February 5 coronavirus news

Our live coverage of the coronavirus outbreak has moved here.

The number of confirmed cases of Wuhan coronavirus in China increased to 28,018, by the end of day Wednesday, according to the National Health Commission. That number reflects an increase of 3,694 cases from the previous day.

A Korean Air flight carrying over 200 passengers from Seoul, South Korea (ICN) to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas was diverted to Los Angeles’ LAX airport after being notified of three US citizens onboard that had been to China within the past 14 days, Korean Air spokesperson Jill Chung told CNN. 

The three people are being screened at LAX right now and the plane is headed to Las Vegas with the rest of the passengers, Chung said. 

Federal Aviation Administration also confirmed the flight was diverted saying, “Korean Airlines Flight 005, a Boeing 777 flying from Seoul to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, diverted to LAX and landed without incident around 2:30 p.m.”

The Hubei health authority reported that 70 more people died after contracting the coronavirus in Hubei province on Wednesday, raising the Hubei death toll since the beginning of the outbreak to 549.

This brings the total number of deaths in mainland China to at least 562. The global death toll is 564, with one death in Hong Kong and one death in the Philippines.    

Authorities confirmed an additional 2,987 cases of the virus in Hubei on Wednesday, which brings the total number of cases in the epicenter of the outbreak to 19,665. 

There has been 14,314 patients have been hospitalized in Hubei, including 756 who are in critical condition, according to the health authority. 

The number of confirmed cases in mainland China is at least 27,378. The global number of confirmed coronavirus cases now stands at 27,602.

The 12th US person with a confirmed case of Wuhan coronavirus is isolated at home in Wisconsin, according to officials at UW Health.

Safdar said the medical center has a “very involved protocol that was put into play” when the patient sought care at UW Health on Jan. 30.

“When somebody comes in, they’re asked questions about travel history, whether they traveled to the relevant areas in question and whether they have symptoms of a respiratory nature,” Safdar said. “When there’s a positive answer to those questions they are taken back into a private room, that’s called a negative pressure room to prevent spreading the virus to anyone else. The health care workers that enter the room are fully garbed up with gowns, gloves, eye protection and face masks.”

Wisconsin’s Division of Public Health and UW Health are investigating the patient’s close contacts.

The patient is an adult who traveled from Beijing and was exposed to known cases while in China, UW Health said in an earlier news release.

General Motors cars are assembled at an auto plant in Wuhan.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra told investors today that the company’s “thoughts and focus has been our people,” but added that they’re working with their Chinese partner and health authorities to make sure their supply chain is not disrupted.

GM has a large manufacturing plant in Wuhan — ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak. The plant employs nearly 6,000 people, about 10% of GM’s total work force in China. 

The most interesting coronavirus wrinkle from GM is that the president of GM China, Matt Tsien, flew in last week to participate in today’s investor conference. But due to “an abundance of caution,” he’s participating by calling in rather than speaking in person.

Ford also had little hard info about the coronavirus on its own earnings call on Tuesday.

CEO Jim Hackett said the Ford team is “proactively monitoring the situation on several fronts, including the safety of our employees and their families. This is paramount.”

Hackett added that Ford is also monitoring their supply chain, but that its “too early” to tell the effect the coronavirus will have on its business.

Last week: Ford banned travel to, from and inside China, telling employees who had traveled there to quarantine themselves for 14 days after returning.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has approved additional housing support at Camp Ashland in Nebraska for up to 75 people, the Pentagon said in a statement Wednesday.

The housing will be provided to people “who may need to be quarantined upon arrival from overseas travel due to the novel coronavirus,” the Pentagon said.

The approval followed a request for assistance from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The 12th confirmed case of the Wuhan coronavirus in the US has been reported by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

There are now 12 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the US and the first confirmed case in Wisconsin.

Six cases have been confirmed in California, one in Massachusetts, one in Washington state, one in Arizona, two in Illinois and one in Wisconsin. There are two instances of person-to-person transmission, one in Illinois and one in California.

By the numbers: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has listed 293 people under investigation for the coronavirus in 36 states as of Feb. 5, according to an update posted to the agency’s website today. Among them, 206 were negative and 76 are still pending. These numbers are cumulative since Jan. 21.

All 11 patients diagnosed with the coronavirus in the United States are “doing well,” according to an official with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC plans to continue to monitor each patient’s health.

One of the two charter flights carrying US citizens out of China has landed in Southern California at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

This plane was one of the tandem charters that landed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, early this morning.

Officials will hold press conferences regarding the evacuees later on Wednesday.

The State Department has “temporarily suspended the U.S. Fulbright Program in China until further notice,” due to the coronavirus and the department’s travel advisory for all of China, according to a State Department official. 

“The Department of State issued a Level 4 Travel Advisory for all of China, urging Americans not to travel to China due to the novel coronavirus first identified in Wuhan. In response, the Department of State temporarily suspended the U.S. Fulbright Program in China until further notice,” the official told CNN.

Forty participants are affected and departing China, the official said. 

The State Department, describes the program as an “official educational exchange between the People’s Republic of China and the United States ‘to provide opportunities for cooperation and exchange in educational fields based on equality, reciprocity and mutual benefit.’” 

Dr. Nancy Messonnier speaks during a press conference in response to the coronavirus outbreak on January 28.

The US’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will distribute 200 test kits for Wuhan coronavirus to domestic labs, and another 200 test kits to international labs.

Each test kit can perform 700-800 patient samples.

This will allow for enhanced capacity for testing by early next week, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Wednesday.

Messonnier said she expected these kits will result in states announcing their own confirmed cases, rather than waiting for confirmation from the CDC.

Previously, the CDC was the only lab in the United States capable of testing for the novel coronavirus.

The diagnostic is authorized to be used for patients who meet CDC criteria for testing, and by qualified labs designated by the CDC or certified to perform high-complexity tests.

It’s known as a reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction test and can detect Wuhan coronavirus from nasal or oral swabs.

Negative results do not preclude infection with the virus, the FDA noted in a press release, adding that negative results must be combined with clinical observations, patient history and epidemiological information.

As of Wednesday, the CDC has listed 293 people under investigation for the novel coronavirus in 36 states.

Of those, 11 have tested positive, 206 negative and 76 are still pending. These numbers are cumulative since January 21.

Six cases have been confirmed in California, one in Massachusetts, one in Washington state, one in Arizona and two in Illinois. This includes two instances of known person-to-person transmission, one in Illinois and one in California.

A plane is towed to a gate at Newark Liberty International Airport on January 21.

An asymptomatic individual, who was in Hubei province on February 4 before traveling into the Newark Liberty International Airport, was issued a 14-day quarantine order by officials Tuesday, according to the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH).

The individual, who is not a New Jersey resident, was transported to a location in Essex County and will be monitored by the NJDOH for the next 14 days.

Health officials would not elaborate on the type of location.

“The risk of novel coronavirus transmission in New Jersey residents remains low,” the dept said in a release Wednesday.

A child taken to hospital after developing a fever at California’s March Air Reserve Base is in good spirits, Jose Arballo, Jr., from Riverside County Department of Public Health, said.

The child was in a group of nearly 200 Americans evacuated from Wuhan last week.

Officials took samples from the child and sent them to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for analysis. Results are expected soon.

If the results are negative, the child and accompanying parent will return to March Air Reserve Base.

Aside from the fever, the child has no other symptoms. 

This comes as two more charters from Wuhan arrived in California this morning. 

Read more about the evacuation here

 PGA Tour Series-China – a China-based professional golf tour – has moved its Global Qualifying Tournament from China to Indonesia due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, the tour announced Tuesday.

 “We felt this change was the best course of action considering what’s happening in China right now,” said Greg Carlson, PGA TOUR Series-China Executive Director.

“The health and well-being of our players, staff, fans and all who are associated with PGA TOUR Series-China tournaments is of the utmost importance to us. We will continue to monitor what’s happening in China and how it might affect the start of our regular season.”

The tournament is set for February 25-28.

A medical worker hands over biomaterial collected from a suspected coronavirus patient to his colleagues for testing in Wuhan on Tuesday.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about the Wuhan coronavirus, and scientists around the world are racing to gather data and develop a treatment.

Here’s what we can tell you so far:

Airlines around the globe have responded to the coronavirus outbreak by suspending flights to and from China, severely disrupting travel by tourists and business executives in one of the world’s busiest aviation markets.

Read the full story – including a roundup of some major airlines that have suspended or reduced their flights to mainland China – here.

On Wednesday morning, two flights carrying passengers from Wuhan, China – the epicenter of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak – arrived at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento, California.

After refueling, one of these planes is now en route to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, California, and is expected to land shortly.

Later this week, two additional flights are scheduled to land in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One will arrive at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas; the other at Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska.

Medical staff work in the isolation zone for coronavirus patients in a hospital in Huaibei, China on Wednesday.

“In the last 24 hours, we had the most cases in a single day since the outbreak started,” the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday, in a press conference detailing the latest developments of the coronavirus outbreak.

The director-general referred to case numbers the WHO had recorded by 6 a.m. Geneva time Wednesday, adding the relatively small number of infections outside China gave “a window of opportunity to prevent this outbreak from becoming a broader global crisis.”

“Our greatest concern is about the potential for spread in countries with weaker health systems, and who lack the capacity to detect or diagnose the virus. We are only as strong as the weakest link,” he said.

It’s a beautiful morning at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California. A handful of people are out and about on the grounds, including 27-year-old Jarred Evans. After his morning run, Evans may settle in with his laptop in the hotel where he’s staying on base and do some work for his business. If he were so inclined, he could even go to a Zumba or kickboxing class to pass the time. For the most part, though, he and everyone else at the hotel are keeping to themselves.

They are under quarantine, after all.

American evacuee Jarred Evans at March Air Reserve Base in California.

Evans and 194 other people were evacuated from Wuhan aboard a chartered flight on January 28 to escape the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

The passengers from Evans’ flight are one of several groups that have been quarantined after entering through the US airports designated to receive passengers from areas in China affected by the virus.

From those airports, groups are taken to military bases, hotels or other sites to wait out a federally-mandated 72-hour-quarantine.

Read the full story here.