Pilots, flight attendants demand flights to China stop, France confirms sixth case of coronavirus infection
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Pilots and flight attendants are demanding airlines stop flights to China as health officials declare a global emergency over the rapidly spreading coronavirus, with American Airlines’ pilots filing a lawsuit seeking an immediate halt.
Several international airlines flying to China have started to suspend flights. British Airlines, Lufthansa, Air France, and other airlines are among those who suspended flights to China
China has reported nearly 10,000 cases and 213 deaths, but the virus has spread to 18 countries often by plane passengers.
The Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents American Airlines pilots, cited “serious, and in many ways still unknown, health threats posed by the coronavirus” in a lawsuit filed in Texas, where the airline is based.
The outbreak poses the biggest epidemic threat to the airline industry since the 2003 SARS crisis, which led to a 45% plunge in passenger demand in Asia at its peak in April of that year, analysts said.
"[We must:] -share data, knowledge & experience with WHO & the world. The only way we will defeat this outbreak is for all countries to work together in a spirit of solidarity & cooperation. We are all in this together, & we can only stop it together"-@DrTedros#2019nCov
A plane carrying UK citizens departed the Chinese city of Wuhan just before 0200 GMT on Friday, the UK embassy in China said. The city is the epicenter of a virus outbreak that has killed more than 200.
Whilst the United States reported its first case of person-to-person transmission. For the first time in the U.S., the new virus from China has spread from one person to another, health officials said Thursday.
The latest case — the sixth in the country — is the husband of a Chicago woman who got sick from the virus after she returned from the epicenter of an outbreak in China. There have been previous cases in China and elsewhere of the virus spreading between people in a household or workplace.
The other five U.S. cases are travelers who developed the respiratory illness after returning to the U.S. from China. The latest patient had not been in China.
Germany, Japan, Vietnam and South Korea have also recorded similar transmissions, which suggest greater potential for the virus to spread.
France has confirmed a sixth case of infection by the new coronavirus from China, a French health official said on Thursday.
The United States and Japan have already carried out airlifts from Wuhan for their citizens. A second US flight is planned in the coming days.
The European Commission has said it is planning a flight to evacuate more European nationals.
