Tag Archives: China

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)

U.S. confirms 11th case of new coronavirus

(Reuters) – California health officials said on Sunday they had confirmed 11 cases of the new, fast-spreading coronavirus in the United States, with one in Santa Clara County and two more in San Benito County.

In Santa Clara County, a woman and the family she is staying with are being quarantined and she is now in isolation at their home, Santa Clara County health officials told a news conference. The woman was not sick enough to require hospitalization, it added.

The other two cases involve a married couple in San Benito County, the San Benito County Public Health Services announced in a release late Sunday.

The Santa Clara woman, who recently traveled to the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, is the second case in Santa Clara reported, health officials said. They said the case is not related to the first case in Santa Clara.

The two additional cases involve a husband and wife, and the husband had recently traveled to Wuhan and apparently transmitted the disease to his wife, San Benito County Public Health Services said in a release late Sunday. Neither patient is hospitalized, officials said.

San Benito County health officials were not immediately available to Reuters for comment.

Santa Clara is located about 40 miles (64 km) southeast of San Francisco. San Benito County is about 80 miles west of Fresno.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) informed county health officials of the case Sunday morning, said Sara Cody, health officer of the Public Health Department of the County of Santa Clara.

The flu-like coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in a market that traded illegally in wildlife in Hubei’s provincial capital, Wuhan, has so far resulted in more than 350 deaths in China. Confirmed cases of the virus have been reported in 27 other nations, according to the CDC.

U.S. health officials have said risks to the United States remain low.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Leslie Adler and Stephen Coates)

China facing global isolation as virus toll rises

By David Stanway and Winni Zhou

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China faced mounting isolation in the face of increasing international travel curbs and flight suspensions on Saturday, as the death toll from a spreading coronavirus outbreak rose to 259.

The epidemic has led to mass evacuations of foreign citizens as world airlines halt flights, and risks exacerbating a slowdown in growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

China’s National Health Commission said there were 2,102 new confirmed infections in China as of Friday, bringing the total to 11,791. Around two dozen other countries have reported more than 130 cases.

All of the reported deaths from the virus have been in China.

The Russian military was to start evacuating Russian citizens from China on Monday and Tuesday, Interfax and TASS news agencies reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying the evacuations would be from regions that had been most affected by the outbreak.

Russia, which has already restricted direct flights with its biggest trading partner, also said it was suspending visa-free travel for Chinese visitors and halting work visas.

Most international cases have been in people who had recently traveled to or were visiting from Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Hubei has been under a virtual quarantine for the last week, with roads sealed off and public transport shut down. Elsewhere, Chinese authorities placed growing restrictions on travel and business.

In Beijing, counters were set up at the entrances of housing estates, where volunteers wearing red arm bands and masks noted details of residents coming back from their hometowns after the Lunar New Year holiday.

“As long as I am properly protected and don’t go to crowded places, I don’t feel scared at all about my hometown or Beijing,” said a 58-year-old migrant worker surnamed Sun.

Others were more worried.

“There will be a huge number of people returning to the city. I think it will put Beijing at risk of more infections,” said Zhang Chunlei, 45, another returning migrant worker.

In Hubei, the provincial government extended the holiday break to Feb. 13 in a bid to contain the outbreak, the Hubei Daily reported.

The World Health Organization, which this week declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, has said global trade and travel restrictions are not needed.

But Singapore and the United States announced measures on Friday to ban foreign nationals who have recently been in China from entering their territories. Australia followed suit on Saturday.

“We’re in fact operating with an abundance of caution in these circumstances so Australians can go about their daily lives with confidence,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Sydney.

The Chinese data would suggest the flu-like virus is less deadly than the 2002-03 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people of the some 8,000 it infected, although such numbers can evolve rapidly.

EVACUATIONS

The list of international airlines suspending all or some flights to China is growing.

The latest were Qantas Airways Ltd and Air New Zealand, who said travel bans forced them to suspend their direct flights to China from Feb. 9. All three major U.S. airlines said on Friday they would cancel flights to mainland China.

The commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific banned travel to China for all service members and civilian personnel under his authority and ordered those now in China to leave immediately, officials said.

U.S. health officials on Saturday confirmed an eighth case of the virus, a person in Massachusetts who recently returned from Hubei province.

Many nations have sent charter flights to repatriate citizens from China and then place them in isolation for around two weeks, believed to be the incubation period of the virus.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn called for calm and warned against hysteria as more than 100 Germans and family members landed in Frankfurt, none showing any symptoms of the virus. As of Saturday evening Germany had eight confirmed cases.

Britain, which has had two confirmed cases, said it was withdrawing some staff from its embassy and consulates in China.

Many of the private clinics catering to foreigners in China have started to turn away people with fevers.

“I don’t want to go to the local hospital with a sore throat only to catch something else,” said Czech national Veronika Krubner in Tianjin.

DISRUPTIONS

Infections have jumped in two cities flanking Wuhan, where the new virus is believed to have originated, raising concerns that new hot spots are emerging despite strict transport restrictions.

In Huanggang, authorities asked households to designate one individual who can leave the home, a local newspaper said. The mayor of the city of about 7.5 million people said there could be a significant rise in cases this weekend.

The northern city of Tianjin, home to some 15 million, suspended all schools and businesses until further notice.

Efforts to contain the virus risk slowing economic growth in China. The virus impact prompted Goldman Sachs to cut its estimate for first-quarter growth to 4% from 5.6%.

China’s central bank said the impact was temporary and economic fundamentals remained sound, but that it would increase credit support, lowering lending costs for affected companies.

Apple Inc said on Saturday it would close all of its official stores and corporate offices in China until Feb. 9, the latest of dozens of major companies, including IKEA and Walmart Inc, to restrict travel and operations due to the outbreak.

For a graphic comparing this with previous coronavirus outbreaks, see https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-VIRUS-COMPARISON/0100B5BY3CY/index.html

(Reporting by Winni Zhou, Brenda Goh and David Stanway in Shanghai, Judy Hua, Se Young Lee, Yilei Sun and Gabriel Crossley in Beijing, Scott Murdoch in Hong Kong, Joori Roh in Seoul, Nick Mulveney in Melbourne, Chris Helgren in Toronto, and Vera Eckert in Frankfurt; Writing by Nick Macfie and Rosalba O’Brien; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Frances Kerry and Bill Berkrot)

U.S. declares coronavirus a public health emergency

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Friday declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus outbreak and said it would take the extraordinary step of barring entry to the United States of foreign nationals who have traveled to China.

Starting on Sunday, U.S. citizens who have traveled to China’s Hubei Province within the last 14 days will be subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told a media briefing at the White House on Friday.

The administration will also limit flights from China to seven U.S. airports, he said.

“The actions we have taken and continue to take complement the work of China and the World Health Organization to contain the outbreak within China,” Azar said.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said there were six confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States. He said there were 191 individuals under investigation for the disease.

Redfield said the risk to the U.S. public from the outbreak is low.

The flu-like virus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan and was first identified earlier this month, has resulted in 213 deaths in China.

More than 9,800 people have been infected in China and more than 130 cases reported in at least 25 other countries and regions, with Russia, Britain, Sweden and Italy all reporting their first cases on Thursday or Friday.

The U.S. State Department warned Americans on Thursday not to travel to China because of the epidemic.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by Sandra Maler; editing by Diane Craft)

Pilots, flight attendants demand flights to China stop as virus fear mounts worldwide

By Tracy Rucinski and Laurence Frost

CHICAGO/PARIS (Reuters) – Pilots and flight attendants are demanding airlines stop flights to China as health officials declare a global emergency over the rapidly spreading coronavirus, with American Airlines’ pilots filing a lawsuit seeking an immediate halt.

China has reported nearly 10,000 cases and 213 deaths, but the virus has spread to 18 countries, mostly, presumably, by airline passengers.

The United States has advised its citizens not to travel to China, raising its warning to the same level as those for Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. airlines, which have been reducing flights to China this week, were reassessing flying plans as a result, according to people familiar with the matter.

It is possible the White House could opt to take further action to bar flights to China in coming days, but officials stressed that no decision has been made.

The Allied Pilots Association (APA), which represents American Airlines pilots, cited “serious, and in many ways still unknown, health threats posed by the coronavirus” in a lawsuit filed in Texas, where the airline is based.

American said it was taking precautions against the virus but had no immediate comment on the lawsuit. On Wednesday, it announced flight cancellations from Los Angeles to Beijing and Shanghai, but is continuing flights from Dallas.

APA President Eric Ferguson urged pilots assigned to U.S.-China flights to decline the assignment. In a statement, the American Airlines’ flight attendants union said they supported the pilots’ lawsuit and called on the company and the U.S. government to “err on the side of caution and halt all flights to and from China.”

Pilots at United Airlines, the largest U.S. airline to China, concerned for their safety will be allowed to drop their trip without pay, according to a Wednesday memo from their union to members.

United announced on Thursday another 332 U.S.-China flight cancellations between February and March 28, though it will continue operating round trip flights from San Francisco to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The American Airlines pilot lawsuit came as an increasing number of airlines stopped their flights to mainland China, including Air France KLM SA, British Airways, Germany’s Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic.

Other major carriers have kept flying to China, but protective masks and shorter layovers designed to reduce exposure have done little to reassure crews.

‘COUNTDOWN’

A U.S. flight attendant who recently landed from one major Chinese city said a big concern is catching the virus and spreading it to families, or getting quarantined while on a layover.”I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until I went there,” she said on condition of anonymity, describing general paranoia on the return flight, with every passenger wearing a mask.

“Now I feel like I’m on a 14-day countdown.”

Thai Airways is hosing its cabins with disinfectant spray between China flights and allowing crew to wear masks and gloves.

Delta Air Lines is operating fewer flights and offering food deliveries so crew can stay in their hotels. The carrier is also allowing pilots to drop China trips without pay, a memo from its union to members said.

Korean Air Lines Co Ltd and Singapore Airlines are sending additional crew to fly each plane straight back, avoiding overnight stays.

The South Korean carrier also said it was loading protective suits for flight attendants who might need to take care of suspected coronavirus cases in the air.

Airlines in Asia are seeing a big drop in bookings along with forced cancellations because of the coronavirus outbreak, the head of aircraft lessor Avolon Holdings Ltd said, adding the impact could last for some months.

The outbreak poses the biggest epidemic threat to the airline industry since the 2003 SARS crisis, which led to a 45% plunge in passenger demand in Asia at its peak in April of that year, analysts said.

Fitch Ratings said airlines with more moderate exposure to China and the Asia-Pacific region were likely to be able to re-deploy capacity to alternative routes to mitigate the effect on traffic, but that could increase competition on those routes and reduce airfares.

Air France, which maintained China flights throughout the SARS epidemic, suspended its Beijing and Shanghai flights on Thursday after cabin crews demanded an immediate halt.

“When the staff see that other airlines have stopped flying there, their reaction is ‘Why are we still going?’,” said Flore Arrighi, president of UNAC, one of the airline’s four main flight attendants’ unions.

(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski, Laurence Frost and David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal, Aradhana Aravindan, John Geddie and Anshuman Daga in Singapore, Chayut Setboonsarng and Panu Wongcha-um in Bangkok, Caroline Pailliez in Paris, Josephine Mason in London, Jamie Freed in Sydney and Joyce Lee in Seoul; Writing by Jamie Freed and Tracy Rucinski; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Lisa Shumaker)

‘Do not travel to China’, says U.S. as virus deaths reach 213

By Brenda Goh and Muyu Xu

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States, Japan and others tightened travel curbs to virus-hit China on Friday while businesses struggled with supply problems from an epidemic that has infected nearly 10,000 people and been declared a global emergency.

Russia, Britain and Italy all reported their first two cases, Rome declaring its own national emergency as it sought to reconstruct the itinerary of two infected Chinese tourists.

Deaths from the outbreak rose to 213, all within China where the coronavirus came from animals in central Wuhan city.

“Do not travel to China due to novel coronavirus first identified in Wuhan,” the U.S. State Department said, raising the warning for China to the same level as Afghanistan and Iraq.

Japan also advised citizens to put off non-urgent travel to China, while Bahrain recommended no travel to any country hit by the virus, and Iran urged a ban on all travelers from China.

Singapore, a major travel hub in Asia, stopped entry of passengers with a recent history of travel to China and also suspended visas for Chinese passport holders.

The ban extends to those just transiting Singapore.

With major fallout inevitable for the world’s No. 2 economy, global shares were heading for their biggest weekly losses since August on Friday, and oil and metals markets were showing even more brutal damage. [MKTS/GLOB]

The outbreak could “reverberate globally”, Moody’s said.

In the latest impact to big name corporations, South Korea’s Hyundai Motor said it planned to halt production of a sport utility vehicle this weekend to cope with a supply disruption caused by the outbreak. Sangyong Motor said it would idle its plant in the South Korean city of Pyeongtaek from Feb. 4-12 for the same reason.

Home appliance maker Electrolux issued a similar warning. And French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen said its three plants in Wuhan will remain closed until mid-February.

BEIJING: “WE WILL WIN”

After holding off as the crisis grew, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday the epidemic in China now constituted a public health emergency of international concern.

In response, Beijing said it had taken “the most comprehensive and rigorous prevention and control measures”.

“We have full confidence and capability to win this fight,” added foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

The roughly 60 million residents of Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital, have had movements curbed to try and slow the spread. But some people were leaving and entering the area by foot on a bridge over the Yangtze river, a Reuters witness said, and infections have jumped in two cities flanking Wuhan.

Wuhan’s Communist Party chief said the city should have acted earlier to contain the virus.

The number of confirmed cases in China has risen beyond 9,800, Beijing’s envoy to the United Nations in Vienna said.

More than 130 cases have been reported in at least 24 other countries and regions. German cases rose to six with the infection of a child.

The WHO has reported at least eight cases of human-to-human transmission – as opposed to people coming infected from China – in four countries: the United States, Germany, Japan and Vietnam. Thailand said it too had such a case.

EVACUATION FLIGHTS

Amid the rising public alarm, which has also brought a wave of anti-China sentiment around the world, various major airlines have stopped flying to mainland China, including Air France KLM SA, British Airways, Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic [VA.UL]. Others have cut flights.

Russia said all direct flights to China would be halted on Friday, with the exception of national airline Aeroflot.

Governments around the world are evacuating citizens from Hubei and putting them in quarantine. A plane with 83 British and 27 foreign nationals landed in Britain on Friday.

Japan, with 14 confirmed cases, has sent three flights to bring citizens home. The first of four planned flights taking South Koreans home landed on Friday.

Seeking to prevent panic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has commended China for its efforts and said the global health body was not recommending curbs on travel or trade with Beijing.

A WHO spokesman said keeping borders open actually helped by preventing illegal or unofficial crossings.

China’s statistics show just over 2% of infected people have died, suggesting the virus is less deadly than the 2002-2003 outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

But economists fear its impact could be bigger than SARS, which killed about 800 people at an estimated cost of $33 billion to the global economy, since China’s share of the world economy is now far greater.

There was rare good news, however, for movie fans as cinema attendance plummets across China: martial arts film “Enter the Fat Dragon” was to premiere via video streaming on Saturday, its makers said, after dropping plans for a theater debut.

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

(Reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Muyu Xu and Cate Cadell in Beijing; Martin Pollard in Jiujiang, Felix Tam and Clare Jim in Hong Kong; John Geddie and Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore; Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Michelle Nichols at the U.N.; Gilles Guillaume in Paris; Dylan Martinez in Brize Norton; Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; David Shepardson in Washington; Writing by Michael Perry and Nick Macfie; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Andrew Cawthorne)

 

Anti-China sentiment spreads along with coronavirus

By Stanley Widianto and Khanh VU

JAKARTA/HANOI (Reuters) – The coronavirus outbreak has stoked a wave of anti-China sentiment around the globe, from shops barring entry to Chinese tourists, online vitriol mocking the country’s exotic meat trade and surprise health checks on foreign workers.

The virus, which originated in China, has spread to more than a dozen countries, many of them in Southeast Asia which has sensitive relations with China amid concerns about Beijing’s vast infrastructure spending and political clout in the region and sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea.

Authorities and schools in Toronto, Canada, were moved to warn against discrimination towards Chinese Canadians, while in Europe there was anecdotal evidence of Chinese residents facing prejudice in the street, and hostile newspaper headlines.

“Orientalist assumptions plus political distrust plus health concerns are a pretty powerful combination,” said Charlotte Setijadi, and anthropologist who teaches at Singapore Management University.

Chinese authorities have said the virus emerged from a market selling illegally traded wildlife, giving rise to widespread social media mocking of China’s demand for exotic delicacies and ingredients for traditional medicine.

“Stop eating bats,” said one Twitter user in Thailand, the top destination for Chinese tourists. “Not surprising that the Chinese are making new diseases,” another Thai user posted alongside a video clip that showed a man eating raw meat.

“Because your country is beginning (to) spread disease…we do not accept to serve the guest from China,” read a sign in English outside the Danang Riverside hotel in the central Vietnamese city of the same name. Authorities later told the hotel to remove the sign, its manager said in a Facebook post.

Vietnam, which was under Chinese occupation centuries ago and contests Beijing’s sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea, has particularly fraught relations with China.

But it is not alone in the region.

Over 60% of respondents to a poll of Southeast Asian officials, academics and other professionals said in a survey this month that they distrusted China. Nearly 40% said they thought China was “a revisionist power and intends to turn Southeast Asia into its sphere of influence”. The survey did not mention the virus.

The Chinese government said it was determined to contain an epidemic it called a “common challenge facing mankind”.

“Prejudice and narrow-minded words are no good at all,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

TRAVEL BANS

Many countries have imposed visa restrictions on travelers from Hubei province – the epicenter of the virus – while some airlines have suspended all direct flights to mainland China.

But this is not enough for hundreds of thousands of people in South Korea and Malaysia who have signed online petitions urging authorities to ban Chinese from visiting their countries.

In an unusual move, Samal Island in the southern Philippines on Thursday banned not just tourists from China but from all countries affected by the coronavirus to the popular beach spot.

China’s boom in outbound tourism has created a pattern of international travel unprecedented in human history and driven the growth of businesses to serve Chinese travelers around the world. From a trickle in the 1980s, Chinese tourist numbers grew to estimates of more than 160 million in 2019.

In France, whose capital Paris is a major draw for Chinese visitors and which has a significant Chinese population, local Asians created a Twitter hashtag #Jenesuispasunvirus (“I am not a virus”) to report abuse, especially in public transport.

Sun Lay Tan, a 41-year-old manager in the creative industries sector, said the man seated next to him in his Paris subway ride changed seat then put a scarf over his mouth.

“That was really shocking,” said Tan, who was born in France of Chinese and Cambodian origin. “I felt really stigmatized”.

(Reporting by Stanley Widianto in Jakarta, Khanh Vu and Phuong Nguyen in Hanoi, Chayut Setboonsarng in Bangkok, Karen Lema in Manila, Thu Thu Aung in Yangon, Joseph Sipalan in Kuala Lumpur and Josh Smith in Seoul; Caroline Pailliez in Paris and Ben Blanchard; Writing by John Geddie in Singapore; Editing by Nick Macfie)

China virus cases surpass SARS as big economic hit looms

By Lusha Zhang and Cate Cadell

BEIJING (Reuters) – Infection from China’s coronavirus spread to more than 8,100 people globally on Thursday, surpassing the total from the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic in a fast-spreading health crisis forecast to deal a heavy blow to the world’s second-largest economy.

The vast majority of infections are in China where the virus originated in an illegal wildlife market in the city of Wuhan and has also claimed 170 lives, latest official data showed.

More than 100 cases have emerged in other countries, from Japan to the United States.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which has so far held off declaring the flu-like coronavirus a global emergency, began another meeting in Geneva to reconsider.

Such a declaration would trigger tighter containment and information-sharing guidelines, but may disappoint Beijing, which had expressed confidence in defeating the “devil” virus.

It could also further spook markets, already shuddering at the ripple effects of damage to China’s economy.

“The fear is that they (the WHO) might raise the alarm bells … so people are taking money off the table,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Melbourne brokerage Pepperstone.

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome also came from China, killing about 800 people and costing the global economy an estimated $33 billion, or 0.1% of world GDP, in 2003.

Economists fear the impact on global growth could be bigger this time as China now accounts for a larger share of the world economy. One Chinese economist has forecast the crisis would lop a percentage point off China’s first-quarter growth.

Global stocks tumbled on Thursday, while the yuan hit its lowest this year, oil prices slid again and safe haven assets like gold gained.

The main stock index in Taiwan, 40% of whose exports go to neighboring China, closed down 5.75% on the first day of trade after the Lunar New Year holiday.

LOCKDOWN IN WUHAN

Almost all the deaths have been in Hubei province – of which Wuhan is the capital – where 60 million people are now living under virtual lockdown, only venturing outside with masks.

“Most of the shops are closed. We cannot go out and buy food,” Si Thu Tun, one of 60 students from Myanmar trapped in Wuhan, told online news outlet the Democratic Voice of Burma.

“Honestly, I have one big potato and three packs of instant noodles and some rice,” he said. Myanmar plans a special flight to get the students out within three days.

Australia, South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand and Indonesia were quarantining evacuees for at least two weeks, though the United States and Japan planned shorter, voluntary isolation.

Three Japanese, from 206 evacuated on Wednesday, were infected, and worryingly two of them had not shown symptoms, Tokyo said. A second Japanese flight included nine people showing fever or coughing symptoms, broadcaster NHK said.

India was the latest nation to report a case, a student of Wuhan University. And South Koreans protested at facilities earmarked as quarantine centers, throwing eggs at a minister.

“The weapons that will protect us from the new coronavirus are not fear and aversion, but trust and cooperation,” said South Korean President Moon Jae-in as Seoul prepared to evacuate the first of about 700 citizens from Wuhan.

An Italian cruise ship’s 6,000 passengers were kept on board while tests were held on two Chinese travelers.

The crisis has stoked a wave of anti-China sentiment around the globe, from shops barring tourists to online mockery.

‘WHEN CHINA SLOWS, WE FEEL IT’

In the corporate world, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Sweden’s IKEA were the latest big names to close China operations. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics extended holiday closure for some Chinese production facilities.

Airlines to suspend flights to mainland China include Lufthansa, Air Canada, American Airlines and British Airways. Air France cabin crew unions were demanding the same, sources said, though the company has already allowed pilots and crew to opt out of China flights.

Fuelling concern over damage to productivity, thousands of Chinese factory workers on Lunar New Year holidays may struggle to get back to work next week, due to travel restrictions.

Policymakers are anxious, with China dominating U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s news conference on Wednesday. “China’s economy is very important in the global economy now, and when China’s economy slows down we do feel that,” he said.

Streets in many Chinese cities were largely deserted and tourist attractions shut. Starbucks coffee shops were requiring temperature checks and masks.

Cases of human-to-human transmission outside China are of particular concern to medics, but it is too early to determine how lethal the coronavirus is, as there are likely to be many cases of milder infections going undetected.

It has an incubation time of between one and 14 days.

With local officials facing a backlash from China’s public, especially over their early response, the health chief of Huanggang city – also in Hubei province, with a population of 7.5 million – was dismissed, authorities said.

No explanation was given.

(Reporting by Pei Li, Gabriel Crossley, Cate Cadell, Kevin Yao and Muyu Xu in Beijing; Samuel Shen and David Stanway in Shanghai; Josh Smith, Sangmi Cha and Joyce Lee in Seoul, Chang-Ran Kim in Tokyo and Se Young Lee; Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Kate Kelland in London; Crispian Balmer in Rome; Thu Thu Aung in Yangon; Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Nick Macfie)

U.S., Japan pull nationals from China, big virus economic hit forecast

By Se Young Lee and Cheng Leng

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The United States and Japan flew nationals out of China’s virus epicenter on Wednesday and some big-name airlines suspended flights as deaths leapt to 133 and a senior economist predicted a major impact on growth.

Beijing’s plans to slay the “devil” coronavirus may have won the trust of the World Health Organization (WHO), but confirmation of another 1,459 cases – taking the total to 5,974 in China – only fueled global public alarm.

Deaths from the flu-like virus also rose by 27 to 133.

Almost all have been in the central province of Hubei, the capital of which is Wuhan, where the virus emerged last month in a live wild animal market.

The situation remained “grim and complex”, Chinese President Xi Jinping acknowledged.

(Follow Reuters full coverage of the coronavirus http://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH/0100B59Y39P/index.html )

In many Chinese cities, streets were largely deserted with the few who ventured out wearing masks. Starbucks coffee shops required people to have temperatures taken and masks on.

“It’s my first time here in Asia, I feel very unlucky,” said Brazilian tourist Amanda Lee, 23, cutting short a trip. “I couldn’t even see the places I wanted, like the Great Wall.”

There was relief, however, among evacuees from Hubei province, home to about 60 million people and under virtual lockdown. “I was extremely worried that I was stuck there,” said Takeo Aoyama, who arrived in Tokyo on a chartered plane carrying 206 Japanese out of Wuhan.

The United States flew about 210 citizens out of Wuhan, to be screened several times on arrival in California. Britain said it would put 200 citizens on a charter plane on Thursday.

The virus is weighing heavily on the world’s second-biggest economy, with companies cutting corporate travel to China and tourists cancelling trips. Various airlines are cutting flights, from British Airways and Lufthansa to Tanzania’s national carrier that postponed maiden flights.

A government economist said the crisis could cut China’s first quarter growth by one point to 5% or lower as the crisis hits sectors from mining to luxury goods.

Hong Kong stocks took a beating on the first day of trading after the Lunar New Year break. Casino and financial stocks led the Hang Seng index 2.5% lower to a seven-month trough.

Regional markets, however, arrested their slide, with stocks in Japan, Australia, South Korea and India steady or firmer and currencies mostly stable.

“In our view, the worst is yet to come,” securities firm Nomura said, warning of a severe, near-term blow to China’s economy.

‘SPREADING AT BREAKNECK SPEED’

But in a potentially major step toward finding a vaccine, scientists in Australia said they had developed a lab-grown version of the virus, the first recreated outside China.

The researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity said they would share the sample, grown from an infected patient, with the WHO and global laboratories in the hope of hastening immunization and detection.

Australia’s government said it would help some citizens leave and quarantine them on Christmas Island, best known for housing asylum seekers.

The number of cases in China now exceeds its tally of 5,327 infected with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that killed about 800 people globally in 2002 and 2003.

While some experts believe the new strain, known as “2019-nCoV”, is not as deadly as SARS, alarm has grown over its rapid spread and many unknown attributes, such as how lethal it is.

“There have been more cases in China, but so far with a lower death rate than the SARS outbreak,” said Michael Head, a health researcher at Britain’s University of Southampton.

“A pandemic is typically called by the World Health Organization after there has been sustained transmission across many countries. Though there have been cases reported in several countries now, we’re not quite at that stage of sustained transmission yet.”

Like other respiratory infections, the new virus is spread by droplets from coughs and sneezes, with an incubation time between one and 14 days.

About 60 cases, but no deaths, have been reported in 15 other countries. In the first known cases in the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates diagnosed four members of a Chinese family who arrived from Wuhan with the coronavirus.

Hubei governor Wang Xiaodong said the outbreak in Huanggang city was also severe and it must not be allowed to become a second Wuhan. Companies in the province should not resume work before Feb. 13, he told reporters.

“The most difficult part is to be at home most of the day. It is more safe to stay away from other people,” said Emilia, 28, a research scientist and Russian national in Wuhan.

U.N. children’s agency UNICEF sent six tonnes of masks and protective suits for healthcare workers. “This coronavirus is spreading at a breakneck speed and it is important to put all the necessary resources into halting it,” said executive director Henrietta Fore.

(Reporting by Lusha Zhang, Gabriel Crossley, Tony Munroe, Huizhong Wu, Cheng Leng, Judy Hua, Nanlin Fang and Joyce Zhou in Beijing; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Matthias Blamont in Paris, Akira Tomoshige in Tokyo, Kate Kelland in London, Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Writing by Robert Birsel and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Nick Macfie)

Man in Germany contracts coronavirus in one of first cases of transmission outside China

By Michelle Martin

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has declared its first confirmed case of the coronavirus after a 33-year-old man contracted it from a colleague visiting his workplace from Shanghai, in one of the first cases of person-to-person transmission outside China.

The case raises concerns about the spread of the flu-like virus that broke out in the central Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of last year and has killed 106 people and infected more than 2,800 people.

It spreads in droplets from coughs and sneezes and has an incubation period of 1-14 days.

Bavaria’s health ministry said late on Monday that a man in the southern German state was suffering from the virus and was in “good condition” while isolated under medical observation.

German car parts supplier Webasto [WEBA.UL] on Tuesday said an employee at its headquarters in Stockdorf, Bavaria, had become infected following the visit of an employee from China.

A day earlier it said an employee from Shanghai tested positive for the virus upon returning to China.

Confirmation of any sustained human-to-human spread of the virus outside of China, as well as any documented deaths, would bolster the case for reconvening the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee to consider again whether to declare a public health emergency of international concern.

The independent panel last week twice declined to declare an international emergency.

In response to the episode, Germany plans to require travelers arriving from China to provide airlines with contact details, including where they are staying while in the country, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Tuesday.

The step will ensure the authorities can get in touch with people who may have come into contact with infected people. Airlines will need to keep the details for 30 days, he said.

Outside of China there have now been 45 confirmed cases in 13 countries, with no deaths so far, the WHO’s spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.

The WHO said a case in Vietnam involved human-to-human transmission outside China and a Japanese official has said there was a suspected case of human-to-human transmission there too.

Andreas Zapf, president of Bavaria’s office for health and food safety, said on Tuesday the person infected was 33 years old, lived in the district of Landsberg about 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Munich and had come into contact with a Chinese woman on Jan 21.

WUHAN CONNECTION

Zapf said the Chinese woman was from Shanghai but her parents, who are from the Wuhan region, had visited her a few days earlier.

He added that she had arrived in Germany on Jan. 19, appearing not to have any symptoms, but began to feel ill on her flight home on Jan. 23. She sought medical treatment after landing and tested positive for coronavirus.

When that information was relayed back to the German company, a male employee said he felt like he had flu over the weekend and was on Monday advised to get medical treatment.

The head doctor at the clinic where the man is being treated told a news conference the patient was awake and responsive and he did not think the man’s life was at risk.

Martin Hoch, the head of an infectiology taskforce, said the man had been in close contact with at least 40 colleagues and family members, adding that number could rise.

Bavaria’s health ministry said people who had been in contact with the man had been informed of possible symptoms, hygiene measures and transmission channels.

Germany’s Spahn said the risk to people’s health in Germany from the coronavirus remained low.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin in Berlin; Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Alexander Huebner in Munich, Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru and Kenneth Maxwell in Tokyo; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)