Xi makes rare visit to meet patients, medics
Number of people killed by virus rose by 97 on Sunday, the highest number of casualties in a day: BBC
Beijing, China - Chinese President Xi Jinping donned a face mask and had his temperature checked on Monday while visiting medical workers and patients affected by the deadly coronavirus that has killed more than 900 people.
The Chinese President, who has called the virus a ‘demon’, made a rare visit on Monday to meet frontline medical staff at a hospital treating infected patients.
Calling the situation at the virus epicentre ‘still very grave’, Xi urged ‘more decisive measures’ to contain the spread of the epidemic, said state broadcaster CCTV.
Xi has largely kept out of the public eye since the virus outbreak spiralled across the country from the epicentre in Hubei province to infect more than 40,000 people.
He appointed Premier Li Keqiang to lead a working group tackling the outbreak, and it was Li who visited ground zero in Wuhan last month.
On Monday Xi donned a blue mask and white surgical gown to meet doctors at Beijing Ditan hospital, observe the treatment of patients and speak via video link to doctors in Wuhan, state media said.
He then visited a residential community in central Beijing to ‘investigate and guide’ efforts to contain the epidemic, said CCTV.
Video footage showed Xi having his temperature taken with an infrared thermometer, then speaking with community workers and waving at smiling residents leaning out of their apartment windows.
The number of people killed by the virus rose by 97 on Sunday, the highest number of casualties in a day, the BBC reported.
The total number of deaths in China is now 908 - but the number of newly-infected people per day has stabilised, it said.
The outbreak has prompted unprecedented action by the Chinese government, including locking down entire cities in Hubei province as well as cutting transport links nationwide, closing tourist attractions and telling hundreds of millions of people to stay indoors.
The sweeping measures
turned cities into ghost towns - but there were some signs of normality returning on Monday.
Roads in Beijing and Shanghai had significantly more traffic and the southern city of Guangzhou said it would start to resume normal public transport.
However, for those at work, it was not an easy balance to strike.
“Of course we’re worried,” said a 25 year old man surnamed Li in a Beijing beauty salon that reopened on Monday. “When customers come in, we first take their temperature, then use disinfectant and ask them to wash their hands.”
The Shanghai government suggested staggered work
schedules, avoiding group meals and keeping at least one metre away from colleagues.
Many were encouraged to work from home and some employers simply delayed opening for another week.
State media reported that passenger numbers on the Beijing subway were down by about half on Monday compared to a normal work day.
Large shopping malls in the
capital were deserted and many banks closed.
One bank employee in Shanghai was heading to work for a half-day, with other workers due to take over in the afternoon.
The rest of the day he would work from home. “It makes our work more difficult because we need to access the systems in our office,” he said.
Schools and universities across the country remained shut. The toll has overtaken global fatalities in the 2002-03 SARS epidemic when China drew international condemnation for covering up cases - though it has drawn praise from the WHO this time.
In Hong Kong, thousands of people stranded aboard the World Dream cruise ship for five days were allowed to disembark on Sunday after its 1,800 crew tested negative for the coronavirus.
But another 65 people aboard the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship moored off Japan have been diagnosed with novel coronavirus, the Health Ministry said on
Monday, bringing the total number of known infections to 135.
The Diamond Princess has been in quarantine since arriving off the Japanese coast early last week after the virus was detected in a former passenger who got off the ship last month in Hong Kong.
In China, the eastern city of Wuxi said anyone trying to enter from provinces with high numbers of cases would be ‘persuaded to go back’, while Suzhou, near the financial hub of Shanghai, suspended all passenger transport to surrounding counties.
‘I just checked and it would take 18 hours for me to go to work by bicycle’, wrote one frustrated commuter on China’s Twitter-like social media site Weibo. Travel authorities said there had been 11mn journeys by train, road or plane on Saturday - 84 per cent down on the same day last year.
About 800 vehicles from ‘hard-hit areas’ have been denied entry into Shanghai over the last month, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Beyond China, the tourism industry remains in the doldrums, with several countries banning arrivals from the mainland and major airlines suspending flights.
Many were encouraged to work from home and some employers simply delayed opening for another week
Beijing, China - China consumer prices rose at their highest rate in more than eight years, official data showed on Monday, with inflation more than expected on the back of Lunar New Year demand and a deadly virus outbreak.
Beijing had already been battling a slowing domestic economy before the new coronavirus emerged, disrupting businesses, travel and supply chains.
The consumer price index (CPI), a key gauge of retail inflation, came in at 5.4 per cent last month on-year, up from 4.5 per cent in December - with prices of meat and fresh vegetables pushing up costs.
Food prices spiked 20.6 per cent.
The overall monthly figure exceeded the 4.9 per cent forecast by analysts in a Bloomberg survey and is the highest since October 2011.
‘The year-on-year increase has been affected not only by Spring Festival-related factors but... by the new coronavirus as well,’ said the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday.
Analysts expect China’s struggle to contain the spread of the virus over the Lunar New Year holiday, which started in late January, to keep prices higher than usual.
“Some food supplies may spoil before shipping to large cities due to the disruption of transportation and other lockdown measures, especially for fruits, vegetables and livestock,” said Lu Ting of Nomura in a research note last Thursday.
“People also tend to hoard food and other supplies in this kind of situation. The hoarding will most likely push up prices.”
The virus has so far claimed more than 900 lives in China.
The rise in January was the highest since October 2011 when CPI inflation was 5.5 per cent.
UOB’s head of research Suan Teck Kin told AFP that while prices tend to fall after the Lunar New Year break, ‘this year, prices may continue to stay high’ because of supply chain disruptions.
Asian and European markets mostly fell on Monday with investors worried over the impact of China’s coronavirus outbreak on the global economy.
In Asia, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed 0.6 per cent down, while Hong Kong pared some losses, ending the day 0.6 per cent lower after tanking 1.1 per cent at the open.
Shanghai however rebounded after opening lower and ended with a 0.5-per cent gain at the close.
At midday in Europe, London was down 0.2 per cent, Paris dipped 0.4 per cent, and Frankfurt slid 0.3 per cent.
“Coronavirus concerns are weighing,” noted CMC Markets UK analyst David Madden.
“The deepening health crisis is chipping away at market confidence.”
“In London, stocks that are connected to China are under pressure. Mining, energy as well as travel stocks are in the red.”
The virus has killed more than 900 people, infected more than 40,000 across mainland China and spread to more than two dozen countries in what has been termed a global health emergency.
It has also jolted major supply chains for everything from food and household supplies to car and electronics parts.