Coronavirus latest updates: US postpones Asean summit, South Korea reports 594 new cases – latest news

Queensland Health has just sent through a press statement with a few more details on that Gold Coast case.

The beauty salon was Hair Plus at the Australia Fair shopping centre. But the woman in question did facials and other beauty treatments — not haircuts. That’s significant because beauty treatments, in this salon, were much shorter appointments.

The biggest concern is people who had a beauty appointment lasting more than 15 minutes, or who may have been in the room for two or more hours.

Anyone who attended Hair Plus from 11am onwards on Thursday, 27 November, has been asked to go to the Gold Coast University Hospital.

People who were at the Australia Fair shopping centre, but not the beauty salon, on Thursday have been told there is “no need for concern” but they can call 13HEALTH for advice.

Health minister Steven Miles said the risk of the virus spreading in Queensland remained very low.

There are nine confirmed cases in Queensland. This latest case brings the number of confirmed cases in Australia to 25.

Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said that with the novel coronavirus spreading to an increasing number of countries, anyone who feels unwell shortly after arriving in Australia from overseas should contact their doctor for advice.

The number of affected countries has spread to 49, and the World Health Organisation has elevated the risk of spread of the virus to “very high”. A pandemic has not been declared, but Young said it would happen.

We know we will be seeing an epidemic here in Queensland eventually. We would like to contain that as much as possible, as we have been.

Young said that more than 80% of all recorded cases of the Covid-19 virus were mild, and the mortality rate had fallen from 2-3% when the virus was first reported, as more mild cases are detected. It’s now estimated to be about 1%.

Said Young:

I am very very confident here in Queensland, because of the. warning that we have been given…. that we will see [mortality] rates even lower than that.

Young said the demographic at the highest risk from the virus were the elderly and those with co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension, or cardiovascular conditions.

She said children had a “minimal risk” — not an elevated risk, as they have with other respiratory conditions like the flu — and the risk to pregnant women is understood to be the same as the general population.

Miles said Queensland had asked the federal government to declare the coronavirus a disaster, because of its broader economic impacts.

We are doing everything we can from a health perspective to contain the virus but it is impacting on business, it is impacting on the economy…. in the same way that a disaster does.

The Queensland health minister, Steven Miles, spoke just now in Brisbane now about the latest coronavirus case in Australia, which is a 63-year-old woman who recently returned from Iran.

The woman flew back on Monday, 24 February, and was not unwell on the flight. She began to feel unwell on Thursday, 27 February, and authorities are trying to trace anyone who may have come into contact with the woman while she was working as a beautician on the Gold Coast on Thursday.

The beauty salon is at the Australia Fair shopping centre on the Gold Coast. Queensland’s chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said they believe she saw 30 to 40 clients on Thursday, mostly for very short appointments. Interactions of less than 15 minutes have a low risk of transmitting the virus, Young said.

Young said the woman mainly gave facials, and that customers often did not book and paid cash — so they have made a public call-out for anyone who attended the beauty salon on Thursday to come forward.

On the risk of transmission, Young said:

It’s a very brief interaction so the risk is very low.

She said there was “no need to have any concerns prior to that,” because the woman was not symptomatic. She said that once she began to feel unwell, the woman immediately notified her doctor that she had returned from Iran — which has the highest number of deaths from coronavirus outside of mainland China — and was at risk.

If you didn’t go to that salon then there is no need to have any concern at all.

If you are unsure about the seriousness of the coronavirus — and there has been some fairly confused information about this — science correspondent Hannah Devlin has busted some of the most common myths.

For one, she writes that while we do not know a precise fatality rate for Covid-19, current estimates are a fatality rate of about 1%.

Hannah writes:

This would make Covid-19 about 10 times more deadly than seasonal flu, which is estimated to kill between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year globally.

So: worse than flu. You can read the full fact-check here.

Postponing the ASEAN summit a ‘difficult decision’: US officials

Here is a bit more on that announcement from the United States to delay a regional ASEAN summit scheduled to take place in Las Vegas in two weeks time.

From AFP:

The United States has delayed a regional ASEAN summit scheduled to take place in Las Vegas next month due to fears of the coronavirus, a senior administration official said Friday.

“As the international community works together to defeat the novel coronavirus, the United States, in consultation with ASEAN partners, has made the difficult decision to postpone the ASEAN leaders meeting,” said the official on condition of not being named.

Leaders from the Association of South East Asian Nations had been due to be hosted by President Donald Trump on March 14.

The official said the United States “values our relationships with the nations of this critical region, and looks forward to future meetings.”

The announcement came as health officials in California confirmed the United States’ second case believed to have been transmitted to a person who did not travel overseas or come in contact with anyone known to be ill.

The Las Vegas meeting was scheduled after US president Donald Trump skipped the ASEAN summit in Thailand in November.

More from AFP:

Trump had skipped an ASEAN summit and parallel East Asia Summit last year in Bangkok.

He instead sent his national security advisor Robert O’Brien, in the lowest-level participation ever by the United States in the East Asia Summit.

The move came after years of US efforts to show that the United States is committed to Asia in the face of a rising China.