Coronavirus death toll soars to 814

Distressing footage appears to show Chinese authorities violently dragging people from their homes to be placed into quarantine.

Distressing footage appears to show Chinese authorities violently dragging people from their homes to be placed into quarantine.

Reports of the government’s increasingly heavy-handed tactics in combating the deadly coronavirus outbreak come after a senior official described it as “wartime conditions”, ordering infected in the ground-zero city of Wuhan in Hubei Province to be rounded up for mass quarantine.

A video posted to Twitter on Friday showed three people struggling as they are forcibly removed from an apartment by people in white hazmat suits. One is seen lying on the floor gripping a doorframe before they are eventually carried away by their arms and legs.

2/6 #coronavirus

In today’s Wuhan, forced quarantine is becoming a “Martial Law”. Another whole family was forced to go to quarantine center, where no medicine, no doctor, no water, no bathroom close by, no nothing is available. People won’t go no matter how good CCP painted❗️ pic.twitter.com/w6iNtoR3Us

— 西行小宝 (@htommy998) February 7, 2020

The video was filmed in the city of Kunshan in Jiangsu Province at the home of a family who had returned from Hubei, according to The Associated Press, citing a report by the official Jiangsu Communication Broadcasting Station.

A second video posted to Twitter on Thursday shows two people standing on the pavement hugging while health workers look on, before at least one of them is led into what appears to be an isolation container on the back of a government vehicle.

Quarantined in a box. On a truck. 😳😳😳😲#coronavirus #corononavirus pic.twitter.com/a4z4zpH4Ur

— Coronavirus Updates (@chaddha_lal) February 6, 2020

The video was filmed in Suzhou, which is also in Jiangsu Province, NBC News reports, although it’s unclear exactly when each video was filmed.

Meanwhile, a third video taken on board an evacuation flight of US citizens from Wuhan earlier this week shows how seriously authorities there are treating the risk.

United states pulls its citizens out of Wuhan...they are taking this virus way more seriously, look at their suits#coronavirus #CoronavirusOutbreak #Wuhan #coronaviruschina pic.twitter.com/T18dQUrjj2

— Harry Chen PhD (@IsChinar) February 7, 2020

It comes as the number of deaths from the new coronavirus epidemic jumped to 814 on Sunday after the hard-hit Hubei province reported more than 80 new fatalities.

The toll is now higher than the global number of deaths caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus, which killed 774 people in 2002-2003.

In the Hubei province alone, the death toll now is 780. All but one of the overall total of 814 deaths have so far been in mainland China and Hong Kong.

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In its daily update, Hubei’s health commission also confirmed another 2147 new cases in the central province, where the outbreak emerged in December.

There are now more than 37,226 confirmed cases across China.

The World Health Organisation said Saturday that the number of cases being reported daily in China is “stabilising” – but cautioned that it was too early to say if the virus has peaked.

“The numbers could go up again … but the last two days were showing a declining trend,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

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There has been another staggering rise in coronavirus infections. The above map shows the situation on February 8 with 37,583 confirmed cases. Picture: John Hopkins CSSE

Earlier this week, however, scientific research predicted coronavirus cases in China will double every six days, with some experts suggesting it will never be contained.

The updated death toll comes as scientists on Friday found that diarrhoea may be a secondary path of transmission for the disease.

The primary path is believed to be virus-laden droplets from an infected person’s cough, though researchers in early cases have said they focused heavily on patients with respiratory symptoms and may have overlooked those linked to the digestive tract.

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There is a new concern that the #coronavirus may be spread by fecal-oral transmission.

In terms of this, Chinese respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan says that doctors are keeping a close eye on whether feces can carry the contagion. pic.twitter.com/j93Uo9X2cu

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) February 2, 2020

The new virus is believed to have emerged last year in a market that sells wild animals in Hubei’s capital Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak, before spreading across the country.

On Thursday, a 60-year-old US citizen – the first confirmed non-Chinese victim of the illness – died in Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital.

UPDATE: U.S. embassy in Beijing to @CBSNews just now. “We can confirm a 60-year old U.S. citizen diagnosed with coronavirus died at Jinyintian Hospital in Wuhan, China on February 6. We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss.” #WuhanCoronavirus @StateDept https://t.co/JuclC0QMD9

— Ramy Inocencio 英若明 (@RamyInocencio) February 8, 2020

A Japanese man in his 60s with a suspected coronavirus infection also died in hospital in Wuhan, the Japanese foreign ministry said.

ANGER SIMMERS OVER DEATH OF DOCTOR THREATENED BY POLICE

News of the rising death toll comes as the public in Wuhan mourn the death of ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, who died on Friday in Wuhan Central Hospital after first noticing symptoms of the disease on January 10.

The death of the “heroic” doctor – who first sounded the warning about the coronavirus in Wuhan – has sparked an outpouring of fury and grief at Chinese authorities seen as trying to sensor the news.

Whistleblowing doctor Li Wenliang has been hailed a hero and sparked a wave of fury at the government for manipulating coverage of his death. Picture: Li Wenliang/Social Media

Flowers are placed near a photo of the late Dr. Li Wenliang at a hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province. Picture: Chinatopix via AP

The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in a statement that it promised a thorough investigation into Dr Li, who died of the virus after being infected by one of his patients.

Li, 34, was one of eight medical professionals in Wuhan who first noticed a disease similar to SARS which killed nearly 800 people in a 2002-2003 outbreak.

He blogged about his findings and noted that seven patients had contracted the virus. On January 3 he was visited by police who forced him to sign a statement admitting to having spread falsehoods and warning him of punishment if he continued.

By January 10 Li wrote he had developed a cough, fever on January 11 and was hospitalised on January 12, after which he began having trouble breathing.

On Friday as news of his death broke, he was hailed as a hero with a slew of tributes and fury at officials who scrubbed social media posts.

“He is a hero who warned others with his life,” a fellow Wuhan doctor wrote on Weibo.

People wearing masks, attend a vigil for Chinese doctor Li Wenliang in Hong Kong on Friday. Picture: AP Photo/Kin Cheung

AFRICA CAUGHT UNPREPARED

The virus has yet to be confirmed in Africa, but global health authorities are increasingly worried about the threat to the continent, where an estimated onemillion Chinese now live, as some health workers warn they are not ready to handle an outbreak.

Countries are racing to take precautions as hundreds of travellers arrive from China every day. Safeguards include stronger surveillance at ports of entry and improved quarantine and testing measures across Africa, home to 1.2 billion people and some of the world’s weakest systems for detecting and treating disease.

But the effort has been complicated by a critical shortage of testing kits and numerous illnesses that display symptoms similar to the flu-like virus.

“The problem is, even if it’s mild, it can paralyse the whole community,” said WHO emergency operations manager Dr Michel Yao.

While China is bearing the brunt of the virus, anxiety levels are spiking across Asia, with Japan alarmed by the rising number of cases aboard a quarantined cruise ship, major foreign companies pulling out of an international air show in Singapore, and Thailand losing money as Chinese tourists stay home.

Another three people on the cruise liner off Japan tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases from the ship to 64, Japan’s health ministry said.

Thailand reported seven new cases, including three Thais and four Chinese, bringing the total reported in the country to 32, among the world’s highest number of infections outside of China.

Having already decided to suspend most flights from Monday between Taiwan to China, Taiwan’s government said it would also suspend all direct passenger and freight shipping.

Hundreds of foreigners have been evacuated out of Wuhan over the past two weeks.

A second evacuation plane to airlift Australians out of Wuhan was delayed after China did not give it clearance to land but has since taken off.

– With AFP