China virus deaths top SARS toll
China said yesterday it urgently needed medical equipment and surgical masks as the death toll from a new coronavirus jumped above 360, making it more deadly than the SARS crisis nearly two decades ago.
The 57 new deaths confirmed yesterday was the single-biggest daily increase since the virus was detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan, where it is believed to have jumped from animals at a market into humans.
The virus has since spread to more than 24 countries despite many governments imposing unprecedented travel bans on people coming from China.
The World Health Organization has declared the crisis a global health emergency, and the first foreign death from the virus was confirmed in the Philippines on Sunday.
“What China urgently needs at present are medical masks, protective suits, and safety goggles,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a press briefing.
Authorities in provinces that are home to more than 300 million people -- including Guangdong, the country’s most populous -- have made it compulsory to wear masks in public in an effort to contain the virus.
But factories capable of producing around 20 million masks a day are only operating at between 60 and 70 percent of capacity, industry department spokesman Tian Yulong said, adding that supply and demand remained in “tight equilibrium” as a result of the Lunar New Year break.
Tian said authorities were taking steps to bring in masks from Europe, Japan and the US, while the foreign ministry said countries including South Korea, Japan, Kazakhstan and Hungary had donated medical supplies.
All but one of the 57 new deaths reported yesterday were in Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province, most of which has been under lockdown for almost two weeks.
The national death toll reached 361 -- exceeding the 349 mainland fatalities from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03.
The number of infections also jumped significantly, passing 17,200.
SARS, caused by a pathogen similar to the new coronavirus and also originated in China, killed 774 people -- with most other deaths in Hong Kong.
India has set up a task force to monitor the situation after third case of coronavirus was detected in Kerala’s Kasargod. Around 2,000 people are under observation in the southern Indian state.
ECONOMIC WOES
The virus is having an increasingly heavy economic impact, shutting down businesses across China, curbing international travel and impacting production lines of major global brands.
The Shanghai stock market plunged almost eight percent yesterday on the first day of trading since the holiday as investors played catch-up with last week’s global retreat, reports AFP.
In Wuhan, which has been transformed from a bustling industrial hub into a near-ghost town, residents have been living in deep fear of catching the virus.
The city’s medical facilities have been overwhelmed, with state news agency Xinhua reporting yesterday that 68 medical teams of 8,300 staff had been sent to Hubei.
And amid mounting pressure, the government has been racing to build two new hospitals to treat the infected.
The first of those, a 1,000-bed facility, was due to open yesterday, just 10 days after construction began.
About 1,400 military medics will treat patients at the hospital, dubbed “Fire God Mountain”, according to state media.
However with the death toll surging in Wuhan and other areas of Hubei, it was not immediately clear what overall impact the hospitals would have on containing the epidemic.
The eastern industrial city of Wenzhou, 800 kilometres (500 miles) to the east, was placed under a similar lockdown to Wuhan on Sunday and its nine million people ordered to stay indoors.
China’s foreign ministry yesterday criticised the US for being the first to evacuate nationals without providing “substantial assistance” to China.
The US actions had caused “panic”, said spokeswoman Hua Chunying.
Mongolia, Russia and Nepal have closed their land borders, while semi-autonomous Hong Kong announced yesterday it was closing all but two land crossings.
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