Koon Yew Yin 6 March 2020
I am re-producing this WHO report to give everybody some new hope which we all needed during this trying period. I also re-produce the latest news from Wuhan.
GENEVA (AFP) – The World Health Organisation said on Friday (March 20) that the original epicentre in China of the coronavirus outbreak at last reporting no new cases gave hope to the rest of the world battling the pandemic.
The city of Wuhan registered no new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours – for the first time since reporting its first case in December in an outbreak that has gone on to infect more than 250,000 people around the world and kill more than 11,000 people.
“Yesterday, Wuhan reported no new cases for the first time since the outbreak started,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference in Geneva.
“Wuhan provides hope for the rest of the world that even the most severe situation can be turned around.
“Of course, we must exercise caution; the situation can reverse. But the experience of cities and countries that have pushed back this coronavirus gives hope and courage to the rest of the world.”
China as a whole is now reporting only a handful of new infections each day – all of them apparently from overseas visitors – as the crisis has shifted from Asia to Europe, which has now reported more deaths than China.
Tedros said the WHO’s greatest worry was the impact that the virus could have if it took hold in countries with weaker health systems or more vulnerable populations.
“That concern has now become very real and urgent,” he said, but added that significant sickness and loss of life in such countries was not inevitable.
“Unlike any pandemic in history, we have the power to change the way this goes,” he said.
YOUNG ‘NOT INVINCIBLE’
Tedros said that although older people had been the hardest hit by the disease, younger people were not spared, saying they made up many of the sufferers needing hospital treatment.
He said solidarity between the generations was one of the keys to defeating the spread of the pandemic.
“Today I have a message for young people: you are not invincible. This virus could put you in hospital for weeks – or even kill you,” Tedros warned.
“Even if you don’t get sick, the choices you make about where you go could be the difference between life and death for someone else.
“I’m grateful that so many young people are spreading the word and not the virus.”
Latest news from Wuhan:
WUHAN, April 5 (Xinhua) — Work and production resumption in Wuhan, the former epicentre of novel coronavirus, is “faster and better than expected”, Hu Yabo, the city’s executive deputy mayor, said at a press briefing on epidemic prevention and control on Sunday.
According to Hu, the work resumption rate of industrial enterprises above designated size in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, has reached 97.2 percent by Saturday, and 93.2 percent of leading service companies have resumed business.
The city has introduced a series of supportive policies, such as cooperating with financial institutions to set up an initial 20 billion-yuan (about 2.82 billion U.S. dollars) fund, offering subsidies and cutting fees to help epidemic-affected enterprises to get through the difficulties.
No new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were reported Saturday in Hubei. The province has so far reported 67,803 confirmed COVID-19 cases in total, including 50,008 in the provincial capital of Wuhan, Hubei health commission said Sunday.
“The epidemic will bring pains to the economic and social development of Wuhan in the short run, but it will not change the city’s long-term sound growth momentum,” Hu said.