Virus claims first island death
HONG Kong reported its first coronavirus death yesterday, the second outside mainland China from a fast-spreading outbreak that has killed 427 people and threatened economic supply chains around the world.
But after Shanghai’s main market lost nearly $400 billion (R6 trillion)the previous day, global and Chinese markets bounced back, with both Europe and metals enjoying their best sessions of the year.
Chinese-ruled Macau, the world’s biggest gambling hub, asked casino operators to close for two weeks to help curb the virus. And in the latest major corporate hit, Hyundai Motor Company said it would gradually suspend production at South Korean factories because of supply chain disruptions.
Hong Kong’s first fatality was a 39-year-old man with an underlying illness.
He had visited China’s Wuhan city, the virtually quarantined epicentre of the outbreak.
China, meanwhile, reported a record daily jump in deaths of 64 to 425. The only other death outside mainland China was a man who died in the Philippines last week after visiting Wuhan. Total infections in mainland China rose to 20 438, and there have been nearly 200 cases elsewhere across 24 countries and China’s special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
Thailand’s infections jumped to 25, the highest outside China, while Singapore’s rose to 24, four of those from local contagion as opposed to visitors from China.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the flu-like virus a global emergency and experts say much is still unknown, including its mortality rate and transmission routes.
Such uncertainties have spurred strong measures by some countries
– offending Beijing’s communist government, which has called for calm, and fact-based responses instead of scaremongering.
The deluge of misinformation on social media – from a recommendation to eat more onions to a warning of spread via a video game – has led Asian governments to hit back with 16 arrests, fines and fake news laws, alarming free speech advocates.
Australia sent hundreds of evacuees from Wuhan to an island in the Indian Ocean, while Japan began screening 3 700 passengers and crew aboard a cruise liner held in quarantine.
Thousands of medical workers in Hong Kong, which had seen months of anti-China political protests, held a second day of strikes to press for complete closure of borders with the mainland after three checkpoints were left open. “We’re not threatening the government, we just want to prevent the outbreak,” said Cheng, 26, a nurse on strike. The Asian financial centre has confirmed 17 cases.
Hong Kong was badly hit by severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), another coronavirus that emerged from China in 2002 to kill almost 800 people worldwide and cost the global economy an estimated $33bn.
Chinese data suggests the new virus, while much more contagious, is significantly less lethal, although such numbers can evolve rapidly.
WHO director of global hazard preparedness, Sylvie Briand, said most who had died or suffered severe infections were people with underlying conditions such as cancer, diabetes or suppressed immune systems, or the elderly.
Raising the prospect of another major spat – just as trade frictions were easing – Beijing on Monday accused the US of spreading panic after it announced plans to block recent foreign visitors to China.