Quarantine - China's Coronavirus affects global travel

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China has begun placing under quarantine whole cities in China. The first quarantined city was Wuhan, then neighboring Huanggang followed. These two cities were then followed by Xiantao, Chibi, Exhou, Zhijiang and Qianjiang. To date over 550 cases have been reported and 17 deaths have been attributed to the Coronavirus.

These actions have effectively placed more than 25 million people in isolation in the midst of the national Chinese New Year’s celebration which normally has millions of Chinese on the move as they return to celebrate the New Year with family.

The number is staggering considering Hubei province hosts a population of 58.5 million and the portions of the province under quarantine is greater than the population of 48 of the United States 50 states (only Texas and California have a population greater than 25 million).

China knows the virus is spreading and their health officials believe the number of cases can be expected to increase dramatically. One of the reasons for this prognosis is the outbreak has occurred in the midst of the Chinese New Years. In fact, the Chinese media advises that the day the quarantine was being discussed, approximately 300,000 left Wuhan for other areas in the country.

While we called out the coronovirus in our Securely Travel Alert of 10 January and correctly described it as being SARS like in potential effect, we too were surprised with how rapidly it has evolved.

Cases have been reported in Hong Kong and Macao, Japan, South Korea, United States and more countries can be expected to join this list given the global travel taking place by Chinese. The Chinese official English language periodical, Global Times shared these stats:

East & SE Asia remain the top picks of #China’s outbound travelers during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, according to estimates by domestic travel agents. The figures also revealed an emerging trend for solo travel, especially among young people. https://t.co/GxLyzTFV7j pic.twitter.com/OdYZt7tGVW
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) January 23, 2020

Travelers to Macau should expect the city to close casinos if the situation continues to escalate according to the Chief Executive of Macau, Ho Lat-Seng. In addition, numerous official New Year festivals have been canceled across China to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

While wearing of face masks while traveling to China is advisable at this time, shaking of hands and human-to-human touching with those exhibiting symptoms of the coronavirus should be avoided.