U.S. joins effort to airlift citizens out of China city

Hong Kong cuts train service to mainland to curtail illness

BEIJING — The United States and several other nations prepared Tuesday to airlift their citizens out of a Chinese city at the center of a virus outbreak that has killed more than 100 people.

Hong Kong’s leader said that it will cut all rail links to mainland China and halve the number of flights as authorities in China and overseas sought to stem the spread of the new virus. The number of confirmed cases of the illness rose to 5,974.

The U.S. government chartered a plane to fly out Americans, including diplomats from the U.S. Consulate in Wuhan, where the outbreak started. The plane will make a refueling stop in Alaska before flying on to Ontario and then California, the U.S. Embassy said.

A Japan-chartered Boeing 767 left for Wuhan to fly out Japanese citizens, the first of two possible flights, and South Korea said it will send a plane to the city in central China. France, Mongolia and other governments also planned evacuations.

China has cut off access to Wuhan and 16 other cities in Hubei province to prevent people from leaving and spreading the virus further. The lockdown has trapped more than 50 million people in the most far-reaching disease control effort ever imposed.

The Japanese flight was carrying 20,000 face masks as well as protective gear, all in short supply as hospitals grapple with a growing number of patients. The city is building two hospitals in a matter of days to add more than 2,000 beds.

U.S. health officials expanded their recommendation for people to avoid nonessential travel to any part of China, rather than just Wuhan and other areas most affected by the outbreak.

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, wearing a green surgical mask, said at a news conference that train service would stop at midnight Thursday and that the two stations connecting to the mainland would be closed.

She stopped short of a total closing of the border, as North Korea and Mongolia have done, but said ferry and bus service to the mainland also would be suspended.

China’s death toll from the new viral disease rose to 132, including the first death in Beijing, the Chinese capital, and 24 others in Hubei province, where the first illnesses were detected in December.

There were 1,459 new cases confirmed in China as of today, according to the National Health Commission.

The sharp rise in infections in recent days suggests that there has been significant human-to-human spread of the virus, though it could also be explained by expanded monitoring efforts, said Malik Peiris, chairman in virology at the University of Hong Kong.

Experts worry that the new virus may spread more easily than originally thought, or may have mutated into a form that does so. It is from the coronavirus family, which also can cause the common cold and more serious illnesses such as SARS.

Peiris, an adviser on the World Health Organization’s coronavirus emergency committee, said it is reassuring that outside of China the disease has not spread widely beyond the people who carried it from Wuhan.

China has reported eight cases in Hong Kong and five in Macao, and more than 45 cases have been confirmed elsewhere in the world. Almost all involve mainland Chinese tourists or people who visited Wuhan.

Thailand reported six members of a family from Hubei as new cases, raising its total to 14. Taiwan confirmed three new cases Tuesday, including two 70-year-old tourists from Wuhan, raising its total to eight.

Infections also have been confirmed in the United States, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Nepal, France, Germany, Canada, Australia and Sri Lanka.

The five American cases — two in southern California and one each in Washington state, Chicago and Arizona — are people who had recently arrived from central China.

The Chinese government has sent 6,000 extra medical workers to Wuhan from across China, including 1,800 who were to arrive Tuesday, a commission official, Jiao Yahui, said at a news conference.

The new virus causes coldand flulike symptoms, including cough and fever, and in more severe cases, shortness of breath and pneumonia.

The virus is thought to have spread to people from wild animals sold at a Wuhan market. China on Sunday banned trade in wild animals and urged people to stop eating meat from them.