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China: coronavirus more deadly than SARS, stock markets plunge – All the news from Guadeloupe on the Internet

Three hundred and sixty-one dead: the balance sheet of the new coronavirus now exceeds that of SARS in mainland China, where a hospital, built in record time to cope with the influx of patients, was to open on Monday.

After ten days off due to the Chinese New Year, the stock markets, panic-stricken by the country’s paralysis and weak economic prospects, have reopened sharply down, losing almost 9%.

Ten days after the detention of Wuhan, the giant metropolis at the epicenter of the virus which has spread to 24 countries, the National Health Commission has reported a death toll of 361, including 57 additional deaths during of the single day of Sunday.

There are now in mainland China (excluding Hong Kong and Macao) more deaths from this coronavirus than from the SARS epidemic (severe acute respiratory syndrome), which killed 349 people in 2002-2003.

The daily toll of 57 dead is also the heaviest since the epidemic began in December.

The virus also killed one person for the first time outside China: a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan who died in the Philippines, WHO announced on Sunday morning.

– Teleworking –

In China, if the series of 10 public holidays ended theoretically on Sunday, the country continued to operate in slow motion, many companies having automatically extended the holidays by one week or allowed their employees to work at home .

In Shanghai, the country’s economic capital, an office building prohibited employees from accessing their workplace, citing a municipal decree postponing the resumption of activity to February 10.

In Beijing, where almost all the inhabitants cover their faces with a protective mask, the business districts remained largely deserted, with car traffic much lower than that of a quiet weekend.

Body temperature checks are systematically carried out at the entrances of office buildings or public places such as parks.

The government has granted three additional days of leave in hopes of delaying the return to the cities of the hundreds of millions of migrant workers who have returned to their provinces during the Lunar New Year.

The latter, however, began to gradually return to the major cities of the country.

– A hospital in 10 days –

The number of confirmed infections in China has climbed to more than 17,200, far exceeding that of SARS, which had killed a total of 774 people, mostly in mainland China and Hong Kong.

The vast majority of deaths and cases of contamination by the new coronavirus are to be deplored in Wuhan and its province, Hubei, where some 56 million people have been cut off from the world since January 23.

Faced with an overwhelmed hospital system, the city was to receive the first patients on Monday in a hospital built in the record time of 10 days.

The construction of this “Hospital of the Mountain of the God of Fire” took place with great propaganda, with images broadcast repeatedly on television.

An online video service makes it possible to constantly monitor the progress of work on the site, which must accommodate a thousand beds. A medical team of 1,400 soldiers will take care of the patients.

Another even larger hospital (1,600 beds) is under construction in the city. It should open in a few days.

Local officials have been criticized for their slow response to the outbreak, apparently in a market in Wuhan. The highest communist official in the metropolis of 11 million inhabitants made his self-criticism on television on Friday.

At the very beginning of the epidemic, eight people were briefly arrested by the police for spreading “false rumors”. The justice system rehabilitated them last week with a text criticizing the police.

– Support for the economy

Containment was extended on Sunday to Wenzhou, a port city of more than 9 million people located some 800 km east of Wuhan. Only one person per household is allowed to go out once every two days to do the shopping.

Faced with the crisis that paralyzes the economy of the country, the Chinese stock markets were caught up on Monday at their reopening by the concern that has unscrewed the other world places for ten days.

The Chinese authorities had however taken the lead to try to reassure investors: the Chinese central bank had thus announced Sunday that it was going to inject 1,200 billion yuan (156 billion euros) into the banking system in order to support the economy.

Abroad, the G7 countries will work together to provide a “uniform” response to the epidemic, announced Sunday the German Minister of Health.

Many countries have increased protection measures: the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Iraq and Israel and the Philippines in particular have prohibited foreigners who have recently visited China from entering their territory.

Mongolia, Russia and Nepal have closed their land border with China.

At the same time, foreign repatriation operations continue: a second French plane bringing back passengers of 30 different nationalities from Wuhan landed in southeastern France on Sunday. And an airplane carrying 167 Moroccans landed in Morocco.

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