Cummins Inc. has issued a ban for its employees to travel to Wuhan, China, where the company has several plants serving the company’s fuel systems and power systems businesses, due to ongoing concerns about the spread of a new type of coronavirus.
Company spokesman Jon Mills said the Wuhan plants are currently on a planned shutdown for the celebration of the Lunar New Year in China, but are planning to resume operations next week.
Mills said the travel ban was consistent with restrictions that had been put in place in Wuhan and that the company has no confirmed cases of the new type of coronavirus among its employees.
Cummins has at least three facilities in Wuhan, including the East Asia Research and Development Center, Wuhan Genset Plant and Wuhan Fuel Systems Plant, according to the company’s website.
Overall, the company has 30 facilities in China, employing more than 9,000 people in the region, the company’s website states.
With the restrictions in place in Wuhan to contain the virus, Mills said Cummins will continue to monitor and evaluate conditions on an ongoing basis.
Columbus Regional Health officials have been monitoring the outbreak of the disease and have been in contact with Cummins officials “to make sure everyone is on the same page,” said CRH spokeswoman Kelsey DeClue.
CRH physicians and other officials are adhering to protocols set by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Indiana State Department of Health — including checking every patient for symptoms of the coronavirus and inquiring whether they had recently traveled to China or come in contact with someone who has recently traveled there, DeClue said.
So far, no patients at CRH have exhibited symptoms of the coronavirus or been deemed to be at risk for contracting the virus, DeClue said.
If CRH officials suspect that a patient could have the coronavirus, Columbus Regional Hospital has protection suits, goggles, full-face shields and other equipment for staff and 10 negative airflow rooms that are specially designed to isolate patients from the rest of the hospital population, DeClue said.
“They would be put into isolation and then we would notify the Indiana State Department of Health,” DeClue said.
China has confirmed more than 2,700 cases of a new virus, with 81 deaths, The Associated Press reported. Most have been in Wuhan where the illness first surfaced last month. More than 40 cases have been confirmed in other places with virtually all of them involving Chinese tourists or people who visited Wuhan recently.
There have been five confirmed case of the virus in the United States, including two in southern California and one each in Washington state, Chicago and Arizona, the The Associated Press reported.
Initial symptoms of the new coronavirus include fever, cough, tightness of the chest and shortness of breath.
China reportedly planned to extend the Lunar New Year observance in the country as the crisis over the virus grows, the The Associated Press reported.
The director-general of the World Health Organization has flown to China to meet with government officials and health experts trying to contain the spread of a deadly coronavirus that has killed 81 people in China and infected 2,750, the The Associated Press reported Monday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, said the U.N. health agency wants “to understand the latest developments and strengthen our partnership with China in providing further protection against the outbreak.”
Last week, WHO held off on declaring the virus a global health emergency. It said China had taken very strong measures — including locking down cities that are home to 50 million people — that the agency hoped would be effective in containing the virus and “short in duration.”
Tedros said he would not hesitate to reconvene the WHO emergency committee at a moment’s notice if the situation in China changed. He said that could happen “in a day” if that was needed.