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PH sets off airlift in Wuhan
First batch of evacuees to fly out on chartered planes next week REPATRIATION, QUARANTINE. French citizens arrive and settle aboard an evacuation plane with destination southeastern France, before departure from Wuhan Airport Thursday night. They are being repatriated from the coronavirus hot zone, their expected time of arrival in France placed Friday night where they will be put on quarantine for 14 days in a holiday center in Carry-le-Rouet, near Marseille. AFP
By Rey E. Requejo, MJ Blancaflor, Macon Ramos-Araneta and Joel E. Zurbano HE first batch of returning Filipinos from the coronavirus-stricken Wuhan City and other areas in Hubei Province, China will be flown back to the Philippines next week, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Friday.
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Nations take drastic steps to rim spread THE United States told its citizens to avoid China after the World Health Organization declared a global coronavirus emergency, as the Chinese death toll rose Friday to 213 and total infections surpassed the SARS epidemic of two decades ago. The US State Department raised its warning alert to the highest level, telling Americans “do not travel” to China and urged those already there to leave. Hours earlier, the WHO, which was criticized for initially downplaying the virus threat, changed tack after crisis talks in Geneva. “Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as the emergency was declared.
DOH to big hospitals: You can’t turn away suspected nCoV patients By Macon Ramos-Araneta, Willie Casas, Rey E. Requejo, Maricel V. Cruz and Joel E. Zurbano BIG hospitals in the country are not allowed to turn away patients who are showing symptoms of the deadly novel coronavirus (nCoV), the Department of Health said Friday. This developed as Malacañang sought to allay public fears, saying that San Lazaro Hospital in Sta. Cruz, Manila, which is treating the country’s first case of nCoV, is fully equipped and prepared to handle such cases. The hospitals “are being reminded that they can’t turn away patients because of suspected nCoV... they have to treat them and manage them within the facility,” Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo said at a press briefing. As a requirement of the DOH, hospitals with Level 2 or Level 3 licenses “must have the capacity for isolation and treatment of infectious diseases,” Domingo added.
TEMPERATURES MONITORED. Students wearing protective masks (above) have their temperatures taken while entering their college campus in Manila on Friday, while high school students (right inset) of Araullo in Manila similarly wear face masks. Norman Cruz with AFP
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ANOTHER WUHAN VICTIM. The photo, taken on Thursday, shows an official in a protective suit checking on an elderly man wearing a face mask who collapsed and died on a street in Wuhan, the epicenter of the now spreading coronavirus, AFP journalists saw the body on Jan. 30, not long before an emergency vehicle arrived carrying police and medical staff in fullbody protective suits. AFP
NFA employees fear 2k job loss in revamp order By Rio N. Araja
ABOUT 2,000 permanent employees of the National Food Authority stand to lose their jobs under the approved restructuring of the Government Com Commission for government-owned-and-
controlled corporations. Maximo Torda, NFA Employees Association national president, said 80 percent of the workers to be affected were first-level workers such as clerks, secretaries, security guards, utility workers, accounting clerks, computer
illustrator and human resources assistants. Under the restructuring, only 2,644 positions would be retained out of the 4,611 work force, including co-terminus employees. Next page
Phivolcs warns danger still lurk amid Taal Volcano’s ‘calm’ state FOR the third time this week, the sulfur dioxide emission from Taal Volcano was “below instrumental detection,” but the volcano remains under Alert Level 3. The probability of sudden steamdriven and weak phreatomagmatic explosions, volcanic earthquakes, ash-
fall, and lethal volcanic gas expulsions in areas within Taal Volcano Island and the nearby lake shores remain, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said Friday. In related developments: Next page
Britain bids farewell to UK, charts new dawn as Brexit takes effect LONDON—Britain on Friday will end almost half a century of integration with its closest neighbors and leave the European Union, starting a new—but still uncertain—chapter in its long history. At the clocks strike 11:00 p.m.—midnight in Brussels (2300 GMT)—Britain becomes the first country to leave the
28-member bloc and goes it alone for the first time since 1973. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has backed Brexit since the 2016 referendum vote to leave that triggered bitterness and division but he has promised to unite the country in a new era of prosperity.
Official celebrations will be muted out of respect for half the population who wanted to stay in the EU and who remain fearful of what lies ahead. “Our job as the government, my job, is to bring this country together and take us forward,” Johnson said in a statement to mark the historic occasion.
He added: “This is not an end but a beginning. This is the moment when the dawn breaks and the curtain goes up on a new act.” Nothing will immediately feel different thanks to an 11-month transition period negotiated as part of an EU-UK Next page
Sun’s surface a boiling plasma A HUGE telescope built on the peak of a Hawaiian island has produced pictures of the Sun’s surface in unprecedented detail, revealing boiling plasma cells the size of Texas. For the telescope’s director, that’s only just the beginning. Next page