Jessica Murray, Martin Farrer and Kevin Rawlinson 

Two people die in Iran as cruise ship Britons face Wirral quarantine – as it happened

Deaths in mainland China pass 2,000 and Foreign Office tells Britons to stay on the Diamond Princess cruise ship
  
  

Officials disinfecting a dormitory for Chinese students at Chosun University in Gwangju, South Korea.
Officials disinfecting a dormitory for Chinese students at Chosun University in Gwangju, South Korea. Photograph: City Of Gwangju/HANDOUT/EPA

Inspectors in protective suits have been going door to door in Wuhan in an effort to find every infected person, the Associated Press reports.

Wednesday marked the final day of a campaign to root out anyone with symptoms whom authorities may have missed so far.

“This must be taken seriously,” said Wang Zhonglin, the city’s new Communist party secretary, adding that if a single new case was found after Wednesday, the district’s leaders would be held responsible.

His remarks were published on Hubei’s provincial website alongside a declaration that “if the masses cannot mobilise, it’s impossible to fight a people’s war.”

Updated

Cruise ship Britons to be quarantined at Wirral NHS hospital

Britons returning home from the Diamond Princess cruise ship that has had more than 600 cases of coronavirus will be quarantined at the same NHS facility that housed people flown back to the UK from Wuhan.

The Department of Health said: “We can confirm that an accommodation block on the Arrowe Park NHS site will be used to isolate those returning from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan. They will be kept in this location for the 14-day quarantine period, with around-the-clock support from medical staff at all times.”

Officials stressed there was no risk to the public and that the hospital in Wirral would continue to run as normal.

This comes after the Foreign Office told British passengers onboard the ship to stay put or risk not being allowed on an evacuation flight later this week.

An FCO statement read: “We are planning an evacuation flight from Tokyo to the UK as soon as possible for Britons who are on the Diamond Princess. We hope the flight will be later this week, subject to permissions from the Japanese authorities.

“However there is a chance that people who disembark will not be able to join the evacuation flight. We have the utmost concern for the affected Britons and strongly encourage them to register for the evacuation flight.”

Here is the full story:

Updated

Iran says two citizens with coronavirus have died

Two people who were diagnosed with coronavirus in Iran have died, a state-run news agency has reported.

The IRNA news agency said the two victims were elderly Iranian citizens. IRNA quoted Alireza Vahabzadeh, a health ministry official, who said both victims were located in Qom, about 86 miles (140km) south of the capital, Tehran. Officials had confirmed the cases earlier on Wednesday.

Updated

Summary

It’s been a fast-paced day with a number of major coronavirus developments, so if you’re looking to catch up, here’s a quick summary of the latest stories:

Updated

Over 15,000 people have recovered from coronavirus, the latest figures show.

In China, where the bulk of cases have been, there have been 2,009 deaths and 14,938 recoveries - out of a total of 74,185 cases.

In some Chinese provinces the recovery rate has increased to 40%, although the rate for Hubei is still below 15% - possibly due to the extra strain on medical resources there, experts have suggested.

In the UK, eight of the nine people diagnosed have made a full recovery.

In Thailand, nearly half of the 35 cases in the country have recovered.

Earlier this week the World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said it is estimated four out of five patients in mainland China have mild symptoms and are expected to recover.

Al Jazeera has reported the case of Yangyang, a 28-year-old from Wuhan who has recovered from the disease. She said:

I hope this trend offers people battling the disease across the country a beacon of hope and the courage to continue the fight.

Once she has finished her 14-day quarantine she hopes to donate her blood plasma, with initial trials showing the blood plasma of recovered patients is beneficial to those still fighting the disease.

Updated

The Swiss government has postponed an annual summit on patient safety due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The Ministerial Summit on Patient Safety, due to be held in Montreux near Lake Geneva on 27 and 28 February, “has been postponed because numerous participants must remain in their own countries to deal with the Covid-19 epidemic”, it said in a statement.

The summit will be rescheduled.

Updated

The coronavirus fatality rate may change over the coming weeks as those who were infected at the start of the epidemic come to the end of their illness.

Adam Kucharski, a mathematician and epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the potential under-reporting of cases in China, and the fact that fatalities will continue as the number of new cases slows down, meant the death rate could vary over time.

The mortality rate for the new coronavirus is estimated to be around 2.5%. For comparison, seasonal flu typically has a mortality rate below 1%.

In a explanatory thread on Twitter, Kucharski said:

It’s well established there are likely far more symptomatic cases in China than have been detected/confirmed. If we are calculating ‘deaths/cases’, and we underestimate number of cases, it will cause us to *overestimate* fatality risk.

However, he said another factor might mean the current mortality rate of 2% is an underestimate.

As the number of cases starts to slow down, fatalities will climb faster than cases (because they were infected when the epidemic was growing faster).

He concludes by saying the two factors could cancel each other out and mean that current estimates for the mortality rate are actually accurate.

The widely quoted 2% fatality for China is calculated incorrectly, because it’s based on data that is under-reported and doesn’t account for delays. But, confusingly, these errors may actually cancel out, leading to an estimate that is right for the wrong reasons.

Updated

Russia will continue to issue official, business, humanitarian and transit visas to Chinese nationals, the country’s foreign ministry has said, clarifying the conditions of a sweeping entry ban for Chinese citizens announced yesterday.

The ban comes into effect on Thursday at midnight Moscow time.

It was imposed due to the worsening epidemiological situation in China, the office of the deputy prime minister, Tatyana Golikova, said in a statement.

Russia’s foreign ministry clarified that the ban is temporary and only applies to visitors with tourist, private, student and work visas. It said in a statement:

We reiterate our willingness to continue close cooperation with China in order to efficiently eradicate this common threat.

Russia has had three confirmed cases of the Covid-19 disease. These were two Chinese citizens in Russia who were treated and released, and a Russian national infected on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

Russian authorities have taken significant steps to try to keep the virus from spreading, including keeping hundreds of people in hospital as a precaution and monitoring more than 14,000 people after they returned from China.

Russia halted most air traffic to China, suspended all trains to China and North Korea, and temporarily stopped issuing work visas to Chinese citizens. Chinese students studying in Russia were told not to return until 1 March.

This month Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, said Russia might start deporting foreigners infected with the virus.

Updated

Summary of global cases

The Covid-19 virus has now infected more than 75,000 people globally.

Three more people in Singapore have tested positive for the virus, one of whom was first admitted to hospital as a Dengue patient. South Korea reported 20 new cases.

Here’s a summary of the latest figures reported by each government’s health authority, as of Wednesday in Beijing:

Mainland China: 2,004 deaths among 74,185 cases, mostly in Hubei province
Hong Kong: 63 cases, two deaths
Macau: 10 cases
Japan: 693 cases, including 621 from a cruise ship docked in Yokohama, one death
Singapore: 81
South Korea: 51
Thailand: 35
Malaysia: 22
Taiwan: 22 cases, one death
Vietnam: 16
Germany: 16
United States: 15 cases; separately, one US citizen died in China
Australia: 14
France: 12 cases, one death
United Kingdom: 9
United Arab Emirates: 9
Canada: 8
Philippines: three cases, one death
India: 3
Italy: 3
Russia: 2
Spain: 2
Iran: 2
Belgium: 1
Nepal: 1
Sri Lanka: 1
Sweden: 1
Cambodia: 1
Finland: 1
Egypt: 1

Updated

There is no need for people to panic about the coronavirus, said Scotland’s public health minister as he visited one of the country’s two testing laboratories.

Joe FitzPatrick said there was no current evidence to suggest it is necessary for people in Scotland to wear masks to protect against the Covid-19 virus.

Screening laboratories in Glasgow and Edinburgh have tested 202 possible cases since testing began in Scotland on 10 February, with all proving negative.

Combined with the previous tests at the Public Health England facility in Colindale, London, 290 tests from Scotland have been carried out since the outbreak began, with none coming back positive.

FitzPatrick said although it is likely there will be a case of coronavirus in Scotland, the country is well prepared to deal with the situation.

There is no need for people to be panicked.

We are clear that this is a serious threat that we are taking seriously and we’re preparing for worst case scenarios but right now the risk in Scotland, as in the rest of the UK, remains low so there’s no evidence to suggest that people should be walking around Scotland wearing face masks at this time.

He added: “Although all Scottish tests have so far been negative, we are prepared for the high likelihood that we will also see a positive case.

We have a proven track record of dealing with challenging health issues and have been preparing for this possibility since the beginning of the outbreak.

Updated

The coronavirus outbreak has temporarily reduced China’s CO2 emissions by a quarter, according to analysis by Carbon Brief.

Electricity demand and industrial output remain far below usual levels after authorities introduced stringent measures to stop the spread of the disease.

Daily data of coal use at power stations is at a four-year low, while oil refinery operating rates in Shandong province are at the lowest level since 2015, the report said.

Carried out by Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air who covers air quality and energy trends in China, the analysis found levels of NO2 air pollution over China are down 36% on the same period last year.

Over the same two-week period in 2019, China released around 400m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2), meaning the measures introduced to control the virus could have cut global emissions by 100MtCO2 to date.

However, the report notes that this is likely to only have a short-term impact and shutdowns of a week or more are not uncommon in China.

Cutting energy consumption and emissions by 25% for two weeks would only reduce annual figures by around 1%, it states.

However, reduced consumer demand – potentially caused by unpaid wages during the outbreak – could have a more significant long-term effect.

For instance, car sales are set to fall by 25-30% in the January-February period, according to preliminary forecasts.

In total, containment measures have resulted in reductions of 15% to 40% in output across key industrial sectors, according to the report.

The virus has had a severe impact on China’s economy, with Shanghai making a list of companies eligible for millions of dollars in subsidised loans to help keep them afloat.

In recent days, Chinese industrial hubs have taken measures to stimulate production again, after factories remained closed for around 10 days after the Lunar New year holiday to help with infection control.

Updated

China expels Wall Street Journal reporters over ‘racist’ headline

China has ordered three reporters from American newspaper the Wall Street Journal to leave the country, over what Beijing deemed a racist headline.

The expulsion came as Beijing slammed Washington’s decision to tighten rules on Chinese state media organisations in the United States, calling the move “unreasonable and unacceptable”, AFP reports.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the Journal op-ed - titled “China is the Real Sick Man of Asia” - had a “racially discriminatory” and “sensational” headline, and slammed the newspaper for not issuing an official apology.

Geng told a press briefing:

As such, China has decided that from today, the press cards of three Wall Street Journal reporters in Beijing will be revoked.

The Journal reported that deputy bureau chief Josh Chin and reporter Chao Deng, both US nationals, as well as reporter Philip Wen, an Australian, had been ordered to leave the country in five days.

The three journalists are in the Wall Street Journal’s news section, which is not linked to the editorial and opinion section.

The op-ed, written by Bard College professor Walter Russell Mead, criticised the Chinese government’s initial response to the new coronavirus outbreak.

It called the Wuhan city government “secretive and self-serving”, while dismissing national efforts as ineffective.

The phrase “sick man of Asia” originally referred to China in the late 19th and early 20th century, when it was exploited by foreign powers during a period sometimes called the country’s “century of humiliation”.

The 3 February piece “slandered the efforts of the Chinese government and the Chinese people to fight the epidemic”, said Geng.

The new coronavirus epidemic has killed over 2,000 people in China and infected more than 74,000, and has spread to at least two dozen countries.

“The editors of the Wall Street Journal have nailed themselves to the pillar of shame,” wrote the nationalistic Global Times in an op-ed on Tuesday before the reporters were expelled.

The WSJ’s remarks “sound like gloating, and they disgust Chinese people”, it said.

The expulsions come a day after the United States angered China for classifying five state media outlets, including Xinhua news agency and the China Global Television Network, as foreign missions, with State Department officials saying they were part of Beijing’s growing “propaganda” apparatus.

Voicing China’s “strong dissatisfaction”, Geng added cryptically: “We reserve the right to respond further to this matter.”

Updated

Cases on Diamond Princess cruise ship rise to 621

Japanese health officials said 79 new coronavirus cases have been detected on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, taking the total to 621.

The positive cases on board the vessel amount to the biggest cluster of infected people outside China, and Japan is facing mounting scrutiny of its quarantine measures as passengers begin to disembark and travel across the world.

Updated

First coronavirus cases confirmed in Iran

Iranian authorities have confirmed two cases of coronavirus, the first in the country, the Associated Press has reported.

Citing the semi-official Isna news agency, the report states there was also an unspecified number of other suspected cases and that those individuals have been quarantined.

Their are currently no details on the nationality of the two people infected by the virus or the state of their health.

Isna quoted an official in the country’s health ministry, Kiyanoush Jahanpour, as saying two confirmed cases were detected in the central province of Qom.

Subsequent tests were in progress and the results of these tests will be released to the public, once they are finalised, Jahanpour said.

Updated

A total of 781 guests who disembarked from the Westerdam cruise ship in Cambodia have tested negative for Covid-19, Holland America, the ship’s operator, said.

Testing of passengers is now complete, while testing of 747 crew members is expected to continue for the next few days, the company said.

The Foreign Office previously confirmed Britons were among those tested.

A number of guests and crew had previously flown home, triggering international concern after an American passenger was diagnosed with the virus in Malaysia.

Holland America said: “These results provide the required clearance for remaining guests in Cambodia to begin their onward journey home.

“Those who travelled home previously will be contacted by their local health department and provided further information.”

The are no indications the new coronavirus has spread to North Korea, the World Health Organization said, after South Korean media suggested there were cases and deaths there being covered up by the Pyongyang authorities.

Experts have raised concerns that the disease, which has now killed over 2,000 people in neighbouring China, could be devastating for North Korea’s under-resourced health system.

Aid agencies have called for exceptions to international trading sanctions to make it easier if needed to help Pyongyang fight the disease.

Dr Mike Ryan, head of WHO’s emergencies programme, said: “At the moment there are no signals, there are no indications we are dealing with any Covid-19 there.”

A WHO spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic, said North Korea had reported checking nearly 7,300 travellers entering the country over a six-week period to 9 February.

He also said 141 travellers with fevers had been tested for the virus and all had tested negative.

Jasarevic said the WHO would provide North Korea with supplies including laboratory reagents for tests and protective equipment such as goggles, gloves, masks and gowns for health workers.

A former North Korean diplomat, Thae Yong-ho, who defected to South Korea in 2016 said the ability of the WHO to evaluate the situation in North Korea was probably limited, as its staff and other foreigners would mostly be confined in the capital Pyongyang.

Already one of the world’s most closed-off countries, North Korea has stopped flights and train services with its neighbours, established month-long mandatory quarantines, suspended international tourism and imposed a near-complete lockdown on cross-border travel.

Updated

Number of new coronavirus cases in South Korea rises to 20

South Korea has now confirmed 20 new cases of the coronavirus, including 14 people involved in an outbreak traced to several church services in the central city of Daegu.

The jump in new cases is unprecedented so far in South Korea and brings the number of people infected in the country to 51.

Including the cases announced on Wednesday, 19 have been reported in Daegu and the surrounding North Gyeongsang province, with 16 of them tied to an earlier confirmed carrier, Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said in a statement.

Quarantine officials disinfecting a dormitory for Chinese students at Chosun University in Gwangju, South Korea.
Quarantine officials disinfecting a dormitory for Chinese students at Chosun University in Gwangju, South Korea. Photograph: City Of Gwangju/Handout/EPA

The earlier case was confirmed on Tuesday in a 61-year-old woman known as ‘Patient 31’. She had no recent record of overseas travel but had attended church services and sought care at a hospital before being tested for the virus, the agency said.

According to a Reuters report, at least 15 people who attended religious services with ‘Patient 31’ have tested positive for the virus.

One other person, who came in contact with her at a hospital, has also come down with the disease.

Hundreds of people are believed to have attended services with ‘Patient 31’ in recent weeks at a branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, a religious movement founded in 1984 by South Korean Lee Man-hee, who is revered as a messiah by followers.

On Tuesday, Shincheonji Church posted a statement on its website confirming the woman had attended services and advised its members to stay home. It encouraged members who had attended meetings on 9 and 16 February to be tested and quarantine themselves.

“The Daegu branch has been shut down since this morning and is conducting prevention measures,” the statement said.

Health authorities view the Daegu case as a “super-spreading event”, The KCDC director, Jeong Eun-kyeong, told briefings on Wednesday.

Besides the church, ‘Patient 31’ also visited a hotel and, eventually, a hospital, the Daegu mayor, Kwon Young-jin, said in a Facebook post.

None of the woman’s family members has shown symptoms, while taxi drivers who were in contact with her are now in self-quarantine, Kwon said.

A clinic that treated Patient 31 after a traffic accident on 6 February said she refused to be tested for the virus at that time, despite a fever, because she had not travelled abroad recently or been in contact with known patients.

KCDC officials said they were reviewing policies governing people who refuse to be tested, and added police could be involved in such cases.

After her symptoms worsened, she was finally tested for the virus on 17 February, according to the KCDC.

The South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, has called for stringent infection control measures and every possible action to boost the economy, which he said was in an emergency situation as the result of the epidemic.

Updated

As the quarantine of the Diamond Princess cruise ship ends today, questions continue to swirl over how the virus spread so readily on the ship.

Via Japan’s state broadcaster NHK, health minister Katsunobu Kato defended Japan’s efforts to halt the outbreak:

Unfortunately, cases of infection have emerged, but we have to the extent possible taken appropriate steps to prevent serious cases, including sending infected people to hospital

But some health experts have criticised the measures taken to control the disease on board.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Japan’s efforts might have slowed down the virus but were not enough. In a statement it said:

CDC’s assessment is that it may not have been sufficient to prevent transmission among individuals on the ship.

From the start, experts raised questions about quarantine on the ship. Passengers weren’t confined to their rooms until 5 February. The day before, as officials screened them, onboard events continued, including dances, quiz games and an exercise class, one passenger said.

A number of readers have asked about the air conditioning employed on the ship, and whether this could have contributed to the spread of the virus.

Previously health authorities said the air conditioning was not a problem. However, Princess Cruises’ executive vice-president, Rai Caluori ,said that, “in an abundance of caution”, the amount of fresh air going through the system was maximised.

Dr Richard Darwood, a medical director and specialist in travel medicine, told Metro.co.uk: “If air is being ducted between one part of the ship to another then that could possibly be a factor.”

A video by Prof Kentaro Iwata, a specialist in infectious diseases at Kobe University Hospital, has been circulated widely on social media.

Professor Kentaro Iwata said the approach to infection control on the Diamond Princess was “chaotic”.

He doesn’t mention the air conditioning system, but he says the cruise ship was completely inadequate in terms of infection control, with no distinction between the green zone (which is free of infection) and the red zone (which is potentially contaminated by the virus).

“It was completely chaotic. I was so scared of getting Covid-19, because there was no way to tell where the virus is,” he said. He said there was no professional infection control person in charge on the ship and the bureaucrats in control were violating all infection control principles.

He said he met a health worker who had completely given up wearing protection because they said they had already been infected with the coronavirus.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Iwata said:

I felt much safer when I was in Africa [during the Ebola crisis] because you know where the virus exists and you know where the patient is. But inside the Diamond Princess you have no idea where the virus is.”

Updated

The remaining passengers who were stuck onboard a cruise ship docked in Cambodia for almost a week have left the vessel after testing negative for the coronavirus.

The MS Westerdam arrived in the port of Sihanoukville on 13 February having been turned away from five other ports after leaving Hong Kong, which has reported more than 60 cases of the virus and two deaths.

The ship came under renewed scrutiny following Cambodia’s quick clearance for passengers to fly home, a move which was criticised after one American woman who had been on the cruise ship tested positive for the virus over the weekend in Malaysia.

On Wednesday, a series of cheers went up from people lining the lower deck of the cruise ship and there were several loud blasts of the ship’s horn as passengers began disembarking, 18 days after the ship first left Hong Kong.

Kheang Phearum, spokesman for Preah Sihanouk province, where Sihanoukville is located, said:

The last 233 passengers on MS Westerdam are disembarked and will continue to Phnom Penh by buses.

Holland America Line, the ship’s operator, confirmed in a statement the last passengers had been given health clearances to leave the ship and make their way home.

Upon leaving the vessel, passengers received traditional checkered Cambodian scarves as souvenirs.

The passengers will spend a night in capital Phnom Penh and then fly home, said Sun Chan Thol, Cambodia’s minister of public transport.

Holland America said the ship would remain at dock in Sihanoukville while hundreds of crew members were being tested.

Updated

The last of the Australians who were in quarantine on Christmas Island have left and been declared free of coronavirus, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has said.

More than 200 Australians spent two weeks in quarantine on the remote island, best known for its immigration detention centre, after being evacuated from Wuhan in China.

Morrison also confirmed that 170 Australians on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan will be flown home tomorrow, and they will also be subject to two weeks in quarantine on arrival.

Updated

Shanghai has compiled a list of firms, including local units of multi-nationals Unilever PLC and 3M Co, as eligible for millions of dollars in subsidised loans to ease any blow from the coronavirus outbreak, according to bankers and documents seen by Reuters.

In an economically bruising three weeks, China has cordoned off cities and suspended transport links in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.

“Every bank in Shanghai is rushing to lend to the companies on its list, to earn political goodwill,” said one banker who had seen a list with 194 firms, including restaurant operators and property developers.

Companies have the option to nominate themselves to be added to the overall list. Each lender then determines independently whether to approach a company on its list and offer finance, according to the bankers.

Companies producing medical supplies and which are “backbone enterprises” providing daily necessities are eligible for the special loans, according to a notice on the Shanghai MIIT’s website.

China is trying to deal with a nationwide shortage of medical supplies, from face masks to protective suits, while hospitals in central Hubei province - the epicentre of the outbreak - struggle to manage hundreds of new cases a day.

There is no indication from the list that loans offered will necessarily be sought, or that such firms are in any financial need.

The Bank of Shanghai Co Ltd told Reuters it will lend 5.5 billion yuan ($786 million) to 57 firms on its list.

The aim of the loans is to ensure financial support to key companies helping prevent and fight the epidemic, the Shanghai government notice said.

A spokeswoman from Unilever said it had “no current plans to apply for any financing support”. 3M and other companies listed including Shanghai Kindly Enterprise Development Group and Tellgen did not respond to requests for comment.

Updated

Big Chinese manufacturing hubs are starting to ease curbs on the movement of people and traffic, Reuters reports, as local governments prod factories to restart production following weeks of stoppages due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The tough restriction measures slowed the sprawling industrial sector to a crawl, with companies unable to resume production or restore output to normal levels due to a lack of workers after the Lunar New Year holiday which was extended by around 10 days.

Many have also been unable to take delivery of raw materials or send products to clients due to logistical hurdles, with the disruptions spilling over into supply chains worldwide.

Beijing is trying to balance stamping out the epidemic which has infected more than 70,000 people and killed over 2,000, while also shielding the already weakened economy from more damage.

The city of Foshan, a large manufacturer of electronics and household appliances in southern Guangdong province, said late on Tuesday that businesses no longer need to seek prior approval before resuming operations and they returning workers will not need to provide proof of their health.

On Monday, the nearby city of Zhongshan similarly lowered administrative barriers.

In eastern Zhejiang province over the weekend, the cities of Hangzhou and Ningbo also pared back the approval process for companies looking to restart.

Morgan Stanley research said:

Macro and micro data suggest production activities are resuming at a slow pace in China, reaching 60-80% of normal levels by end-Feb and normalising only by mid-to-late March,” Morgan Stanley wrote in a research noted.

If the spread of the virus is not contained within the next two weeks, the disruption to production could extend into the second quarter.

Some cities in Guangdong and Zhejiang this week organised buses and trains to ferry workers back from their hometowns.

The city of Taizhou, in Zhejiang, even arranged for several planes to pick up migrant workers from Chongqing, Guiyang, Chengdu, Kunming and Xian, with the local government of Taizhou footing a third of the bill.

The outbreak has also chilled consumer demand and hammered the services sector, with restaurants, hotels, cinemas and travel agents among the segments most visibly hit.
In a bid to revive consumption, Foshan announced stimulus measures for its auto market, the first city in China to do so amid the outbreak.

The city government will offer subsidies of 2,000 yuan ($285) for purchases of new cars and 3,000 ($429) yuan for replacement of existing cars, according to a document published on its website.

Britons who leave cruise ship may not be allowed on evacuation flight

Jessica Murray here, taking over the coronavirus blog for the next few hours - as always, feel free to get in touch on Twitter (@journojess_) or via email (jessica.murray@theguardian.com).

The Foreign Office has confirmed that although most passengers are free to leave the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan today after its official quarantine comes to an end, those who do so many not be able to board the UK evacuation flight planned for later this week.

In a statement, the Foreign and Commonwealth office said:

We are planning an evacuation flight from Tokyo to the UK as soon as possible for Britons who are on the Diamond Princess. We hope the flight will be later this week, subject to permissions from the Japanese authorities.

At 0700 local time on Wednesday, the Diamond Princess cruise operator and Japanese authorities allowed passengers to disembark from the cruise ship. However there is a chance that people who disembark will not be able to join the evacuation flight.

We have the utmost concern for the affected Britons and strongly encourage them to register for the evacuation flight.

Summary

I’m handing over the blogging duties to my colleagues in London. Thanks for reading but here’s a summary of the main developments today so far:

Casual staff at Australian universities fear for their livelihoods amid a slump in enrolments caused by the travel ban on Chinese students. Part-time teachers are “panicking” in fear that they won’t get paid if there no students to teach.

“The casual workforce gets hired based on enrolments. Casual teaching contracts require student numbers to be confirmed. People were panicking,” one lecturer said.

Stephanie Convery has the full story:

Justin McCurry in Tokyo has cleared up the confusion about the diagnosis of David Abel, a British passenger onboard the Diamond Princess, and his wife. It turns out he and Sally Abel are both positive after all, despite a suggestion earlier today that they weren’t:

Abel posted on Facebook on Tuesday night that he and his wife, Sally, had both tested positive, but then cast doubt on his diagnosis after being told by Japanese doctors that the couple were to be taken off the ship and placed in a hostel “for four or five days” rather than being sent to hospital.

But on Wednesday afternoon, Abel said they had confirmed their positive status after talking to an English-speaking doctor, and were preparing to be taken off the ship, which has been moored in Yokohama, near Tokyo, since 3 February.

“We’ve since spoken to a doctor that speaks English ... and it has been confirmed by him that we are both positive,” Abel said in a YouTube video, adding that he believed they would spend a few days in a hostel while they wait for hospital beds to become available.

“I can’t see that there’s going to be any way we’ll be on that flight to the UK,” he said, referring to plans by the British government to send a chartered flight to Japan this week to collect about 70 British passengers on the Diamond Princess.

Updated

Following on from Verna Yu’s story (last post but one) about the crackdown on dissent in China, the Global Times has tweeted about the ongoing enforcement of rules in Huanggang, a city in Hubei hard-hit by the virus.

The Chinese news site says people who violate the rules of the lockdown will be sent to “designated places to learn and recite government official documents”. Shades of Xinjiang.

The relief of this passenger from the Diamond Princess is palpable. As it would be.

Our reporter Verna Yu has been looking at how the government in Beijing has ruthlessly cracked down on dissent as it has tried to contain the spread of Covid-19.

The situation is especially brutal in Wuhan where people risk jail if they dare to even leave their homes.

One resident of the city told us:

People are gripped by fear and anxiety, and we are extremely angry because this disaster is entirely man-made.

The bubbling resentment felt about the draconian controls can be seen on social media, Verna writes, with images of people being beaten by police for not wearing masks and paraded in chains.

It’s a serious test of Xi Jinping’s authority. Hu Jia, a veteran activist who has been previously jailed and often detained, says it’s the “gravest challenge to the authorities since 1989 (Tiananmen pro-democracy movement)”.

Updated

Asia Pacific shares rebound

Stocks across the Asia Pacific region have rebounded today after the Apple-induced falls of Tuesday.

In Sydney, the benchmark ASX200 rose 0.43% to close at a record high of 7144.6 points. That is also just 1 point off the all time intra-day high of 7145.7 which was set earlier in the year.

In Tokyo the Nikkei is up 1% with only 30 minutes of trading to go. The Shanghai Composite is up 0.3% and the Hang Seng has climbed 0.44% today.

The Kospi in Seoul is, however, off 0.2%, despite the government announcing billions of won in stimulus to help businesses through the Covid-19-driven slowdown.

Our full story on the exodus from the Diamond Princess has just gone live on the site.

Here it is:

Reuters has given us a fascinating insight into what’s happening inside the Chinese economy and how people are losing their jobs amid the unprecedented shutdown.

Mark Xia, a cameraman at a video prooducer in Shanghai, returned to work this month to be told he had to take three months unpaid leave.

The company rejected his request to pay at least half his monthly salary during the suspension so he has quit and is now looking for a new job.

“I understand the company’s cash-flow is tight,” Xia, 25, told Reuters. “We postponed some shooting due to the coronavirus outbreak, and that’s had a huge impact on our revenues, that’s the reality.”

The government has rolled out special loans for small businesses facing loss of business and cash flow problems. But the real human cost to people like Xia could be profound if multiplied across China’s vast economy.

As we saw in an earlier post, the government is pushing hard to get people back to work but faces some serious problems in the shape of travel restrictions on migrant workers. The Global Times said a little while ago that the government is urging provinces – except Hubei – to relax the restrictions on migrants.

Updated

More grim news from the frontline in Wuhan. A nurse at Wuchang hospital in the city has died from the virus, the Global Times reports.

Liu Fan, 59, was deputy chief nurse and had worked in the injection room until 2 February. She then developed a fever and was admitted to hospital on 7 February. She died on 14 February after contracting pneumonia.

Liu’s parents and brother have also died of the virus. Her husband and daughter are under quarantine but have not been found to be infected.

Liu Zhiming, a senior doctor at the hospital, has also died of the virus, as we reported yesterday.

Australian Olympic chief John Coates has assured athletes, fans and officials that it will be safe to attend the games scheduled for Tokyo at the end of July.

Coates said he had travelled to Tokyo last week and was briefed by organisers about contingency plans for dealing with Covid-19 ahead of the games. There was no question of the games being cancelled, he said, adding:

“We’re very satisfied that all the checks and balances will be there by the time the athletes and the spectators enter the country.”

Here’s the full story:

Ten staff from a Japanese news agency, Kyodo News, were reportedly driven in a hired vehicle in January and early February by a man who has since tested positive for Covid-19.

The Japan Times reports that the staff were sent home to self-quarantine. In 14 days since their last contact with the man, seven of the staff members have shown no symptoms and will soon return to work. Three remain at home. None have actually been tested for the virus.

The Japan Times points out, however, that some of the staff could be political journalists who attend briefings at the office of prime minister Shinzo Abe.

When contacted by The Japan Times, Kyodo declined to comment on whether any of the workers are reporters.

Death rate from Covid-19 is 2.67%

The death rate from the novel coronavirus has risen to 2.67%, based on today’s official figures from China. That’s based on 2,010 deaths worldwide and 75,199 confirmed cases.

The rate was thought to be around 2%. I’m not an expert in infectious diseases but that figure is growing.

Second death recorded in Hong Kong

A second person has died from Covid-19 in Hong Kong, according to the South China Morning Post.

The 70-year-old man had underlying health problems and was declared dead on Wednesday morning.

He had visited the Chinese mainland in January.

The territory has 62 confirmed cases.

The team at Capital Economics have been producing charts tracking coal consumption and traffic congestion and other factors in China in an effort to give a picture of how the virus is affecting the economy.

The official line from China is that much of the workforce is back in action and that targets can be hit.

But there is a lot of evidence to suggest that things are far from being back to normal.

Take this chart, for example, tracking coal consumption in power stations. It shows a slight pickup in the last few days but not much more. Electricity use is routinely used by economists as a proxy for economic activity in China as a counterpoint to official growth figures.

The charts are compiled from sources such as WIND, a Chinese data tracker, and CEIC. This one on daily passenger traffic also shows a slight uptick but only just:

And traffic congestion as garnered from Amap, China’s version of Google Maps:

More on the disembarking passengers from Justin in Tokyo:

Japanese TV showed passengers leaving the ship late on Wednesday morning to board waiting buses. Local health authorities said about 500 passengers were expected to disembark on Wednesday, with around 2,500 others to follow over the next two days.

Only those who tested negative and did not share cabins with infected passengers are being permitted to disembark, amid widening criticism of Japan’s handling of the ship’s quarantine. Anyone who has had contact with an infected passenger will have to undergo 14 more days in quarantine. In addition, the crew will begin a new quarantine when the last passenger has disembarked.

The Diamond Princess has proved a fertile breeding ground for the virus with at least 542 positive cases – making the ship home to the largest cluster of infections outside mainland China.

“NEGATIVE! Me, son, husband, mom and dad! Thank you Lord for protecting us... So emotional now,” tweeted passenger Yardley Wong, who has been cooped up with her six-year-old son.

Those with no symptoms and a negative test received an official certificate saying they posed “no risk of infection of nCoV, as the said person has also presented no symptoms including fever at the time of infection.”

Some in Japan have raised concerns about allowing people from the cruise ship to board flights home or spread out into crowded cities such as Tokyo, saying there was a chance that secondary infections had occurred on the ship during its 14-day quarantine.

Several countries, including Britain, Hong Kong and Australia, appear to have lost patience with the on-board quarantine and have prepared chartered planes to bring back their citizens. More than 300 Americans were flown home on Monday, although 14 of the passengers tested positive during the evacuation. The US government has told Americans who chose to remain on the ship that they will not be allowed back into the country until they have completed another two weeks of quarantine after disembarking.

Early Wednesday, South Korea flew six of its nationals plus a Japanese spouse to Seoul. They will be placed in isolation for 14 days, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Other countries will require repatriated people to undergo another two weeks of quarantine after they return home.

Updated

Wuhan measures still not working, warns top Beijing adviser

Beijing’s leading medical adviser has warned that human-to-human transmission of Covid-19 has still not been stopped in Wuhan, the state-owned Global Times reports.

Zhong told a press conference in Guangzhou on Tuesday that despite huge efforts to lock down the city of 11 million, the authorities had failed to separate patients from healthy people and to separate COVID-19 patients from flu patients.

Yang Zhanqiu, deputy director of the pathogen biology department at Wuhan University, told the Global Times that transmission of the common flu had also worsened in Wuhan alongside the spread of Covid-19.

“The human-to-human transmission of flu worsened the human-to-human transmission situation of novel coronavirus in Wuhan,” Yang said, as it has made screening for coronavirus patients more difficult.

The Global Times also reports criticism by local people of the authorities’ response to the outbreak.

One resident called Chen said residential areas were sealed off too late to stop the spread.

“Our community only arranged the collective purchase of daily necessities today, after it was completely locked down. A few days ago, I heard that people went to the supermarket nearby, which led to a public gathering,” she said.

“Local authorities acted too slowly, missing the best opportunity to contain the virus spread,” she added.

Some released passengers could be infected, says specialist

Justin McCurry, our man in Tokyo, has been speaking to a Japanese health expert who fears some of the cruise ship passengers could yet turn out to be carrying the virus:

Kentaro Iwata, a specialist in infectious diseases at Kobe University Hospital in western Japan who spent several hours on the luxury cruise liner on Tuesday, told the Guardian that passengers cleared of the virus should continue to be monitored for another two weeks in case they develop symptoms of Covid-19.

He told us:

It is a good idea to allow people to disembark because conditions on the ship are dangerous, but it is possible that some people who recently tested negative could turn out to be positive.

Certainly those who are due to leave should not be allowed to wander around freely. They have to be monitored so they can quickly receive medical treatment if they show symptoms.

Updated

Passengers leave the Diamond Princess

Passengers have begun leaving the Diamond Princess cruise ship after spending two weeks in quarantine off Yokohama, near Tokyo, public broadcaster NHK said.

Around 500 people were expected to disembark on Wednesday with the entire process to be completed by Friday, NHK reported.

Updated

The South Korean disease control centre (KCDC) has confirmed our earlier report that the country has 15 new cases of the virus, taking the total to 46.

It says 13 cases were identified in Daegu and the surrounding North Gyeongbuk province about 250km south of the capital, Seoul.

  • Eleven of the cases are linked to the 31st patient who is identified as a 60-year-old woman. She had been in a car accident and treated at a local hospital since 7 February. She developed the fever on 10 February and was tested for Covid-19 on Monday. She was confirmed positive on Tuesday and is now in isolation in hospital. She has not been abroad since December, 2019. An epidemiological investigation is currently underway.
  • Ten of these people attend the same church as the woman, the KCDC said.
  • Officials are in the process of finding out how another two people from the area were infected.
  • Another new is the daughter of a previously confirmed case who has been hospitalised for treatment at Seoul National University Bundang hospital.
  • The 15th new case is a 43-year-old man in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, who is being hospitalised for isolation.
  • A countermeasures team has been dispatched to the Daegu area to implement emergency defense measures with the local government.

Updated

China is doing its utmost to get its huge state-owned industrial sector back to work following the shutdowns amid the Covid-19 outbreak, state media reports.

According to CGTN, the state council’s assets supervision and administration commission (SASAC) said it would stick to this year’s production targets and “guide enterprises to resume work in a safe and orderly manner”.

Ren Hongbin, vice chairman of the SASAC, told media on Tuesday that more than 80% of state-owned enterprise (SOE) production subsidiaries had resumed operation, and more than 95% of the companies in the sectors of petroleum and petrochemical, communication, electricity and transport have resumed work.

However, according to a report by the Financial Times on Tuesday, companies are having difficulty getting migrant workers back into their factories because of the travel restrictions imposed around the country.

The newspaper claimed Foxconn– which manufactures for Apple – is struggling to get enough workers onto the iPhone assembly line at its plant in Zhengzhou, in China’s Henan province.

Many workers left the cities to return home for new year and are now unable to return to work because of compulsory quarantine in Foxconn dormitories. Henan has seen the most deaths of any province outside Hubei, with 19.

The FT explains:

The rooms, which usually pack in eight workers, had quickly filled, causing Foxconn to halt the return of additional staff, explained a Zhengzhou-based factory recruiter, who asked not to be named.

“They don’t have enough room,” the recruiter said, adding that workers could now sign up and wait for quarantine availability. “There’s no one snoring. There’s no one bothering you. The internet is finally fast,” said one worker of the comfortable conditions in quarantine.

The seven other bunks in his dorm room — consisting of only wood planks without mattresses — were empty.

British passenger did not test positive on cruise ship

Justin McCurry in Tokyo reports that a British couple did not after all test positive:

David Abel, a British passenger onboard the Diamond Princess cruise liner in Japan, has said he and his wife Sally did not test positive for the coronavirus Covid-19 - as he had initially reported - and were still on the ship waiting to disembark.

Abel, who said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that the couple had both tested positive, blamed the mix-up on communication problems with Japanese officials.

“Sally & I packed and waited 8 hours in the cabin to be transported to a hostel. We are still on the ship!” he said in an update on Wednesday morning. “They do NOT send folk with the virus to a hostel! Massive communication error yesterday. The Japanese quarantine officials to not speak any English. They came to our door & told us to be ready to be taken to the hostel. My mindset was ‘virus’ and said ‘positive then’. He nodded. I don’t think he was saying yes to the virus but positive we were moving out?? He followed up by saying it will probably be just 4 or 5 days. You would not say that to a virus victim.”

Abel said he and Sally were being helped by the British embassy in Tokyo, adding: I am being listened to and Sally & I feel really well. I will get more info out when I know what’s happening. Thank you for your love and concern. Sally & David xx”

Japan’s health ministry said on Wednesday that Diamond Princess passengers who tested negative and had not shared a cabin with someone who tested positive would start leaving the ship around mid-morning after spending two weeks in quarantine. The ministry said the disembarkation would be completed by Friday.

More than 500 of the 3,700 passengers and crew originally on the Diamond Princess have been diagnosed with Covid-19, making it home to the largest cluster of infections outside mainland China. Some experts have criticised quarantine conditionsonboard the ship, fearing it has become an incubator for the virus.

The luxury cruise liner was placed in lockdown at the port of Yokoyama early this month after it emerged that a passenger who disembarked in Hong Kong tested positive for the virus at the end of last month.

Updated

Sticking with South Korea, the finance minister has outlined some emergency funding measures to prop up the local economy, which is very exposed to the slowdown in China.

Hong Nam-ki said:

  • The government will provide 100bn won (US$84m) in reserve funds to help local authorities stem the spread of the virus.
  • Small tourism businesses will receive a total of 50bn won of credit-based loans with a 1% interest rate.
  • 300bn won worth of support for low-cost airlines suffering liquidity shortages.

Fifteen new cases in South Korea – report

South Korea has 15 new cases of the coronavirus and will announce the positive test results later on Wednesday, according to Yonhap news agency, which cited unnamed health officials.

The new cases are in the city of Daegu and the surrounding North Gyeongsang province, Yonhap said.

Health officials declined to confirm the Yonhap report, Reuters said.

There have been 31 cases of Covid-19 in South Korea as of Tuesday.

It comes as South Korean citizens arrived back in the country after being evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

Updated

Stock markets in Asia are in positive territory today after a dip yesterday caused largely by Apple’s shortages warning.

Sydney is up 0.15%, Tokyo is 0.4% to the good and Seoul is 0.5% better off.

In case you missed it, our economics editor Larry Elliott has been looking at what Apple’s warning tells us about the impact of the virus on the Chinese and global economies. Covid-19 is unusual because it is both a demand and a supply shock to Apple, he writes, with shoppers in China unable to get out and the supply of devices mostly made in China now drying up because of factory closures.

So far financial markets have “blithely asumed” that everything will be back to normal, Larry writes, but Germany, Japan and China – the top three economies behind the US – are all struggling and former two could be in recession soon. There are also signs the US economy might not be as strong as the occupant of the White House thinks.

He concludes with a grim warning of his own:

Bulls in the financial market have seen every dip in share prices as a buying opportunity, primarily because they are confident that the Federal Reserve and other central banks will step in and provide ample stimulus if things start to look grim. In the short-term, the bulls are right. In the long term, central banks will be legitimising reckless behaviour and risking the crash to end all crashes.

Here’s the full article:

Updated

Reuters has the latest health commission numbers. It says 2,004 people have died from the virus in mainland China, making a total around the world of 2,009 by my reckoning.

Confirmed cases on the mainland are 74,185. When you add Taiwan (22) and Hong Kong (62) that’s a total of 74,279.

Globally the total is 75,152.

The NHC website still hasn’t updated its daily briefing page.

Total deaths rise above 2,000 – reports

Chinese media are reporting that the total deaths from the virus are now more than 2,000. I’m hoping to get the official confirmation of national health commission figures shortly but Tencent reports 2,003 deaths in mainland China with one in Hong Kong. There have been four more deaths around the world.

The Johns Hopkins University tracker puts the total deaths, including those around the world, at 2,007, so there’s a discrepancy of one between the two figures. Total cases in mainland China stands at 74,139, according to Johns Hopkins.

Looking at more depth at the latest health figures from Hubei shows that deaths in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, rose markedly on Tuesday with 116 new fatalities, up from 72 on Monday. A total of 1,497 people have now died from the virus in Wuhan. New confirmed cases in Wuhan stood at 1,660, up from 1,600 on Monday.

Welcome to our rolling coverage of the coronavirus outbreak. I’m Martin Farrer and these are the main points today:

  • Another 132 people have died from the virus in Hubei as of midnight on Tuesday, the provincial health commission has said on Wednesday morning, making a total of 1,921. That represents a jump from 93 deaths recorded on Monday, or a rise of more than 40%.
  • The number of new cases in the province is 1,693, taking the total to 61,682. It is the lowest number since 11 February and the second consecutive day below 2,000.

The other main developments are:

And our health editor Sarah Boseley has been analysing how China’s handling of the outbreak has created a diplomatic balancing act for the WHO

 

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