019 were strongly clustered in the suburbs around the market, but that it is a small and rather obscure shopping spot and was among the least-visited of 430 identified possible super-spreader sites in Wuhan. “It’s like going to Coles in Bendigo on a wet Wednesday afternoon. It’s not a thriving mass of humanity,” Professor Holmes said. No-one has proved COVID-19 - or even a twin strain - has been at the Wuhan Institute of Virology either, with no epidemiological evidence showing the virus spreading near the institute. “There’s no emails. There’s no evidence in any of the science. There’s absolutely nothing,” Professor Holmes said. On top of that, Covid wasn’t detected in any of the tens of thousands of blood donations in Wuhan between September and December 2019, nor in thousands of samples taken from patients hospitalised with flu-like symptoms between October and December. “What are the odds that two lineages escape from the lab and both make their way into the market and both cause superspreader events?” Professor Holmes said. “It’s ridiculous. There is no way that can happen.” Image: Getty Images

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Chinese defector has new theory on COVID origins

A Chinese defector has suggested the COVID-19 pandemic began after the virus was potentially leaked amongst participants of the military games in Wuhan in October 2019, months before the deadly outbreak was confirmed by China. Defector and democracy campaigner Wei Jingsheng was speaking with Sky News journalist Sharri Markson for her new book What Really Happened in Wuhan. He said thousands of athletes from around the world came to Wuhan for the Military World Games in October and this was likely the first superspreader event. Jingsheng said: “I thought that the Chinese government would take this opportunity to spread the virus during the Military Games, as many foreigners would show up there,” he said. He claims he was aware of Chinese authorities experimenting with "strange biological weapons", a tip off from a government source, and tried to warn the US but was unsuccessful. Many athletes from different countries reported sickness <img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="/nothing.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/8fddf3839bed4bb6be443112db24b245" /><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.2971342383107px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844291/wei-military-games-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/8fddf3839bed4bb6be443112db24b245" /> Multiple athletes from around the world later reported sickness and symptoms consistent with COVID-19. Last month the US's Republican Foreign Affairs Committee released a report claiming Beijing was rushing to cover up the virus's spread around the time of the military games. Republican Representative Michael McCaul said: "When they realised what happened, Chinese Communist Party officials and scientists at the WIV began frantically covering up the leak.” "But their coverup was too late — the virus was already spreading throughout the megacity of Wuhan," he added. <img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="/nothing.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/4f8f86d22ea94363be718fe6352928ca" /><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.1804008908686px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844293/wei-jingshang-lab-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/4f8f86d22ea94363be718fe6352928ca" /> China suggests other countries are responsible for COVID China has pointed to overseas, including Italy, France and the US, where it says the virus was detected long before it reported its first official cases in December 2019 but Jingsheng’s theory provides an explanation for such cases. The Communist Party of China has become angry over what it claims is a concerted effort from the West to smear China when it comes to the investigation of the origins of COVID. Beijing has suggested it was the US who imported the virus to Wuhan during the military games, calling for investigations into its Fort Detrick facility. Former US president Donald Trump suggest the evidence points to a lab leak <img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="/nothing.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/687e3da31a264cff9642b3b46f5b8426" /><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.2018489984592px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844292/wei-trump-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/687e3da31a264cff9642b3b46f5b8426" /> Former US president Donald Trump also spoke with Markson for her book and he claimed it’s “obvious” the virus had been leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Trump made a point of saying he didn’t think the virus was “intentionally” spread but that it escaped via an accidental leak. “I don’t know if they had bad thoughts or whether it was gross incompetence, but one way or the other, it came out of Wuhan, and it came from the Wuhan lab,” Trump said. Trump added one indication was the early emergence of stories filtering into his office about body bags being piled up outside the lab. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also talked with Markson and he said there was “enormous, albeit indirect, evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the centrepoint for this.” “The cumulative evidence that one can see points singularly to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he said. Pompeo added the US has intelligence three scientists at the lab fell ill two months before the first cases of COVID were officially reported in December 2019. Former US director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe says these scientists are now missing. Another claim that was delivered to Trump was that a lab worker left for lunch and met his girlfriend, infecting her with the virus. WHO chief calls for more investigation of the lab leak theory Initially criticised for his soft approach with China, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus surprisingly questioned the findings of a joint mission into the origins of COVID earlier this year, calling for more to be done to investigate the lab leak theory. Image: Getty Images and Sky News

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Delta variant more infectious than Wuhan strain, study finds

A new study from the UK has found that the Delta strain of COVID-19 is eight times less sensitive to vaccine antibodies than the original Wuhan strain. The study also found that changes to the spike protein in the Delta variant improved its ability to replicate and enter cells, in comparison to the Kappa variant. The authors say this might explain how the Delta strain has become the most dominant variation of the disease. The study, published in the journal <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03944-y" target="_blank">Nature</a>, compared the mutated Delta variant against the mutated Wuhan-1 variant which was used to develop the vaccines. The team, led by Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease, also analysed infections of 130 healthcare workers across three hospitals in Delhi, India, over six weeks. Though each of the workers studied had received both doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the researchers found that the vaccine was less effective against the Delta variant than other variants. “By combining lab-based experiments and epidemiology of vaccine breakthrough infections, we’ve shown that the Delta variant is better at replicating and spreading than other commonly-observed variants,” Professor Gupta <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/spread-of-delta-sars-cov-2-variant-driven-by-combination-of-immune-escape-and-increased-infectivity" target="_blank">said</a>. Joint senior author Dr Patha Rakshit from the National Centre for Disease Control, Delhi, India, said: “The Delta variant has spread so widely to become the dominant variants worldwide because it is faster to spread and better at infecting individuals than most other variants we’ve seen. “It is also better at getting around existing immunity - either through previous exposure to the virus or vaccination - though the risk of moderate to severe disease is reduced in such cases.” Professor Anurag Agrawal from the CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi, India and joint senior author said the infection of healthcare workers with the Delta variant could have severe consequences. “Although they themselves may only exhibit mild COVID, they risk infecting individuals who have suboptimal immune responses to vaccination due to underlying health conditions - and these patients could then be at risk of severe disease,” Professor Agrawal said. With their findings, Gupta and his colleagues say we will need to develop strategies for boosting the effectiveness of vaccines against variants of COVID-19. “We urgently need to consider ways of boosting vaccine responses against variants among healthcare workers,” Professor Agrawal added. “[This research] also suggests infection control measures will need to continue in the post-vaccine era.”

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Chance of COVID emerging naturally is “one in a million”

As COVID-19 vaccinations continue to be administered and the number of coronavirus cases remains low in Australia (or New Zealand), scientists are looking to answer one remaining question: where did the virus come from? The lab leak theory Dr Steven Quay, the chief executive of biopharmaceutical company Atossa Technologies and former faculty member at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, said the probability of SARS-CoV-2 emerging naturally was “literally one in a million”. Presenting at a conference organised by the Hudson Institute in Washington DC alongside astrophysicist Professor Richard Muller, the pair accused Chinese scientists of concealing the origins as a manufactured virus. The increased interest in the origin of the virus comes after the US government ordered its intelligence agencies to investigate the origins of COVID-19. Dr Quay said the <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/who-convened-global-study-of-origins-of-sars-cov-2-china-part">report conducted by the World Health Organisation</a>, tabled in March, had “censored” the earliest cases of COVID-19 outside of the Wuhan wet market. “This is not science, this is obfuscation,” he added. Professor Muller said there were concerns scientists who pursued the “lab leak” theory would be “blacklisted and labelled an enemy of China”. An alternative theory Others theorise that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been performing “gain of function” experiments - where a virus is manipulated to make it more infectious. This kind of research has been conducted at labs around the world, according to Professor Dwyer. “The institute haven’t published anything significant on gain-of-function studies. I’m not an expert in that area, but my understanding is they weren’t doing gain-of-function work that has been obviously traceable.” Flaws in the theory Though some have labelled the WHO report as inconclusive, the 17 international experts who produced the report concluded the most likely origin of the pandemic came from the virus jumping between species - possibly from bats to pangolins - and then to humans. Professor Dwyer, director of public health pathology in NSW and one of the experts who contributed to the report, said the key flaw in the lab leak theory was there was no evidence the Wuhan Institute of Virology had the virus before the pandemic. “The laboratory leak, for that to be the origin … meant they must have had the virus to begin with, and we don’t have evidence of that,” he said. “The lab leak sits there, but you need some sort of evidence to take it further.” The institute had been working to find and publish papers on new bat coronaviruses, including a virus that is the closest known match to COVID-19 so far, and Professor Dwyer said it was unlikely the institute would have had SARS-CoV-2 and not published anything about it. “They are a pretty prominent research institute. They publish a lot of very good papers and have collaborations with people around the world. If they had it, there was no reason to hide it from a scientific or intellectual point of view.” Additionally, some have argued that the lack of an identified intermediate host for the coronavirus supports the lab leak theory, with science journalist Nicholas Wade claiming the SARS intermediate was found within four months of that outbreak. But, Professor Dwyer said it actually took 15 years to find the animal source of SARS. “These things can take time,” he said. “We felt transmission from bat to some sort of intermediate animal to humans was the most likely because it has occurred before - and not just once before, but several times. “Based on history, based on things like what markets are like in Wuhan and other neighbouring countries … that seems to be the most likely scenario for it to develop.”

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Australia's only scientist on Wuhan team delivers COVID-19 origin update

Australian scientist Professor Dominic Dwyer believes that COVID-19 started in China and had been circulating around the community much earlier than December 2019. Dwyer is involved in the inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and his views have been challenged by the Chinese scientists in the World Health Organisation joint investigation who believe the disease might've been brought into China on frozen food packets. Dwyer, a microbiologist and infectious disease expert with NSW Health Pathology said that the evidence is "very limited" for an origin outside of China. He was the only Australian in a 14-strong team working for the World Health Organisation. WHO experts said last night that COVID-19 most likely appeared in humans after jumping from an animal, dismissing claims that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab. "I think it started in China, I think the evidence for it starting elsewhere in the world is actually very limited," Professor Dwyer told <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.9news.com.au/" target="_blank">9News</a> from hotel quarantine in Sydney. "There is some evidence but it's not really very good. "I think it's most likely that it came from a bat. We know that other viruses that are closely related to (COVID-19) are present in bats. "We know that other viruses like MERS and SARS back in 2003 also came from bats. Now these bats don't respect borders of course so they are present not just in China but in other parts on South East Asia and indeed elsewhere around the world." <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EXCLUSIVE?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#EXCLUSIVE</a>: Aussie scientist Dominic Dwyer has spoken to <a href="https://twitter.com/9NewsAUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@9NewsAUS</a> after returning from Wuhan, where he was on the WHO team investigating <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> "I think it started in China. The evidence for it starting elsewhere in the world is very limited" - Interview up shortly <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/auspol?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#auspol</a> <a href="https://t.co/kSF5nN4Fve">pic.twitter.com/kSF5nN4Fve</a> — Fiona Willan (@Fi_Willan) <a href="https://twitter.com/Fi_Willan/status/1359404660210110465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2021</a></blockquote> Despite China being less than thrilled with Australia for calling an inquiry, Dwyer said there was no hostility. "The Chinese were very hospitable hosts, everyone worked together very well, it was a joint mission after all," he said. "There were some clear differences of opinion and there were some quite firm and heated exchanges over things but in general everyone was trying to do the right thing and certainly WHO got more data than they've ever had before, and that's some real progress." When asked if he believed there would be a definitive conclusion on how the virus started, Dwyer said he was hopeful. "Many of these outbreaks actually take years to sort out, so part of the WHO work was advising what sort of studies need to be done to try and sort this out over the next year or so," he said. "Remember with SARS it took well over a year before the bat virus was identified, I would expect it will be similar here. There's clearly a lot of work that needs to be done, not just in China but in the region and elsewhere around the world."

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Wuhan doctors admit they were told to lie about severity of COVID-19

Chinese doctors in Wuhan have been secretly filmed admitting to knowing how serious coronavirus was at the start of the outbreak, but were ordered to lie by authorities. There is growing evidence the Chinese Communist Party misled the global community in the early stages of the pandemic, a new documentary by UK broadcaster ITV called Outbreak: The Virus That Shook The World, has claimed. China informed the World Health Organisation (WHO) of the first 27 cases of COVID-19 on December 31, 2019. However they did not report any deaths until mid-January. But senior doctors in Wuhan were secretly filmed by a citizen journalist, and said they knew about the deaths as early as December. “We all felt there shouldn’t have been any doubt about human-to-human transmission,” one doctor said in the footage. <img style="width: 500px; height: 281.25px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7839576/wuhan-covid-1.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/839cf6b95524475189c53af0e096ed0a" /> “Actually, at the end of December or beginning of January, the relative of someone I know died of this virus. Many of those living with him were also infected including people I know.” Another doctor said: “We knew the virus transmitted from human to human, but when we attended a hospital meeting we were told not to speak out. Provincial government leaders told the hospitals not to tell the truth.” The doctors claimed that authorities knew the January Lunar New Year celebrations would accelerate the spread of the virus. However they allowed the festivities to go ahead anyway in order to “present a harmonious and prosperous society”. “They shouldn’t have allowed any gatherings,” one said. “The provincial and local governments knew the threat but they continued to allow crowds.” WHO infamously tweeted on January 14 about the virus: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.” Taiwanese experts interviewed by the program backed up the Wuhan doctors’ testimony. Dr Yin-Ching Chuang from the country’s Infectious Diseases Prevention and Treatment Network said his team struggled to get an answer on whether the virus was spread through hand-to-hand transmission. After they were granted permission to travel to China, the truth finally emerged in a meeting. “We asked a lot of questions, very unwillingly they finally came out and said limited human-to-human transmission can’t be ruled out,” he said. “What was the scale of infection? How big was this epidemic? How many patients were affected? We didn’t know. Only they knew this. Why didn’t China inform other countries of this human-to-human matter earlier?” Nationals backbencher Matt Canavan has since accused Beijing of having “something to hide” and said it vindicated the Morrison Government’s calls for transparency. “That’s why the federal government’s always been consistent in calling for a proper, transparent inquiry (on the origins of COVID-19),” he told Today. “The question has to be asked – if China has nothing to hide here, why they are going to these sort of lengths to hide things?” The prevailing theory as to how coronavirus began, is that it originated in bats and jumped to humans during a “wet market” that sold and butchered exotic animals. China, however, has begun pushing the theory that the virus originated overseas and arrived in Wuhan through imported frozen food products. The countries being accused include Europe, South America and even Australia.

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China bans WHO access to Wuhan

China has prevented the World Health Organisation investigators from entering Wuhan, the Chinese province largely believed to be the epicentre of the coronavirus. According to reports, Beijing is avoiding the independent WHO probe, which was expected to take four to five weeks in efforts to avoid being held accountable for the coronavirus pandemic. “Today, we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalised the necessary permissions for the team’s arrival in China,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters yesterday at a press conference in Geneva. “I’m very disappointed with this news, given that two members had already begun their journeys and others were not able to travel at the last minute. “I have been in contact with senior Chinese officials and I have once again made it clear the mission is a priority for WHO and the international team.” The WHO's Dr Michael Ryan said that the officials on the ground have not been given visa clearances, with one being sent back home and another staying in a different country until they have been given access to Wuhan. “We trust and we hope that this is just a logistic and bureaucratic issue (and) will be resolved quickly,” Dr Ryan said. “This is frustrating and as the Director-General has said this is disappointing. We trust in good faith we can solve these issues in coming hours and recommence the deployment of the team as urgently as possible.” The independent probe comes after the Chinese prvince of Hebei has plunged into "wartime mode" after an outbreak of 59 cases in the last three days. Officials have launched mass testing for the 11 million residents, schools have shut and the infections are thought to have been spread through social events such as gatherings and weddings. The Global Times published a story just days ago saying that Wuhan is hosting "more gatherings" in the New Year and that the "west" should "get used to it". “More big gatherings like the New Year celebrations, sports events and live concerts will be staged in Wuhan, which was the hardest-hit city in China by COVID-19, during 2021, and the world had better get used to it, Wuhan residents said, calling on some Westerners to save their fellow countrymen following Chinese experiences rather than attacking Wuhan’s gatherings with prejudice and hostility,” the article read. “When large crowds of Wuhan residents took to streets and launched balloons to celebrate the arrival of 2021 on New Year’s Eve, in sharp contrast with what Western media called a ghost town like Times Square with roads closed but no live audience, some Westerners with jealous eyes were sarcastic about Wuhan.”

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Chinese whistleblower claims she has proof COVID-19 came from Wuhan lab

A Chinese virologist has made claims that COVID-19 was manufactured in a laboratory and did not come from “nature” like the Chinese government is claiming. Doctor Li-Meng Yan, a scientist who conducted some of the earliest research on COVID-19, joined the British talk show Loose Women to share her claims. She says that reports the virus came from a wet market are a “smokescreen”. “It comes from the lab, the lab in Wuhan and the lab is controlled by China’s government,” she said. She says her source are “local doctors”. “The first thing is the market in Wuhan ... is a smokescreen. “This virus is not from nature.” Yan earlier claimed she was told to keep a secret about the possibility of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 back in December. She went on to say that former supervisors at the Hong Kong School of Public Health silenced her when she tried to sound the alarm. She fled Hong Kong for America in April. Dr Yan’s next plan is to release genomic sequencing that she says will trace the virus back to a lab. “The genome sequence is like a human fingerprint,” she said. “So based on this you can identify these things. I use the evidence … to tell people why this has come from the lab in China, why they are the only ones who made it.” China has repeatedly said that COVID-19 may not have originated in Asia at all. In July, the country pointed its finger at Spain, claiming that wastewater testing there found traces of the virus in March 2019.

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COVID-19 epicentre Wuhan records new cluster of cases after relaxing lockdown

The Chinese city of Wuhan has reported six new cases of COVID-19 over the last few days which marks the first officially documented re-emergence of the virus in over a month. Wuhan is the city where the coronavirus first broke out last December and had not recorded a new case since April 3rd. The city had since eased lockdowns and reopened schools. The first new Wuhan case was previously asymptomatic, and the 89-year-old man had not left his residential compound since the Lunar New Year in late January. His wife also tested positive for the virus despite showing no symptoms, the Wuhan municipal health commission said. The residential compound has had 20 confirmed cases and experts say that the new round of infections was mainly due to previous community infections. The new cases highlight the potential for new clusters of infections due to carriers who do not look ill or have a fever. On Sunday, authorities also reported new coronavirus cases in northeast China, with one city in Jilin province being reclassified as high-risk, the top of a three-tier zoning system. The city of Shulan was raised from medium to high after raising it from low to medium the day before after a woman tested positive on May 7th. The new cases spike the overall number of confirmed new cases in mainland China to 14, which is the highest reported number since April 28. In Wuhan, more than 20,000 people will be tested in the area where the cluster of new cases was found. Almost 4,000 people have died across the city according to the official tally. There is speculation that the figure could be higher as China faces questions from other countries about the accuracy of its reporting on COVID-19 cases.

News

“We’ll hold those responsible accountable”: US claims virus came from Wuhan lab

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed there was “enormous evidence” the new coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory, but did not provide any of the alleged evidence. Pompeo, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said on Sunday there was “enormous” and “significant” evidence that the coronavirus outbreak began in a laboratory in Wuhan, China. “I think the whole world can see now, remember, China has a history of infecting the world and running substandard laboratories,” Pompeo told ABC’s This Week. “President Trump is very clear: we’ll hold those responsible accountable.” At first, Pompeo said he believed “the best experts so far seem to think it was man-made”. But he later said he agreed with the “wide scientific consensus” from the US intelligence community that “the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified”. Pompeo’s statement indicated an escalation in rhetoric amid the country’s tensions with China. US President Donald Trump made a similar unsupported claim on Thursday, saying that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/30/donald-trump-coronavirus-chinese-lab-claim">he had proof the pandemic started in a Chinese laboratory</a>. On the same day, Pompeo said in an interview: “We don’t know if it came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We don’t know if it emanated from the wet market or yet some other place. We don’t know those answers.” Most epidemiologists believe the virus was likely introduced from bats to humans through an intermediary animal. The US had confirmed more than 1.15 million coronavirus cases and 67,000 deaths as of Monday, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre. Trump has faced widespread criticism for having overseen a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-who-funding.html">slow and ineffective</a>“ response to the pandemic as states and cities continue to appeal for more federal help in <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/3/21245815/larry-kudlow-cnn-jake-tapper-state-of-the-union-coronavirus-stimulus">increasing testing capacity and propping up the economy</a>.

News

Mother falsely accused of bringing COVID-19 to China says it's like living in a nightmare

Maatje Benassi has had her life turned upside down after conspiracy theorists falsely placed her at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, saying that she brought the disease to China. These false claims are spreading like wildfire on YouTube every day, racking up hundreds of thousands of views and have been embraced by Chinese Communist Party media. Maatje, her husband Ben and her two children have never been tested positive for coronavirus or experienced symptoms but are now subjects of discussion on Chinese social media. The family’s home address has been posted online and they had to shut down their social media accounts as their inboxes were overflowing with messages from believers of the conspiracy. "It's like waking up from a bad dream going into a nightmare day after day," Maatje told <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/27/tech/coronavirus-conspiracy-theory/index.html" target="_blank">CNN Business</a> in an exclusive interview. Maatje works as a civilian employee at the US Army's Fort Belvoir in Virginia and her husband Ben is a civilian employee with the Air Force at the Pentagon. Despite the couple working for the US Government, Maatje believes it's too much. "I want everybody to stop harassing me, because this is cyberbullying to me and it's gone way out of hand," Maajte said while fighting back tears. The baseless claims initially began after Maatje participated in October 2019 in the Military World Games and was hosted by Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak began. While hundreds of US athletes took part in the games, Maatje Benassi was plucked out of the group and named as the reason why COVID-19 hit the city. The claims have gained more traction due to George Webb, who’s a prolific American misinformation peddler. Webb, 59, regularly streams hours of misinformation on YouTube and has amassed more than 27 million views. Webb considers himself an “investigative reporter” instead of a conspiracy theorist, but Maatje’s husband Ben said that it’s “hard to hold Webb accountable”. "Law enforcement will tell you that there's nothing that we can do about it because we have free speech in this country,” Ben explained. “Then they say, 'Go talk to a civil attorney,' so we did. We talked to an attorney. You quickly realize that for folks like us, it's just too expensive to litigate something like this. We get no recourse from law enforcement. We get no recourse from the courts." Unfortunately for the Benassi family, the “damage is done”. "I know it [will] never be the same. Every time you're going to Google my name, it will pop up as patient zero," said Maatje sadly. Photo credits: <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/27/tech/coronavirus-conspiracy-theory/index.html" target="_blank">Heather Fulbright / CNN</a>

Legal

"I feel safer here”: Australian stuck in Wuhan slams those not taking self-isolation seriously

A 24-year-old teacher stuck in Wuhan during the coronavirus outbreak said she feels safer in China because Australians are failing to take the pandemic seriously. Shay Kearney, from Murwilluhmbah in north-eastern NSW, packed up her things and made the journey to the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak two years ago to teach English. For more than two months now, Ms Kearney has been holed up in her apartment after the city of 11 million was cut off from the rest of the world on January 23. “We didn’t really have time to process it. We just went straight into lockdown,” she told A Current Affair. “The streets were empty. We were stuck in our apartment, we couldn’t go anywhere and it felt like the apocalypse in a way. It was very scary.” The virus first emerged in China in December 2019, and since then has officially registered 81,470 coronavirus cases and 3,340 deaths. From April 8, residents will be allowed to leave Wuhan for the first time since January, as the city loosens its lockdown measures implemented to combat the virus. They are currently allowed outside for two hours a day as life slowly returns back to normal. Ms Kearney, who lives with her boyfriend, said she only intended to stay in China for a year but stayed on for a second because she loves her job. The 24-year-old revealed that Beijing initially downplayed the severity of the virus. “It’s just like the flu, it’s not that bad … that was before they even knew anything that was when we were just learning about the disease,” she said. Ms Kearney said it was “frustrating” seeing Australians failing to take the pandemic seriously. “I even spoke to my mum today and she’s like ‘people just aren’t getting it, people are at the beaches, people are just going to Bunnings’,” she said. “Australia’s just in this mindset that’s weeks behind everyone and it’s time to catch-up. “Honestly, I feel safer here.”

News

Australians stranded in Wuhan told no more evacuation flights planned

Dozens of Australians remain stranded in Wuhan as the Federal Government confirmed there were no more evacuation flights planned. More than 500 Australians have been airlifted out of the Chinese city where the novel coronavirus emerged, with the first cohort under quarantine on Christmas Island and the second near Darwin. In January the Government said there were about 600 Australians in the city who had registered their details, and it was prioritising “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/29/australian-coronavirus-evacuees-to-be-quarantined-on-christmas-island">isolated and vulnerable</a>” people including infants and the elderly for assisted departures. But many of those left behind said they were not notified of departing flights, the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-12/australian-citizens-wuhan-no-planned-evacuations-coronavirus/11955520">ABC</a> reported. According to the outlet, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) told families in an email there were “no plans currently for any more Australian Government assisted departure flights”. The email read: “As the Prime Minister has said, Australians should not rely on further assisted departure from Wuhan or mainland China. “We encourage you to continue to follow the advice of local authorities in China, and monitor the Smartraveller website.” Australian Shirley Xiang said she and her family did not get a chance to board the initial flight despite having alerted the Government to their presence. “We don’t mind being quarantined in the difficult environment on Christmas Island, but we didn’t get a chance for the next flight at all,” Xiang told the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-12/australian-citizens-wuhan-no-planned-evacuations-coronavirus/11955520">ABC</a>. “Now they told us there won’t be a third flight for evacuation. It is very unfair that the Government decided to not evacuate my children.” Desmond Lim said he felt like he and his wife were “being penalised for doing the right thing” by supporting the Government to fly out vulnerable citizens and permanent residents first. “We are appreciative and supportive of the fact that the government is flying the most vulnerable people out first. We want to do the right thing,” Lim told the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/10/coronavirus-australians-stranded-in-wuhan-fear-they-have-been-swept-under-the-carpet">Guardian</a>. “We were honest. We said [my wife] is safe, she is healthy at the moment. My wife’s there with her mum and dad. But it doesn’t mean we don’t want any assistance. “I feel we are being penalised for doing the right thing. You do the right thing, you follow the process and at the end of it, they say, ‘Nah, we’re not going to help’.” Lim said the DFAT email “lacks empathy” for Australians in the locked-down city. “It feels a bit like they are trying to sweep the rest of us under the carpet and make the situation go away. It’s not the right thing to do,” he said. The US government has evacuated more than 800 citizens and residents from Wuhan. New Zealand has evacuated 98 New Zealanders as well as 35 people from Australia, 17 from Timor Leste, 17 from Papua New Guinea, and more from nine other countries. The Singaporean government has flown out 266 people in two flights, and Japan has evacuated <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/02/national/science-health/japan-fourth-wuhan-evacuation-flight-coronavirus/#.XkDsWhMzYWo">more than 700 people</a>.

Travel Trouble

Coronavirus in Wuhan: Residents shout ‘stay strong’ from windows

In Wuhan, China, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, <a href="https://youtu.be/bqXfnN76S-I">residents have been shouting</a> “Wuhan jiāyóu” meaning, “Wuhan, stay strong” out of their windows, from apartment building to apartment building, to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51276496">send words of encouragement</a> to fellow citizens, doctors and medical staff at the front lines of the battle. When facing a crisis, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2011.541774">humans historically seek solidarity</a>. Community solidarity is often seen as a great way for the community to feel alive and charged with energy after facing hard times. This solidarity was seen after <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/hurricane-katrinas-lesson-in-civics/402961/">Hurricane Katrina</a> in New Orleans in 2005, after <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/typhoon-haiyan-filipinos-use-social-media-ensure-no-victim-goes-flna2D11581515">Typhoon Haiyan</a> in the Philippines in 2013 and after the <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/random-acts-of-kindness-during-the-fort-mcmurray-fire/">Fort McMurray wildfires</a> in Alberta in 2016. More recently, there are tales of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/andie-bulman-pov-bartering-storm-1.5435804">neighbours shovelling each other out of their homes </a> after the historic snowstorm in St. John’s, N.L. Near Manila, <a href="https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1213189/bayanihan-eruption-unaffected-cities-towns-welcome-evacuees?fbclid=IwAR1w0IUcuPh_Z8sCk2MBJgR23bGOVMVfoLWCz6U4Hyyn-kO6Vh5hAzBdKt0">strangers offered up their homes</a> to evacuees of the Taal volcano eruption. But how do you show community solidarity in the face of a crisis when speaking with your neighbours — and coming together — could literally kill you? <iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bqXfnN76S-I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> ‘Wuhan jiāyóu’: chants of solidarity spread across city at epicentre of coronavirus" video from ‘The Guardian.’ Boost morale As the 11 million citizens in Wuhan entered the nth day under lockdown because of the coronavirus, people have been forced to stay indoors to limit their contact with others. As fears grew, some felt the need to boost morale and create a sense of community solidarity. Soon, social media posts circulated asking residents in Wuhan to go to their windows and shout out “jiāyóu” starting at 8 p.m. local time. The posts were widely shared, leading to the phenomenon that took place. Jiāyóu (加油) directly translates to “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-45897668/add-oil-the-new-expression-coming-your-way">add oil</a>” in a way that might mean “add gasoline to your car” so you can continue to push hard and do what you need to do. In a general sense, the sentiment is “stay strong” or “keep going.” Jiāyóu is a common phrase used to encourage someone if they are facing a challenge. As the city of Wuhan faces the life and death challenge of the coronavirus, jiāyóu works as a phrase that resonates with residents of a city struggling to survive. “Wuhan jiāyóu” (武汉! 加油!) is now the motto of Wuhan to keep spirits high in the face of this spreading pandemic. <img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312746/original/file-20200130-41485-17ocjao.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" alt="" /> A comment left on ‘The Guardian’s’ Youtube video of the ‘jiāyóu’ chants. YouTube/The Guardian In addition to raising morale and giving a strong sign of life to a city that has been rendered a ghost town, the jiāyóu chants have also served another purpose: for the global media audience, it has helped to humanize the citizens of Wuhan. Apocalyptic fear Even with the exceptional stories like the reporting of “Wuhan jiayou” by <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51276496">the BBC </a> and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/28/indoor-fishing-and-chanting-battles-how-chinas-quarantined-millions-are-keeping-busy">Guardian</a>, western media <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i4fvH-EFDU_xzP-gt3OxZR0RGAvLqU5J/view">has been shown to</a> inevitably contribute to reducing the people at the core of these stories into numbers and statistics. So far, it seems, with a few exceptions, western mainstream media has focused on medical and scientific stories. The images and videos shared of Wuhan <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/27/china-coronavirus-who-to-hold-special-meeting-in-beijing-as-death-toll-jumps">are of a ravaged</a> and scary ghost town. Some include <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000006936419/coronavirus-china-wuhan.html">videos of overflowing hospitals</a> and medical staff in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jan/30/coronavirus-live-updates-china-death-toll-wuhan-evacuation-foreign-nationals-citizens-latest-news">heavy protective gear</a>. Others have spread stories of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-rumours-panic-coronavirus-outbreak-1.5443998">apocalyptic fear</a>. Many social media posters have engaged in <a href="https://twitter.com/SimuLiu/status/1222459446799921153?s=20">fear mongering</a>. With all this, it can seem that few have treated the citizens of Wuhan as anything but <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6466587/coronavirus-risk-reaction/">potential carriers of the virus</a>. <img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312903/original/file-20200130-41516-38tn9c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" alt="" /> Simi Liu, recently cast as Marvel’s first Asian superhero has been speaking out against the racist fear mongering circulating on Twitter. <a href="https://twitter.com/SimuLiu/status/1222459446799921153?s=20" class="source">(Twitter/@similiu)</a> While these videos and images depict the reality of a city dealing with a pandemic, the face masks and crowded hospitals allow viewers to overlook the silent majority — the tens of millions of people in self-isolation at home. The jiāyóu chant and the videos that captured it have since gone viral. It is a way for citizens to reclaim their narrative. It helps to draw attention to the millions of diligent and law-abiding citizens who are doing their job in fighting this pandemic and encouraging others to keeping going in this fight against an invisible virus. I believe the humanization of the Wuhan citizens helped to send a wake up call to the world about the plight of those not infected but isolated in their homes. Many westerners have largely focused on whether the virus will spread in their countries. Few may have stopped to think of those in lock down in Wuhan and other cities in China. Some took to social media to ask why the world is not praying for Wuhan or China. Why are there no Facebook profile filters to show solidarity with those struggling against the virus? <img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312741/original/file-20200130-41554-1q6puo7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" alt="" /> Screenshot of Orlando Uy’s Facebook comment about the lack of Pray for China activities on social media. (Facebook/Orlando Uy) Most recently, in Wuhan, <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/chinese-premier-inspects-wuhan-supermarket-120000938.html">Premier Li Keqiang’s visited</a> a Wuhan supermarket where the coronavirus allegedly originated. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPfZmZZ9M0o">In an act of solidarity, he chanted “jiāyóu Wuhan”</a> with a crowd of shoppers to encourage them to continue fighting the coronavirus. While the premier was likely genuine, there is also a small warning in this government official’s act. There is a risk that acts of solidarity like “Wuhan jiāyóu” could be co-opted by government bodies to shift attention or responsibility away from authorities. This type of co-option was observed in <a href="https://odihpn.org/blog/bayanihan-after-typhoon-haiyan-are-we-romanticising-an-indigenous-coping-strategy/">the exaggerated use of “resilience” and “survival” narratives</a> after Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines to paint a picture of a rapidly recovering community doing well by being resourceful and helping each other. These narratives of community resilience pushed forth by official government messages can act to shift responsibility away from the state and international humanitarian organizations that have formal responsibilities in disaster risk reduction and recovery. Thus, Premier Li Keqiang was able to use the peoples’ chant, “Wuhan jiāyóu” to rally support in the grocery store. But he did not create a space for questions about accountability and government action. This is often the double-edged sword of community solidarity: it is powerful, but it can also be misused by the powerful. <img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130851/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qPfZmZZ9M0o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Premier Li Kequiang shouting ‘Wuhan jiayou.’ <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/yvonne-su-742700">Yvonne Su</a>, PhD, International Development and Political Science, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-guelph-1071">University of Guelph</a> This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-in-wuhan-residents-shout-stay-strong-from-windows-130851">original article</a>.

International Travel

Newborn tested positive for coronavirus 30 hours after birth

A 30-hour-old infant born in a Wuhan hospital has become the youngest person to catch the new coronavirus. The newborn’s mother was found to have contracted the virus before giving birth on February 2 at Wuhan Children Hospital. The baby’s case suggested that the new virus could be passed on to unborn children, scientists said. “This reminds us to pay attention to mother-to-child being a possible route of coronavirus transmission,” said Zeng Lingkong, the chief physician at the hospital’s neonatal department. The infected infant has no fever or cough but experienced shortness of breath, according to CCTV. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> An infant in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Wuhan?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Wuhan</a> has tested positive for the novel <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/coronavirus?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#coronavirus</a> just 30 hours after birth, said the city's children's hospital, raising concerns that infection could be contracted in the womb <a href="https://t.co/j8FIdqKgAS">pic.twitter.com/j8FIdqKgAS</a> — People's Daily, China (@PDChina) <a href="https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/1225042136980230144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 5, 2020</a></blockquote> The hospital also confirmed a second case of a newborn showing symptoms 16 days after their birth. The baby’s mother and nanny were <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/newborn-infected-with-coronavirus-raising-fears-illness-can-be-transmitted-from-mother-to-unborn-baby/ar-BBZGdIh?li=AAgfYrC">found to be infected</a> in the days following the birth on 13 January. The infant is not in a critical condition, doctors said. “Whether it was the baby’s nanny who passed to the virus to the mother who passed it to the baby, we cannot be sure at the moment,” Zeng said. “But we can confirm that the baby was in close contact with patients infected with the new coronavirus, which says newborns can also be infected.” However, Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, told <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/wuhan-coronavirus-in-infant-born-from-infected-mother-2020-2?r=US&IR=T">Business Insider</a> that an in-utero transmission was unlikely. “It’s more likely that the baby contracted the virus from the hospital environment, the same way healthcare workers get infected by the patients they treat,” Morse said. “It’s quite possible that the baby picked it up very conventionally – by inhaling virus droplets that came from the mother coughing.” More than 24,500 people around the world have now contracted the virus, with the death toll approaching 500.

News

How does the Wuhan coronavirus cause serious illness?

We usually think of viral respiratory infections, like the common cold, as mild nuisances that pass in a few days. But the Wuhan coronavirus has proven to be different. Of those infected, <a href="https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/823378-2019-ncov-confirmed-case-list-by-country-w-links-to-sources-total-cases-17-382-total-deaths-362-as-of-11-25-pm-et-february-2-2020-disclaimer-we-do-not-endorse-any-of-these-numbers">around 2%</a> are reported to have died but the true mortality is unknown. There’s much we’re yet to learn about this new virus, but we know it often causes <a href="https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/pneumonia">pneumonia</a>, an infection of the lungs which produces pus and fluid and reduces the lungs’ ability to absorb oxygen. Of the first <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext">99 people with severe infection</a>, three-quarters had pneumonia involving both lungs. Around 14% appeared to have lung damage caused by the immune system, while 11% suffered from multi-organ system failure, or sepsis. Others are at risk of complications from being treated in hospitals, such as acquiring other infections. At this stage, we know some people develop only a mild infection, while others become critically ill, but the exact proportion of each is not yet clear. Overall, there are four key ways the Wuhan coronavirus can cause severe disease – and some can occur at the same time. 1. Direct viral damage For the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1829448/">direct viral damage</a> was probably the most common way the infection caused disease. This is likely the case with the Wuhan coronavirus. Early <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2020/01/26/2020.01.26.919985.full.pdf">studies</a> have found the Wuhan coronavirus attaches to a particular receptor found in lung tissue. This is like a lock and key mechanism allowing the virus to enter the cell, and is the same receptor the SARS coronavirus used. Viruses “hijack” the host cell’s mechanisms to make more copies of itself. Damage results from either viruses taking over the cell completely and causing it to die, or immune cells recognising the viral infection and mounting a defence, triggering cell death. If large numbers of cells die, then the affected organ can’t function effectively. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1829448/">Studies</a> from patients who died from SARS coronavirus showed the virus caused damage to not only the lungs, but also other organs in the body. <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext">Early research</a> suggests the Wuhan coronavirus can also damage other organs, including the kidneys. 2. Pneumonia While we’re still piecing together the relationship between the Wuhan coronavirus and pneumonia, there’s much we can learn from influenza. Influenza is a virus but it commonly <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5481322/">leads to bacterial pneumonia</a> – this is what’s known as a secondary infection. It’s thought the influenza virus weakens the usual protective mechanisms of the lung, allowing bacteria to establish and multiply. This is especially true in children, older people and those with compromised immune systems. Secondary bacterial pneumonia is <a href="https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/75F30C0D2C126CAECA2583940015EDE3/%24File/influenza_epidemiology_in_patients_admitted_to_sentinel_australian_hospitals_in_2017.pdf">more severe</a> than influenza alone – in hospitalised patients, around 10% of those with influenza and pneumonia die, compared to around 2% of those who don’t have pneumonia. The Wuhan coronavirus appears to cause pneumonia in two ways: when the virus takes hold in the lungs, and through secondary bacterial infections, however, the first way appears to be more common. 3. Sepsis <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2492881">Sepsis</a> is a serious condition that can be caused by many infections. When we get an infection, we need to mount an immune response to fight off the pathogen. But an excessive immune response can cause damage and organ failure. This is what happens in the case of sepsis. Although it can be difficult to determine whether organ damage from the Wuhan coronavirus is a result of direct viral infection or indirect “collateral damage” from the immune system, <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30211-7/fulltext">initial reports suggested</a> around 11% of people severely ill with the Wuhan coronavirus experienced sepsis with multi-organ failure. So far no drugs or interventions have <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24581450/">been able to dampen this immune response</a>. Although several treatments have been proposed for Wuhan coronavirus, none have yet been shown to work. 4. Complications of hospital care Finally, patients who require hospital care may have complications. These include infections from intravenous lines (for drips/medication) or urinary catheters (flexible tubes inserted into the bladder to empty it of urine), pneumonia, or non-infectious complications such as falls or pressure sores. <a href="https://aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13756-019-0570-y">Studies</a> have found 10% of patients in hospital have some sort of health care-acquired infection, and around 5% have a pressure sore. Hospitals work hard to try to prevent these complications, by making sure health care workers disinfect their hands and other equipment. However, complications still occur, particularly in patients who are debilitated from long hospital stays. While most respiratory viral infections are mild, some can trigger serious complications, either directly or indirectly. It’s too early to tell how often this occurs with the Wuhan coronavirus. While we have initial data on those who were severely affected, many others may not have required medical care.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130864/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/allen-cheng-94997">Allen Cheng</a>, Professor in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/monash-university-1065">Monash University</a> This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-does-the-wuhan-coronavirus-cause-severe-illness-130864">original article</a>.

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Why the economic impact of Wuhan coronavirus is likely to be limited

The Wuhan coronavirus has had a significant human toll. More than 100 people have <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-27/who-chief-heads-to-china-as-efforts-to-contain-virus-accelerate">died</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-virus-risks-factbox/factbox-what-is-known-about-the-new-coronavirus-idUSKBN1ZQ0K5">nearly 3,000</a> are known to be infected, including some in <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-sydney-scare-as-china-heads-into-shutdown/71c2e099-d49b-42b9-b4b1-02bc4a0457a6">Australia</a>. The number actually infected will be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/26/what-is-the-coronavirus-wuhan-china-virus-sars-symptoms">higher</a>. People experiencing only mild symptoms often don’t report them. The economic cost is as hard to tease out as the health cost, but there are clues. They suggest the coronavirus will have little impact on the global economy, quite a bit in China, and some in Australia, which will most likely be short-lived. <hr /> Confirmed cases of Wuhan coronavirus <a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312201/original/file-20200128-81362-og8o5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312201/original/file-20200128-81362-og8o5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" alt="" /></a> Data included until January 27th 2019. The Conversation <hr /> China is bearing the immediate brunt The impact in China is already apparent, with 35 million people under effective lockdown, air travel curtailed, and some tourist destinations closed. In a sign the virus might spread, five million people <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/5-million-left-wuhan-before-coronavirus-quarantine-2020-1?r=US&IR=T">reportedly</a> left Wuhan before the lockdown. The Shenzhen and Shanghai composite stock market indexes fell 3.52% and 2.75% before they closed for what turned out to be an <a href="https://www.scmp.com/business/markets/article/3047765/hong-kong-markets-open-normal-amid-wuhan-coronavirus-fears-bourse">extended</a> Lunar New Year break. While China’s steps to contain the coronavirus will hurt its economy in the short term, in longer term they might contain the damage. Previous pandemics suggest scale The world has changed significantly since the the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, the Asian Flu pandemic of 1957-58 and even the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) pandemic of 2002-04. On one hand the world has become better at containment and treatment; on the other, it has become more connected. But previous <a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/difference-between-epidemic-and-pandemic-2615168">pandemics</a> can tell us a lot. 1918 Spanish Flu: According to the US <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>, the Spanish Flu hit <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/%7E/media/files/pdfs/community-development/research-reports/pandemic_flu_report.pdf">500 million</a> people worldwide, killing as many as 50 million worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States. The US Congressional Budget Office believes such an event in 2006 would have cut US gross domestic product <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/109th-congress-2005-2006/reports/12-08-birdflu.pdf">4.25%</a> below where it would have been. World Bank calculations suggest a severe pandemic, killing 71 million people, would cut world GDP by <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/977141468158986545/pdf/474170WP0Evalu101PUBLIC10Box334133B.pdf">about 5%</a>. 1957-58 Asian Flu Pandemic: The 1957-58 pandemic killed about <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1957-1958-pandemic.html">1.1 million</a> people worldwide. A follow-up 1968 pandemic had a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.html">similar</a> effect. The Congressional Budget Office believes a recurrence would cut United States GDP to <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/109th-congress-2005-2006/reports/12-08-birdflu.pdf">about 1%</a> below where it would have been. Similar countries would be affected in a similar way. The World Bank believes such a scenario would cut world GDP by between <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/977141468158986545/pdf/474170WP0Evalu101PUBLIC10Box334133B.pdf">1% and 2%</a>. 2002-04 SARS pandemic: <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/sars/about/faq.html">According to the US CDC</a>, SARS infected around 8,100 people, with 774 dying, which was a 9.4% mortality rate. Its economic impact is open to debate. SARS mainly affected mainland China and Hong Kong, with <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92473/">one study</a> estimating it cut their GDPs by 1.1% and 2.6%. But because the event coincided with the recovery from a global recession, the effect is hard to estimate. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2008.03.003">Other estimates</a> are less pessimistic. The economic impact was limited, with little impact outside of China and Hong Kong, as Australia’s Treasury <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/publication/economic-roundup-winter-2003/the-economic-impact-of-severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome-sars">noted</a> at the time. This one should be smaller Here’s what we know. <ul> <li> It’s not yet severe. Fewer than 100 people have died so far. The mortality rate is just under 3%. China has moved aggressively to contain the virus meaning it should have have less impact on gross domestic product than earlier pandemics. </li> <li> There’s been minimal global impact. There have been few cases outside China. The countries with few if any reported cases are likely to suffer little impact, as correctly predicted by a Treasury <a href="https://treasury.gov.au/publication/economic-roundup-winter-2003/the-economic-impact-of-severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome-sars">discussion paper</a> on the impact of SARS. </li> <li> China and Hong Kong are the worst hit. The impact is likely be less than SARS because the coronavirus is less severe, because of China’s forthright containment efforts and because the outbreak has coincided with the Lunar New Year break. However, the aggressive steps taken to contain the virus might have a significant short term impact. Travel has declined significantly. Tourist attractions, such as <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/24/business/disneyland-china-wuhan-virus/index.html">Disneyland in China</a> have closed. Wuhan is likely to see a significant economic decline. </li> <li> The impact should be short-lived. With SARS, the economies of both China and the rest of the world rebounded shortly afterwards. To some extent, this coincided with the world emerging from an economic downturn. But other <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/%7E/media/files/pdfs/community-development/research-reports/pandemic_flu_report.pdf">estimates</a> suggest that even the impact of the severe 1918 pandemic was short-lived. </li> <li> Different industries will be impacted differently. In impacted regions, tourism and consumer spending are likely to be the most significantly hit, <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/%7E/media/files/pdfs/community-development/research-reports/pandemic_flu_report.pdf">as was the case in 1918</a>. China has already suffered a significant reduction in <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/26/how-coronavirus-is-beginning-to-hit-chinas-economy.html">travel expenditure</a>. Other industries, including medical industries, will experience positive impacts. But given that the coronavirus is relatively contained, the impact is unlikely to spread those industries in other countries. </li> </ul> Taken together these points suggest the coronavirus is unlikely to significantly affect the world economy. Based on what we know so far, the impact on China is likely to be short-lived. The flow-on effect to countries with a relationship with China such as Australia is likely to modest and and also short-lived. Should infection or mortality rates spike, the impact could worsen.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130598/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mark-humphery-jenner-118505">Mark Humphery-Jenner</a>, Associate Professor of Finance, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/unsw-1414">UNSW</a> This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-we-know-suggests-the-economic-impact-of-wuhan-coronavirus-will-be-limited-130598">original article</a>.

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The Wuhan coronavirus is now in Australia – here’s what you need to know

The Wuhan coronavirus is now in Australia – here’s what you need to know New South Wales Health has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-25/first-confirmed-coronavirus-case-australian-as-china-toll-rises/11900428">confirmed</a> three men in their 30s, 40s and 50s in Sydney have tested positive to the new Wuhan coronavirus after returning from China. This follows <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-25/first-confirmed-coronavirus-case-australian-as-china-toll-rises/11900428">Australia’s first case of the virus</a> in a patient treated at Melbourne’s <a href="https://7news.com.au/news/health/first-australian-coronavirus-case-confirmed-in-victoria-c-664530">Monash Medical Centre</a> – a man in his 50s who spent two weeks in Wuhan. This brings the total number of Australian cases so far to four. The outbreak is still in its early days, but the early identification and isolation of people suspected of having the virus will go a long way to preventing local transmission in Australia. How many people have been infected worldwide? There are now <a href="https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/-2019-ncov-new-coronavirus/823378-2019-ncov-confirmed-case-list-by-country-w-links-to-sources-total-cases-1-322-total-deaths-41-as-of-5-am-et-january-25-2020">1,323 confirmed cases</a> of the Wuhan coronavirus worldwide, mostly among people in China. The virus has also claimed 41 lives, including the youngest victim, a <a href="https://time.com/5770924/wuhan-coronavirus-youngest-death/">36-year-old man</a> in Wuhan. <a href="https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200124-sitrep-4-2019-ncov.pdf?sfvrsn=9272d086_2">Cases</a> have also been identified in Japan, South Korea, the United States, <a href="https://www.thelocal.fr/20200125/coronavirus-in-france-what-you-need-to-know">France</a>, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam. The epicentre of the outbreak seems to be a seafood and live animal market in Wuhan. It was initially thought transmission had been from infected animals to those people at the market, with no or limited person-to-person spread. However, we’ve since learnt there has been person-to-person transmission in people who <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/explainer-how-the-wuhan-coronavirus-jumped-from-animals-to-humans/news-story/172d9f3163140ed05e1f961253e24978">haven’t visited live animal markets</a>, including the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-25/first-confirmed-coronavirus-case-australian-as-china-toll-rises/11900428">Melbourne case</a>. The person infected in Vietnam <a href="https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200124-sitrep-4-2019-ncov.pdf?sfvrsn=9272d086_2">had not been to China</a> at all, but was a family member of someone infected in Wuhan. This means an animal infection has probably learnt to jump to humans and then spread within our species. Who is most at risk? Of the cases in China, 21% have been reported as severely ill and, on earlier estimates, <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/368/bmj.m308.full.pdf">3% of those infected</a> had died. The ages of the <a href="http://www.nhc.gov.cn/yjb/s3578/202001/5d19a4f6d3154b9fae328918ed2e3c8a.shtml">first 17 people who died from the virus</a> range from 48 to 89, with an average age of 73. Thirteen (76%) were men and four (24%) were women. Most of those who have died from the virus appear to have underlying health conditions, and we know for sure in the case of ten people whose health information has been released. These people <a href="http://www.nhc.gov.cn/yjb/s3578/202001/5d19a4f6d3154b9fae328918ed2e3c8a.shtml">suffered from a range of chronic conditions</a>, including high blood pressure (41%), diabetes (29%), stroke (18%), as well as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary artery disease, chronic kidney disease and Parkinson’s disease. If this pattern continues with the mounting death toll, older men with underlying health problems are at highest risk of dying. How does it spread? If the Wuhan coronavirus behaves like the other human coronaviruses such as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome), droplets of saliva, urine, faeces and blood could all be infectious. Contact with these substances – directly from people while they’re infectious, or indirectly from surfaces contaminated with these body substances – could lead to infection. This is why prompt isolation of suspected cases and good infection control practises are so important, especially if a person turns into a “super spreader”. This means they produce large amounts of virus and are unusually infectious. How infectious is the virus? The World Health Organisation <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/368/bmj.m308.full.pdf">estimates</a> the coronavirus has a reproduction number (R0) of 1.4-2.5. This means one infected person has the ability to infect 1.4-2.5 susceptible people. But this figure could be revised as the outbreak evolves. In comparison, SARS had a <a href="https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12916-015-0450-0">suspected reproduction number of of 2-5</a>. This meant one infected person could infect up to five susceptible people. So the Wuhan coronavirus appears less infectious than SARS. The <a href="https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-phlncd-sars.htm">risk of transmission</a> for SARS was highest five to ten days into the illness. If people were isolated early on in their illness, after showing symptoms, they were unlikely to infect anyone else. But <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/pb-assets/Lancet/pdfs/S0140673620301549.pdf">one study</a> showed it was possible to be infectious with the Wuhan coronavirus without showing symptoms. This raises the possibility of an infected person transmitting the virus to others without knowing they’re sick. This would make it much harder for health authorities to identify and isolate the infectious people and to control the outbreak. What is Australia doing to reduce transmission? State and territory guidelines advise GPs and hospitals to insist people suspected of the virus wear masks and are isolated as soon as possible. They should also call ahead to their GP practice or hospital, so precautions can be in place before their arrival. If the virus started to spread in Australia, which is unlikely, health authorities would likely advise people to avoid large gatherings and ensure they <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov#how-you-can-help-prevent-2019ncov">washed their hands</a> frequently. There is a role for masks when going to public places but their effectiveness depends on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ive-always-wondered-why-many-people-in-asian-countries-wear-masks-and-whether-they-work-90178">type of mask</a>, the duration it’s worn, and how well it’s fitted. Researchers are <a href="https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2020/01/uq-responds-coronavirus-outbreak">currently working to develop a vaccine</a>, but it’s likely to be many months before an approved vaccine is available. Written by Sanjaya Senanayake. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wuhan-coronavirus-is-now-in-australia-heres-what-you-need-to-know-130580">The Conversation.</a>

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Australian student shares update from inside Wuhan amid coronavirus outbreak

A university student has shared what life under lockdown in Wuhan was like amidst the coronavirus outbreak. Australian National University student Helen Chen has been unable to leave the city of 11 million people after she travelled in to celebrate Chinese New Year with her family. Speaking in a video distributed by Reuters, Chen said she has not left her parents’ apartment since around a week ago. “There is literally no one outside. It’s pretty scary,” she said. “The last time I went out was probably a week ago, I think. “I wore a mask, most people were wearing masks and when my parents went out this morning to do groceries they wore masks as well. “I made sure that they brought hand sanitiser and they wore gloves just to be extra careful.” Chen said she was keeping busy by doing her university assignments while her father watched the Australian Open on TV. She also noted the ways people had responded to the outbreak. “Times like this sometimes bring out the worst in people as I have seen a lot of comments online but there are also good people around,” she said. “A lot of people are donating food and people are volunteering to drive doctors and nurses around … Sometimes we forget that there are just wonderful people out there who are willing to put themselves at risk of infection, and possibly even death, to help others.” In a <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.facebook.com/helecx/posts/3198588340156167" target="_blank">Facebook post</a> shared on Tuesday, Chen shared another update on life in the city. “We have enough fresh produce at home for a couple days since my parents went out again yesterday morning on a grocery run,” she wrote. “Most smaller neighbourhood supermarkets are closed but bigger designated supermarkets are open and the apparently the [government] is making sure they get multiple deliveries every day and prices are kept as per normal. “We’re more or less living our life like how we normally would, apart from the anxieties of infection and not being able to go out. But it’s all pretty mild stuff compared to what people directly involved are feeling. I do acknowledge I am speaking from a place of privilege, and my personal experience might not be the perfect reflection of the situation in Wuhan.” Chen also addressed the seemingly racist comments on social media which laid the blame on Chinese people for forgoing health and safety concerns. “I’ve seen reports of incidents where selfish individuals have knowingly put others in danger,” she wrote. “But again, it’s unfair to insist that they are an accurate reflection of Chinese people in general. Most of us are doing our part by respecting the quarantine, staying home, wearing masks when we really do have to go out, and donating in any way we are able to.” The coronavirus has so far taken more than 120 lives and infected more than 5,900 people in China. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/coronavirus-government-to-evacuate-australians-from-china/11909090" target="_blank">on Wednesday</a> the federal government will try to evacuate “isolated and vulnerable Australians” in China and take them to Christmas Island for quarantine. More than 600 Australians had confirmed to being in Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital. Foreign Affairs Minister Marisa Payne advised Australians to avoid visiting the province and reconsider their travel plans to China. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> We now advise you to ‘reconsider your need to travel’ to China overall, due to the outbreak of novel <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/coronavirus?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#coronavirus</a> & travel restrictions by local authorities. ‘Do not travel’ to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hubei?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hubei</a> Province. Contact your doctor for symptoms of respiratory illness. <a href="https://t.co/8HM6dAGpM7">https://t.co/8HM6dAGpM7</a> — Marise Payne (@MarisePayne) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarisePayne/status/1222145804711784449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 28, 2020</a></blockquote>

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