From China’s National Health Commission, confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country jumped to 40171 as of February 9. Death toll reached 908 while suspected cases rose to 23589. No of people tracked rose to 399487, just shy of 400k. For the time being, 80 cities have been locked down under “closed off management” measures, while capital Beijing is also now in “closed community management”, under which vehicles and personnel from outside a community will not be allowed to enter.
The World Health Organization is leading a team of international experts to Beijing to help investigate China’s coronavirus epidemic. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also warned in his tweets that “In an evolving public health emergency, all countries must step up efforts to prepare for #2019nCoV’s possible arrival and do their utmost to contain it should it arrive. This means lab capacity for rapid diagnosis, contact tracing and other tools in the public health arsenal.”
Separately, Adam Kucharski, an associate professor of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, warned that “Assuming current trends continue, we’re still projecting a mid-to-late-February peak” of virus cases in Wuhan. “There’s a lot of uncertainty, so I’m cautious about picking out a single value for the peak, but it’s possible based on current data we might see a peak prevalence over 5%.” That is, the coronavirus could infect up to 500k people in Wuhan alone before peaking.
