GENEVA -- The World Health Organization declared the outbreak sparked by a new virus in China that has spread to more than a dozen countries as a global emergency Thursday after the number of cases spiked more than tenfold in a week.
The U.S. advised against all travel to China today after the WHO declaration. The State Department's travel advisory told Americans currently in China to consider departing using commercial means and requested that all nonessential U.S. government personnel defer travel "in light of the novel coronavirus."
"Travelers should be prepared for travel restrictions to be put into effect with little or no advance notice. Commercial carriers have reduced or suspended routes to and from China," it said.
The U.N. health agency defines an international emergency as an "extraordinary event" that constitutes a risk to other countries and requires a coordinated international response.
China first informed the WHO about cases of the new virus in late December. To date, China has reported 9,962 cases, including 213 deaths. At least 18 other countries have since reported cases, as scientists race to understand how exactly the virus is spreading and how severe it is.
Experts say there is significant evidence the virus is spreading among people in China and have noted with concern instances in other countries -- including the United States, France, Japan, Germany, Canada, South Korea and Vietnam -- where there have also been isolated cases of human-to-human transmission.
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Speaking to reporters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted the worrisome spread of the virus among people outside China.
"The main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China but because of what is happening in other countries," he said. "Our greatest concern is the potential for this virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems which are ill-prepared to deal with it.
"This declaration is not a vote of nonconfidence in China," the director-general said. "On the contrary, WHO continues to have the confidence in China's capacity to control the outbreak."
A declaration of a global emergency typically brings greater money and resources, but may also prompt nervous governments to restrict travel and trade to affected countries. The announcement also imposes more disease reporting requirements on countries.
This is the sixth outbreak that the WHO has voted to assign the designation of public health emergency, defined by the group as "an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response."
Despite the U.S. advisory, numerous airlines canceling flights to China and businesses, including Starbucks and McDonald's, temporarily closing hundreds of shops, Tedros said the WHO was not recommending limiting travel or trade to China.
"There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade," he said.
PILOTS SUE AIRLINE
However, the pilots' union at American Airlines sued on Thursday to stop the carrier from flying to China and told members not to operate flights there because of the spreading coronavirus outbreak.
The Allied Pilots Association, which represents American's 15,000 pilots, asked a state district court in Dallas for an injunction to halt the flights immediately. The union cited declarations by international health experts that the virus is a public health emergency.
"The safety and well-being of our crews and passengers must always be our highest priority," union President Eric Ferguson said in a statement.
Ferguson noted that several international carriers have stopped flying to China. Union leaders asked American's management to do the same, he said, "but to date they have not canceled any U.S.-China flights. We are therefore compelled to seek injunctive relief."
"We are in close contact with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and global public health officials to make sure we are taking all necessary precautions for our customers and team members," said American spokesman Joshua Freed.
American announced Wednesday that it will suspend flights between Los Angeles and both Beijing and Shanghai beginning Feb. 9. The airline has not announced changes in flights between Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong or between Los Angeles and Hong Kong.
United Airlines and Delta Air Lines have announced they will reduce the number of flights to China starting over the next few days.
Russia announced it was closing its 2,600-mile border with China, joining Mongolia and North Korea in barring crossings to guard against a new viral outbreak.
It had been de facto closed because of the Lunar New Year holiday, but Russian authorities said the closure would be extended until March 1.
HUMAN TRANSMISSION
On Thursday, France confirmed that a doctor who was in contact with a patient with the new virus later became infected himself. The doctor is now being treated in an isolated room at a Paris hospital. Outbreak specialists worry that the spread of new viruses from patients to health workers can signal the virus is becoming adapted to human transmission.
Meanwhile, the United States and South Korea confirmed their first cases of person-to-person spread of the virus. The man in the U.S. is married to a 60-year-old Chicago woman who got sick from the virus after she returned from a trip to Wuhan, the Chinese city that is the epicenter of the outbreak. His illness marks the sixth U.S. patient confirmed with the virus.
The case in South Korea was a 56-year-old man who had contact with a patient who was diagnosed with the new virus earlier.
Mark Harris, a professor of virology at Leeds University, said it appears that the spread of the virus among people is probably easier than initially presumed.
"If transmission between humans was difficult, then the numbers would have plateaued," he said. Harris said the limited amount of virus spread beyond China suggested the outbreak could still be contained, but that if people are spreading the disease before they show symptoms -- as some Chinese politicians and researchers have suggested -- that could compromise control efforts.
The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, a cousin of the new virus. Both are from the coronavirus family, which also includes those that can cause the common cold.
China extended its Lunar New Year holiday to Sunday to try to keep people home, but the wave of returning travelers could potentially cause the virus to spread further.
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ROSS: JOBS POTENTIAL
Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the virus could help bring jobs to the United States because companies will be moving operations away from impacted areas.
During an appearance Thursday morning on Fox Business, Ross said that he didn't "want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease," and expressed sympathy for the victims. But he said the pneumonia-like virus would be a consideration for American businesses that are scrambling to determine how the outbreak will affect their supply chains. He pointed to the SARS epidemic, the "African swine virus" and now coronavirus as "another risk factor that people need to take into account."
"I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America, some to [the] U.S., probably some to Mexico as well," Ross said. He then said Apple was "talking about figuring out how to replace some of the Chinese production." Apple had plans to assemble some phones and computers outside China before the coronavirus outbreak.
But public health experts were quick to criticize Ross' comments as inaccurate and dangerous, saying such messaging could suppress reports of new infections. Meanwhile, health officials are up against the spread of false information on social media, from conspiracy theories to claims of magical cures. And Facebook, Google and Twitter are scrambling to crack down on the spread of dangerous health disinformation.
Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said American companies would have more reason to be concerned about gun violence or measles outbreaks stateside "in terms of actual risk to their health than coronavirus."
"You have somebody of that stature who makes an irresponsible comment, speaking on matters in which he has no expertise, and there's no scientific or historical evidence to what he's saying," Benjamin said of Ross.
"With this kind of new disease, you want as much openness as you can," Benjamin added. "If you suppress that openness, which this will do, then you absolutely make it worse and more people will get sick, and more people will die."
Information for this article was contributed by Maria Cheng, Jamey Keaten, David Koenig, Ken Moritsugu, Elaine Ganley, Frank Jordans, Mari Yamaguchi and Kim Tong-hyung of The Associated Press; and by Rachel Siegel, Simon Denyer, Paul Schemm, Adam Taylor, Shibani Mahtani, Min Joo Kim, Regine Cabato, Joanna Slater, Carolyn Johnson, Isabelle Khurshudyan, Stefano Pitrelli, Hannah Sampson, James McAuley, Lena H. Sun, Siobhan O'Grady and Niha Masih of The Washington Post.
A Section on 01/31/2020