(Bloomberg) — Global efforts to curb the spread of a new coronavirus intensified as the death toll topped 100 and the number of cases soared overnight.
The U.S. raised its travel alert on China and prepared to evacuate citizens in Wuhan, the city hardest hit by the outbreak. Major corporations including Facebook Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG scrambled to protect employees in Asia as workers begin to return from Lunar New Year breaks.
- BREAKING: Death toll climbs to 106
- Confirmed cases in China soars to 4,515
- WHO director-general heads to China
- Stocks slump around the world on virus jitters
Stocks fell around the world on concerns over the virus and its impact on the global economy, with Asian shares retreating again after the S&P 500 Index slid the most in almost four months.
The number of deaths climbed to 106, while confirmed cases on the mainland soared 65% to 4,515, China’s National Health Commission said on Tuesday. One hundred of the fatalities have occurred in Hubei, the province where the city of Wuhan is located.
Infections have been reported throughout Asia and Australia, as well as in the U.S., France and Canada, though the number of cases has been far more limited, with each country accounting for fewer than 10 cases. Germany confirmed its first case.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited Beijing on Tuesday to assess the country’s response. Last week, the WHO declined to label the coronavirus an international emergency, a designation that would have allowed the United Nations agency to begin coordinating government responses.
Public health officials in China and around the globe have mounted an aggressive attempt to stop the spread of the SARS-like virus as officials concede it isn’t yet under control. China has extended the Lunar New Year holiday to Feb. 2 from the original Jan. 30 date to reduce travel, and authorities have effectively locked down cities with a combined 40 million people around Wuhan.
The U.S. and other nations were negotiating with China to arrange chartered flights to evacuate diplomats, personnel and citizens from the hardest-hit areas of the country.
State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said the U.S. was working with Chinese authorities to bring back the American consulate personnel and other citizens from Wuhan. Ortagus said the travelers would be “screened and monitored to protect their health.”
Japan planned to send a chartered plane Tuesday evening to repatriate the first 200 of some 650 nationals who want to return, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said in Tokyo. Other countries seeking similar arrangements include Australia, India, South Korea, Thailand and the U.K. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported there are about 100 Australian children in Wuhan.
Evacuations have been complicated by the blanket travel restrictions imposed on a large swathe of central China to prevent the disease from spreading.
Global corporations are also stepping up their response, restricting travel to China and urging employees in the region — or who have recently returned from China — to work from home.
Nissan Motor Co. planned to join automakers evacuating workers from the hardest-hit areas, while Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. suspended nine voyages leaving China Jan. 25 to Feb. 4 and pledged customer refunds.
Hong Kong asked civil servants to work from home, and announced the temporary closing of all sports and cultural facilities starting Wednesday, including museums, swimming pools, public libraries and soccer pitches. Recreational, sports and cultural programs at those venues were canceled until further notice.
U.S. Alert
The new U.S. travel alert, Level 3, is the second-highest of four State Department advisories. Previously, the U.S. had urged citizens to “exercise increased caution” when visiting China, while avoiding any travel to the area near Wuhan.
The U.S. may also expand travel screening at its borders and is closely monitoring 110 people to stop the virus, testing them for the presence of the pathogen. As of Monday morning, there have been no new U.S. cases after the first five patients were identified in the past week.
“At this time in the U.S., this virus is not spreading in the community,” said Nancy Messonnier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
Anxiety is growing amid evidence that the disease has an incubation period of as long as two weeks before those infected start to show symptoms. That raises the possibility that people could travel and eventually infect others before realizing they have the illness. But Messonnier said that so far there has been no clear evidence that the virus can spread during the incubation period before patients have symptoms.
The new coronavirus appears to be less contagious than highly infectious viruses like the measles, she said. Coronaviruses like this one, so named because of their crown-like shape, are generally transmitted by respiratory droplets, she said.
