Twelve days ago, a Beijing pulmonary expert traveled to Wuhan, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus, and declared on China Central Television that the outbreak was “under control” and a “mild condition.” Eleven days later, according to The New York Times, he himself became infected with the virus.
From The Japan Times:
Wang Guangfa, who heads the Department of Pulmonary Medicine at Beijing’s Peking University First Hospital, was part of a team of experts that earlier this month visited Wuhan, where the virus emerged…
Wang, who conducted research on Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, said he was receiving treatment and would receive an injection soon. He did not give details on how he may have been infected.
“I was diagnosed and my condition is fine,” Wang said on Cable TV yesterday. “I don’t want everyone to put too much attention on my condition.”
This SARS-like coronavirus has mostly infected people in Wuhan, but has also spread to other regions of the country, as well as Japan, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, the United States, Hong Kong, and Macau. When blogged about on Boing Boing just yesterday, the virus had infected almost 300 people and caused six deaths. And then last night when blogged again, the number changed to 440 people with nine deaths. As of right now, so far, the numbers have changed again to 540 and 17.
Image: By Hwangxiheng – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link