Jamu Barokahs

Rabu, 29 Januari 2020

Australia’s Coronavirus Evacuation Plan: A Tiny Island 1,000 Miles Away - Wall Street Journal

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, center right, and Australian Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy, center,... — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, center right, and Australian Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy, center, left, at a press conference about the coronavirus, Canberra, Australia, on Wednesday. Photo: mick tsikas/Shutterstock

Rachel Pannett and

Rachel Pannett

The Wall Street Journal

Mike Cherney

The Wall Street Journal

Biography
@Mike_Cherney
mike.cherney@wsj.com

Jan. 29, 2020 5:55 am ET

SYDNEY—Australia will try to pull out citizens stuck in Wuhan, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus outbreak, and quarantine them in an immigration detention center on a remote island nearly 1,000 miles off its coast.

Evacuees will be sent to the center on Christmas Island, an Australian territory near Indonesia that has long been used to detain asylum seekers as part of an offshore-processing system that has been criticized by human-rights groups and the United Nations.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said being quarantined on Christmas Island would be a condition of assisted departure.

The quarantine plan is one of the most extreme isolation measures undertaken by governments outside China so far to limit the virus’ spread. Australia’s government says it is acting on the advice of health authorities, who on Wednesday said anyone who has traveled in the Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, should self-isolate for 14 days after leaving the area, avoiding work, school, restaurants, shops and other public places.

Officials said any evacuees from Wuhan will be kept separate from the Christmas Island community for about two weeks—the period health officials believe it takes for someone infected with the virus to develop symptoms.

Mr. Morrison said he can’t guarantee the evacuation plan, which Beijing still hasn’t agreed to, will succeed.

WSJ’s Shan Li and Stephanie Yang traveled to Hubei, the Chinese province at the center of the new coronavirus epidemic. As authorities impose tighter quarantine rules, they were asked to spend 14 days indoors and undergo a strict routine. Photo: Arek Rataj/Associated Press

“There are many complications and many issues that we’re going to have to overcome,” he told reporters. The focus, he said, will be on isolated and vulnerable citizens in Wuhan and the Hubei province, particularly young people, infants and the elderly. “There is rather a limited window here and we are moving very, very swiftly to ensure we can put this plan together.”

Just over 600 people have registered with Australia’s foreign affairs department as being in Hubei province.

It is not known how many will be extricated, or if people will want to go to the isolated island. The prime minister said the evacuation will be carried out on a last in, first out basis—aimed at short-term travelers who don’t have local support networks.

It means the planned evacuation would have broader focus than that carried out by the U.S., which has extricated diplomats, their family members and a limited number of private U.S. citizens from the virus-hit city.

Australian consular officials are setting up a temporary office in Wuhan to work with local authorities and are seeking approval from Beijing to send a plane to the city.

Dave Watchorn, 49, who manages a dive shop on Christmas Island, said it was good to help people fleeing the virus in China and he wasn’t worried about contracting the virus himself. He said the main detention center is about half an hour’s drive from the main town, called Flying Fish Cove.

A detention center on Christmas Island. Photo: lukas coch/Shutterstock

Mr. Watchorn hoped the quarantine wouldn’t affect tourism, noting the island has struggled to attract visitors because of its reputation as a detention area—even though it has a plethora of wildlife.

“You could be in central Melbourne or central Sydney and you’d be at greater risk,” Mr. Watchorn said of the virus. “It’s everywhere now.”

Seven people are confirmed to have the virus in Australia. Health officials confirmed the country’s first case on Saturday, a Chinese man in his 50s who had flown into Melbourne recently after having spent time in Wuhan. Australia’s foreign affairs department this week upgraded its travel advice for all of China, urging people to reconsider their need to travel to the country.

Scientists in Melbourne said Wednesday they have successfully grown the virus from a patient sample. It is the first time the virus has been grown in a culture outside China, a breakthrough they said that will provide international laboratories with crucial information to help combat the virus.

More than 130 people have died, with about 6,000 cases confirmed—most of which have come in mainland China.

Write to Rachel Pannett at rachel.pannett@wsj.com and Mike Cherney at mike.cherney@wsj.com

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2020-01-29 10:55:00Z
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A unique pink slug feared wiped out by Australia's bushfires has been found alive and well - CNN

The unique, eye-catching creature only lives on the slopes of an isolated inactive volcano in New South Wales, Mount Kaputar, from which they take their name.

After recent rainfall, rangers from New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service found "about 60" Mount Kaputar slugs alive, according to a recent post on the organization's Facebook page.

The survival of the Mount Kaputar slug comes after ecologists at the University of Sydney estimated that around half a billion animals in New South Wales alone have been affected by the bushfires.

The Facebook post added that there had been fears for this "unusual species" after the fires impacted "much of its alpine habitat." "They may not be as cute as koalas or wallabies, but this species also plays an important role in its ecosystem," the post said.

The Mount Kaputar slug, measuring up to 20 centimeters (7.9 inches), went mostly unstudied until 2013, when it was identified as a new species. Researchers had previously thought it was a variation of the red triangle slug, also found in New South Wales.

The slugs have never been spotted anywhere but the summit area of Mount Kaputar, located in the state's northeast. The effects of a volcanic eruption on the mountain 17 million years ago kept that small summit area wet and full of greenery, as other areas of the country changed to dry desert-like conditions -- meaning the animals living on the mountaintop were marooned for millions of years, unable to live anywhere else.

But these species are under threat -- including the pink slug, listed as Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Their high-elevation habitat is especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and may shrink as temperatures increase, according to the IUCN.

First fires, then floods. Now Australians need to watch out for deadly funnel-web spiders, experts say

Frank Kohler, senior research scientist in malacology at the Australian Museum, told CNN that Mount Kaputar National Park is home to about 20 endemic species of slugs and snails, and is known to be an endangered ecological community.

Kohler said: "This is good news that they've found these slugs. They give us hope that maybe the impact of some of the fires are not as great as we thought."

However, he acknowledged that the park was not among the "more severely affected" areas of the Australian bushfires and can only provide "just a glimpse" of the overall picture of devastation.

Kohler also cited the survival of the Wollemi pines, a prehistoric tree species in a national park near Sydney, as another rare piece of positive news.

Speaking about the slugs, Kohler said that they, like many other species, have evolved to deal with fire. In their case, they would have retreated into "protective crevices," such as rocks.

Although their main food source -- fungi and lichen -- will have been affected by the fire, Kohler believes that these will grow back "relatively quickly" under the right conditions.

Mount Kaputar National Park is currently closed to members of the public because of the damage caused by bushfires.

Millions of animals are dying from the Australian fires, and the environment will suffer for years to come

Since the fire season began in late July, large swaths of Australia have been devastated by the worst bushfires in decades.

More than 20 people have been killed and millions of acres of land have been destroyed. The state of New South Wales is the worst-affected state, with thousands of homes destroyed or damaged.

Ecologists at the University of Sydney estimate that more than 1 billion animals have been impacted across Australia -- meaning killed, displaced, without food or shelter, or otherwise affected.

That number is likely to be even higher in reality, as these estimates don't include insects, frogs, and other invertebrates.

"It's a monstrous event in terms of geography and the number of individual animals affected," said University of Sydney ecologist Christopher Dickman in a news release. "It's events like this that may well hasten the extinction process for a range of other species. So, it's a very sad time."

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2020-01-29 06:44:00Z
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Selasa, 28 Januari 2020

Man and child die after family camping accident in Australia - CNN

The family of three -- a man, woman, and child -- had been camping at Wedge Island, a beachside suburb in Western Australia state, said police in a statement.

Police were notified on Monday morning that a child was not breathing on the beach. When they arrived, they located the boy and a man, both deceased, as well as a woman in need of urgent medical assistance. A rescue helicopter flew the woman to a hospital in Perth, about 100 miles south of Wedge Island.

The deaths aren't being treated as suspicious, police said. The ongoing investigation suggests they may have died as a result of a fault with their camping equipment, inside the tent they were sleeping in.

Emergency and fire services staff have since removed the equipment.

Wedge Island refers to both an island off the coast of Western Australia and the nearby peninsula, a popular holiday area for fishing, camping, and water sports. The deaths happened on the mainland, police said.

Authorities are looking for any other people who may have been in the area at the time, and will prepare a report for the coroner.

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2020-01-28 14:21:00Z
CAIiECsUY-b1AO2cVGT5RoOm60AqGQgEKhAIACoHCAowocv1CjCSptoCMPrTpgU

Man and child die after family camping accident in Australia - CNN

The family of three -- a man, woman, and child -- had been camping at Wedge Island, a beachside suburb in Western Australia state, said police in a statement.

Emergency and fire services staff have since removed the equipment.

Authorities are looking for any other people who may have been in the area at the time, and will prepare a report for the coroner.

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2020-01-28 13:24:00Z
CAIiECsUY-b1AO2cVGT5RoOm60AqGQgEKhAIACoHCAowocv1CjCSptoCMPrTpgU

Man and child die after family camping accident in Australia - CNN

The family of three -- a man, woman, and child -- had been camping at Wedge Island, a beachside suburb in Western Australia state, said police in a statement.

Emergency and fire services staff have since removed the equipment.

Authorities are looking for any other people who may have been in the area at the time, and will prepare a report for the coroner.

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2020-01-28 07:08:00Z
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Senin, 27 Januari 2020

Woman dies in Australia Day lamington-eating contest - BBC News

A woman has died in Australia while taking part in a contest to eat as many lamingtons as possible.

The woman, aged 60, is reported to have had a seizure during the event at a hotel in Hervey Bay, Queensland, to mark Australia Day on Sunday.

Contestants had earlier been filmed speed-eating the lamingtons, a traditional sponge cake covered in chocolate and desiccated coconut.

She was given CPR at the scene and taken to hospital but later died.

Witnesses said the woman had crammed one of the cakes into her mouth when she appeared to get into difficulties.

Footage has emerged showing other patrons of the pub cheering on the eaters, who have glasses of water next to them, before the accident.

The Beach House Hotel in Hervey Bay posted a message on Facebook expressing condolences to the family and friends of the woman, who has not been named.

They thanked the ambulance service for their "prompt and professional response while this tragic incident was unfolding".

Eating competitions are a popular game during Australia Day, a national holiday marking the arrival of the first Europeans to Australia.

Contestants usually win prizes for eating as many cakes, pies, hot dogs or other food in a limited time.