China’s Premier Li Keqiang arrives in coronavirus outbreak epicenter Wuhan to supervise epidemic control efforts
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has arrived in the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, which is ground zero of the 2019-nCoV novel coronavirus outbreak that already infected more than 2,800 people and claimed 80 lives across the nation.
“At the instruction of China’s Chairman Xi Jinping, [Li, who is] a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and the head of the working group, created due to the outbreak of pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus, has arrived in Wuhan to inspect and control the effort on fighting the epidemic,” the State Council said in a statement.
The Chinese government is undertaking some drastic measures to contain the spread of the new virus. Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, has been virtually quarantined, while strict travel restrictions have been imposed in the entire Hubei Province.
Around 450 Chinese military medics, many with experience in combating SARS or Ebola, were deployed in the region to help the overworked and exhausted hospital staff, who had been on around-the-clock shifts in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, local authorities are rushing to construct a new 1,000-bed facility specifically to treat victims of the deadly virus. Li has already held first meetings with local medics and met some of the infected patients.