Coronavirus Has Now Spread To All Regions Of Mainland China

A worker in a protective suit uses a large fogger to disinfect outdoor areas in a village in Qingdao, Shandong province, as the deadly new coronavirus continues to spread in China.           Reuters

The deadly strain of coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan has now spread to every part of mainland China, from Shanghai to Tibet. The rapid increase caused the World Health Organization to declare a global health emergency and prompted Russia to close its long border with China.

Late Thursday, the U.S. State Department also issued a “do not travel” advisory for China.

…

“Ben Cowling, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong, says that in the last few days the trajectory of this outbreak has grown much clearer,” NPR’s Jason Beaubien reports from Hong Kong. He adds, “Cowling says the outbreak is just getting started, and he expects to see increased levels of transmission globally, including in the United States.”

“I think it’s quite likely that you will see human-to-human transmission in U.S. cities” within weeks, Cowling said – but it only took a matter of hours for his prediction to come true, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that the first human-to-human spread had occurred in Illinois.

…

The U.S. State Department is arranging further evacuation flights for Americans caught in Wuhan’s virtual lockdown, with the U.S. Embassy in Beijing saying additional flights are tentatively set for Monday.