Death toll continues to rise in China
The country opened a new hospital, built in 10 days, in hopes of containing a new rapidly spreading virus.
BEIJING — The death toll in mainland China from the new type of virus has risen to 425, with the total number of cases now standing at 20,438, officials said Tuesday.
The new figures come after the country opened a new hospital built in 10 days, infused cash into tumbling financial markets and further restricted people’s movement in hopes of containing the rapidly spreading virus and its escalating impact.
Japanese officials were deciding whether to quarantine more than 3,000 people on a cruise ship that carried a passenger who tested positive for the virus.
The latest figures are up from 361 deaths and 17,205 confirmed cases.
Other countries are continuing evacuations and restricting the entry of Chinese or people who have recently traveled in the country. In the province at the epicenter of the outbreak, a specialized 1,000bed hospital started treating patients and a second hospital with 1,500 beds is to open within days.
Other countries continued evacuating citizens from hardest-hit Hubei province and restricted the entry of Chinese or people who recently traveled to the country. The World Health Organization said the number of cases will keep growing because tests are pending on thousands of suspected cases.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, presiding over a special meeting of the country’s top Communist Party body for the second time since the crisis started, said “we have launched a people’s war of prevention of the epidemic.”
He told the Politburo standing committee that the country must race against time to curb the spread of the virus and that those who neglect their duties will be punished, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Its prefabricated wards are equipped with state-ofthe-art medical equipment and ventilation systems. A second hospital with 1,500 beds is due to open within days.
China’s Shanghai Composite stock index plunged nearly 8% on the first day of trading after the Lunar New Year holiday, despite a central bank announcement that it was putting $173 billion into the markets.
“We are fully confident in and capable of minimizing the epidemic’s impact on the economy,“Lian Weiliang, deputy chief of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a news conference in Beijing.
Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, announced that the semi-autonomous territory will shut almost all but two land and sea border crossings with the mainland at midnight to stem the spread of the virus.
More than 2,000 hospital workers went on strike earlier in the day, demanding a complete closure of the border, and their union has threatened a bigger walkout Tuesday.
Hong Kong was hit hard by SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, in 2002-03, an illness from the same family of viruses as the current outbreak and which many believe was intensified by official Chinese secrecy and obfuscation.