WaybackWire

WUHAN, Friday 31 January.—Wuhan has been sealed off for more than a week. Since 10am on 23 January its buses, subways, ferries and long-distance coaches have stood still, and its airport and railway stations have been closed to outgoing passengers.

Neighbouring Huanggang and Ezhou followed Wuhan’s lead, and by the next day the shutdown covered 13 cities and at least 36 million people.

Pharmacies sold out of face masks and petrol stations were overwhelmed. “The government’s measures are not enough,” said Xiao, a 26-year-old primary school teacher.

Private cars were banned from Sunday, and shoppers now queue outside supermarkets to have their temperature checked before they may enter. “The overall atmosphere is quite tense – tense but also orderly,” said Li Xiaolei, a radio DJ who has video-blogged the first days of the lockdown.

This week, answering a message on WeChat, thousands of residents opened their windows at 8pm and shouted “Wuhan, Jia You” (Wuhan, add oil). Many then sang the national anthem.

SINGAPORE, Friday 31 January.—Singapore will bar entry and transit to all visitors who have been in mainland China in the past 14 days, from 11.59pm tomorrow, as the virus reached its first Singaporean. “The situation remains fluid, it’s constantly changing, and we do not rule out taking further measures,” said National Development Minister Lawrence Wong, co-chair of the government’s task force.

The new patient, a 47-year-old woman, was among the Singaporeans flown out of Wuhan yesterday. She had no symptoms on the Scoot flight but had a fever on landing, and tested positive this afternoon.

Singapore now has 16 cases, and the three newest all had recent travel to Wuhan. The Ministry of Health says there is no evidence of community spread.

Pharmacies ran out of masks even before Singapore’s first case was confirmed on 23 January, and every household is to collect four free masks from tomorrow. But Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong says the healthy need not wear one. “The mask gives you a false sense of security because most of the time, you don’t get the virus from breathing it in,” he said.

NEW DELHI, Friday 31 January.—A 423-seat Air India Boeing 747 was to leave Delhi for Wuhan at 12.30pm today to bring home Indians stranded at the centre of the outbreak, a day after India confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus.

The patient, a student at Wuhan University, is in isolation at Thrissur District Hospital in Kerala and is stable. More than 400 people back from China are under observation in the state.

“The health department is all set to isolate patients and start treatment,” said Kerala’s Health Minister, K K Shailaja.

“We have established contact with over 600 Indians across the province and are individually ascertaining their willingness to be repatriated,” said Raveesh Kumar, the External Affairs Ministry spokesman. Only those without the virus will be flown out. “They will be brought into a quarantine facility outside Delhi,” a senior official told Reuters.

“Whenever we call them, they reply they are in a meeting,” Vishal P, a third-year medical student in Wuhan, said of the embassy on Tuesday.