Wuhan doctor tests positive for coronavirus after the city reported zero cases for five days in a row as leading doctor warns ‘mission is not accomplished’ for the former epicentre
- The medical worker was diagnosed yesterday, said the local health authority
- Officials said it was possible that he had contracted the disease through work
- Comes as the surrounding Hubei Province is set to lift travel restrictions tonight
- Experts warned of a second outbreak due to surging number of imported cases
- Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?
A doctor in Wuhan, the former centre of the coronavirus pandemic, has tested positive for the disease after the city reported zero infections for five conductive days.
The medic works at the Hubei Provincial People’s Hospital and was diagnosed yesterday, according to the local health authority.
The news comes after one of China’s leading coronavirus experts yesterday warned that the mission of stemming the outbreak ‘has not been accomplished’ in the city of 11 million.
It also comes as the surrounding Hubei Province is set to lift travel restrictions tonight after being locked down for two months.
A doctor (not the one pictured) at the Hubei Provincial People’s Hospital has been diagnosed with the coronavirus. The medic is the first native infection after the city reported zero cases for five days straight. The above picture shows a hospital worker in Jiujiang on February 1
The medic is the only case of infection reported by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission today.
The authority also recorded seven new deaths and the recovery of 426 people.
Local officials are still trying to identify how the doctor contracted the infection, but they said they were not ruling out the possibility that the person had caught the bug at work.
They said the medic, who remains unidentified, had been working in his hospital before falling ill.
Wuhan has registered 2,524 deaths, 50,006 infections and 43,214 recoveries since the epidemic emerged in December.
A worker disinfects around the No. 7 Hospital, once designated for only COVID-19 patients, in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province on March 19. The local government is set to lift the travel restrictions in and out of the city on April 8 after it went into lockdown in January
Beijing’s leading doctor yesterday said she was ‘very worried’ about a possible second outbreak due to the surging number of infections detected among people arriving in China from abroad.
Epidemiologist and Professor Li Lanjuan, 73, said there were still many patients to be treated in Wuhan.
Prof Li, who has led her medical team to fight the virus in the city for more than 50 days, told state newspaper People’s Daily: ‘The mission in Wuhan has not been accomplished, and there are still many critical patients. Furthermore, I think the current situation in our country is very tough.
‘[I am] very worried that imported cases could trigger another large-scale epidemic in our country.
‘Can we make every effort to guard our country and prevent another epidemic from happening? This is a tough challenge.’
Chinese epidemiologist Li Lanjuan yesterday said that the mission of stemming the epidemic ‘has not been accomplished’ in Wuhan because there were still many critical patients to treat
A second coronavirus outbreak in China is ‘highly likely’ and ‘even inevitable’ as the pandemic escalates, China’s state newspaper has warned.
Loopholes in the health screening process and inadequate quarantine measures for people arriving from abroad are the main factors for the looming new crisis, according to state-run Global Times.
China’s National Health Commission today reported seven new deaths and 78 new cases, including 74 imported infections.
While the daily tally in Hong Kong soared by 356 and four more people there died of the disease yesterday.
Worldwide, more than 16,500 people have been killed by the contagion and over 384,400 people have been infected.
China to lift lockdown of Hubei province tonight
Migrant workers and their relatives queue as they prepare to get on a special train before departing to Shenzhen in Yichang in China’s central Hubei province on March 23
China will lift restrictions on movement in most areas of Hubei province on Wednesday, ending a lockdown of the area brought on by the coronavirus.
People who are cleared will be able to leave the province after midnight on Tuesday.
Restrictions on the hardest-hit city of Wuhan will remain until April 8.
China barred people from leaving or entering Wuhan and the wider province on January 23 as the bug began spreading to the rest of China and overseas during the Lunar New Year holiday, when many Chinese travel.
Hubei has had almost no new infections for more than a week.
The move to end the lockdown shows the authorities’ apparent faith in the success of the drastic measures in much of China.
After barring people from leaving or entering Wuhan, authorities swiftly expanded what were, at the time, unprecedented measures to most of Hubei and its tens of millions of residents, as well as many other parts of a country with a population of 1.4 billion.
It remains unclear, however, whether other cities and provinces, such as the capital Beijing, will allow people leaving Hubei to enter their jurisdictions. Quarantine rules are expected to remain in place for those travelling outside their local areas.