Coronavirus: more than 100 dead in China, the evacuation of foreigners is organized

The capitals are mobilizing. Several countries, including the United States and France, are preparing, Tuesday, January 28, to launch the evacuation of their nationals from Wuhan, epicenter of an epidemic of viral pneumonia whose toll now exceeds 100 dead in China and which has infected more than 4,500 people.

Wuhan, a metropolis in the center of the country where the new coronavirus appeared in December, then almost all of Hubei province have been cut off from the world since Thursday by the authorities in the hope of stemming the epidemic. Some 56 million inhabitants are affected.

Paris is preparing its evacuation

While this confinement has trapped thousands of foreigners in the region, several countries such as the United States, France, Japan or Morocco are preparing the evacuation of their nationals.

A flight to evacuate staff from the US Consulate in Wuhan will depart Wednesday morning, Chinese time, for California, the US State Department has announced. On this flight, initially scheduled for Tuesday, seats will be offered to other American nationals "depending on the places available".

France for its part is preparing an air evacuation of its nationals as well as other Europeans, with a flight "a priori in the middle of the week".

About 500 French people are registered on the local consular list, but their total number could be of the order of a thousand, Wuhan welcoming, in addition to Renault and PSA factories, many French students. Returnees will be subject to a quarantine period.

Japan, for its part, is preparing its own operation: the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs announced the dispatch of a plane to Wuhan on Tuesday for a plane to evacuate around 200 of its nationals. Other countries such as Germany and Thailand have also said they are considering evacuations.

Two cases in Europe

The city of Beijing on Monday reported its first death, a 50-year-old man returned from Wuhan.
Around 50 other patients have been identified in the rest of the world, and a dozen countries have been infected with the virus, from Asia and Australia to Europe and North America.

A first case of contamination was confirmed Monday in Germany, which becomes the second country affected in Europe after France. Many countries have stepped up precautionary measures at their borders, with Mongolia becoming the first to close road crossings with China.

At the same time, people from Hubei have been banned from staying in Malaysia. If several already advised against going to Hubei, Germany crossed a course on Monday by bluntly advising against going to China. Washington soon followed suit.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which deems the threat "high" without triggering an international health alert, said Monday that it did not yet know if the infected were contagious before presenting the symptoms of the disease , as claimed by some Chinese health officials.

The threat of spread is all the greater since the mayor of Wuhan said on Sunday that 5 million people had left this metropolis of 11 million inhabitants before the Chinese New Year, which fell this year on January 25.

Reinforced virus

The Chinese authorities have decided to extend the long New Year's holiday (seven holidays) by three days until February 2, in order to delay the massive returns to the cities of hundreds of millions of migrant workers and reduce the risk of extension of the epidemic.

Likewise, the start of the spring semester in schools, colleges, high schools and universities has been postponed, the Ministry of Education said on Tuesday, without advancing a date for the resumption of classes.

"The capacity to spread the virus has increased," senior Chinese health officials said on Sunday, although it does not prove to be "as powerful as SARS", a previous coronavirus which had claimed hundreds of lives. early 2000s.

The crisis raises fears of a further weakening of the Chinese economy, even global, causing Monday a stock market stall in Japan, Europe and Wall Street. Tokyo finished Tuesday in the red: the Nikkei index lost 0.55% and the Topix lost 0.60%.

With AFP

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