Posted on 02/09/2020 3:10:07 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
SHANGHAI - For weeks after the first reports of a mysterious new virus in Wuhan, millions of people poured out of the central Chinese city, cramming onto buses, trains and planes as the first wave of China’s great Lunar New Year migration broke across the nation. Some carried with them the new virus that has since claimed over 8 00 lives and sickened more than 37,000 people.
Officials finally began to seal the borders on Jan. 23. But it was too late. Speaking to reporters a few days after the the city was put under quarantine, the mayor estimated that 5 million people had already left.
Where did they go?
An Associated Press analysis of domestic travel patterns using map location data from Chinese tech giant Baidu shows that in the two weeks before Wuhan’s lockdown, nearly 70% of trips out of the central Chinese city were within Hubei province. Baidu has a map app that is similar to Google Maps, which is blocked in China.
Another 14% of the trips went to the neighboring provinces of Henan, Hunan, Anhui and Jiangxi. Nearly 2% slipped down to Guangdong province, the coastal manufacturing powerhouse across from Hong Kong, and the rest fanned out across China. The cities outside Hubei province that were top destinations for trips from Wuhan between Jan. 10 and Jan. 24 were Chongqing, a municipality next to Hubei province, Beijing and Shanghai.
The travel patterns broadly track with the early spread of the virus. The majority of confirmed cases and deaths have occurred in China, within Hubei province, followed by high numbers of cases in central China, with pockets of infections in Chongqing, Shanghai and Beijing as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
There was an event in Wuhan.
The number of infections there compared to other locations is completely off the charts.
Even IF you are a “escape from the lab” person - and I’m not - natural spread can’t account for the density of infections.
I met a person who was there 12/26 and that person told me everyone knew of rapidly spreading illness. I’m sure that’s why five million people were on the move by mid-January.
Many flooded south into Vietnam and Thailand before they closed the border.
They left for the warmer climate and the Chinese New Year vacation on January 30th and stayed.
I’m in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam today. Not to far from the Chinese border.
This place us usually packed with Chinese tourists, but it is empty due to border closing.
They now have heat sensing cameras at the airport and everyone must walk single file past it. The whole area is run by the military and health department.
Seeing your family one last time, if you know you may be infected can be a powerful motivator.
We planned on doing Ha Long Bay this fall...is it PRETTY? Is it safe
Every new rule is just a new opportunity for graft and bribery.
The government says Wuhan is now quarantined...and all of a sudden those enforcing that quarantine become flush with cash.
Wanna bet there's a separate passageway for folks with sufficient cash?
Really? Knowingly going to likely infect your family?
The young factory workers are in their rural family homes awaiting the all clear to return to work in the cities. Even if they did have the virus, they are the 90% the do not seek medical attention, because to them this is just another virus/flu if they ever show symptoms.
As this aligned with the new year and what remains unwritten is a ton of factory employees choose not to return to city every year upon the annual family discussions. The family evaluation is that the young family members can be of more value in low paying rural jobs than on sick leave/shutdown from a mega factory far away from home.
Fever is not a sensitive indicator for infection, nor for contagiousness.
Airport temperature screening is a waste of time, and it’s dangerous because it spreads a false sense of security and allows infected people to escape quarantine..
checking google pics Ha Long Bay, Vietnam looks like a very cool place.
WOW
If on vaca hope your having a good time....virus fear aside that is.
Emotion is a powerful thing.
The fact that they left the city, despite the possibility of being infected answers that question.
“Officials finally began to seal the borders on Jan. 23. But it was too late.”
The doctors/scientists in Hong Kong that gave a press conference a couple of weeks ago on their modelling results. They ran various models and stated that the quarantine of Wuhan made little difference in the modelling of how the virus would spread.
But they also said that China would need to take draconian measures to keep it from becoming a pandemic.
When I first heard their statement it sounded like “a quarantine” wouldn’t have made a difference. But then they suggested quarantines or other drastic measures by China.
I wonder if they meant “the quarantine that happened in Wuhan was too late, and didn’t affect the models very much...”
This the most poorly written article that I’ve read this year. On the upside, it’s refreshing to know that ANY garden variety undergrad monkey can find paid work with the Associated Press.
I take it more as their thinking they could outrun the virus and family is where they could go.
(repost) How many motored straight to Beijing? Certainly the PLA and the Communist Party mandarins who can afford a 2nd apartment there, knowing the capital’s much greater access to doctors and medicine!
Thanks..
In the middle of a 42 day trip.
Did Thailand, then down the Mekong River in Laos, from Vientiane to Hanoi, Vietnam, headed south to Saigon (Now Ho Chi Minh City), then Cambodia Phenom Phen.. and back to Bangkok.
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