February 15 coronavirus news

Recession fears are stalking Europe again after Germany’s economy flatlined at the end of 2019 – and now, the coronavirus outbreak could slam exports to China.

The German economy did not grow in the final three months of last year, setting up the country for a difficult 2020 just when it was meant to begin experiencing a revival.

Across the eurozone, growth slumped to a seven-year low of 0.1% in final quarter of last year – making Europe especially vulnerable to the looming hit from the coronavirus outbreak.

Recession looms: Germany was already in a feeble condition, logging growth of just 0.6% for the whole of 2019 amid weak global auto sales, the US-China trade war and uncertainty over Brexit.

Now economists are once again talking about the prospect of a recession, or two consecutive quarters of negative growth – Germany relies heavily on exports to China, whose economy has been paralyzed by the outbreak.

That doesn’t bode well for the rest of Europe. Should the situation continue to deteriorate, the European Central Bank may need to step in, pushing interest rates further into negative territory or increasing monthly bond purchases.

Read more here

Officials wearing protective gear stand guard outside an entrance to the Hong Mei House residential building in Hong Kong.

All asymptomatic residents of a Hong Kong public housing building can return home on Sunday after their quarantine ends, the government said today.

The building was partially evacuated this week after four residents on different floors tested positive for the virus.

About 100 residents then tested negative for the virus, and were transferred to quarantine centers.

The four patients: A 62-year-old female resident was confirmed with the virus about a week and a half after a 75-year-old man in the same building became infected.

The woman’s son and daughter-in-law, who live with her, were confirmed with the virus soon after.

Transmission through pipes: The cases set off alarm bells among health officials that the virus could have been transmitted through pipes in the building. In densely populated Hong Kong this could lead to hundreds of people becoming infected in the supposed safety of their own homes.

The authorities said today they have finished cleaning and disinfecting the building, including the apartments of the confirmed cases. They have also adjusted a vent pipe in the female patient’s apartment after it was found to have been altered without authorization.

Read more about the pipe possibility here.

A passenger is seen on a balcony of the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

The US Embassy in Tokyo has detailed plans for a voluntary evacuation for US citizens on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship and their immediate family.

Chartered flight on Sunday: In an email to American passengers on Saturday, the embassy said the evacuation would take place Sunday evening local time.

The US government “recommends, out of an abundance of caution, that US citizens disembark and return to the United States for further monitoring,” reads the email, which was obtained by CNN from a passenger on board.

Passengers to be screened and quarantined: Those who choose to return to the US on a charter aircraft will be required to undergo another 14 days of quarantine.

A charter flight will arrive in Japan on Sunday evening and busses will transport the Americans directly from Yokohama port to an unspecified airport.

“Passengers will be screened for symptoms and we are working with our Japanese partners to ensure that any symptomatic passengers receive the required care in Japan if they cannot board the flight,” the email reads.

Infected Americans to stay in Japan: Those Americans who have already tested positive for coronavirus, as well as those showing symptoms of the virus, will not be able to board the aircraft, and will continue to receive treatment in Japan.

Plane to land in California and Texas: “The aircraft will land in the United States at Travis Air Force Base in California. Some passengers will then continue onward to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. We will provide information about your final destination prior to boarding the plane,” the embassy told passengers.

Those who choose not to take the charter flights “will be unable to return to the United States for a period of time.”

Egyptian Quarantine Authority employees scan incoming travellers at Cairo International Airport on February 1.

Egypt announced its first case of Wuhan coronavirus on Friday, according to a joint statement by Egypt’s Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO). 

The person who tested positive is a “foreigner,” the statement said. 

Egypt’s Ministry of Health spokesperson, Dr. Khaled Mujahid, said Egypt discovered the case by testing passengers coming from countries where infections have emerged. 

Mujahid added that WHO was immediately informed, and all preventive measures will be taken in cooperation with them.

The confirmed case marks the first in Africa since the virus was detected in December last year, in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

To date, a total of 605 cases have been confirmed outside of mainland China.

In an announcement to passengers on the virus-stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship this afternoon, Captain Stefano Ravera neither confirmed nor denied that the US Government is preparing to evacuate its citizens from the virus-stricken ship, which is currently docked in Yokohama, Japan.

“It’s been a very busy morning,” Ravera said in a recording made by a passenger and obtained by CNN. “We’ve been liaising with several agencies involved in this delicate situation.”

“US media is reporting the US government is considering a plan to evacuate American citizens and permanent residence from the Diamond Princess. Guests with questions about this should contact the US Department of State,” said Ravera, in reference to an earlier report carried by the Wall Street Journal.

He said that he expected to be able to make further announcements “in the coming hours” as he receives more information from the Japanese authorities and “foreign embassies.”

“As you have seen throughout this period, and you continue to see, this is a very dynamic situation,” he said.

Travelers in a Beijing train station on February 15, 2019.

With coronavirus cases continuing to rise in mainland China, many people are locking themselves at home. And those who do go out, aren’t taking any chances.

The Beijing South Railway Station today is filled with travelers wearing face masks, lab goggles, plastic ponchos, plastic visors, and other creative means of shielding themselves from potential infection.

There isn't a single person in sight without a protective face mask.

Most people avoid sitting next to each other, instead sitting one or several empty seats away to minimize close contact.

Many are also wearing plastic and rubber gloves, and some form of head covering – be it a hat, hood, or shower cap.

Travel has dropped across China as people stay home. Those who do go out, don't take any chances.

The extra precautions come as Beijing authorities order all people returning to the capital to stay at home, or under observation, for 14 days, in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to China’s state-run news agency Xinhua.

Passengers walk along the deck of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked in Yokohama, Japan, on February 14, 2020.

The US State Department said earlier today that it would evacuate about 380 Americans who are currently on the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked under quarantine in Japan, once the quarantine lifts next week.

Stranded at sea: The cruise ship, carrying more than 3,700 people, has been moored in Yokohama Bay under quarantine since February 4.

So far, 219 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed on the ship. The quarantine is scheduled to end on February 19.

A sign at Hong Kong Disneyland announcing the park's closure on January 26, 2020.

Hong Kong Disneyland has agreed to lend vacant sites to the government as potential quarantine facilities, said city officials in a press conference yesterday.

The government has not released any schedule or plans on whether or when the designated site will be used. There are currently 56 cases of confirmed novel coronavirus in Hong Kong.

A hard year for Disneyland: Hong Kong Disneyland, which welcomed 6.7 million guests in the 2018 fiscal year, announced it was temporarily closing in late January in response to the outbreak.

The coronavirus has served a second blow to the theme park, after it struggled throughout 2019. Violent political unrest in Hong Kong saw tourism numbers drop dramatically, and the park was often quiet and scarcely-populated – even in summer, which is typically a peak season.

Take a look at the protest-hit Disneyland.

CNN photojournalist Justin Robertson visited an infectious diseases hospital in Beijing this week, speaking with a survivor who had recovered from the coronavirus.

The CNN team had their temperature taken and hands sanitized before they entered the building, passing through heavy security.

The patient also claimed that after being fed traditional Chinese medicinal soup every day, she was recovered from the virus.

Safety measures increased: Robertson also documented his flight from Frankfurt to Beijing on Tuesday, as airlines ramp up safety measures over the coronavirus.

Everyone was wearing a mask on the Air China flight, and there were pre-recorded announcements warning people of the dangers of the virus.

Come mealtime, all food is served in disposable, one-time use packaging for hygiene reasons, he said.

Take a look at their hospital visit:

A woman walks along a shuttered business street in Beijing on February 4.

In offices across Asia, desks are empty and the phones are quiet, as the region grapples with a deadly virus.

Instead, millions of people are holed up in their apartments, in what may be the world’s biggest work-from-home experiment.

Frustrations at school: Many schools have been suspended, instead conducting classes remotely through digital learning tools – but this has proved more difficult for children with special learning needs or disabilities, and their educators.

“We use a lot of hands-on learning, so it’s been really challenging trying to make our online learning meaningful for the kids when we’re not in a classroom environment,” said Karen, a special education teacher in Hong Kong, who requested a pseudonym to avoid identifying the school.

Like other schools, Karen and her colleagues have relied on digital tools such as video calls and Google Docs – but challenges are made harder because her students need a lot of adult support.

Benefits in other sectors: For other digital-based sectors, working from home has instead been surprisingly effective.

“It’s a test run that we didn’t really choose to implement, but we’re quite happy with it,” said Brice Lamarque, sales and accounts director at a web and branding agency in Hong Kong. Nearly all the agency’s employees have been working from home this month.

“Before (the epidemic) happened, we were not really keen on letting our team work from home because we value collaboration,” said Lamarque. “But this experience actually showed us that the whole team collaborates quite well even if they’re not in the same room, so we’re looking at adding that into our employee benefits … maybe two to three weeks a year.”

Read the full story here.

People line up to order food from a stall in Shanghai on February 14.

The coronavirus continues to spread, with the number of cases jumping after China broadened their definition of a confirmed case. It has now reached 28 countries and territories. Here are the key numbers, broken down:

Deaths

Cases

According to China’s National Health Commission, a total of 8,096 patients have recovered and been discharged from hospital. 

Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the World Health Organization, and Chinese President Xi Jinping on January 28, 2020 in Beijing, China.

Sitting alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in January, World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was effusive in his praise of the country’s response to the coronavirus crisis.

But even as Ghebreyesus lauded “the transparency (China has) demonstrated,” revelations were emerging that officials in Hubei province and Wuhan – the city where the virus was first detected – had downplayed news about the virus, even threatening medical whistleblowers with arrest.

Days later, the WHO declared a global public health emergency, and once again Tedros praised Beijing’s response – leading some critics to question the relationship between the two entities.

What is the WHO? The WHO was founded in 1948 under the auspices of the still infant United Nations (UN), with a mandate to coordinate international health policy, particularly on infectious disease.

Is it independent? The agency relied on funding and the cooperation of members to function. This gives wealthy member states considerable influence – and has renewed a longstanding debate about whether the WHO is sufficiently independent to allow it to fulfill its purpose.

Many of WHO’s critics argue that it is overly bureaucratic, bizarrely structured, too dependent on a handful of major donors, and often hamstrung by political concerns. 

Is it an investigative body? The WHO does not usually have its own teams on the ground gathering information. Instead it relies on data provided by member states – a structure that was blamed for the delays in declaring the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak an emergency.

This means that the WHO is only as informed as its member states want it to be. If a country where an epidemic is developing does not share data, there is little the WHO can do about it.

With a government like China’s, with a historical aversion to transparency and sensitivity to international criticism, that can be a problem.

Read the full analysis here.

Staff at a store open a box of surgical masks on January 29, 2020 in Hong Kong.

International humanitarian non-profit organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, is sending specialized medical equipment to Wuhan, the Chinese city at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak.

MSF is sending 3.5 metric tonnes (3.8 US tons) of equipment to Wuhan Jinyintan hospital – one of the hospitals on the frontlines, MSF said in a statement yesterday.

MSF has also launched a health education project in Hong Kong to provide information to vulnerable communities about how to identify symptoms and protect themselves from the disease.

MSF will send one metric tonne (1.1 US ton) of protective equipment to the Hong Kong St. John Ambulance service as well.

A man wearing a face mask rides his bicycle along an empty street in Beijing on February 12, 2020.

The small companies that drive China’s economy are worried about how much damage the novel coronavirus outbreak will cause. Without help or a reprieve from the disease, many may have only weeks to survive.

While some larger companies are reopening after weeks of lockdowns, small businesses often can’t comply with strict new health rules, or can’t let employees work from home.

Businesses at risk: A survey of 163 companies across China found that less than half were able to get back to work this week, according to investment bank China International Capital Corp.

A third of roughly 1,000 small and medium-sized companies surveyed by Beijing academics last week said they could only survive for a month with the cash they have.

Why this matters: That could spell terrible news for China’s entrepreneurs – and an even worse reality for the country’s economy. About 30 million small and medium-sized businesses contribute more than 60% of the country’s GDP, according to government statistics.

The taxes they pay account for more than half of government revenue, and they employ more than 80% of China’s workers.

“The coronavirus could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” said Zhao Jian, director of Atlantis Research Institute, earlier this month. He warned that if the outbreak doesn’t end soon, we could see rising unemployment, spurring housing foreclosures and compounding the country’s economic woes.

Read the full analysis here.

Two Hmong men in the United States say they faced discrimination in Indiana, sparked by fear of the coronavirus, while they were looking for a hotel room.

Kao Lor and his uncle Lee Lor, members of the Hmong Asian ethnic group, tried to get a room at a Super 8 Motel in the northern Indiana city of Plymouth – but after they entered, an employee asked if they was Chinese, Kao Lor said. Lor began recording the encounter, capturing the male employee repeating the question.

“If you are from China, I need to know,” the employee said, later adding it was company policy that “anyone from China has be picked up and quarantined for two weeks.”

Eventually Lor and his uncle decided to try another hotel.

Then, it happened again – at a Days Inn, Lor recorded a hotel employee who seemed to acknowledge Asians are not being allowed because of the virus.

“Deeply troubled”: Wyndham Hotels, which franchises both the Days Inn and Super 8 brands, told CNN in a statement they were “deeply troubled by these incidents as they’re not reflective of our values or our expectations of franchisees.” Wyndham said they were “addressing with the owners of both hotels” and working to reach out to the Lors.

Watch the video:

CDC Director Robert Redfield at a press conference on February 7, 2020 in Washington, DC.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been preparing for the worst case coronavirus scenario – a widespread outbreak of illnesses in the United States.

“Right now we’re in an aggressive containment mode,” CDC Director Robert Redfield told CNN on Thursday.

Cases in the US: As of Thursday, there have been 15 cases of the novel coronavirus confirmed in seven states: eight in California; two in Illinois; and one each in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Texas.

Slowing the spread: The CDC has focused on surveillance to track cases and containment strategies to slow possible progression of the virus in the United States, Redfield said.

Slowing progression gives more time for researchers to work on developing and testing a vaccine and antiviral drugs for this novel coronavirus. Currently, there is no known cure for the virus.

Read the full story here.

Excited passengers disembark the Westerdam cruise ship on February 14, 2020 in Sihanoukville, Cambodia

President Donald Trump thanked Cambodia for allowing a cruise ship carrying 1,455 passengers, including 650 Americans, to dock after the ship was turned away from several Asian ports over coronavirus fears.

“Thank you to the beautiful country of Cambodia for accepting the Carnival Cruise ship Westerdam into your port. The United States will remember your courtesy!” Trump tweeted.

Cruise ship stranded: The Westerdam, which is owned by Carnival Corporation but sails under the Holland America brand name, was supposed to be taking a 14-day cruise around east Asia.

But the governments of Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand refused the ship permission to dock – despite there being no confirmed cases on the ship. 

Hun Sen said even if there were people aboard suffering from the virus, “I can respond very clearly that if there are people with this virus on the ship I would allow them to dock as soon as possible.”

Passengers on deck of the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan's Yokohama port on February 13, 2020.

11 Hong Kong residents aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan have been confirmed with the novel coronavirus, the city’s government announced Saturday.

Hong Kong authorities said they sent four officers to Japan to provide assistance to the 330 Hong Kong residents on board the cruise, currently docked under quarantined in Yokohama Bay. The officers will deliver medicine and daily necessities, including surgical masks and disinfection products. 

The Hong Kong government is in talks with airlines to return residents to Hong Kong “as soon as possible” after the ship’s quarantine ends on February 19.

Passengers on the deck of the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama port on February 13, 2020.

The US government is preparing to evacuate Americans aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship currently docked under quarantine in Yokohama, Japan, according to the Wall Street Journal.  

The State Department will offer seats on two chartered planes to fly roughly 380 Americans and their families back to the states, Henry Walke, the CDC’s Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections told the Journal. 

The aircraft are expected to arrive as early as Sunday.  

More than 3,700 passengers and crew are stuck on the cruise ship after dozens of people tested positive for the novel coronavirus earlier this month.

A bus next to the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked under quarantine in Yokohama, Japan, on February 14, 2020.

Japan announced a total of eight new coronavirus cases on Friday, that are not from the Diamond Princess ship docked under quarantine in Yokohama Bay.

The eighth case is a male Yokohama city officer in his 30s, who helped an infected patient from the Diamond Princess on February 10. He was wearing protective gear and goggles. The health ministry is looking into how he contract the virus.

It brings the total number of cases in Japan to 258, of which 219 are from the Diamond Princess. One patient has died in Japan so far.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is facing a major challenge to his vast system of censorship and information control, but history does not bode well for those arrayed against him.

Following revelations that authorities in Wuhan downplayed news of the coronavirus outbreak in December and silenced whistleblowers, there have been numerous calls for freedom of speech and a relaxation of censorship.

Whistleblower doctor: These calls only increased after the death of Li Wenliang, a Wuhan whistleblower doctor who had been targeted by police. Li passed away in hospital last week from the virus, after belatedly being praised by Chinese authorities.

Following his death, hundreds of thousands of people posted demands for free speech online – that were themselves quickly scrubbed by the censors.

As the outrage threatened to boil over, Beijing quickly dispatched an anti-corruption task force to Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province – the epicenter of the outbreak, with the clear implication that they would come back with some scalps to assuage public anger. At the same time, state media ramped up positive stories about efforts to rein in the outbreak, and Xi himself made his first public appearance related to the virus.

Xi steps in: Xi’s reappearance after weeks of being away allowed propaganda authorities to ensure that he could be cast as the nation’s protector, and avoid any of the blame for the myriad missteps by authorities in Hubei and elsewhere. On Thursday it was announced that a key Xi ally had been appointed to run Hubei, while other Xi proteges have been dispatched to Wuhan to help clean up the political mess there.

There are signs, however, that the lid will not be so easily put back on the Pandora’s box that Li’s death has opened.

Read more here.

A warning about the novel coronavirus, sent by a school district in Alhambra, California, on February 4, 2020.

San Diego County, in Southern California, has declared a “local emergency” and “public health emergency” due to concerns over the novel coronavirus, said county officials.

County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher called these declarations a precautionary measure that will help the county coordinate efforts to ensure access to supplies and protect public health.

There are currently two American evacuees from Wuhan, China, who were evacuated to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and tested positive for coronavirus. They are being treated at the University of California San Diego Health Center. 

Cases in the US: 443 people in the United States are under investigation for the novel coronavirus, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of them, 15 have tested positive, 347 have tested negative, and 81 are still pending. 

Beijing authorities announced Thursday night (local) that all people returning to Beijing will be required to stay at home or under observation for 14 days in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to China’s state-run news agency Xinhua. 

The announcement from the Leading Group of Beijing New Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic Prevention and Control Office said that any individual refusing to do so will be “held accountable according to law.”

The number of deaths from the novel coronavirus, known as Covid-19, has now risen to more than 1,500 worldwide. All but three of those deaths took place in China. And thousands of new cases of the virus have been confirmed in China, under the country’s new broader definition, bringing the confirmed global total to 67,097.

Here’s the latest on the outbreak: