China quarantines old currency notes amid coronavirus outbreak

In an attempt to curb the coronavirus outbreak that has claimed 1,522 lives, Chinese authorities quarantined old currency notes. According to reports, the government cut off all transfer of notes across the Chinese provinces and across cities affected by the deadly outbreak.

China increases measures to stop flow of old notes

People's Bank of China has also increased measures to stop the flow of old notes to curb the spread of the virus. The bank also added 600 billion Yuan of new money for the Hubei Province which is considered to be the origin of the contagion. According to reports, the bank's deputy governor, Fan Yifei said that the money in badly affected areas will be sanitized with the help of ultraviolet rays or heated and locked up for a period of 14 days before it is ready to be distributed again.

With China reeling from the Coronavirus outbreak, people coming back to the capital city of Beijing from overseas holidays on February 14, were asked to quarantine themselves for 14 days. According to reports, the decision was handed out in order to curb the spread of the virus. The current death toll in coronavirus related cases stands at 1,522 and the number of confirmed cases has increased to 66,864.

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Originated from seafood and animal market

According to reports, the coronavirus originated from seafood and animal market located in Wuhan. The viral outbreak has caused concern because of its similarity to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which claimed the lives of almost 650 people across China and Hong Kong in the year 2002-2003.

The novel coronavirus is a new strain in the large family of coronaviruses (CoV) which was previously not identified in humans. CoV causes illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). CoV is zoonotic which means such viruses transmit between animals and humans but Chinese health authorities confirmed human to human transmission of the SARS-like virus, creating fears of a possible pandemic.

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