Winnipeg's Chinese community vigilant amid coronavirus outbreak: 'Don't want to give it any chance'

A highly anticipated event celebrating the Lunar New Year next weekend has been postponed — and organizer Gary Liu says it's just one example of how cautious Winnipeg's Chinese community is being in the middle of the deadly coronavirus outbreak.

The event was first thrown into uncertainty last week, when the Hebei Acrobatic Troupe scheduled to headline was forbidden from leaving China.

The group is based in the country's Hebei province, which is nearly 1,000 kilometres north of Wuhan, the Chinese city where the new, large family of viruses was first identified.

The performers' visas are valid until May, so organizers are still hoping the restrictions will be lifted by then. But Liu said the final decision to postpone the event was based on more than just the travel ban.

"We worried about the Chinese community's reactions," said Liu, the president of Manitoba Great Wall Performing Arts, which was putting on the event at the Club Regent Event Centre.

"They don't want to go to a party [with] so many people together. They don't want to give it any chance to get an infection or take this risk."

The coronavirus outbreak is dire enough that a World Health Organization panel declared a public health emergency of international concern on Thursday.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's director-general, announced the decision after a meeting of its emergency committee — an independent panel of experts — amid mounting evidence of the virus's spread from China to some 18 countries. It has now killed 170 people.

Liu, who spoke to CBC before the World Health Organization made its announcement, said he's felt a sense of vigilance. He returned from a trip to China's Sichuan province (in the Luzhou and Chongqing regions, which are about 1,000 kilometres west of Wuhan) on Wednesday night, and had his temperature taken before getting on the plane.

Liu said he wore a face mask — along with about 99 per cent of the other passengers — on his flight back to Canada. But he said when he landed in Vancouver, only a few customs agents were wearing masks.

"It kind of surprised me," he said. "Because everyone wears them. I don't want to take this risk."

Now that Liu is back in Winnipeg, he said he's not going back to work as a researcher at Winnipeg's National Microbiology Lab until he's sure he isn't sick. 

He said he had already taken two more weeks off to prepare for the Lunar New Year event. But now that it's been put off, he's said he's using that time to stay home from work to make sure he doesn't start showing coronavirus symptoms.

The virus has an incubation time of up to 14 days, and there are signs it may be able to spread before any symptoms show.

While Liu waits to see if he starts showing symptoms, he said he's trying to stay inside as much as possible, even ordering food and getting a friend to leave it at his door.

"Because I'm not sure. So far, I don't have the symptoms. I don't have a fever," he said. "I want to [be] responsible for the Chinese community and the public. I don't want to go out and spread [it] if something happens."