China injects liquidity to support the market against coronavirus

The Chinese central bank has announced that it will inject 1.2 billion yuan (about 157,000 million euros) in the market to try to counteract the adverse effects of this crisis on the stock exchange on Monday.

The Asian giant’s markets have remained closed since last January 23, the Chinese New Year’s holiday, and they were scheduled to reopen last Friday, although they will finally do so tomorrow.

Experts assume that it will be a very volatile session and with this measure, the Chinese authorities intend to support companies that could be most affected by this health crisis. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has considered that the coronavirus will only have short-term effects on the stock exchanges.

305 deaths

Millions of Chinese return to their jobs tomorrow after the end of the holiday season, a situation that has put the government on top guard for the coronavirus that has already claimed the lives of 305 people and infected another 14,380.

Today, control measures at train stations, airports, and access roads to large cities have multiplied in the face of the flood of people who are returning to their homes after the holidays.

To try to contain the spread of the virus in these times where there is the greatest human migration in the world, the Chinese government decided last week to extend the holidays until day 2, instead of until January 30, although schools in the whole country will still remain closed until further notice.

In some cities such as Shanghai, home to hundreds of multinationals, vacations have been extended until the next day 9, while the entire province of Hubei (center-east of the country), the epicenter of the focus, also continues to stop.

With this, the Government has achieved that the return to the big cities, where millions of people from rural China who take advantage of vacations to return homework, is more staggered.

Since the outbreak of the crisis and especially in recent days, railway stations, airports and highways have turned to carry out passenger control measures such as temperature taking.

328 have overcome the disease

According to the daily report of the National Health Commission, a total of 85 people were cured in the last hours and were discharged, so the number of people who have overcome the disease amounts to 328.

All deaths recorded in the last 24 hours correspond to the province of Hubei, where it is expected that tomorrow the first of the two large hospitals that have been built in less than two weeks to alleviate the crisis will open in the city of Wuhan.

It is Huoshenshan Hospital, with a capacity for 1,000 patients, and it will be operated by 1,400 members of the medical personnel of the armed forces, as approved today by Chinese President Xi Jinping, also president of the Central Military Commission.

Among military medical personnel, Xinhua news agency explained today, many participated in the fight against SARS in 2004 at Xiaotangshan Hospital in Beijing or in the mission against Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia, so they have rich experience in the treatment of infectious diseases.

There, in Wuhan, there have been 849 new cases and 32 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to data from the local Health Commission.

The city of Huanggang, also in Hubei, is being one of the most affected and the authorities estimate that the dead will rise a lot in the coming days as many people returned from Wuhan before the city was quarantined.

A closure that was later extended to other municipalities in Hubei and that in Huanggang itself is total since the authorities have prohibited its residents from leaving their homes and only one person from each household can go out to buy food once every two days.

You can only leave to receive medical treatment, to carry out epidemic prevention and control work or to work in supermarkets and pharmacies.

Control of the dead

The Chinese health authorities are not only exercising control of the citizens, whom they recommend leaving as little as possible from home but also today an action protocol was published with those killed by the disease.

They cannot be buried where their relatives want or have a farewell ceremony but must be cremated at a designated funeral home and near where they are.

They will not be transported between different regions and will not be preserved by burial or other means says a protocol issued by the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Minister of Public Security.

Funeral traditions such as farewell ceremonies are prohibited and the bodies must be disinfected and placed in a bag sealed by medical workers and cannot be opened after sealing.

Until now all the deceased had occurred in China, where 99% of the infected people are also, but today it was confirmed that a man of Chinese nationality died on Saturday in the Philippines, where he had traveled from Wuhan.

Advances in research

All this while experts and researchers reveal some discoveries about the disease, such as the fact that it could spread through the digestive system.

This is believed by a group of Chinese researchers from the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, who found viral nucleic acids in the feces and rectal swabs of the patients after they noticed that the initial symptom of some patients infected with the coronavirus was just diarrhea, rather than fever.

In another of the investigations, the expert of the department of respiratory medicine of the Children’s Hospital of Zhejiang University, Chen Zhimin, warned that there is a potential risk of mother-to-child transmission so that if a pregnant mother becomes sick her newborn baby also run the risk of becoming infected.

The danger is high since the immune system and respiratory tract of neonates is not as mature as that of adults, the expert warns.