#14,845
Last November, as I was doing a multi-blog series (links below) on the WHO's revised 91-page Guidance document on the use of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions during a severe influenza epidemic or pandemic, I cautioned that `no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy'.
WHO Guidance: Non-pharmaceutical Public Health Measures for Mitigating the Risk and Impact of Epidemic and Pandemic Influenza
The WHO NPI Guidance : Personal Protection
The WHO NPI Guidance : Social Distancing
The WHO NPI Guidance : Environmental Measures
The WHO Pandemic Influenza NPI Guidance : Travel Measures
Two weeks ago, in No Pandemic Plan Survives Contact With A Novel Virus, we looked at how quickly China went `off-book' in fighting their novel coronavirus epidemic; quarantining tens (now hundreds) of millions of people, shutting down cities, blocking roads, and essentially implementing martial law.
While less dramatic, the responses by governments, airlines, and public health agencies outside of China have also greatly exceeded what was envisioned in the WHO's NPI guidance plan. Particularly in regards to travel restrictions.
Over the past couple of weeks we've seen dozens of airlines curtail flying to China, airport and border screening of passengers from China, a number of governments have issued Do Not Travel warnings to China, cruise ships have been quarantined at sea or denied entry into ports, and passport holders from China, Hong Kong, and Macao have been barred entry to several countries (or must undergo a 14 day quarantine).Whether these steps turn out to be prudent, or a futile overreaction, will be left to the historians. But given how little we know about the novel coronavirus, the draconian measures being taken by China to control their epidemic, and a need to be seen `doing something', most of them are understandable.
Ultimately, none of these steps is likely to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. But they should slow its progress, which can give countries around the world more time to prepare.
Today, in response to the growing number of community infections being reported in a handful of Asian countries, Taiwan has once again elevated their travel warnings for Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, and Thailand.
Raise travel warnings for Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore and Thailand, so people avoid travel and strengthen protection
Release Date: 2020-02-11
The Central Epidemic Command Centre said today (11) that new cases of coronavirus pneumonia continue to in the international community, including community transmission and clustering in Hong Kong without obvious sources of infection, more than half of the confirmed cases in Singapore were local infections and a third wave of infection, and outbreaks of cluster infections in other countries, and Thailand had not identified the source of infection and the third wave of infection, but the country had not taken relevant entry control or quarantine measures against Chinese tourists.
Based on epidemic prevention and safety, the Command Centre announced today that it will upgrade the tourism outbreak recommendation level in the above-mentioned countries, with Hong Kong and Macao upgraded to a level 3 warning (Warning), the public avoiding all non-essential local travel, Singapore upgraded to a second level warning, the public should take enhanced protection measures to the local area, Thailand to the first level of attention (Watch), the public should observe the local general precautions.
Command center statistics, yesterday (10) the country added 95 cases of severe special infectious pneumonia notification cases, currently a cumulative notification of 1,617 cases, including 18 confirmed, 1,445 exclusions, the remaining isolation test (76 initial negative, the rest to be tested). In addition to the first confirmed cases, the remaining 17 cases were in stable condition and continued to be hospitalized. At present, there are still 10 confirmed cases of contact a total of 383 people continued to be in home isolation, of which 13 have symptoms have been reported (11 negative has been excluded, 2 tests). In addition to the confirmed cases on February 4, four people were hospitalized and 242 others were closely monitored in centralized quarantine sites, in addition to the confirmed cases on February 4.
According to the cdc notification of mainland China and the data released by the provincial and urban health committees, a total of 42,638 new coronavirus infection cases have been confirmed in all 31 provinces and municipalities in mainland China (excluding the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions), an increase of 2,478 cases from yesterday;
In addition to Taiwan, there were 439 confirmed cases internationally in 26 countries, with 135 cases of international transport (Japan Diamond Princess), 45 cases in Singapore, 42 cases in Hong Kong, 32 cases in Thailand and 27 cases in South Korea, and 2 deaths in Hong Kong and 1 each in the Philippines. China's tourism restrictions have been imposed in 72 countries around the world.
The command center will closely monitor the changes in the epidemic, adjust the scope of tourism recommendations at any time depending on the evolution of the epidemic, and reiterate its call on the public to implement frequent hand washing of soap, avoid touching the eyes and nose, and do a good job of coughing etiquette. People entering the country with fever, cough and other symptoms, should take the initiative to inform the airport and port quarantine personnel and cooperate with the various epidemic prevention measures;(Continue . . . )
