Beijing – Flights to China have been grounded and stores and factories shuttered as the death toll associated with the country’s coronavirus outbreak reached 132 on Wednesday, according to the China National Health Commission.
A total of 840 new infections were confirmed on Tuesday in central China’s Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak and where several cities, including hard-hit Wuhan, are under an effective quarantine.
This brings the total number of cases to 3,554 within the province and more than 6,000 nationwide, representing a 60 per cent increase overnight.
Starbucks said it was closing half of its some 4,000 outlets nationwide, while Japanese automaker Toyota announced it would halt operations in its Chinese plants until at least February 9.
Facebook has suspended non-essential staff travel to mainland China and British banking giant HSBC banned employee trips to Hong Kong for two weeks, and to mainland China until further notice. Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng stock market index dropped 3 percent when it re-opened on Wednesday after the Lunar New Year holiday.
British Airways and Indonesia’s Lion Air became the first major airlines to suspend all direct flights in and out of all airports in mainland China. Air Canada, United Airlines, and Jetstar Asia all said they were cancelling selected China routes.
Hong Kong announced it would cut rail links with mainland China and close some border crossings.
Meanwhile, several countries were repatriating their citizens from Wuhan and other areas in Hubei province.
Japan brought back 206 of its citizens from Wuhan on Wednesday.
Before boarding the plane in Wuhan, they went through medical checkups and none of them was infected with the coronavirus, Kyodo News reported, citing foreign ministry officials.
They were scheduled to undergo another checkups at the National Centre for Global Health and Medicine in Tokyo, Kyodo said.
As there are still about 450 Japanese in Wuhan who wish to return home, the government will send another chartered flight to Wuhan later in the day.
The Australian government said it would set up a quarantine area on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean to house and treat everyone evacuated for up to 14 days.
According to the government, about 400 Australians have already registered for evacuation from Wuhan and surrounding areas.
The United States said it is relocating around 210 citizens from Wuhan back to the US. In a statement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it was working with the government to “facilitate the safe return of these Americans while protecting the public’s health.”
The Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs said it had “two private chartered planes on standby to fly to Hubei to bring our people home upon clearance by Chinese authorities.”
It said on Wednesday that 50 of the 300 Filipinos in Hubei province had expressed desire to leave.
While the vast majority of infections are in China, the virus has been confirmed in small numbers in about a dozen countries, from Asia to Europe and the United States.
On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates confirmed its first cases, saying that several members of a family that had travelled to Wuhan have tested positive.
As a precaution, Alpine ski World Cup races in Yanqing, China, next month were cancelled on Wednesday.
Over the past days, Tokyo 2020 Olympics qualifying tournaments in women’s football, basketball and boxing have been moved outside China.
Despite the disruptions, for some it was mostly business as usual.
Finnish flag carrier Finnair said on Wednesday it will continue to operate its daily flights to Beijing Capital Airport and to Shanghai, as well as its twice daily flights to Hong Kong and its two weekly flights to Guangzhou.
Due to China’s recent decision to suspend group travel from China the carrier said earlier it would suspend five other weekly flights from early February until the end of March, including between Helsinki and Beijing Daxing International Airport and Nanjing.
Scandinavian carrier SAS said it was operating its flights as normal.
dpa