China’s leaders shake up political ranks as coronavirus cases near 60,000; Japan announces second virus fatality outside China
Police are investigating whether a pediatrician forged vaccination records after he left a suicide note detailing an “omnipresent sense of guilt.” (Drea Cornejo/The Washington Post)
News of the reshuffle came hours after China announced a significant jump in infection numbers in Hubei. The surge followed a change in official methodology for diagnosing and counting cases, a shift that revived questions about the reliability of China’s data and testing methods.
Here’s what we know:
● Japan reported its first fatality from coronavirus, only the second worldwide outside China. It also announced that 44 more people have tested positive for the new coronavirus on board the quarantined cruise liner Diamond Princess, bringing to 218 the number of infected.
● The political shake-up in Communist Party ranks underscored Chinese leaders’ jitters about the potential for the outbreak to fuel domestic instability.
● China revised the total case numbers in Hubei province by an additional 15,000 — and raised the death tally by 242 — after it took into account cases in which doctors are allowed to diagnose patients based on clinical methods. The National Health Commission said Thursday the new case total for the country is 59,804, with 1,367 deaths.
● Experts said that until China reveals more about its new testing process, it will be difficult to assess what exactly the latest data means. On Thursday, the World Health Organization said that the spike in cases “does not represent a significant change in the trajectory of the outbreak.”
● The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the 15th case of coronavirus in the United States. The person had been under quarantine in Texas after arriving on a State Department-chartered plane from Wuhan on Feb. 7.
Dramatic uptick in Chinese cases probably the result of earlier underestimation, expert says
When China reported a notable decrease in new coronavirus cases Wednesday, the global economy seemed to respond with relief. Markets rallied and observers suggested that the development could signal that the outbreak was slowing down.
But on Thursday, Chinese officials announced a sudden revision in the total case number for Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak. They credited the uptick, an additional 15,000 cases, to a new diagnostic methodology that would no longer rely solely on laboratory tests for confirmation.
The dramatic rise shook global markets Thursday amid fears that the spread of the virus could be more severe than had been suspected.
But Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at Toronto General Hospital, cautioned that the uptick is probably a reflection of what many public health experts knew all along — that China’s initial data vastly underestimated the breadth of the outbreak from the beginning.
“People who have been following this closely knew that this was much bigger than the reported numbers,” Bogoch said. “We knew we were dealing with a health-care system that was exceeding its capacity, and I don’t think this comes to anyone’s surprise.”
Bogoch said that very few details have emerged on Hubei province’s new methodology. But he cast doubt on claims that medical professionals in Hubei are now relying on CT scans to make diagnoses. Such scans are a “very labor-intensive pursuit,” he said. “It’s not like … you just snap a picture and walk away.”
China’s health system is overburdened. Patients are seeking treatment wherever they can find a bed — which sometimes means in makeshift clinics in converted gymnasiums and conference centers. Realistically, he said, it seems more likely that medical professionals are relying for the most part on clinical diagnoses based on symptoms and patient history.
Until China reveals more about its process, it will be difficult to assess what exactly the latest data means. But for now, Bogoch said, it’s promising that China was at least willing to reevaluate its methodology to respond to the reality on the ground.
“It would certainly be a welcome sign if there is malleability in their response and they’re able to perhaps adapt to an emerging need, and in this case that emerging need was to redefine how cases were being defined,” he said. “We just need to know what exactly the definition is.”
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