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EPIDEMICS
Wuhan marks a year since lockdown as Biden warns of 600,000 dead
By AFP bureaus
Wuhan, China (AFP) Jan 23, 2021

Too early to draw Covid origin conclusions: WHO
Geneva (AFP) Jan 22, 2021 - The World Health Organization said Friday it was too early to draw any conclusions from its mission to Wuhan as to whether the Covid-19 pandemic started in China.

A team of WHO experts arrived in Wuhan on January 14 to start probing the origins of the deadly coronavirus, more than a year after the first cases were detected in the central Chinese city.

They were whisked to a hotel to complete a two-week quarantine.

China is braced for the scrutiny the expert team of WHO scientists will bring to its virus narrative. Beijing has drip-fed the idea that the pandemic started outside of its borders.

"All hypotheses are on the table. And it is definitely too early to come to a conclusion of exactly where this virus started, either within or without China," said WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan.

"There are different... scientific observations in different parts of the world... all of that is very important, because it builds up a picture," he told a press conference in Geneva.

However, he added: "This is a big jigsaw puzzle and you cannot tell what the image says by looking at one piece in a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle."

The virus has killed more than two million people so far, infected tens of millions of others and hammered the global economy.

The WHO says establishing the pathway of the virus from animals to humans is essential to preventing future outbreaks.

It says the probe should rightly start where the first cases were discovered, and follow the trail of clues from there.

"Let's step back, let's follow the evidence, let's follow the science. Our team are on the ground, they are having a good experience working with our Chinese colleagues. We are working through the data," said Ryan.

"The data will lead us to the next phase of where we have to go next to look at the origins of this virus.

"It is too early to come to any conclusion, but we believe we are making some progress and we hope to continue to do so in the interest of public health in the future."

The Chinese city of Wuhan marked one year since the start of its traumatic 76-day coronavirus lockdown Saturday while the pandemic continued to rage elsewhere, with US President Joe Biden warning America's death toll could pass 600,000.

Traffic hummed, sidewalks bustled, and citizens packed parks and public transport in Wuhan, underscoring the scale of the recovery in the metropolis of 11 million where the pathogen first emerged before going global.

The spread of the virus was accelerating elsewhere, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying a new strain that emerged in the UK could be more deadly and more transmissible than the one that menaced Wuhan a year ago.

"In addition to spreading more quickly, it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant... may be associated with a higher degree of mortality," Johnson told a news conference.

The sobering news came as Britain reported record deaths from Covid-19, following a surge in cases and hospitalisations since the variant was first identified in southeast England in September.

The nation's death toll -- 95,981 as of Friday -- is the highest in Europe.

In the United States, the world's worst-hit country, the new president gave his highest estimate yet of its eventual toll, as he stepped up federal aid.

"The virus is surging," President Biden told a news conference. "We're at 400,000 dead, expected to reach well over 600,000."

Globally, the virus has killed more than two million people, infected tens of millions of others and hammered economies.

There were new signs of the depth of damage dealt to the global economy, with the closely watched Purchasing Managers' Index showing that Europe was heading for a new recession, while Latin America suffered its steepest drop in foreign trade since the global financial crisis.

- Origins probe -

In Wuhan, a team of World Health Organization experts was still in hotel quarantine ahead of a mission to investigate the source of the virus, and the body said it was too early to conclude whether the pandemic actually started there.

"All hypotheses are on the table," WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told a press conference in Geneva.

"And it is definitely too early to come to a conclusion of exactly where this virus started, either within or without China."

Beijing is braced for the scrutiny the team will bring to its virus narrative, having drip-fed the idea that the pandemic started outside its borders.

And while Wuhanites looked back on their confinement from the distance of a year, Hong Kong was introducing its first lockdown of the pandemic, the government ordering thousands of residents to stay home as authorities battled an outbreak in one of its poorest and most densely packed districts.

The order bans anyone inside multiple housing blocks within the neighbourhood of Jordan -- about 150 blocks and up to 9,000 people, according to local media -- from leaving their apartment unless they can show a negative test.

Countries across the world were bringing in new measures Saturday, including the Netherlands, which was set to introduce its first curfew since World War II.

Until February 19, residents will have to stay home from 9 pm until 4:30 am, on pain of a 95-euro ($115) fine.

And in the Colombian capital of Bogota, residents were under their third weekend quarantine in a row, meaning the closure of all non-essential shops in the city of eight million from Friday at 8:00 pm until Monday at 4:00 am.

- Vaccine scramble -

As vaccine rollouts gain pace around the world, Hungary announced it was going it alone and buying two million doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, frustrated by the European Union's unwieldy strategy of buying shots in bulk on behalf of members.

"It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mouse," Orban said of the different vaccines, despite wariness from some experts over Sputnik V being rolled out before large-scale clinical trials.

Brazil was meanwhile due to receive two million doses of a different jab developed by British pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

The WHO has repeatedly warned that richer countries are hogging vaccines.

But there was good news Friday for poorer nations, as the WHO and pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer announced a deal for up to 40 million initial doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be made available to them through the Covax global pool.

"We can only end the pandemic anywhere if we end it everywhere," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

A separate deal, brokered by international agencies working with the WHO, will supply developing nations with tens of millions of rapid antigen tests at half the usual $5 price.

burs-leg/axn

ASTRAZENECA

PFIZER


Related Links
Epidemics on Earth - Bird Flu, HIV/AIDS, Ebola


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EPIDEMICS
Partial lockdown in Beijing as UK virus variant detected
Beijing (AFP) Jan 20, 2021
1.6 million residents were banned from leaving Beijing on Wednesday as two Covid-19 cases linked to a new UK virus variant were found in the Chinese capital. China has lauded its response to the pandemic, which emerged in the central city of Wuhan just over a year ago but has been broadly brought to heel, officially killing fewer than 5,000 Chinese people. Authorities have been swift to stamp out local clusters of cases with lockdowns, mass testing regimes and travel restrictions. With the L ... read more

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