GAIL ALEXAN­DER

There are two T&T na­tion­als in Chi­na’s Hubei province where the coro­n­avirus was found, in­clud­ing one in Wuhan city where the out­break be­gan, and they have to re­main there un­der quar­an­tine, Gov­ern­ment has con­firmed.

The For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry is­sued a state­ment on the de­vel­op­ment yes­ter­day. The Min­istry stat­ed the two na­tion­als haven’t “ex­pressed any de­sire to be evac­u­at­ed at this time.”

The de­vel­op­ment arose as the New York Times yes­ter­day re­port­ed Chi­nese of­fi­cials have con­firmed over 6,000 cas­es of the mys­te­ri­ous virus and 132 deaths.

US and UK gov­ern­ments are air­lift­ing their cit­i­zens out of Wuhan, the out­break’s epi­cen­tre.

But in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern has in­creased since the virus shows signs of spread­ing over­seas, with peo­ple who nev­er vis­it­ed Chi­na falling ill in Ger­many, Japan, Tai­wan and Viet­nam.

Fin­land not­ed its first case yes­ter­day - a Chi­nese tourist who re­cent­ly was in Wuhan. The World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion meets to­day to eval­u­ate whether the new coro­n­avirus spread­ing from Chi­na now con­sti­tutes an in­ter­na­tion­al emer­gency.

Yes­ter­day T&T’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry said its em­bassy in Chi­na con­firmed there are 120 T&T na­tion­als in Chi­na.

Most of the 120 are at this time in Bei­jing, Hong Kong, Jiang­su, Shang­hai, Guang­dong, Zhe­jiang, Chongqing and 18 oth­er cities.

This in­cludes two T&T na­tion­als: one per­son in coro­n­avirus epi­cen­tre Wuhan and an­oth­er in Qian­jiang. Both cities are in Hubei province. Wuhan is the cap­i­tal of that province.

The Min­istry added, “ At present, there are re­stric­tions on pub­lic and pri­vate trans­port and on the move­ment of per­sons in and out of Wuhan.”

The Min­istry stat­ed Chi­na’s Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs briefed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of diplo­mat­ic mis­sions in Bei­jing re­cent­ly ad­vis­ing them that their na­tion­als who are in Wuhan should re­main there and un­der­go self-im­posed quar­an­tine.

The Min­istry added, “Em­bassies were ad­vised that Chi­nese cen­tral and lo­cal gov­ern­ments have mo­bilised re­sources to ad­dress the out­break, that the For­eign Af­fairs Of­fice of Hubei Provin­cial Gov­ern­ment would as­sist for­eign na­tion­als in meet­ing their day-to-day needs and that a spe­cial co­or­di­na­tion mech­a­nism to en­ter­tain re­quests from diplo­mat­ic Mis­sions per­tain­ing to the out­break has been es­tab­lished.”

Chi­na’s For­eign Min­istry al­so ad­vised that staff should not re­turn to their em­bassies be­fore 3rd Feb­ru­ary.

The Min­istry stat­ed that T&T’s em­bassy in Chi­na con­tin­ues to re­main in close con­tact with na­tion­als in Hubei Province and ad­vis­es them to fol­low the ad­vice of lo­cal au­thor­i­ties.

The Min­istry stat­ed that the na­tion­als haven’t ex­pressed any de­sire to be evac­u­at­ed at this time.

“The evac­u­a­tion pro­ce­dure has been ex­plained to them.”

The Min­istry added the em­bassy in Bei­jing will re­sume op­er­a­tions on Fri­day.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said if and when the two T&T na­tion­als from Hubei Province come to T&T, they’ll un­der­go full ex­am­i­na­tions and oth­er tests on their con­di­tions.

“We have full pro­to­cols for any­one re­turn­ing from the ar­eas where Coro­n­avirus was found,” he added.

He said if the na­tion­als now in Chi­na re­turn, they’ll un­der­go screen­ing- not on­ly ther­mal screen­ing- and will be in­ter­viewed on their re­cent trav­el and con­tact his­to­ry.

This will in­clude ques­tions on whether they’d been in con­tact with any­one with fever or close to any­one in the Wuhan city where the out­break be­gan.

They’ll be med­ical­ly ex­am­ined and even if they have no signs of the coro­n­avirus they’ll al­so be mon­i­tored for sev­en to 14 days af­ter their ex­am­i­na­tions.

“They’ll al­so be asked to lim­it con­tact with peo­ple - to self iso­late - as oth­er coun­tries have asked of cit­i­zens who’ve been to Chi­na. If they do show any signs (of the virus) ac­cord­ing to case de­f­i­n­i­tion, they’ll then be pos­si­bly in­sti­tu­tion­alised and treat­ed there un­til their con­di­tion re­solves,” Deyals­ingh added.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed the Chi­nese Am­bas­sador met with the Health Min­is­ter on the is­sue last week.

The Chi­nese Em­bassy in T&T has ad­vised Chi­nese na­tion­als to abide by mea­sures Gov­ern­ment may is­sue on the mat­ter in­clud­ing pro­vid­ing trav­el/oth­er his­to­ry.

Op­po­si­tion’s re­sponse

UNC MP Bhoe Tewarie said yes­ter­day, “For the sake of pro­tec­tion of our coun­try and all who live here from the coro­n­avirus, all 120 T&T trav­ellers who were in Chi­na should be med­ical­ly ex­am­ined and screened on re­turn here be­fore be­ing al­lowed to join their fam­i­lies and the rest of the pop­u­la­tion.

“Health and the Im­mi­gra­tion di­vi­sions should work co-op­er­a­tive­ly and dili­gent­ly to­geth­er on this in the in­ter­est of our small, ever vul­ner­a­ble na­tion. More­over, any T&T cit­i­zen or res­i­dent who’s trav­elled to any part of Chi­na in the last three months and re­turned home, should be im­me­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed and med­ical­ly ex­am­ined/screened as a pre­cau­tion for every­one’s safe­ty.”

“Out of an abun­dance of cau­tion, screen­ing shouldn’t be lim­it­ed to vis­i­tors to the city of Wuhan or to Hubei province in Chi­na on­ly. Any­one vis­it­ing Chi­na over the last three months should be screened,” he said.