he may well look glum this is a bad time
for China 26 deaths so far from the
novel coronavirus and at least 830
infected and an unprecedented quarantine
Wuhan and central China and nearby
cities in lockdown not a soul to be seen
except here like an art installation the
dance of the diggers purportedly a
building site for a hospital the
authorities say will be ready in six
days the news strain not previously
identified in humans is causing alarm
though the World Health Organization
says it's too early to declare an
international public health emergency at
the beginning of any outbreak you would
focus more on a severe cases and you
will have more of those and then maybe
we are missing some mild cases because
people will just be a little bit sick
today The Lancet medical journal
published preliminary data from Wuhan
saying the virus appears to cause
similar symptoms to SARS also a corona
virus which killed eight hundred and
infected eight thousand and two thousand
and two three the similar symptoms of
fever dry cough and shortness of breath
but not and this is what makes it
different a runny nose sneezing sore
throat or diarrhea the source of the
initial infection of this corona virus
is still not known but the working
theory is that it's from animals sold in
the wuhan fish market the virus has then
transferred to humans and then between
people breathed in' and damaging the
respiratory system with no treatment the
most important health message is wash
your hands I've studied the early stages
of a lot of pandemics in history the you
know the classic one being the 1918
Spanish flu and sometimes they do begin
with with mild illnesses or not very
serious illnesses but that can all
change if the virus suddenly mutates and
finds a way to transmit more efficiently
so that's that's the big unknown
actually a second Landsat paper reports
on a family of seven six of whom tested
positive none had visited the market but
one had been to visit a young child
and Wuhan Hospital the authors say the
Vigilant control measures are warranted
at this early stage but they also say
this is a snapshot of one family and
they still don't know how efficiently
the virus spreads cases have now been
confirmed in Japan South Korea Singapore
Thailand the US and Vietnam but 14
suspected infections in the UK have all
been negative although officials are now
trying to trace as many as 2,000
visitors who have arrived here from
Wuhan today the Cobra Emergency
Committee met for an update and while
the risk here remains low the public
health hub is being set up at Heathrow I
think we should definitely see this
there's a marathon not a sprint and we
need to have our entire response based
on that principle back in China this is
the morning after a party that never
happened in the Forbidden City in
Beijing they've taken down the lanterns
to celebrate the Lunar New Year this is
a country battling against a new virus
well cathy has been speaking to Richard
Hatcher the CEO of the Coalition for
epidemic preparedness innovations in
Davos and she asked him to explain more
about this virus and its characteristics
well I'm quite concerned I think most
global public health leaders are very
concerned we've we've watched this virus
emerge the epidemic has grown rapidly
it's spread internationally rapidly
we've seen a number of deaths the virus
belongs to a class of virus called
corona viruses and we have prior
experience with corona viruses with SARS
about 15 years ago and and more recently
with the disease called MERS Middle
Eastern respiratory syndrome both of
those viruses have high rates of
mortality SARS was about 10% we don't
know what the mortality rate for this
virus is but we know it can cause very
severe illness and death how likely is
it that the virus may mutate to become
more dangerous or less dangerous I have
in 20 years of working on epidemic
preparedness I can't say that I've been
more concerned than I am about the
current virus this is a virus it has a
wide spectrum of illness from very mild
to very severe or even fatal
the problem is that people who have very
mild illness in the middle of flu season
flu and cold season may not even realize
that they had this virus and they may
continue to move around they may
continue to interact with people and
actually spread the infection to other
people who may be more vulnerable to
severe illness or death have authorities
around the world acted aggressively
enough in your view because flights were
coming into Britain for example from the
Wuhan area as recently is Wednesday I
think it should you have should
authorities around well affected more
aggressively I think authorities around
the world are taking this outbreak
extremely seriously
the problem with travel restrictions in
particular when you have a virus it has
an incubation period of several days or
a week people will be travelling before
they get sick so it will be impossible
to keep the virus out even by doing
intensive screening it borders and
travel restrictions aren't really going
to slow the global spread of the virus
and and so doing things that impose huge
social cost in what's going to be a
futile effort to stop the spread of the
virus you know it's just a
disproportionate response I know the
details are still sketchy but where is
it most likely that this virus will have
come from originally what we do know
about this outbreak is that it does seem
to have been associated with
transmission early transmission in a wet
market in China we're live animals were
sold and it's undoubted that the virus
jumped from some live animal species
into humans just tell us about the kind
of vaccines that are being developed and
how different they are from vaccines for
other illnesses what's the sort of new
technology being used the first set of
investments we actually have three
different kinds of vaccines two of them
are what we call nucleic acid based
vaccines so one is based on messenger
RNA mRNA the second is is a DNA based
vaccine and the third vaccine is is is
basically contains a protein from the
virus and it exposes that protein in a
way that the immune system can see it
and respond to it very effectively I
think the other the other important
thing what we can use right now or what
are called non-pharmaceutical
interventions and they can also be
things that the Chinese are now using
which include
you know preventing mass gatherings
potentially closing schools potentially
even introducing travel restrictions I'm
very concerned that that's all I can say
I think it's moving very rapidly I think
it's going to be a real challenge to
contain it in in one sense if there is a
silver lining it is that the outbreak
first occurred in China which which can
do extraordinary things as a country and
and introduce really extraordinary
interventions and they are they are
responding very aggressively and very
responsibly at this point Richard
Hatchett thank you very much thank you
Gary pleasure well joining me now from
Nottingham share is Professor Steve
Tseng who's the director of the China
Institute at the London University
School of Oriental and African Studies
locking down cities that are home to
tens of millions of people
sounds extraordinarily difficult I mean
how will how easy will China find it to
enforce this well they will be able to
enforce the main transport links like
railing or air link but they are not in
fact closing all the roads and therefore
people are still able to travel is the
poor who require public transport who
cannot travel the better of us do able
to travel and get out your Han and then
spread the disease if they happens to be
carrying us what what do you think the
impact of this will be on those cities
not least sort of economically I mean
people have been looking back to the
economic cost of SARS and saying it was
extraordinarily high shutting down
millions of people's homes and
businesses will have a considerable
impact it will have a considerable
impact we are looking at the start of
the lunar the Chinese New Year holiday
see so in this short term most families
in China will have very well stocked
with iterators so they will have food
for the next week or so but if the
Ling's
are not being reopened at the end of the
festive season the Wuhan will run out of
through
and other essential supplies restaurants
will not have wished to serve their
customers and a lot of other problems
will come with the cutoff of the
communication lanes I suspect that they
may well have to rethink that when that
point is being reached do you think
people will remain compliant or will
they resist well at the moment people in
China are much more focused on the
Chinese New Year festivals is the people
again we are talking about tens of
millions potentially who in fact have
the Chinese New Year holiday being
cancelled it's a bit like canceling
Christmas for people in this country and
they are likely to be very disappointed
with what is happening and disgruntled
but the way to challenge the authority
in China is very very difficult so I
think they have at the moment
not of choices now quite a lot has been
made about how much China has been
sharing scientifically in terms of
information and how it compares to the
past can the international community
trust that China is sharing everything
well the Chinese government is handling
this with a much more open approach than
they did with the SARS crisis in 2002 to
2003 on the previous occasions they
basically copy it up until they could
not do so this time they are not
covering up but I the problem with the
Chinese government is that they are
never terribly forthcoming when it comes
time to cross collaborations with other
countries so a bit more forthcoming
cooperation will always be helpful used
to box eyes