Why this Canadian man and his family won't leave Wuhan?

Wayne Duplessis, right, and his wife Emily Tjandra in their home in Wuhan, China. (Wayne Duplessis/The Canadian Press)

Why this Canadian man and his family won't leave Wuhan, despite coronavirus risk

Wayne Duplessis decided to stay over fears of spreading virus

A Canadian teacher living in Wuhan, China at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak says he won't be boarding a government plane to fly people back to Canada.

Wayne Duplessis, who lives in Wuhan with his wife and two sons, says he isn't confident that safety measures around travel can adequately protect against infection. 

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak, which has killed 170 people, a public health emergency of international concern on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the government has chartered an aircraft to repatriate Canadians, and is working with diplomats to organize their extraction from the quarantined region. He said 160 Canadians have requested consular services to date.

Duplessis told The Current's Matt Galloway about why he won't be joining them. Here is part of their conversation.

1. Why don't you want to get on a plane out of Wuhan, back to Canada? 

My concern is about the nature of this virus. The fact that there's a 14-day incubation period, that we don't know if we are carrying it. We may be asymptomatic for a very long time ... so there is the chance that we could unwittingly infect someone else. You're in a pressurized environment with recycled air.

It's not that we don't want to go. We would certainly like to leave, if the safety measures were in place. 

2. Chinese authorities have said that they won't actually let people who are sick board any planes that are leaving the country. Does that reassure you at all?

Not really. And I'm not saying that to be difficult. We might not know, you might not know unless the test is done. And I know they're getting better at doing these tests.

3. Can you understand why other Canadians want to leave? They want to be on that first plane, as soon as they can get out of Dodge.

Completely. I mean, you want to blow this Popsicle stand and you want to go home. You've got a baby, you've got young children, you've got a life, you want to get out.

I do not judge anyone in that way. You make the decision for your own family. 

4. What is life like in Wuhan right now? I mean, this is a city that we keep describing as being under lockdown. What is it like there? 

It is very much under lockdown. I've got two children here. I've got a 15-year-old son, he's our youngest. And I've got a son who is 38. And he's in on the other side of the city. 

We haven't been able to see him since the lockdown. Now, we talk every day on WeChat. But, you know, we'd like to see him, and we certainly want to know that he's OK.

5. And you can't see him because you can't go across town. Is that it?

There's no taxis, there's no subways, there's no buses, there's no private cars allowed on the road. 

6. What is that like, to be separated from him? You're in the same city, but you can't actually see him as this story unfolds. 

It's very difficult and it's certainly difficult for his mother as well, certainly for his younger brother, worried about his older brother.

7. When you go out on the streets, are there people there or is it a bit like a ghost town?

It's a bit like a ghost town. That's the feeling. It's quite eerie; it's quite quiet. 

For a city of 11 million, it is very quiet now. Most people [who] are here, you don't see them until at night. You see the lights on in apartments across the way.

8. What are you doing in the midst of all of this to stay healthy?

Keeping a routine, I think is the most important thing. I mean, we're trying to eat as well as we can, but getting up in the morning, making our beds, going to the shower, doing all the things that we would normally do — eating breakfast together as we normally do.

But then it changes, and then, you know, instead of going off to school, then we have to find things to do.

China's Hubei opens psychological service hotline

A hotline has opened in central China's Hubei Province to help people maintain psychological health amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, local authorities said Thursday.

4007027520

A hotline has opened in central China's Hubei Province to help people maintain psychological health amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, local authorities said Thursday.

Medical workers, teachers, students and the general public can call the number 4007027520 to request help with psychological issues related to the epidemic.

The service, which officially began on Thursday, was jointly launched by organizations including the Hubei Provincial Department of Education.

The service is made possible with the participation of numerous seasoned psychological counselors from universities across the province.

An official WeChat account has also been set up to provide 24-hour service.

Latest on the coronavirus outbreak:

Over 9,000 cases confirmed in China, 213 dead

Members of the medical team of the Second Military Medical University receive praise from a patient at Hankou Hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Jan. 27, 2020.  (Photo by Chen Jing/Xinhua)

A pneumonia outbreak was first reported in December in the city of Wuhan of central China's Hubei Province. Experts have attributed the outbreak to a novel coronavirus that has since spread across China and abroad.

Here is what we know so far:

Chinese health authorities announced Friday that 9,692 confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus had been reported in 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps by the end of Thursday. A total of 213 people have died of the disease.

– Confirmed cases: Over 9,692 in China, over 90 abroad.

– Deaths: 213

– Discharged from hospitals in the Chinese mainland: Over 130. 

– Human-to-human transmission confirmed.

– Health experts say the virus has the potential to mutate.

– Level 1 emergency response launched for 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities on the Chinese mainland.

WHO declares novel coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference after a meeting of the Emergency Committee on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Geneva, Switzerland Jan 30, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]

The World Health Organization has decided on Thursday that the novel coronavirus outbreak constitutes an international public health emergency, triggering coordinated global action to prevent the spread of the virus.

The organization, which is also called WHO, officially declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, or PHEIC, following an emergency meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the declaration was not a vote of no confidence in China, rather it is necessary because human-to-human infections have been confirmed in other countries.

"Over the past few weeks we have witnessed the emergence of a previously unknown pathogen, which has escalated into an unprecedented outbreak and which has been met by an unprecedented response," Ghebreyesus said. "As I have said repeatedly since my return from Beijing, the Chinese government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to control the outbreak, despite the severe social and economic impact those measures are having on the Chinese people."

Ghebreyesus said that WHO does not recommend limiting trade and movement, and opposes any travel restrictions against China.

"We would have seen many more cases outside China by now, and probably deaths, if it were not for the government's efforts and the progress they have made to protect their own people and the people of the world," Ghebreyesus said.

"The speed with which China detected the outbreak, isolated the virus, sequenced the genome, and shared it with WHO and the world are very impressive and beyond words. So is China's commitment to transparency and supporting other countries. In many ways, China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response, and this is not an exaggeration," he added.

He called on member states to help nations with weaker health systems; accelerate the production of vaccines; combat the spread of misinformation; and to share data and knowledge with WHO and the world.

It is the sixth time that WHO has declared a PHEIC since the designation was adopted in 2005. Declarations were announced previously for: the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009; outbreaks of polio and Ebola in 2014; the Zika virus epidemic in 2016; and an ongoing Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

With the PHEIC now in place, WHO will send a series of recommendations to member states aimed at controlling the spread of the disease and providing support to affected areas.

These will include recommended containment measures for local health authorities, and possible future transport advisories designed to mitigating cross-border spread of the disease while at the same time limiting disruption to travel and trade.

WHO may also require transport authorities and companies to provide scientific justification for travel cancellations.

Member states are bound by WHO's International Health Regulations of 2005, and a refusal to comply PHEIC measures could become a matter of international law. 

The novel coronavirus has killed more than170 people and infected close to 8,000 as of Thursday afternoon. The virus has now spread to several other Asian nations and reached Australia, the United States and Europe as well.

Source: CBC RADIO, https://www.cbc.ca/radio.Written by Padraig Moran, with files from CBC News. Produced by Samira Mohyeddin and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin.；Xinhua; CGTN; By Angus McNeice in London | chinadaily.com.cn

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