bats Weaker than Sars but may share link to bats Coronavirus weaker than Sars but may share link to bats, Chinese scientists say South China Morning Post Stephen Chen in Beijing - Published: 11:56am, 22 Jan, 2020 Virus found in fruit bats is common ancestor of the two strains, study suggests New strain has unusually high ability to bind to a human protein, researchers calculate 17-600 17 dead, 600 infected Jan. 22, 2020, Michael Levenson, New York Times Scale of China’s Wuhan Shutdown Is Believed to Be Without Precedent In sealing off a city of 11 million people, China is trying to halt a coronavirus outbreak using a tactic with a complicated history of ethical concerns. In closing off Wuhan, a city of more than 11 million people, China deployed on Thursday morning a centuries-old public health tactic to prevent the spread of infectious disease — this time, a mysterious respiratory infection caused by a coronavirus. Experts said the stunning scale of the shutdown, isolating a major urban transit hub larger than New York City, was without precedent. “It’s an unbelievable undertaking,” said Dr. Howard Markel, a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan, adding that he had never heard of so many people being cordoned off as a disease-prevention measure. Still, “people are going to get out,” he said. “It’s going to be leaky.” China’s expanding measures To combat the spread of the virus, which first appeared at the end of December and has killed at least 17 people and sickened more than 600, the Chinese government said it would cancel planes and trains leaving Wuhan beginning Thursday, and suspend buses, subways and ferries within it.

who WHO postpones decision on whether to declare China outbreak a global public health emergency The World Health Organization on Wednesday delayed a decision on whether to declare the ongoing outbreak of a novel virus that originated in China a global health emergency, with agency officials saying they needed more information to reach a consensus. Following a meeting of a WHO emergency committee, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, said he had asked the committee to continue the discussion Thursday. “This is an evolving and complex situation,” said Tedros, as he is known. He said declaring the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, was a decision “I’m only prepared to make with appropriate consideration of all the evidence.”