The World Health Organization, or WHO, declared a global public health emergency on January 30 due to the coronavirus. GHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an NPR article, “The main reason for the declaration is not what is happening in China but because of what is happening in other countries.” GHO is concerned about what might happen if the virus spreads to countries with weaker health systems. The declaration of a global health emergency is meant to better help those countries avoid the virus.
The coronavirus is a respiratory virus so new that it does not have an official name yet. The first reports of the virus were released on January 8, and scientists call it the 2019-nCoV. It originated in Wuhan, China and, as this issue went to press, had spread to at least 27 other countries. At least 37,232 people inside China and 360 in other countries have been infected. More than 814 people have been killed by the sickness. Most of the cases so far are in China, but many experts fear that it may become a pandemic.
The coronavirus is named for the spikes that extend from their membranes. These spikes resemble a crown or the sun’s corona. Symptoms of the virus can range from the common cold to fearful conditions such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, otherwise known as SARS. The virus can infect animals and people, and is believed to have started in a seafood and meat market in Wuhan, China. The main animal that caused the virus is still unknown.
Malik Peiris, chair in virology at the University of Hong Kong, said in an AP news article, “The fortunate thing about SARS, if there was anything fortunate, was that transmission did not take place before symptoms.” He warned that if the coronavirus can be transmitted through people without symptoms a pandemic needs to be considered.
There is little risk of receiving the coronavirus in the United States. Only 11 cases have been reported in the U.S. so far. In order to keep it from spreading more, the Trump administration declared a public health emergency that became effective on Sunday, January 2. The declaration called for any U.S. citizens who were in the Hubei province of China in the 14 days since the declaration to be subject to 14 days of mandatory quarantine if they decide to travel back to the US.
Wuhan, China has been on lockdown since days before the Lunar New Year on Saturday, January 25. An estimated 50 million people are not allowed to leave the area, closed in to keep the virus from spreading more than it already has. Chinese supermarkets and shops are having a hard time providing food to the 1.4 billion residents in China because people are hoarding food out of a fear that the epidemic could last weeks, or even months. Businesses such as Starbucks, IKEA, and Apple have temporarily closed their stores in China.
In a New York Times article, Andy Rothman, an economist at Matthews Asia, an investment fund manager, said “China today accounts for about one-third of global economic growth, a larger share of global growth than from the U.S., Europe, and Japan combined.”
People are becoming concerned that the virus will have a lasting impact on the economy. The size of the Chinese economy has more than doubled since the outbreak of SARS in 2003, which killed more than 700 people. Supply chain disruption is predicted to cause a bigger problem for the economy than it was then because of how much the Chinese economy has grown. The virus has appeared at an inopportune time for China. After a period of slow growth and a trade war with the United States, there is much tension involved in supplying goods and in the stock market.
The quarantine in Wuhan is preventing the virus from spreading, but many people in the city are unable to receive medical help, masks or any kind of remedy. Numbers are increasing to a point that they cannot be fully diagnosed because there aren’t enough hospitals to house patients or test them. China is building two new hospitals for those who are diagnosed with coronavirus. In certain regions, the medical care consists solely of taking people’s temperatures each morning and night because of the overwhelming growth of the virus. The goal of the quarantine is to slow the spread to other countries, especially the US. However, there are tens of thousands of people in China who may still remain undiagnosed as a result.