ABC UPDATE: Flights from China are now restricted to Australians; 12 people in Australia have been diagnosed with the virus: at 2 February 2020
Professor Drew, the Virologist heading coronavirus vaccine efforts warns the killer disease could mutate and become even deadlier …
Timeline from Wuhan China to Global Crisis
From 12 December 2019 when it was identified in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, and a major transport hub!
THE outbreak came ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday when many Chinese travel!
CHINESE NEW YEAR 2020: THE YEAR OF THE RAT … from 25 January to 8/9 February 2020
WHY did it take until 2 February 2020 for the Morrison Government to restrict flights from China to Australians?
With hundreds of TOURISTS sharing the airspace on flights, dispersing at international airports … taking transport to hotels, serviced apartments, homes, universities and shopping centres … isn’t it commonsense for Australians to avoid these areas in view of the delayed Government response?
A 21-year-old Chinese student at the University of New South Wales was diagnosed with coronavirus earlier this week after she flew back from Wuhan on January 23 …
The Australian: Qantas suspends flights as virologist warns it is ‘deadlier than it looks’
- By JAMIE WALKER ROBYN IRONSIDE
- FEBRUARY 1, 2020
- COMMENTS
Qantas will suspend flights to mainland China from February 9 and possibly sooner, after Singapore and the US introduced travel restrictions that will make it impossible for international crew to operate the services.
The announcement comes as Queensland’s Premier calls for Australia to suspend all flights from China as the death toll from coronavirus rises.
KEY POINTS …
–more than 200,000 people were due to fly this month (Feb) on direct flights from China to Australia
-tourist arrivals from China had plunged 15% since the crisis began
VIROLOGIST heading coronavirus vaccine efforts warns the killer disease could mutate and become even deadlier – as Qantas jet waits on standby to fly stranded Australians out of Wuhan
DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA: EXTRACTS
- Coronavirus could rapidly get worse and become even deadlier, virologist warns
- 600 Australians are stranded in ground zero Wuhan, Qantas plane on standby
- Nine people in Australia are confirmed to be infected with novel coronavirus
- All arrived in Australia from China, where the outbreak began in December
- Almost 2,000 were on their planes and hundreds of others exposed afterwards
- Most Chinese visitors pass through Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane’s airports
- Universities in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have the most Chinese students
- Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast are the top Chinese tourism destinations
By KYLIE STEVENS and STEPHEN GIBBS and NIC WHITE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA
PUBLISHED: 02:20 AEDT, 1 February 2020 | UPDATED: 13:27 AEDT, 1 February 2020
2.3kshares
The coronavirus outbreak could rapidly get worse and become even deadlier as it continues to spread worldwide, a leading Australian virologist has warned.
Professor Trevor Drew is the director of the CSRIO’s Australian Animal Health Laboratory in regional Victoria, where fast-tracked efforts to develop a vaccine for the virus are now underway.
His chilling warning comes as a Qantas jet waits on standby to fly to Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus which is in lockdown, where around 600 Australians are stranded.
Just over a quarter of those Australians have registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs to be evacuated.+14
- People wearing protective face masks to protect themselves from Coronavirus are seen at Brisbane International Airport
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Thousands of people could have been exposed to coronavirus in Australia by the country’s nine confirmed patients alone
Professor Drew told The Australian previous research in pigs showed how coronavirus could become more lethal over time.
He said the contagion needs to be regarded as a ‘cloud’ of closely matched pathogens rather than one virus with the potential to become even deadlier in ‘a ‘high-host-density environment’ such as China.
‘You may well find that more virulent viruses emerge from that cloud,’ Professor Drew said.
‘What I am thinking might be happening here is not that people have been infected for some time with this virus, but that it is finding a new niche rather more slowly and that could ultimately cause more of a problem than we have seen with other diseases because it is not so spectacular early on in its evolution.’
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Professor Drew said Chinese authorities have recognised the outbreak could be worse than the SARS epidemic in 2003.
Professor Drew is leading the fast-tracked development of a coronavirus vaccine at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory, a high-containment facility in Geelong.
It is the only physical containment laboratory of its kind in Australia and one of five in the world.
Preclinical trials could be underway by March and a vaccine developed within four months.
‘Our role is to take the knowledge that we will be gaining from how this virus behaves and then creating the biological platforms that are necessary for developing and trialling vaccine candidates,’ CSIRO Director of Health and Biosecurity Rob Grenfell told reporters on Friday. Research team races to make a Wuhan coronavirus vaccine
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- A man wearing a face mask cycles past the body of a man who collapsed and died on a pavement in Wuhan, a city of 11million people which is under quarantine
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- CSIRO virology expert Dr Trevor Drew (left) and Director of AAHL CSIRO biosecurity expert Dr Rob Grenfell (right) addressed reporters on Friday
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- Australia’s gateways, major tourist destinations, universities and suburbs with large numbers of Chinese in Sydney and Melbourne have emerged as the frontline in the fight against deadly coronavirus. Passengers are pictured at Brisbane Airport on Friday
- Authorities are closely watching key meeting places around the country for signs of outbreaks of coronavirus as the World Health Organisation declares a global public health emergency. Shoppers are pictured at a seafood market in Sydney’s Cabramatta
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- An man infected with coronavirus visited The House Of Delight restaurant at Glen Waverley in Melbourne’s south-east with five family members on January 26. Glen Waverley has one of Australia’s largest Chinese populations
Thousands of people could have already been exposed to coronavirus by Australia’s nine confirmed infected patients in three states.
Each one flew in from Wuhan in China’s Hubei province where the outbreak began, on planes packed with hundreds of potential victims.
China is Australia’s largest source of tourists and the top tourism destinations for visitors are Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast.
Tourism Australia figures reveal 1,442,341 visits from China to Australia in the past year.
The three biggest eastern seaboard capital city airports account for 151 of the 167 flights from China to Australia each week.
To view the video see Source link
Flight attendants wear protective face masks at Brisbane Airport on Friday. There have been nine confirmed cases of coronavirus in Australia, including two in Queensland
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- Passengers at Brisbane Airport wear protective masks as the coronavirus is declared a global health emergency. Brisbane welcomes 16 flights from China each week
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk claimed on Friday the federal government had not given the states enough information about who had entered the country.
‘I don’t know at the moment, in Queensland, where people from the Hubei province actually are because the Federal Government has that information,’ Ms Palaszczuk said.
‘If we don’t have the information, we cannot contain this virus.’
Prime Minister Scott Mr Morrison responded: ‘There would not be an issue the Commonwealth knows that the Queensland government does not.’
Chinese visitors to Australia spent almost $12billion in the past year and major shopping centres in Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast are popular attractions.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE DEADLY CORONAVIRUS IN CHINA?
Someone who is infected with the Wuhan coronavirus can spread it with just a simple cough or a sneeze, scientists say.
Research done in 2018 found 15 per cent of Chinese tourists on holidays of more than 30 days visited Sydney’s Chatswood Chase shopping centre three or more times.
The latest ABS figures show there are 152,591 Chinese students enrolled in Australia, which is 38 per cent of all overseas enrollments.
- A pamphlet handed out by the Australian Government providing travellers with information on the deadly coronavirus (pictured)
People they infected will be going about their lives on crowded trains and buses, having business meetings, and sharing meals – potentially passing the virus on.
- Students at the University of New South Wales where a 21-year-old classmate was diagnosed with coronavirus on Monday say they are too afraid to go back to class
*Based on those figures, as many as 342,993 people may have entered Australia from China since the deadly virus was first detected in Wuhan seven weeks ago.
SOURCE: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7952287/Virologist-warns-coronavirus-deadlier-Qantas-waits-fly-Australians-Wuhan.html
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