Philippines reports 1st death outside of China hot zone
BEIJING — The first death outside China from the new coronavirus was recorded Sunday in the Philippines, as countries around the world evacuated hundreds of their citizens from the infection zone and Chinese authorities completed a new, rapidly constructed 1,000bed hospital for victims of the outbreak.
Chinese authorities also delayed the reopening of schools in the hardesthit province and tightened the quarantine in one city by allowing only one family member to venture out to buy supplies.
The Philippine Health Department said a 44yearold Chinese man from Wuhan, the city at the center of the crisis, was hospitalized Jan. 25 with a fever, cough and sore throat and died after developing pneumonia. The man’s 38yearold female companion, also from Wuhan, tested positive for the virus as well and remained hospitalized in isolation in Manila.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte approved a ban on the entry of all noncitizens from China. The U.S., Japan, Singapore and Australia have imposed similar restrictions despite criticism from China and an assessment from the World Health Organization that such measures were unnecessarily hurting trade and travel.
Early Monday, the death toll in China climbed by 57 to 361, and the number of cases worldwide surged past 17,350, according to China’s National Health Commission and other nations. The vast majority of those infected are in China; about 150 cases have been reported in two dozen other countries. The U.S. has recorded 11 cases, including six in California — two in Santa Clara County, two in San Benito County and one each in Orange and Los Angeles counties.
A hospital specially built to handle coronavirus patients in Wuhan is expected to open on Monday, just 10 days after construction began. A second hospital is set to open soon after.
Also, six officials in the city of Huanggang, near Wuhan in Hubei province, were fired over “poor performance” in handling the outbreak, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It cited the mayor as saying the city’s “capabilities to treat the patients remained inadequate and there is a severe shortage in medical supplies such as protective suits and medical masks.”
The trading and manufacturing center of Wenzhou, with nearly 10 million people in coastal Zhejiang province, confined people to their homes, allowing only one family member to venture out every other day to buy necessary supplies. Huanggang, home to 7 million people, imposed similar measures on Saturday.
Despite its own drastic travel restrictions, China has chafed at those imposed by foreign governments, criticizing Washington’s order barring entry to most noncitizens who visited China in the past two weeks.
The crisis is the latest to confront Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has been beset by months of antigovernment protests in Hong Kong, the reelection of Taiwan’s proindependence president and criticism over human rights violations in the traditionally Muslim territory of Xinjiang.