now as you'll know the corona virus is
causing concern the world over but the
World Health Organization has this
message for us people had suddenly the
impression that the virus was in the air
and everybody will go and there is this
cloud of virus will be infected so this
is not the situation currently the virus
is transmitted through droplets and you
need a close contact to be infected no
doubt the reaction to this virus has
been considerable the media including
the BBC is given an extensive coverage
many governments have acted decisively
to restrict people arriving from China
or bring their own people home and today
we had this update from the British
Foreign Office saying it now recommends
that British nationals who are able to
leave China so that is all British
nationals in every part of China it's
also though useful to put the scale of
this crisis in perspective we noticed
the US health journalist Liz Sabo saying
look there have been 425 deaths from
coronavirus all over the world meanwhile
10,000 Americans have died from the flu
this season and flu season hasn't even
Peaks now worldwide flu kills over
600,000 people a year there are up to 11
million cases of it each year you could
compare that to the roughly 20,000 cases
of corona virus at the moment yet
because of these cases 22 countries have
introduced trade and/or travel
restrictions here's the World Health
Organization on that site restrictions
can have the effect of increasing fear
and stigma with little public health
benefit and this is what China's
representative told the w-h-o
overreaction by adopting restriction
isolation and the blocking levers are
not beneficial to international
collaborations and such mirrors may lead
to more complicated outcome and
interference on prevention and control
efforts and certainly China is under
pressure on a range of fronts Taiwan is
launched and
ordinary attack accusing the Chinese of
failing to release up-to-date
information never listen we've seen the
Chinese government rudely and
unreasonably pressuring Taiwan on the
international stage they're putting
political considerations over people's
health and safety this basically is
extremely vile as history here of course
Taiwan's not a w-h-o member because of
China's objections and while Taiwan
meant it maintains its independence
Beijing considers it to be part of China
so every disagreement between the two
has to be listened to with that in mind
another aspect of this story is the
illegal wildlife trade in China the
Politburo Standing Committee this is the
top political leadership in China has
now come out to say it's necessary to
strengthen market supervision resolutely
ban and severely crack down on illegal
wildlife markets and trade now this is
an issue because market selling live
animals are known to be a potential
source of diseases that are new to
humans and the virus which started in
the city of Wuhan while there's
speculation that it perhaps found its
origin in this market in the city
he's Navin Singh cADCA from BBC World
Service on that so major international
conservation organizations what they're
saying is China needs to cash in on this
opportunity the situation and turn this
temporary ban into a permanent one
because as you know China is the biggest
consumer of wildlife products both legal
and illegal there has been tremendous
it's been under tremendous pressure for
quite some time now back in 2003 when
when we had the SARS outbreak the
Chinese government did put a temporary
ban back then as well but then within a
few months this business wildlife
business came back and then it was
business as usual our China's leadership
has admitted shortcomings and
deficiencies in its response to this
crisis that's a rare admission and the
Politburo Standing Committee has said we
must improve our national emergency
management system and improve our
abilities in handling urgent and
dangerous tasks well we know that some
warnings were ignored or silenced let's
focus on this doctor he was working at
Wuhan central hospital
he noticed seven cases that he thought
looked like
czars that's a virus that led to a
global epidemic in 2003 and in December
he posted a warning about a potential
outbreak in a chat group with fellow
medics shortly afterwards he was
summoned by police and accused of making
false statements and being told he'd
severely disturbed the social order he
was then given this document to sign and
well most of it actually involved
language from the authorities rather
than from him he was told we solemnly
warned you if you keep being stubborn
with such impertinence and continue this
illegal activity you will be brought to
justice is that understood underneath it
dr. Lee wrote yes I do well from there
in January officials in Wuhan were
insisting that only those who came into
contact with infected animals could
catch this virus that wasn't true also
no guidance was issued to protect
doctors and then dr. Lee fell ill but it
wasn't until 10 days later on the 20th
of January that China actually declared
an emergency by the end of January dr.
Lee posted this picture with the words
finally diagnosed he had the virus while
Stephanie Haggerty from BBC World
Service has been looking into more
details in his case he's still in
isolation and he's in ICU but he's able
to text and he's been able to post some
social media definitely not out of the
woods but he's doing okay and have there
been sanctions for him sharing his
diagnosis well the strange thing is that
he's clearly had the confidence to share
this story towards the ends of end of
January and that may be because though
he was disciplined by the local police
the central authority in Beijing then
criticized the police for that move so
that appears to have given in the
confidence and then start sharing his
story which is quite strange for doctors
in mu Han or doctors involved in this
crisis we haven't seen many of them
speaking out or any that have their post
have been taken down or deleted this has
been up for four or five days now what I
was going to ask you about that you've
written extensively about this on the
BBC News website how easy is it to
communicate with this doctor or indeed
any doctors in blue man it's not easy
and that's I think dr. Lee's case is a
clear example of just how well China can
control the narrative of this story and
they've been doing that as I said by
deleting
post by going to people's houses are
telling them to be quiet as we saw it
dr. Lee and it's a very impressive
control structure now you're a
population specialist for the BBC World
Service and I wonder to what degree the
changing nature of China's population
and where it lives more in cities less
in the countryside is impacting on how
China responds to this crisis well it's
probably not a coincidence that this
happened just as China was undertaking
the biggest human migration in our
history there's an estimate of three
billion trips taken over the case of 40
days this happened banks up in the
middle of that while people were
celebrating Chinese New Year and one of
the really important things in terms of
locking it down was stopping people from
moving something people from returning
back after the holidays that's easier
said than done though presumably yeah
for sure and it's not just travel within
China on trains and planes but in the
past ten years we've seen global number
of passengers taking airplanes double
and most of that growth is happening in
China