Wuhan’s women’s prison director sacked as 230 inmates test positive for illness; South Korea adds 52 new cases. Follow latest news
Here’s a summary of what’s happened so far on Friday.
The director of Wuhan Women’s Prison has been removed from her position, according to the Hubei Daily, where it’s believed 230 inmates have tested positive for Covid-19.
Another 41 prisoners in Shayang Hanjin prison, also tested positive, according to reports in the Hubei Daily.
Hubei Daily: 271 prisoners in Hubei are infected with #covid19 among which 230 are in Wuhan Women’s Prison and 41 are in Shayang Hanjin Prison.
Head of the women’s prison has already been sacked and an officer in Hanjin was given serious warning for omitting contact history. pic.twitter.com/bs1BuVQ7uE
Agence France-Presse has conducted interviews with some of the crew members of the Diamond Princess, who were not subject to the same quarantine restrictions on the ship.
They (the crew) were preparing food and delivering meals to cabins, leading some critics to charge they were inadvertently spreading the virus throughout the ship, which has seen more than 600 cases of the potentially deadly COVID-19 disease.
As they have been in close contact with possibly infected passengers, the crew is expected to undergo a 14-day quarantine starting when the last passenger leaves the ship.
Hubei province has revised its new cases for Friday up from 411 to 631, which pushes the day’s total across china above 1,100. New deaths in Hubei remained unchanged at 115.
“The prison system has increased by a total of 220 cases,” the bulletin from the Hubei health commission says.
In case you missed this, the BBC’s Stephen McDonell has made a video about the empty streets of Beijing and how its citizens are coping with the virus lockdown.
A fascinating look at a deserted Beijing in the midst of the Coronavirus outbreak - from @StephenMcDonell & @EP_Lawrence https://t.co/nWC6soQQom
China’s Global Television Network is reporting that 200 prisoners in a facility in the eastern province of Shandong are infected with Covid-19. The sources of the infection is reported to be an affected prison guard.
East China's Shandong Province reported 200 #COVID19 cases from the Rencheng Prison on Thu., bringing the total to 207 in the facility
- Virus brought in by affected prison guard
- Treatments underway
- Provincial justice chief among eight officials removed from office pic.twitter.com/yyMWa21a86
Car sales plummeted in China in February, state media is reporting.
Retail of domestic passenger #vehicles in China plummeted 92% y-o-y in the first half of Feb, a record decline, due to #COVID19: industrial report pic.twitter.com/SkLUjtOdqA
Another doctor in Wuhan has died from the virus. According to health authorities, 29 year old Peng Yinhua, working in respiratory and critical care at Wuhan’s Jiangxia district’s First People’s Hospital, died at 9:50pm on Thursday.
Peng had contracted the virus and was admitted to hospital on 25 January, where his condition worsened by the 30th. He was sent to Jinyin Tan hospital in Wuhan for emergency treatment and died at the hospital. The Jiangxia health commission said it expressed its “deepest condolences” to Peng’s family.
Jiangxia district had previously held Peng up as an example of the many doctors fighting on the frontline of the outbreak, featuring an article about Peng delaying his wedding in order to work. On Weibo, news of his death has travelled quickly, with more than 190 million views. “The bride will never get her bridegroom back home again,” one user wrote.
The Japanese media outlet, NHK, says a third group of passengers has left the stricken cruise ship in Yokohama. Some 700 people have disembarked since Wednesday and another 450 are expected to get off on Friday, NHK says. Only those who have tested negative are being allowed to leave, but “anyone who shared a cabin with an infected passenger is being asked to stay onboard for another 14 days after they separated – even if they have tested negative”, the report says.
We’re getting some more detail on the 52 new cases of Covid-19 in South Korea.
Yonhap news agency is reporting that 41 are in the city of Daegu, 300km southeast of Seoul, and the neighbouring North Gyeongsang Province. Another three were reported in Seoul, the Korea Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement. Of the 52 new cases, 39 are linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu. Around 1,000 members of the church have been asked to self isolate.
Two Chinese officials have been removed from their posts at prisons, after both centres recorded confirmed cases of Covid-19, the state-owned Global Times is reporting.
The total confirmed #COVID19 cases in Shilifeng Prison have reached 34. https://t.co/pnIwYoQoQw
Just doubling back on those figures for the virus in China ... there were 889 new confirmed cases reported in Friday’s national briefing from the country’s health commission, which is a jump up from the 394 reported the previous day. The total number of infections stands at 75,465.
You may recall that the way China reports cases changed again yesterday, to remove patients who had been clinically diagnosed (by a doctor/scan) who had subsequently tested negative for the virus. This appeared to influence the trend down on Thursday, compared to Wednesday.
South Korea has seen a significant rise in Covid-19 cases – from 104 to 156 – prompting the PM to declare “strong and swift” measures will be taken to tackle the outbreak.
“Special care zones” have been designated in Daegu and Cheongdo. The latter recorded the country’s first death from the virus on Thursday, according to Yonhap news agency.
Two Australians who were repatriated from the stricken Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan have tested positive for Covid-19 after returning home.
More than 160 Australians onboard the cruise liner were flown to the Howard Springs camp outside the northern city of Darwin on Wednesday.
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the coronavirus outbreak.
China has recorded 889 new cases, up from 394 recorded on Thursday. There were also 118 new deaths, compared to 114 the day before.
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