The National Health Commission announced February 7 that total infections in China spiked to 31,161 with new infections as of Friday reaching 3,143. Of that, 636 died with new death count at 73 and 4,800 were in dire condition.
Sixty percent of the reported cases and 95% of deaths were patients in Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak. Experts are now monitoring if the epicenter is becoming big as two cities, Huanggang and Xiaogan, accounted for 11% of the infections and deaths. In Huanggang, 573 people were infected while 12 already died. In Xiaogan, 540 people contracted the virus while 9 people died.
With still accounting for the highest rate of infections and death, the Chinese government told Wuhan authorities to gather all infected people in mass quarantine camps. As part of the measures, Chinese investigators will go to each home to check temperatures of each resident. The investigators will also track down the whereabouts of patients to check their close contacts.
The mass quarantine camps, also called module hospitals, are for people who are exhibiting mild symptoms and those without prior respiratory diseases. The challenge for these quarantines is that it does not have proper medical facilities as opposed to patients staying at hospitals.
In Beijing, Megvii and Baidu continued to heed the calls for deployment of temperature screening systems that are powered by advanced artificial intelligence across major airports.
Elsewhere in the country, there are dozens of events canceled including China's oldest and largest trade fair, the Canton fair which normally raked billions worth of deals. It was originally scheduled on April 15.
The East China Import and Export Commodity Fair in Shanghai, which was supposed to take place on March 1 to 4, was also cancelled until further notice. Last year, the event amassed $2.4 billion in deals.
Other events to be postponed are the annual trade conference for the global industry or SEMICON, the International Building and Construction Trade Fair in Shanghai, and the annual China Development Forum which regular attendees include executives of tech giant Apple.
Even with this present scenario, the World health Organization said it is still early to say that the outbreak is peaking in China, noting that there was actually a drop in the overall number of cases on Wednesday, February 6. That could mean that there was less infection that day compared to other days.
Meanwhile, authorities confirmed with finality that Li Wenliang, a doctor who was among the first to respond in the outbreak, died. Conflicting reports regarding the cause of death emerged. Some reports said the doctor contracted the virus while other reports said he died of a heart attack for being overworked.
The doctor is hailed as a whistleblower and a "hero" in the country because he was the very first one to warn colleagues about a SARS-like outbreak as early as December 30. Chinese authorities had him sign a waiver to refute his early statements.
Amid the chaos, good news has come out in that China said it would halve the tariffs placed on $75 billion of American goods. Observers said the outbreak might have paved the way for the world's two largest economies to settle differences with finality. This development brought the Dow Jones industrial and the S&P 500 to record high in early trading on Thursday.
Meanwhile, reports of HIV drugs efficacy on coronavirus patients prompted people to hoard medicines. Some are as desperate as buying them from HIV patients or getting from the black market.
To be clear, there is still no confirmed cure for coronavirus although Chinese health experts are currently working in a human trial involving Gilead Sciences medication, which was also used in emergency treatment of Ebola patients.
