China warns that spread of deadly virus will accelerate
More Chinese cities restrict movements as scientists point to difficulty of containing infection
Beijing has warned that the spread of the deadly coronavirus is expected to accelerate, heightening concerns about an outbreak that has killed more than 50 people in China and reached a dozen other countries.
Ma Xiaowei, China’s health commission minister, revealed on Sunday that the virus was infectious during its incubation period of between one and 14 days even though people may show no symptoms.
This makes the latest outbreak different from Sars, another strain of the coronavirus which originated in China and killed almost 800 people in 2002-03, which was not contagious in its incubation period.
The comments came as the death toll continued to rise. China confirmed that 56 people had died from the respiratory disease, up from 42 a day earlier, while 2,033 people were infected, including three in Taiwan.
Zhou Xianwang, Wuhan’s mayor, said on Sunday that the number of coronavirus cases in the city could rise by another 1,000, according to state media. He added that more than 5m people had already left the city, with 9m people remaining.
Underlining international concerns over the outbreak, the US state department said on Sunday that it was evacuating staff from its Wuhan consulate. Also on Sunday a third coronavirus case was confirmed in the US.
The virus has also been detected in the US, France, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and Nepal.
The escalating public health emergency comes as China celebrates the lunar new year, the most important holiday of the year in which hundreds of millions of people make trips to celebrate with family and friends.
China will lengthen the lunar new year holiday period and delay the reopening of schools as authorities try to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus, state media reported on Sunday. Li Keqiang, Chinese premier, and other top officials in a new working group decided the country would extend the holiday period “appropriately” to “reduce people’s movement”.
The eastern city of Suzhou was among the first to announce such a move as it called on businesses to stop their employees from resuming work before February 8.
China’s national travel agency suspended tour groups travelling overseas and domestically over the new year holiday, while Beijing has suspended buses into and out of the capital from Sunday.
The travel restrictions in Beijing and other smaller cities come on top of a lockdown of more than 40m people living in Wuhan and the surrounding areas.
The growing number of measures to deal with the outbreak, which also include closures of entertainment and tourist venues, are expected to deal a heavy blow to the world’s second-biggest economy. China’s gross domestic product grew at its slowest pace in 29 years last year.
At one Wuhan hospital on Sunday, several dozen mostly elderly people waited to be seen as medical staff walked around in protective suits. A sign outside the department warned that due to the large number of patients, they would face a wait of up to three hours to see a doctor.
“I came here because I have a high temperature. I have been waiting for two hours,” said one middle-aged man wearing a face mask.
Despite a ban on private vehicles, cars and taxis were still visible on the city’s roads, while some people moved around on bicycle. A Wuhan government official told the Financial Times that they advised foreign citizens in the city to contact their countries’ embassies for assistance with leaving Wuhan.
On Saturday Xi Jinping, China’s president, told a meeting of the Communist party’s top leadership, the politburo standing committee, that the country was facing a “grave situation” over the virus, state television reported.
In Hong Kong, authorities on Sunday declared the city’s highest level of emergency in response to the coronavirus outbreak and said all schools would remain closed for a further two weeks beyond the lunar new year holiday.
Hong Kong’s popular amusement parks Disneyland and Ocean Park were both closed from Sunday to help prevent the spread of the virus, Chinese state television reported, while Shanghai Disneyland has been closed since Saturday. Hong Kong also banned Hubei residents and people who have visited the province in the past 14 days from entering the city.
Taipei said it was barring almost all visitors from China in an effort to stop the virus from taking hold, as governments around the world stepped up efforts to halt the spread of the Sars-like disease.
India also said it had urged its citizens to avoid all non-essential travel to China. No cases have yet been confirmed in India but authorities have placed 11 people under observation, of whom four had tested negative for the virus.
The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued new guidance advising against all travel to Hubei province and calling on anyone already in the area to leave.
Businesses in China have also been affected. The country’s leading cinema company said it had temporarily shut thousands of movie theatres across the country. China’s leading film studios also cancelled plans to release the biggest blockbusters of the year for the new year holiday, traditionally the commercial peak for the industry.