01/31/2020 / By Ethan Huff
It’s official: Coronavirus has now reached the four corners of China, with Tibet, the last of China’s 34 regions to not have a confirmed case before now, reporting its very first one.
China’s National Health Commission (N.H.C.) issued the proclamation, which coincided with another announcement by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) officially designating coronavirus as a global pandemic.
According to the N.H.C., the Tibet case was identified in the region’s southwestern frontier, while elsewhere in the world reports are coming in of person-to-person viral transmission – meaning infected individuals are now spreading coronavirus outside of China’s borders.
Johns Hopkins University recently created a G.I.S. map depicting all of the areas in China where coronavirus has been identified, as well as the number of cases in each region.
As you’ll notice, there are dots now blanketing the country, illustrating that coronavirus has not been contained to Wuhan as the communist Chinese government wanted us all to believe.
As of this writing, the official infection count is 8,236 cases of coronavirus, and 171 deaths.
It’s important to note that the coronavirus case in Tibet, as well as similar cases in Qinghai and Xinjiang, was identified in a very remote and rural area with low population numbers.
If the disease has now reached areas that can almost be described as Siberia, in other words, then it’s likely spreading to the four corners of the planet much more rapidly and severely than health authorities are claiming.
As of Wednesday, January 29, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases eclipsed that of S.A.R.S. (severe acute respiratory syndrome) from back in 2002-03, which officially topped out on the Chinese mainland at 5,327 confirmed cases.
What this means is that coronavirus is a whole different animal, the global impact of which remains to be seen in the coming days.
China’s response to the cat getting out of the bag is to hurriedly try to build not one but two new hospitals in under a week, a monumental endeavor that might be too little, too late.
Video footage published by Business Insider shows hospital building construction being fast-tracked in China. The new Wuhan Huoshenshan Hospital is set to open on February 3, and the Leishenshan Hospital, also in Wuhan, is set to open on February 5.
With emergency face masks, hand sanitizer, and other necessities in short supply, China is apparently hoping that these two new hospitals can be effectively used for containment purposes.
The Huoshenshan Hospital will have 269,000 square feet and 1,000 beds, while the Leishenshan Hospital will have 323,000 square feet and 1,300 beds, according to official government reports.
Here in the United States, however, the situation is largely being downplayed, even as the first confirmed human-to-human infection case is now being reported in our country.
“Given what we’ve seen in China and other countries with the novel coronavirus, C.D.C. experts have expected some person-to-person spread in the U.S.,” stated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert R. Redfield in an announcement about the news.
“We understand that this may be concerning, but based on what we know now, we still believe the immediate risk to the American public is low,” he added.
Multinational corporations like Starbucks, McDonald’s, and even Google are also reporting franchise and office closures throughout China as a precautionary measure.
The latest coronavirus news can be found at Outbreak.news.
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