Panic on campus as China locks down Wuhan over coronavirus, rumours fly | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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Panic on campus as China locks down Wuhan over coronavirus, rumours fly

Hindustan Times, Beijing | BySutirtho Patranobis
Jan 23, 2020 10:12 PM IST

A ripple of panic has spread among the remaining Indian students in Wuhan, which is at the core of the novel Coronavirus outbreak in China and abroad, following the sudden lockdown of the city.

A woman wearing a mask walks past a quarantine notice about the outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan, China, at an arrival hall of Haneda airport in Tokyo, Japan.(Reuters Photo)
A woman wearing a mask walks past a quarantine notice about the outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan, China, at an arrival hall of Haneda airport in Tokyo, Japan.(Reuters Photo)

Alarm sounded among the Indian students after local authorities announced early on Thursday that entry and exit into the city was being blocked: The city was being quarantined to prevent the spread of the virus that has killed 18 and infected nearly 700 in China.

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The central Chinese city, the capital of Hubei province and home to more than 11 million people, shut down outbound flights and trains on Thursday as the world’s most populous country battled the spread of the previously unknown virus.

The state-owned People’s Daily newspaper said no one would be allowed to leave; the official Xinhua News Agency said no one would be permitted to leave without a specific reason.

Multiple highways across the Hubei province have also been shut down.

Around 100-150 Indian students still remain in the city with many planning earlier to leave this week; the plans had to be cancelled.

Official sources said it was unlikely that they would be allowed to leave as the city was effectively under a lockdown.

They - like many in Wuhan - were taken unawares at the announcement of the shutdown: It was announced at the dead of night, around 3 am.

For those who remain in Wuhan, however, it’s just not the threat of the virus or the uncertainty of the rapidly evolving situation they have to deal with but also rumours that are spreading across social media platforms.

A student, who did not want to be named as he is interning to a Chinese government hospital, said a strong rumour on the campus was that from 5 pm this evening “fighter jets will spray disinfectant across the city” and that “we have to remain in our hostels”.

Senior Indian students, it was learnt, were taking the lead in busting rumours and ensuring that their juniors had access to correct information and taking adequate precautions.

A majority of the cases are from Wuhan and the Hubei province but in the past five days dozens of infections have been reported around China as hundreds of millions travel for the Lunar New Year, the country’s biggest festival involving one of the world’s largest annual migrations of people.

A handful of infected people who came from Wuhan have also been found overseas.

In Geneva, the WHO put off deciding whether to declare the outbreak a global health emergency and asked an expert committee to continue meeting for a second day Thursday.

“We need more information,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

WHO defines a global emergency as an “extraordinary event” that constitutes a risk to other countries and requires a coordinated international response.

When asked about Wuhan’s public transport shutdown, WHO chief, according to the Associated Press, Tedros said authorities were likely acting to prevent transmission and mass gatherings.

“We cannot say they have done something unusual,” he said.

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