China virus death toll climbs to 41
Infection reaches Europe for first time, with three cases reported in France
China expanded its lockdown against the deadly new virus to an unprecedented 36 million people and rushed to build a prefabricated, 1000-bed hospital for victims yesterday as the outbreak cast a pall over Lunar New Year, the country’s biggest, most festive holiday.
The number of confirmed cases around the world climbed sharply to more than 1000, and at least 41 deaths, all of them in China.
Just three of the deaths were outside Wuhan, the city of 11 million at the epicentre of the outbreak.
Meanwhile, France announced that three people had fallen ill with the virus — the disease’s first appearance in Europe. And the United States reported its second case, involving a Chicago woman in her 60s who was hospitalised in isolation after returning from China.
On Wall Street, stocks slumped amid fears over the widening crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 170 points and the S&P 500 posted its worst day in three months. Health care companies suffered losses, along with financial institutions, airlines and other tourism and travel industry businesses.
Transportation was shut down in Wuhan and in at least 12 other cities in central China’s Hubei province, encompassing a population bigger than that of New York, London, Paris and Moscow combined.
And authorities in Beijing and other cities cancelled many public celebrations and other events marking Lunar New Year.
Hospitals in Wuhan grappled with a flood of patients and a lack of supplies. Videos circulating online showed throngs of frantic people in masks lined up for examinations, and some complained that family members had been turned away at hospitals that were at capacity.
Authorities in Wuhan and elsewhere put out calls for medicine, disinfection equipment, masks, goggles, gowns and other protective gear.
Wuhan officials said they were rapidly constructing a new hospital to deal with the crisis, to be completed Febraury 3. It will be modelled on a Sars hospital that was built in Beijing in just six days during the Sars outbreak.
The seriousness of the crisis was still an open question.
The new virus comes from a large family of what are known as coronaviruses, some causing nothing worse than a cold.
But it is not clear just how lethal this coronavirus is, or even whether it is as dangerous as ordinary flu, which kills tens of thousands of people every year in the US alone.