57.2 Million People Under Lockdown In China
ANDERSON: The big story on the deadly Wuhan coronavirus this hour, China putting some 57 million people, a population nearly the size of the UK into lockdown in just a matter of days. Now, this all started in a live animal market in Wuhan in China where this mysterious pneumonia virus is using our global travel network to cross oceans spreading through Southeast Asia, down to Australia, across to Europe, and to the United States. Now, Chinese officials say people can spread it even before they have symptoms. Well, these 15 cities in channel who follow partial lockdown are considered small by Chinese standards, but Wuhan alone is bigger than New York City or London. The mayor expects confirmed cases there to rise by another thousand. Xiaogan with five million people, about the size of Abu Dhabi and Dubai put together. Well, advisors to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been frustrated with the lack of information coming from Beijing about how this virus is spreading. But even for people living in the cities on lockdown, information is reportedly very hard to come by. As you'd expect we can connect you to Beijing right here. CNN's David Culver is in the capital for you.</s>DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Chinese President Xi Jinping ordering local leaders to stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus, calling it a grave situation that China is facing right now. The health officials seem to be responding. Sunday, they announced some extraordinary containment efforts. Those efforts include sending some 1,600 medical personnel into Hubei province towards the epicenter of this virus. They also have already on the ground some 1,300 military and civilian medical personnel. Now, President Xi has also as that medical staff are protected and that supplies gets to those who need it. We have been telling you about some of the dire situations that folks are in there. Health care workers telling us that it feels as though they're going into battle without any armor. They're lacking hazmat suits, lacking goggles, lacking protective facemask. Well, the health officials on Sunday here in China announcing that they plan to step up production immediately up some of those hazmat suits. They say they need an estimated 100,000 hazmat suits each day. Currently, production is only at 13,000. So they're bringing in workers in the midst of this spring festival holiday to start up production once again. Meantime, this as tens of millions of people find themselves in what seems to be a widening lockdown zone. And the folks there are describing a very difficult situation of uncertainty and unease.</s>DIANA ADAMA, U.S. CITIZEN LIVING IN WUHAN: I woke up feeling quite desperate, sad, angry. Most of this is because of lack of information and lack of knowing what's going on. My mother is worried about me. I love her. She's 88 years old. My sister let her know the things I'm doing here. And I don't want her to worry more and I'd like to see her.</s>CULVER: U.S. officials estimate they're about 1,000 U.S. citizens within the city of Wuhan. And according to the U.S. Embassy of China's Web site, they plan to charter a plane essentially on Tuesday that would take citizens out of Wuhan to San Francisco. Now, citizens have to apply for spots on that aircraft because seats are limited. Because not only the U.S. that's trying to get its citizens out of that zone, in fact to the U.K., France, Japan, Korea, Jordan, all making similar attempts to ease the burden of those who are within that lockdown zone. David Culver, Beijing.</s>ANDERSON: David, of course, was in Wuhan earlier last week. Back in Beijing at this point, but has a real sense of what is going on the ground there. Let's get a medical look at this. Longtime advisor to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, you all probably heard of it as the CDC. Dr. William Schaffner joining us now. And Dr. Schaffner, the Chinese announcement that the virus can be spread even before symptoms appear, you say is a game-changer. How so?</s>WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: It's a game -- it's a game-changer, Becky, because that means that transmission, the contagiousness of the patient is so much more evident. There's a longer period of time where that person can spread the disease. And if they can spread the disease four days before they become sick, then just quarantining those sick people is not a sufficient strategy. Actually, this is a way the virus would love to spread from person to person, if normal, healthy people can spread the virus before they become sick.</s>ANDERSON: How concerned are you about what we've just learned in the last hour or so that authorities locally to where this virus it seems began in Wuhan is suggesting that as many as 1,000 more cases are likely to have been or to be revealed very shortly?</s>SCHAFFNER: Well, obviously, the number of known cases and suspected cases is growing very, very rapidly. And we would anticipate that if this is a now more contagious virus than we thought even yesterday, and the day before. So spread can be really very, very rapid through close intimate contact with someone else before you become ill.</s>ANDERSON: The response to this coronavirus, sir, has been massive. I just want to viewers to get to see these images again, and I'm sure you've seen them yourself, two brand new hospitals going up in record time. That as cities across the country go on lockdown and banning the sale of wild animals at these local markets How do you rate this response, sir?</s>SCHAFFNER: Well, this is a brand new problem. And we're learning more about it as it grows. The response has been enormous. On the scientific side, the Chinese investigators have identified the virus and spread that information around the world so that all the scientists around the world can start working on a vaccine, for example. We already have a rapid diagnostic test. That's very important. Now getting treatment into those folks and really determining the epidemiologic aspects of this virus, when does it become contagious, how contagious is it, how likely is it to spread to other people, doing those kinds of investigations in a circumstance like this is really chaotic and very difficult. The CDC has advisors in place, working with the Chinese Ministry of Health.</s>ANDERSON: And I will, sir, have a spokesperson from the WHO, the World Health Organization on in the next hour. The WHO have not declared a public health emergency. Should they at this point?</s>SCHAFFNER: Well, I would anticipate, my crystal ball says the next time the WHO committee meets, I think it is likely that they will declare this a public health emergency of international concern.</s>ANDERSON: And with that, we'll leave it there. We thank you very much indeed for joining us. Your insight is extremely valuable to the key takeaway.</s>SCHAFFNER: Thank you so much.</s>ANDERSON: And you should be concerned about this new virus? Yes, absolutely you should. You should be taking precautions, you should not be panicking. Let me give you some context here to help you see why the MERS virus, you'll remember that as camel flu -- is probably how you remember. It killed more than one in three people who contracted it. And remember SARS as well. Well, that had the death rate of about one in 10. Whereas, so far, at least, this Wuhan strain is tracking at about a three percent mortality rate, far closer to the average rate of flu in general. Do stay with CNN. Of course, we will continue to update you on exactly what is going on with regard to this virus. Still to come, a plan for peace in the Middle East. To Jared Kushner's long-awaited proposal, finally, apparently, set to be unveiled. Why my next guest says the U.S. should set aside its ambitions for the Middle East region. That, after this.