Tag Archives: Coronavirus

Coronavirus brings China’s surveillance state out of the shadows

By Yingzhi Yang and Julie Zhu

BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) – When the man from Hangzhou returned home from a business trip, the local police got in touch. They had tracked his car by his license plate in nearby Wenzhou, which has had a spate of coronavirus cases despite being far from the epicenter of the outbreak. Stay indoors for two weeks, they requested.

After around 12 days, he was bored and went out early. This time, not only did the police contact him, so did his boss. He had been spotted near Hangzhou’s West Lake by a camera with facial recognition technology, and the authorities had alerted his company as a warning.

FILE PHOTO: Surveillance cameras are seen at Lujiazui financial district of Pudong, Shanghai, China January 15, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song

“I was a bit shocked by the ability and efficiency of the mass surveillance network. They can basically trace our movements with the AI technology and big data at any time and any place,” said the man, who asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions.

Chinese have long been aware that they are tracked by the world’s most sophisticated system of electronic surveillance. The coronavirus emergency has brought some of that technology out of the shadows, providing the authorities with a justification for sweeping methods of high tech social control.

Artificial intelligence and security camera companies boast that their systems can scan the streets for people with even low-grade fevers, recognize their faces even if they are wearing masks and report them to the authorities.

If a coronavirus patient boards a train, the railway’s “real name” system can provide a list of people sitting nearby.

Mobile phone apps can tell users if they have been on a flight or a train with a known coronavirus carrier, and maps can show them locations of buildings where infected patients live.

Although there has been some anonymous grumbling on social media, for now Chinese citizens seem to be accepting the extra intrusion, or even embracing it, as a means to combat the health emergency.

“In the circumstances, individuals are likely to consider this to be reasonable even if they are not specifically informed about it,” said Carolyn Bigg, partner at law firm DLA Piper in Hong Kong.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Telecoms companies have long quietly tracked the movements of their users. China Mobile <0941.HK> promoted this as a service this week, sending text messages to Beijing residents telling them they can check where they have been over the past 30 days. It did not explain why users might need this, but it could be useful if they are questioned by the authorities or their employers about their travel.

“In the era of big data and internet, the flow of each person can be clearly seen. So we are different from the SARS time now,” epidemiologist Li Lanjuan said in an interview with China’s state broadcaster CCTV last week, comparing the outbreak to a virus that killed 800 people in 2003.

“With such new technologies, we should make full use of them to find the source of infection and contain the source of infection.”

The industry ministry sent a notice to China’s AI companies and research institutes this week calling on them to help fight the outbreak. Companies have responded with a flurry of announcements touting the capabilities of their technology.

Facial recognition firm Megvii said on Tuesday it had developed a new way to spot and identify people with fevers, with support from the industry and science ministries. Its new “AI temperature measurement system”, which detects temperature with thermal cameras and uses body and facial data to identify individuals, is already being tested in a Beijing district.

SenseTime, another leading AI firm, said it has built a similar system to be used at building entrances, which can identify people wearing masks, overcoming a weakness of earlier technology. Surveillance camera firm Zhejiang Dahua <002236.SZ> says it can detect fevers with infrared cameras to an accuracy within 0.3ºC.

In an interview with state news agency Xinhua, Zhu Jiansheng of the China Academy of Railway Sciences explained how technology can help the authorities find people who might be exposed to a confirmed or suspected coronavirus case on a train.

“We will retrieve relevant information about the passenger, including the train number, carriage number and information on passengers who were close to the person, such as people sitting three rows of seats before and after the person,” he said.

“We will extract the information and then provide it to relevant epidemic prevention departments.”

(Editing by Jonathan Weber and Peter Graff)

Foxconn, Chinese firms refit production lines to make masks amid virus outbreak

By Josh Horwitz and Brenda Goh

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – A number of Chinese manufacturers including a subsidiary of Apple Inc partner Foxconn have refitted production lines to make masks and medical clothing, as a deadly coronavirus spreads across China.

The move highlights how private companies are pitching in to alleviate a nationwide shortage of medical gear amid the health crisis, at times expanding beyond their core lines of business.

In a social media post on Thursday, Foxconn – formally Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd – said it has begun trial production of surgical masks at its Longhua Park plant in Shenzhen, and expects to produce 2 million masks daily by the end of the month.

The Taiwanese company said the masks would initially be produced for internal use by its hundreds of thousands of employees, the majority of whom work in factories in mainland China.

SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co Ltd, a joint venture automaker formed by General Motors Co <GM.N> and two Chinese partners, also announced on Thursday via social media that it will set up 14 production lines with the goal of making 1.7 million masks daily.

On Tuesday, Hongdou Group Co Ltd [HONGD.UL], a clothing manufacturer founded in the 1950s, wrote on social media it had refitted a factory to make disposable medical suits.

The company said it intends to produce about 60,000 protective suits a month and will send them to the government for allocation and distribution. Hongdou employs 30,000 people, its website showed.

Apparel peers Zhejiang Giuseppe Garment Co Ltd and Jihua Group Corp Ltd  have launched similar initiatives, state media outlets reported this week.

Factories inside and outside of China have worked around the clock to keep up with demand since the outbreak of the virus at the end of last year in the eastern Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei province. High street pharmacies have posted signs telling customers masks are not in stock.

One Czech mask manufacturer told Reuters in late January that orders had increased 57,000% with in four days.

To cope with the shortage, localities in China have set up rationing systems.

In Shanghai, individuals wanting to obtain masks must provide a neighborhood committee with their ID and phone number, after which they are contacted when they can retrieve a set of masks.

(Reporting by Josh Horwitz and Brenda Goh; Additional reporting by the Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

Coronavirus cases on cruise ship marooned off Japan rise to 61

By Ju-min Park and Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters) – Dozens more people onboard a cruise ship quarantined in the port of Yokohama, Japan, tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday and thousands of passengers remained confined to their cabins, only allowed on deck briefly for fresh air.

The Diamond Princess, owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp, was placed on a two-week quarantine on arriving at Yokohama on Monday after a man who disembarked in Hong Kong was diagnosed with the virus.

Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato told a news conference that 41 people on the liner had tested positive for coronavirus on Friday, bringing the total of confirmed cases to 61. Twentyone of the new cases were Japanese.

Those infected were taken off the ship and moved to hospitals in Tokyo and neighbouring towns, the health ministry said. Blue and white tarpaulin sheets were hung up to screen them from the view of other passengers.

About 3,700 people are aboard the Diamond Princess, which usually has a crew of 1,100 and a passenger capacity of 2,670.

Operator Princess Cruises’ website describes the ship as “your home away from home” and it will remain so for most passengers at last until Feb. 19. The quarantine period could be extended if need be, a Japanese government official told a media briefing.

The 61 cases came from a sample of 273 people who had been tested because they had showed symptoms or been in close contact with those who did. More tests will be done if any more passengers developed symptoms, Kato said.

For the stranded passengers, who were promised “a treasure trove of exceptional delights” in the ship’s brochure, the new infections spelled only more gloom.

Staff distributed thermometers and passengers were told that mental health experts were available for telephone consultations around the clock.

“We have instructions to monitor our temperatures and report if we’re above 37.5,” one man, a 43-year-old Hong Kong resident on the ship with his family, told Reuters.

Normal human body temperature is generally accepted to be 37 Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit).

Passengers were finding out about the new infections from the internet before they were announced on the ship, said the Hong Kong man, who declined to be identified.

Ashley Rhodes-Courter, an American whose parents are on the ship, said she hoped U.S. officials would be able to help her parents get off it.

“They are all breathing circulated contaminated air so they could be getting everyone infected,” Rhodes-Courter said.

Passengers wearing face masks are seen on the cruise ship Diamond Princess, where 10 more people were tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday, at Daikoku Pier Cruise Terminal in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, Japan February 7, 2020. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

CRUISE SHIP CONCERN

The Japanese official said the government saw no risk of the virus being spread by the Diamond Princess’s ventilation system because transmission is not airborne. Rather it is spread by droplets from coughs or sneezes that can stick to surfaces and infect other people.

But Paul Hunter, an expert in infectious disease at Britain’s University of East Anglia, said the potential for cruise ships spreading the epidemic across the world was now becoming a serious concern.

“Cruise ships are environments where respiratory infections can spread very quickly,” he said.

They also carry the further risk of transmitting a viral infection to other countries as passengers embark and disembark.

“I would be surprised if we don’t see more problems with cruise ships in the coming weeks,” Hunter said.

Transport Minister Kazuyoshi Akaba told reporters Japan had asked another cruise ship, the Westerdam, not to make a port call in the country.

The governor of the U.S. island territory of Guam, in the Pacific Ocean, earlier on Friday rejected a U.S. State Department request to allow the Westerdam to dock there.

The new ship cases take the total number of coronavirus infections in Japan to more than 80, according to Reuters calculations. Health Minister Kato said Japan was not including those cases in its national count, which stands at 21.

The outbreak, which has killed almost 640 people in mainland China and two elsewhere, has also stoked concern about the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which begin on July 24.

Games organisers have set up a task force to coordinate with health authorities on how to respond to the epidemic.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park, Elaine Lies, Rocky Swift, Kiyoshi Takenaka, David Dolan, Tim Kelly and Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo and Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

WHO says too early to say coronavirus peaking in China

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday it was too early to say that China’s coronavirus outbreak was peaking, but noted that Wednesday was the first day that the overall number of new cases in China had dropped.

Executive Director of the World Health Organisation’s emergencies program Mike Ryan, Director-General of WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the Technical Lead for the WHO’s emergencies program Maria Van Kerkhovespeaks at a news conference on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Geneva, Switzerland February 6, 2020. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

The death toll from the virus in mainland China jumped by 73 to 563, with more than 28,000 confirmed infections inside the world’s second-largest economy.

WHO official Mike Ryan said there had been a constant increase in cases in Hubei province, at the centre of the outbreak, but that that increase had not been seen in other provinces.

 

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Toby Chopra)

U.S. and China clash at WHO over Taiwan participation

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States urged the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday to “engage directly with Taiwan public health authorities” in the fight against coronavirus.

Taiwan is not a WHO member because of China’s objections. Beijing says the island is a wayward Chinese province and not a country and is adequately represented in the organisation by China.

“For the rapidly evolving coronavirus, it is a technical imperative that WHO present visible public health data on Taiwan as an affected area and engage directly with Taiwan public health authorities on actions,” Andrew Bremberg, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, told the WHO’s Executive Board.

China’s delegation took the floor to express its “strong dissatisfaction” that some countries had raised the issue of Taiwan’s participation during the technical meeting.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Toby Chopra)

‘Fragile’ Africa prepares for high risk of coronavirus spread

By Juliette Jabkhiro and Kate Kelland

DAKAR/LONDON (Reuters) – An isolation ward stands ready at a hospital in Khartoum, Sudan. Laboratories in Senegal and Madagascar have the testing equipment they need. Passengers arriving at airports in Gambia, Cameroon and Guinea are being screened for fever and other viral symptoms.

Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says it has activated its emergency operation centre in the face of what global health officials say is a high risk the coronavirus disease epidemic that began in China will spread to its borders.

On a poor continent where healthcare capacity is limited, early detection of any outbreak will be crucial.

The fear is great that a spreading epidemic of coronavirus infections will be hard to contain in countries where health systems are already overburdened with cases of Ebola, measles, malaria and other deadly infectious diseases.

“The key point is to limit transmission from affected countries and the second point is to ensure that we have the capacity to isolate and also to provide appropriate treatment to people that may be infected,” said Michel Yao, emergency operations program manager at the World Health Organization’s regional office for Africa in Brazzaville, Congo.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is barring its citizens from flying to China. Burkina Faso has asked Chinese citizens to delay travelling to Burkina, and is warning that they face quarantine if they do. Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda have all suspended flights to China.

“What we are emphasising to all countries is that they should at least have early detection,” Yao said.

“We know how fragile the health system is on the African continent and these systems are already overwhelmed by many ongoing disease outbreaks, so for us it is critical to detect earlier to that we can prevent the spread.”

John Nkengasong, Africa’s CDC director, told a briefing in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa this week that the activation of the emergency operation centre would create a single incident system to manage the outbreak across the continent.

The Africa CDC will also hold a training workshop in Senegal for 15 African countries on laboratory diagnosis, he said.

The continent has more than doubled the number of laboratories now equipped to diagnose the viral infection, this week adding facilities in Ghana, Madagascar and Nigeria and to established testing labs in South Africa and Sierra Leone.

“By the end of the week we expect that an additional 24 countries (in Africa) will receive the reagents needed to conduct the tests and will have the test running,” a spokeswoman for the WHO’s Africa Region told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Giulia Paravicini in Addis Ababa, Benoit Nyemba in Kinshasa, Thiam Ndiaga in Ouagadougou, Josiane Kouagheu in Douala, Pap Saine in Banjul and Saliou Samb in Conakry. Writing and reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Pravin Char)

Data suggests virus infections under-reported, exaggerating fatality rate

Data suggests virus infections under-reported, exaggerating fatality rate
By Cate Cadell

BEIJING (Reuters) – Fatalities from the coronavirus epidemic are overwhelmingly concentrated in central China’s Wuhan city, which accounts for over 73% of deaths despite having only one-third the number of confirmed infections.

In Wuhan, the epicenter of the disease, one person has died for every 23 infections reported. That number drops to one on 50 nationally, and outside mainland China, one death has been recorded per 114 confirmed cases.

Get Reuters full coverage on the coronavirus by following this link.

Experts say the discrepancy is mainly due to under-reporting of milder virus cases in Wuhan and other parts of Hubei province that are grappling with shortages in testing equipment and beds.

“In an outbreak your really have to interpret fatality rates with a very skeptical eye, because often it’s only the very severe cases that are coming to people’s attention,” said Amesh Adalja, an expert in pandemic preparedness at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore.

“It’s very hard to say those numbers represent anything like the true burden of infection” said Adalja, who estimates current fatality rates are likely below 1%.

As of Tuesday, 24,551 cases have been confirmed globally. A 1% fatality rate would put total cases at over 49,000, based on the current death toll of 492.

Gauden Galea, the World Health Organisation (WHO) representative for China, told Reuters on Sunday that a “crude calculation” done by dividing total cases by deaths put the rate at 2% and said the rate was generally falling.

“Trying to really demystify those fatality numbers by including mildly symptomatic cases will help people to better understand the risk,” said Adalja.

CLUSTER OF DEATHS

In Wuhan, some patients with milder symptoms have been turned away from hospitals in recent weeks because of the strain on resources, several people in the city told Reuters. Others have opted to self-isolate.

Wuhan resident Meiping Wang said she and her sister both believe they have mild cases of the virus after their mother tested positive, but have not been tested.

“There is no use going to the hospital because there is no treatment,” Wang, 31, said in a telephone interview.

Under-reporting mild cases – which increases fatality rates – could have a negative social and economic impact as global health authorities race to contain the disease.

“It’s good to remember that when H1N1 influenza came out in 2009, estimates of case fatality were 10 percent,” said David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto, who was working in public health at the time. “That turned out to be incredibly wrong.”

“As the denominator is growing in terms of case numbers, and case fatality goes down and down… you start to realize it’s everywhere,” he said.

The global response to the coronavirus epidemic has been swift and fierce. Several countries have implemented partial or full travel bans on Chinese travelers.

“There are many actions going on all over the world that really are premised on the idea that this is a very severe illness,” said Johns Hopkins’ Adalja.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday that the bans were an unnecessary interruption to travel and trade.

(Reporting by Cate Cadell; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

U.S. announces more coronavirus cases, details quarantine plans for returning travelers

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday announced a second case of transmission of the new coronavirus within the United States and provided more detailed plans on how it will handle travelers returning from China as the country works to limit the outbreak.

“We expect to see more cases of person-to-person spread,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a conference call that included confirmation of a handful of new cases, bringing the U.S. total to 11.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is making nearly $250 million in emergency funds available to cover the cost of the response, an agency spokesman said on Monday.

Some of that may be used to support screening and monitoring returning U.S. citizens from China who are exempt from the presidential proclamation issued on Friday suspending entry of foreign nationals who had visited China within the past 14 days.

The CDC outlined enhanced screening plans for family members of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents returning from China, who may face a 14-day quarantine if they had been in Wuhan or the Hubei province of China, the epicenter of the epidemic.

Passengers arriving in the United States on commercial airlines will be directed to one of 11 U.S. airports for additional health assessments. If they show virus symptoms such as fever, U.S. citizens and those who are exempt will be transferred for medical evaluation, and will not be allowed to complete their travel plans.

“CDC is working with the states to determine where travelers will be quarantined,” Messonnier said.

Flights with U.S. government employees being evacuated by the State department will go to military bases. They will be under federal quarantine for 14 days from when they left Wuhan.

The CDC has sent additional teams to specific locations where the planes will arrive.

Those who do not have symptoms will be allowed to continue to their final destination, and will be asked to stay at home as much as possible and monitor their health for 14 days.

Where people will be quarantined may differ depending on the operational plans laid out by states. Some of the designated airports have military bases nearby, while some states have planned to use hotels.

“It is very localized depending on the state and local considerations,” Messonnier said. “We do not believe these people pose a risk to the communities where they are being temporarily housed. We are taking measures to minimize any exposure.”

HHS on Sunday notified Congress it may need to transfer $136 million to support efforts by the CDC, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response and the Office of Global Affairs to respond to the outbreak, the agency confirmed on Monday.

That followed a Jan. 25 notice to Congress that the CDC would tap as much as $105 million from a rapid response reserve fund to cover the costs for enhanced screening, transportation, and monitoring of U.S. citizens arriving from China.

Of the five new U.S. cases announced on Monday, one is in Massachusetts and the other four in California. Four of the five had recently traveled to Wuhan, where the outbreak originated.

One of the patients in California was infected through close contact with someone in the same household who had been infected in China. It marked the second instance of person-to-person spread of the virus in the United States after such a case was announced last week in Illinois.

The agency said it is currently monitoring 82 people for potential infection with the virus.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; additional reporting by Manas Mishra in Bangaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Hong Kong records first virus death, Macau shuts casinos

By Farah Master and Ryan Woo

HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) – Hong Kong reported its first coronavirus death on Tuesday, the second outside mainland China from a fast-spreading outbreak that has killed 427 people and threatened the global economy.

China’s markets steadied after losing $400 billion in stock values the previous day, and global markets also recovered from a sell-off last week. But bad news kept coming.

The Chinese-ruled gambling hub of Macau asked casino operators to close for two weeks to help curb the virus.

And in the latest major corporate hit, Hyundai Motor said it was to gradually suspend production at South Korean factories because of supply chain disruptions.

Hong Kong’s first fatality was a 39-year-old man with an underlying illness who had visited China’s Wuhan city, the epicentre of the outbreak, hospital staff said.

Chinese authorities, meanwhile, reported a record daily jump in deaths of 64 to 425. The only other death outside mainland China was a man who died in the Philippines last week after visiting Wuhan, the virtually quarantined city at the epicentre of the outbreak.

Total infections in mainland China rose to 20,438, and there have been nearly 200 cases elsewhere across 24 countries and China’s special administrative regions Hong Kong and Macau.

Thailand’s tally of infections jumped to 25, the highest outside China, while Singapore’s rose to 24, four of those from local contagion as opposed to visitors from China.

New cases were reported in the United States, including a patient in California infected via someone in the same household who had been infected in China.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the flu-like virus a global emergency and experts say much is still unknown, including its mortality rate and transmission routes.

FOREIGN FEARS

Such uncertainties have spurred strong measures by some countries – offending Beijing’s communist government which has called for calm, fact-based responses instead of scaremongering.

The deluge of misinformation on social media – from a recommendation to eat more onions to a warning of spread via a video game – has led Asian governments to hit back with arrests, fines and fake news laws, alarming free speech advocates.

At least 16 people have been arrested over coronavirus posts on social media in Malaysia, India, Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong.

Australia sent hundreds of evacuees from Wuhan to an island in the Indian Ocean, while Japan ordered the quarantine of a cruise ship with more than 3,000 aboard after a Hong Kong man who sailed on it last month tested positive.

Thousands of medical workers in Hong Kong, which had seen months of anti-China political protests, held a second day of strikes to press for complete closure of borders with the mainland after three checkpoints were left open.

“We’re not threatening the government, we just want to prevent the outbreak,” said Cheng, 26, a nurse on strike.

The Asian financial centre has confirmed 17 cases of the virus and its public hospital network is struggling to cope with a deluge of patients and containment measures.

Hong Kong was badly hit by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), another coronavirus that emerged from China in 2002 to kill almost 800 people worldwide and cost the global economy an estimated $33 billion.

WHO figures show SARS killed 299 people in Hong Kong then.

Chinese data suggest the new virus, while much more contagious, is significantly less lethal, although such numbers can evolve rapidly.

In Wuhan, authorities started converting a gymnasium, exhibition centre and cultural complex into makeshift hospitals with more than 3,400 beds for patients with mild infections, the official Changjiang Daily said.

U.S.-CHINA FRICTIONS

Raising the prospect of another major spat – just as trade frictions were easing – Beijing on Monday accused the United States of spreading panic after it announced plans to block nearly all recent foreign visitors to China.

A handful of other nations have done the same.

With the world’s second biggest economy facing increasing international isolation and disruption, some economists predict world output will shrink by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points.

Many airlines have stopped flights to parts of China, with Japan’s biggest carrier, ANA Holdings <9202.T>, the latest to announce cuts, saying it would slash the number of flights to Beijing by two-thirds for at least seven weeks.

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd <0293.HK> plans to cut 30% of global capacity over the short term, including 90% to mainland China.

Data from aviation statistics provider VariFlight showed 41 Chinese carriers cancelled nearly two-thirds of 16,623 planned flights for Tuesday as of 10:30 a.m. Beijing time (0230 GMT).

In addition, 10 regional airlines from Hong Kong and Taiwan had cancelled 162 flights, while 37 airlines from other countries cancelled 168 flights on the same day, it said.

each day since the start of February.

For a graphic comparing coronavirus outbreaks, see https://tmsnrt.rs/2GK6YVK.

(Reporting by Lusha Zhang and Ryan Woo in Beijing, Farah Master in Hong Kong, Cheng Leng and Winni Zhou in Shanghai, Roxanne Liu, Muyu Xu and Se Young Lee in Beijing, Brenda Goh and Zoey Zhang in Shanghai, Tom Westbrook in Singapore, Byron Kaye in Sydney, Matthew Tostevin in Bangkok, Linda Sieg, Sakura Murakami and Ami Miyazaki in Tokyo, John Geddie in Singapore, Kate Kelland in London, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Writing by Robert Birsel and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Clarence; Fernandez and Alex Richardson)

China to allow in U.S. experts amid spread of virus even as it slams U.S. actions

By Kevin Yao and Winni Zhou

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China has agreed to allow U.S. health experts into the country as part of a World Health Organization (WHO) effort to help fight the fast-spreading coronavirus, even as it accused the United States on Monday of whipping up panic over the disease with travel restrictions and evacuations.

“China has accepted the United States’ offer to incorporate a group of experts into a World Health Organization mission to China to learn more about and combat the virus,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said.

The death toll in China from the newly identified virus, which emerged in the city of Wuhan, rose to 361 as of Sunday, up by 57 from a day earlier, the National Health Commission said. Chinese stocks plunged on Monday, the first day of trading following an extended Lunar New Year holiday.

With Wuhan, where the coronavirus emerged, and some other Chinese cities in virtual lockdown, travel severely restricted and China facing increasing international isolation, fears of wider economic disruption are growing. Sources at the OPEC oil cartel said producers were considering cutting output by almost a third to support prices.

The WHO last week declared the flu-like virus a global emergency. It has spread to 23 other countries and regions. The Philippines has reported one death from the coronavirus, the first outside of China.

Airlines around the world have stopped flights to parts of China. A suspension by the United Arab Emirates on Monday will affect the Gulf airlines Etihad and Emirates.

China accused the United States of spreading fear by pulling its citizens out and restricting travel.

Washington has “unceasingly manufactured and spread panic,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters, noting that the WHO had advised against trade and travel curbs.

“It is precisely developed countries like the United States with strong epidemic prevention capabilities and facilities that have taken the lead in imposing excessive restrictions contrary to WHO recommendations,” she said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defended the measures taken by the United States, including suspending the entry of foreign nationals who had visited China within the past 14 days.

“We made an aggressive decision in front of an unprecedented threat that action now had the biggest potential to slow this thing down. That’s what the theory is here,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, as she noted that there are already some 17,000 cases of a virus for which the population does not have immunity.

Vladimir Markov shows empty roads in Wuhan City, China, February 3, 2020, in this picture obtained from social media. VLADIMIR MARKOV/via REUTERS

‘NO REASON’ FOR TRAVEL CURBS

The WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, again said travel bans were unnecessary.

“There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade,” he told the WHO’s executive board in Geneva.

The outbreak is reminiscent of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a virus from the same family that emerged in China in 2002 and killed almost 800 people around the world out of the roughly 8,000 who were infected.

Chinese data suggests the new virus, while much more contagious than SARS, is significantly less lethal, although such numbers can evolve rapidly. The number of confirmed infections in China rose by 2,829, bringing the total to 17,205.

The WHO said at least 151 cases had been confirmed in 23 other countries and regions, including Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Germany, Britain and the United States, which on Monday reported its second case of person-to-person transmission within its borders.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said controlling the virus was his country’s most important task, Xinhua state news agency said.

Chinese stocks fell almost 8%, wiping $393 billion off the value of the Shanghai bourse, the yuan currency had its worst day since August, and Shanghai-traded commodities from oil to copper hit their lower limits – all despite the central bank’s injection of 1.2 trillion yuan ($174 billion) into money markets.

Fears over the effect of China’s lockdown on global growth have slashed more than 22% off the price of the Brent global crude oil benchmark since its recent peak on Jan. 8, prompting OPEC to consider an output cut of 500,000 barrels per day, about 29% of the total, sources told Reuters.

Economists are predicting world economic output will be cut by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage point.

Taiwan’s Foxconn, which makes smartphones for Apple and other brands, has halted “almost all” of its production in China after companies were told to shut until at least Feb. 10, a source said. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

HOSPITAL BUILT IN EIGHT DAYS

A 1,000-bed hospital built in eight days to treat people with the virus in Wuhan was due to receive its first patients on Monday, state media said. A second hospital with 1,600 beds is due to be ready on Feb. 5.

Wuhan also plans to renovate another three “cabin hospitals” to focus on treating infected patients there, Xinhua reported.

Countries continued to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan.

The United States, which flew nearly 200 people out last week, is planning “a handful more flights.” Russia was due to start evacuating its citizens on Monday, and Canada said 304 of its citizens were seeking to be flown out.

Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, rocked by months of sometimes violent anti-China protests, announced the closure of four more border crossings with mainland China, leaving just three open.

China’s efforts to contain the virus have taken some unexpected, and some might say unnerving, forms.

A video clip posted on the microblogging website Weibo showed people playing mahjong in a village near the city of Chengdu being spotted by a camera mounted on a patrolling drone.

“Playing mahjong outside is banned during the epidemic!” an official tells the villagers through a loudspeaker. “You have been spotted.”

For a graphic comparing coronavirus outbreaks, see https://tmsnrt.rs/2GK6YVK.

For more coronavirus news click here. https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH/0100B59Y39P/index.html

(Graphic: Tracking the novel coronavirus – https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-MAP/0100B59S39E/index.html)

(Reporting by Kevin Yao, Lusha Zhang and Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Yilei Sun, Leng Cheng, Brenda Goh, Winni Zhou in Shanghai, Martin Pollard in Jiujiang, Roxanne Liu, Pei Li, Gabriel Crossley and Muyu Xu, Min Zhang in Beijing, Clare Jim and Noah Sin in Hong Kong, Mekhla Raina in Bengaluru, Maria Kiselyova in Moscow, Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Gayatri Suroyo in Jakarta, Tom Westbrook in Singapore, Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago, Jeff Mason in Washington and Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by; Robert Birsel, Nick Macfie and Bill Berkrot; editing by Kevin Liffey and Leslie Adler)