China’s ‘Mother Of All Quarantines’ To Contain Escalating Coronavirus Outbreak Could Actually Backfire, Experts Warn

The New York Times: As Coronavirus Fears Intensify, Effectiveness Of Quarantines Is Questioned
A top Chinese health official warned on Sunday that the spread of the dangerous new coronavirus, already extraordinarily rapid, is accelerating further, deepening global fears about an illness that has sickened more than 2,700 people worldwide and killed at least 80 people in China. The grim diagnosis came amid concerns that China’s efforts to contain the spread of the disease, despite a lockdown of unprecedented scope affecting 56 million people, may not only have come too late but could even make the situation worse, including by exacerbating shortages of medical supplies. (Buckley, Zhong, Grady and Rabin, 1/26)

The Washington Post: Chinese Leader Warns Of ‘Accelerating Spread’ Of Deadly Coronavirus
Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned Saturday the "accelerating spread" of coronavirus infections had created a "grave" situation in his populous nation, which extended travel restrictions to 48 million people in hardest-hit Hubei province, banned inter-province buses to Beijing and canceled tour group travel abroad. As the Lunar New Year, China’s biggest holiday, began without much of the usual festivity, Hong Kong announced that schools would be closed through Feb. 17. The United States, France and Russia sought ways to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan, the central Chinese city of 11 million where the outbreak originated and is continuing to spread. (Shih, Abutaleb, Denyer and Bernstein, 1/25)

The Washington Post: Worries Grow That Quarantine In China Not Enough To Stem Increasingly Virulent Coronavirus
The effectiveness of an unprecedented quarantine around the viral epicenter in central China’s Hubei Province has become a key question as Chinese and international authorities ponder how to rein in the outbreak — and, at this point, whether it could be contained at all. “Radical times call for radical measures,” said Dong-Yan Jin, a professor of molecular virology and oncology at Hong Kong University’s School of Biomedical Sciences. “A lot of cities have followed Wuhan in announcing a lockdown, but don’t forget that many potential patients are already out there before such an administrative order. Are we going to shut down the whole country?” (Shih and Denyer, 1/27)

The Washington Post: Unprecedented Chinese Quarantine Could Backfire, Experts Say
China’s quarantine of more than 35 million people, almost certainly the largest in modern public-health history, is surprising and troubling experts who said such drastic restrictions rarely work and often backfire. In the United States, mandatory limits on movement for people in whole cities or regions have received little serious consideration in planning for disease outbreaks like the coronavirus infection now sweeping across China,according to public-health authorities and a review of government reports. (Bernstein and Craig, 1/24)

Stat: Containing New Coronavirus May Not Be Feasible, Experts Say
Some infectious disease experts are warning that it may no longer be feasible to contain the new coronavirus circulating in China. Failure to stop it there could see the virus spread in a sustained way around the world and even perhaps join the ranks of respiratory viruses that regularly infect people. “The more we learn about it, the greater the possibility is that transmission will not be able to be controlled with public health measures,” said Dr. Allison McGeer, a Toronto-based infectious disease specialist who contracted SARS in 2003 and who helped Saudi Arabia control several hospital-based outbreaks of MERS. (Branswell, 1/26)

The New York Times: Effects Of Coronavirus Begin Echoing Far From Wuhan Epicenter
The repercussions from a mysterious virus that has sickened hundreds of people began reverberating far from its epicenter in central China on Saturday, as Hong Kong closed its schools for several weeks, Beijing began restricting buses in and out of the capital, and the country’s travel association suspended Chinese tour groups heading overseas. The new measures, coming on top of previous travel restrictions that had effectively penned in tens of millions of people in Hubei, the province at the heart of the outbreak, are certain to further dampen celebrations of the Lunar New Year, which began on Saturday. (Buckley and May, 1/25)

The Wall Street Journal: China’s Premier Tours Virus Epicenter As Anger Bubbles At Crisis Response
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang traveled to the epicenter of the country’s dangerous viral outbreak to meet infected patients and front-line health workers, signaling the Beijing leadership’s concern as public frustration rises over how local officials have handled the crisis. The central government website published photos on Monday showing Mr. Li wearing a face mask and swaddled in blue protective gear as he toured medical facilities in Wuhan, a sprawling city in central China where the outbreak began. In one image, Mr. Li appeared to be speaking through a walkie-talkie to a patient on a video screen. (Chin, 1/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Virus Hits Hong Kong As Economy Is Still Catching Its Breath After Unrest
Hong Kong banned visitors from the Chinese province at the center of a new virus epidemic as echoes of SARS send panic through the community, threatening more misery for an economy already in recession after months of protests battered tourism and retail sales. Many people in the city donned masks as local authorities confirmed at least eight cases of infection by the deadly pathogen from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the outbreak’s epicenter. Disneyland shuttered, Lunar New Year festivities were scrapped and schools will remain closed until Feb. 17. (Yap and Wang, 1/27)

Bloomberg: Behind The Global Race To Contain China’s Killer Bug
In early January, doctors in Wuhan, a transportation and tech hub in central China, worked frantically to save the life of a 61-year-old man infected with a new and unknown virus. He checked in with severe pneumonia, on top of his preexisting issues with abdominal tumors and chronic liver disease. Infection-fighting medicines didn’t work. His blood was pumped through an artificial lung, then he went into septic shock and his vital organs shut down. He slipped away on Jan. 9. This was no ordinary death. His passing was publicly flagged in an official statement posted by Wuhan’s city government and marked the first known fatality from a viral outbreak that has alarmed infectious disease experts worldwide since news of the illness surfaced in late December.As January draws to a close, the virus, a strain of the coronavirus family of pathogens, has spread to four continents. President Xi Jinping’s government has cordoned off much of the central Chinese province of Hubei, practically blockading more than 50 million people, in the biggest large-scale quarantine in the modern era. (Gale and Bremner, 1/26)

Bloomberg: Coronavirus Death Toll Hits 80 As New Year Holiday Extended
China’s death toll from the coronavirus climbed to at least 80 as the country extended the Lunar New Year holiday in an effort to contain an infection whose spread accelerated around the globe. Premier Li Keqiang visited Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the disease, on Monday as the government faces pressure to combat the epidemic. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he’s heading to Beijing to meet with the government and assess the response. (Bloomberg News,1/26)

Bloomberg: Virus Fears Drive Sell-Off in Stocks, Oil, Yuan: Markets Wrap
Fears around the virus, whose death toll has risen to at least 80, is spurring caution at the start of a week jam-packed with earnings and other events. Tech giants Apple, Facebook and Samsung are among those due to report this week. Investors will also have a Federal Reserve policy meeting and Mark Carney’s last monetary policy decision as the Bank of England’s governor to monitor. (White, 1/26)

Bloomberg: Drug Stocks Slide As Never-Ending Political Worry Gathers Steam
Despite record scientific and market returns, the health-care industry’s future in the U.S. has never seemed less clear. Candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination have proposed nationalizing the health-insurance system. The president has called for drug-price controls. And after years of struggle, there’s been no winner among the warring factions of drugmakers, health insurers, pharmacy-benefit managers and patients. (Court and Griffin, 1/24)