February 13 coronavirus news

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will approve a series of emergency measures to combat the coronavirus in a cabinet meeting on Friday, according to the prime minister’s office. 

The government will earmark 15.3 billion yen (approximately $140 million) for emergency measures, including ones to bolster testing and medical treatment capacity, to double mask production to more than 600 million a month, and credits for small and medium-sized businesses hurt by the outbreak, according to the prime minister’s office. 

The prime minister will also approve a measure calling for 1,800 beds to be readied for patients and for virus research results to be shared internationally.

Passengers wear protective masks while they wait for a train, following the outbreak of the new coronavirus in China, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on February 10.

Malaysia added a new case to its list of confirmed coronavirus patients, raising the national tally up to 19, according to a report from state media Bernama on Thursday.

The patient is a 39-year-old woman from China, who is a friend and a relative to two previous cases. She and four other individuals arrived in Malaysia from Wuhan on Jan 25.

 The woman is now placed in isolation and is in stable condition, according to the report.

A Japanese vice minister for health, labour, and welfare visited the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama on Friday morning, according to an announcement made to passengers by Captain Stefano Ravera. 

Ravera read out a statement from Gaku Hashimoto, who subsequently read it himself, in Japanese. Hashimoto expressed the government’s “deep appreciation” for passengers’ “understanding and cooperation.” 

He said that the government was setting up dedicated phone lines to help passengers request prescription medications. He also reiterated that the government is preparing for disembarkations, starting Friday with those over 80 years old with pre-existing medical conditions or in an inside cabin.

More context: Another 44 cases of coronavirus were confirmed Thursday on the Diamond Princess cruise ship docket in Yokohama, Japan, according to CNN’s Will Ripley.

Ripley spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper Thursday afternoon about the ship and how people are coping. The ship currently has 219 people on board who have the virus, Ripley said.

A shopper wearing a face mask and gloves while shopping in a Hong Kong supermarket, Wednesday, February 12.

Hong Kong confirmed three additional coronavirus cases on Thursday, bringing the total to up to 53, according to a government statement. 

A 43-year-old male patient is the relative of a previous case. He developed a cough on Jan. 29, and has had diarrhea and vomiting since Jan. 31.

The other two new cases are a 67-year-old woman and her 37-year-old son, who had dinner with three previous confirmed cases in a seafood restaurant. The mother developed a cough on Jan. 31 and a fever on Feb. 1, while her son developed a fever on Feb. 8.

The Hubei health authority has reported that 116 more people died of the coronavirus in Hubei province on Thursday, raising the death toll in the epicenter since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak to 1,426.

This brings the total number of deaths in mainland China to at least 1,483. The global death toll is at least 1,486, with one death in Hong Kong, one death in the Philippines and one death in Japan.    

Hubei authorities confirmed an additional 4,823 cases of the virus in Hubei, which brings the total number of cases in the epicenter of the outbreak to 51,986.

There are 36,719 patients who have been hospitalized in Hubei, including 1,685 who are in critical condition, according to the health authority. There are 4,131 patients who have recovered and been discharged.

Around the world: The global number of confirmed coronavirus cases has now exceeded 65,191 with the vast majority of cases in mainland China.

China’s National Health Commission is expected to release numbers for all of China’s provinces later.

Passengers watch as the Westerdam cruise ship approaches the port in Sihanoukville on Cambodia's southern coast on Feb. 13, where the liner had received permission to dock after being refused entry at other Asian ports due to fears of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Passengers will begin to disembark the Westerdam cruise ship on Friday at the Sihanoukville port in Cambodia where the ship is now docked, Holland America line said in a statement. 

“Cambodian authorities have granted clearance to Westerdam to begin disembarkation of guests the morning of Feb. 14, 2020, in Sihanoukville,” the statement said.

Officials said “full disembarkation” will take a few days.

There are no confirmed cases of coronavirus on the Westerdam ship.

The 15th confirmed coronavirus case in the US is being treated at Methodist Texsan Hospital in San Antonio, according to a statement today from Dr. Paul Hancock, chief medical officer at Methodist Healthcare.

The patient, the most recent person in the US confirmed to have the virus, “was an evacuee from China in quarantine at Lackland Air Force Base and was found to have a fever,” Hancock said. 

They arrived in the US on a State Department-chartered flight on Feb. 7, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Hancock said the patient is currently “stable with mild symptoms.” He added that the hospital activated “additional protocols” before the patient arrived, under the guidance of the CDC.

The patient was “privately escorted through a secluded entrance to avoid common areas” and kept under isolation, he said. Hancock did not offer any other details about the patient, citing patient privacy.

By the numbers: The 15 confirmed cases in the US include eight in California, one in Texas, one in Massachusetts, one in Washington state, one in Arizona, two in Illinois and one in Wisconsin.

There are two instances of person-to-person transmission, one in Illinois and one in California. Two California cases and the Texas case are among evacuees from China.

A passenger is seen on a balconies of the Diamond Princess cruise ship at the Daikaku Pier Cruise Terminal in Yokohama port onThursday, February 13.

Another 44 cases of coronavirus were confirmed Thursday on the Diamond Princess cruise ship docket in Yokohama, Japan, according to CNN’s Will Ripley.

Ripley spoke with CNN’s Anderson Cooper Thursday afternoon about the ship and how people are coping. The ship currently has 219 people on board who have the virus, Ripley said.

According to the Japanese government, the reason why everyone hasn’t been tested is because there are a limited number of testing kits and a limited way to test them, Ripley said.

Ripley described the scene on the Diamond Princess, where passengers haven’t had their rooms cleaned since the ship docked. He’s heard of parents telling children that they must remain in their room because of “this invisible monster called the coronavirus that’s outside.”

The first deadly case in Japan: Japan recorded its first death from the coronavirus, a woman in her 80s who was not on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

CNN’s Will Ripley will join Anderson Cooper as coronavirus fears leave passengers stuck on ship in the region.

Refresh this page to watch Anderson Cooper Full Circle live in the video player above.

UCSD Health Center’s Dr Randy Taplitz

One coronavirus patient is in “very good condition and the other is in fair condition,” said UC San Diego Health Center’s Dr. Randy Taplitz at a news conference this morning.

A third is a “person under investigation,” she said.

The patients are part of a group quarantined at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

Earlier in the week, a woman with the novel coronavirus was sent back to Miramar instead of hospital isolation. Taplitz said she is confident the error will not happen again and attributes the problem to communication issues.

She underscored that masks are not necessary for the general public because this virus is spread by large droplet not airborne spread.

“So really the masks are not going to help you when you’re walking down the street,” she Taplitz said.

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield

Nearly six weeks after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first offered to help China with its coronavirus outbreak, the offer still has not been accepted, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told CNN. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus was first identified in early January.

He added: “That letter has not been responded to yet by the official Chinese government. We do believe that we’re the best in the world in this space and we’re ready to help and assist them, but they’re an independent nation that has to make that decision that they’re going to invite us in.”

Asymptomatic transmission of the novel coronavirus is possible, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN.

In other words, Redfield said that an infected person not showing symptoms could still transmit the virus to someone else based on information from his colleagues in China.

“There’s been good communication with our colleagues to confirm asymptomatic infection, to confirm asymptomatic transmission, to be able to get a better handle on the clinical spectrum of illness in China. What we don’t know though is how much of the asymptomatic cases are driving transmission,” he told CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in an interview on Thursday. 

Redfield continued: “What I’ve learned in the last two weeks is that the spectrum of this illness is much broader than was originally presented. There’s much more asymptomatic illness. A number of the confirmed cases that we confirmed actually just presented with a little sore throat.”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield speaks during a press conference on Friday, February 7, in Washington, DC.

The novel coronavirus may impact the world for some time to come, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield told CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in an interview today.

While more research is needed to fully understand the virus, Redfield said that the CDC has focused on surveillance to track cases and containment to slow down the possible progression of the virus in the United States.

“I do think that eventually we are going to be in more of a mitigation phase in dealing with this virus but that’s not to underestimate the importance of the containment phase that we’re in right now,” Redfield said. 

“The containment phase is really to give us more time. This virus will become a community virus at some point in time, this year or next year,” Redfield said. “We don’t have any evidence that this coronavirus is really embedded in the community at this time, but with that said, we want to intensify our surveillance so that we’re basing those conclusions based on data.”

World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Program head Michael Ryan attends a combined news conference following a two-day international conference on COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine research and a meeting to decide whether Ebola in DR Congo still constitutes health emergency of international concern on Wednesday, January 12, in Geneva.

The changes made to the way China defines and counts coronavirus cases in Hubei province do not apply to cases being tracked in the rest of the world, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme, said during a press conference today. 

“In the rest of China and the rest of the world, laboratory confirmation for reporting is still required and WHO will continue to track both laboratory and clinically confirmed cases in Hubei province,” Ryan said.

What this is about: Chinese officials recently changed their tally of cases in Hubei to include “clinically diagnosed cases” in addition to those confirmed by a laboratory test. 

Due to that change in case definition, numbers of cases being reported out of China have fluctuated dramatically, rising up to almost 60,000 yesterday.

The change in the counting system has partially caused a spike in the number of cases.

Here’s how Ryan explained the change:

A Taiwanese PhD student said she feels discriminated against after London Airbnb hosts canceled her booking at the last minute, citing fears about coronavirus. 

Yale University student Louise Hsin-Yuan Peng, who traveled from Taiwan to London earlier this month to conduct research for three months, received a cancellation message from the hosts of her long-term booking that said they were concerned about the virus outbreak and had to “err on the side of caution.”

She received the cancellation message when she was about to arrive, after already messaging the hosts when she landed at the airport in London and taking a train to the city center.

The 31-year-old student has not traveled near virus-affected areas and has not been to mainland China in years.

“I understand that people are probably freaking out because of the outbreak,” she said. “But I feel that they should have asked about my travel history and what I do or if I had interactions with people coming from the affected area.” 

There have been 18 cases of novel coronavirus diagnosed in Taiwan and eight cases in the UK as of this morning.  

Hsin-Yuan said that following the last-minute cancellation, she reached out to a friend who let her sleep on the floor that night. She then paid for a hotel for two nights while she tried to find long-term accommodation and contacted other friends who might host her. 

She told CNN she called Airbnb’s customer service to report possible discrimination, and after speaking with multiple representatives from the company, Airbnb offered to reimburse her for the cancellation, the hotel nights and an Uber ride. She said she only asked for the bare minimum, but Airbnb also offered her a $500 voucher for future stays.  

“We take cancellation issues seriously and rigorously enforce a non discrimination policy,” an Airbnb spokesperson said.

Airbnb said in this case, it “educated the host” on the proper cancellation policies regarding coronavirus. That policy makes no mention of Taiwan but says extenuating circumstances apply for reservations with guests traveling from mainland China.

This illustration, created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses.

Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses that are common among animals.

In rare cases, they are what scientists call zoonotic, meaning they can be transmitted from animals to humans, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s what else we know about the viruses:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed a case of novel coronavirus at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

And “there may be additional cases” identified during the quarantine period, CDC spokeswoman Captain Jennifer McQuiston said at a news conference today.

The patient was a “solo traveler” from China. The individual has been quarantined “since arriving at Lackland Air Force Base from the Wuhan Province in China and remains in isolation at a local hospital, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. 

Officials are now investigating the patient’s movements while quarantined and who he or she might have interacted with, McQuiston said. 

“We are right in the middle of that incubation period so it is not surprising” that the individual developed symptoms, McQuiston said. 

“For the most part the people in quarantine are not doing much associating with each other,” McQuiston said. 

There is low risk to the local community, officials said. 

No information about the patient or the hospital will be made available at this time, Nirenberg said.

A Croatian health official said closing borders across the European Union is an option if the coronavirus outbreak escalates — but global officials say that step is not necessary yet.

Vili Beroš, the Croatian Minister of Health, spoke at a news conference following a meeting of EU health ministers.

“The situation needs to be monitored on an hourly basis. Of course, if epidemiologically it escalates, we shall take other actions, if that means the closing of borders, we shall discuss it in line with national legislation,” Beroš said.

Remember: The World Health Organization has not said that kind of restriction is needed right now.

Here’s how Stella Kyriakidou, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, put it:

Late yesterday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would remake part of the novel coronavirus test kit that it has distributed to states.

The hope was that states could test samples more quickly than sending them to the CDC lab in Atlanta – but some of the kits that were distributed had inconclusive results. 

What this means: Testing results may be delayed.

Speeding up the testing process has been a priority for the CDC, according to Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. 

“During a response like this we know things may not go as smoothly as we would like,” Messonnier said during a press conference yesterday. “We have multiple levels of quality control to detect issues just like this one. We’re looking into all of these issues to understand what went wrong, and to prevent these same things from happening in the future.”  

Texas, Michigan and Arizona are among the states that are awaiting the new materials for the novel coronavirus testing kit, state health officials told CNN.