Roughly five million residents of Wuhan, China fled the city, where the coronavirus first appeared, just before a lockdown was imposed last week, the South China Morning Post reports.
Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang told the newspaper that five million residents left the city due to the coronavirus outbreak, leaving about nine million people left in the city, which had 533 confirmed cases of the virus as of Sunday. The Chinese government instituted a lockdown in Wuhan and other cities last Thursday, in an effort to contain the virus.
At least 81 people have died in Wuhan from the coronavirus, according to the Chinese government on Sunday, and has infected about 2,800 people in total, according to the New York Post. Five cases have been confirmed in the U.S.
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday that it had identified the source of the virus: a seafood wholesale market in Wuhan.
“Thirty-one of the 33 positive samples were collected from the western zone of the market, where booths of wildlife trading concentrated,” the Chinese CDC said, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. “The result suggests that the novel coronavirus outbreak is highly relevant to the trading of wild animals.”
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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