Mystery Deepens In Italy On How The Coronavirus Is Spreading – Alleged Patient Zero Tests ‘Negative’; China Pushes Factories To Reopen, Risking Renewed Virus Spread
By The Straits Times. Italy raced … to contain the biggest outbreak of coronavirus in Europe, sealing off the worst affected towns and banning public gatherings in much of the north as the number of those infected jumped above 100.
An elderly cancer patient became the third person known to be infected with the coronavirus to die, health officials said on Sunday. The woman had been in hospital in Crema, located in Lombardy, where most cases of infections have been reported. . .
Health authorities are struggling to work out how the outbreak started. The first cases were announced only on Friday and doctors do not know its source.
Initial suspicion in Lombardy fell on a businessman recently returned from China, the epicentre of the new virus, but he has tested negative. In Veneto, doctors tested a group of eight Chinese visitors who had been to the town that was home to the first fatality, but again, they all tested negative.
“We are (now) even more worried because if we cannot find ‘patient zero’ then it means the virus is even more ubiquitous than we thought,” Zaia said. (Read more from “Mystery Deepens In Italy On How The Coronavirus Is Spreading – Alleged Patient Zero Tests ‘Negative’” HERE)
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China Discharges 22,888 Recovered Patients Of Coronavirus Infection
By The Jakarta Post. A total of 22,888 patients infected with the novel coronavirus had been discharged from hospital after recovery by the end of Saturday, the Chinese health authority said on Sunday.
Saturday saw 2,230 people walk out of hospital after recovery, the National Health Commission said in its daily report. (Read more from “China Discharges 22,888 Recovered Patients Of Coronavirus Infection” HERE)
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China Pushes Factories To Reopen, Risking Renewed Virus Spread
By Bloomberg. China is trying to get people back to work, risking a renewed spread of the coronavirus.
Central and local governments are loosening the criteria for factories to resume operations as they walk a tightrope between containing a virus that has killed more than 2,400 people and preventing a slump in the world’s second-largest economy.
The rush to restart has been propelled by China’s leader Xi Jinping and top leaders, who are urging companies to resume production so the country can continue to meet lofty goals for growth and economic development in 2020. At stake are the fates of millions of Chinese businesses facing collapse because of the shutdowns, and the ability of companies across the globe from Apple Inc. to Nissan Motor Co. to access crucial components.
Officials in China’s provinces have taken up Xi’s call, with one region after another relaxing rules that had kept more than half the nation’s industrial base idle following the Lunar New Year holiday. After weeks of empty streets and shuttered shops, signs of life are emerging along the manufacturing belt in the country’s coastal regions. (Read more from “China Pushes Factories To Reopen, Risking Renewed Virus Spread” HERE)
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