China asks for help to contain new coronavirus and criticizes US for “sowing panic” – News

“What China urgently needs is masks, costumes and goggles”, said Hua Chunying, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Several countries, including France, the United Kingdom, Japan and South Korea, have already announced that they are sending medical supplies to China, the spokeswoman added.

Meanwhile, the country remains paralyzed by the virus that has already infected more than 17,000 people. On Monday, the Ministry of Industry acknowledged that, after the long Lunar New Year holiday concluded on Sunday, the factories have resumed production and are now running at 70% capacity.

Chinese health officials have recorded 57 deaths in the past 24 hours, the worst daily balance since the new coronavirus was detected in December in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province. In all, 361 people have died in that country.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which has already declared an international emergency due to the current epidemic, reported in the Philippines the first fatal victim of the new coronavirus outside China, a 44-year-old man from Wuhan.

See below the interactive map with all confirmed coronavirus cases

If you can’t see the map developed by Johns Hopkins, follow to this link.

– Stigma –

Most deaths and infections are concentrated in Hubei, where about 56 million people have been isolated from the world since January 23 and are severely restricted from leaving their homes in an attempt to contain the spread. Its inhabitants feel discriminated against and under constant suspicion.

Lucy Huang, a 26-year-old documentary filmmaker who lives in Beijing and was born in Wuhan, says she feels “very hurt”. “Our enemy is the virus, it shouldn’t be the people of Hubei, or Wuhan,” he told AFP.

In the vast industrial city of Wenzhou, about 800 kilometers from Wuhan, quarantined, its nine million inhabitants have been ordered that only one resident per family can leave the house every two days to buy essentials.

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