China expands travel restriction as coronavirus death toll hits 56

Medical staff members carry a patient into the Jinyintan hospital, where patients infected by a mysterious SARS-like virus are being treated, in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province on January 18, 2020. — AFP file photo

China on Sunday expanded drastic travel restrictions to contain a viral contagion that president Xi Jinping said posed a ‘grave’ threat, as the death toll reached 56 and Shanghai reported its first fatality.

China has locked down the worst-hit province of Hubei in the country’s centre in a massive quarantine affecting tens of millions of people to slow the spread of a respiratory illness that has killed 56 people and infected almost 2,000.

The virus has also spread around the world, with cases confirmed in around a dozen other countries as distant as France, Australia and the United States.

In the epicentre city of Wuhan, Hubei’s capital, new restrictions went into effect on Sunday banning most cars from the streets of the metropolis of 11 million.

The normally bustling streets of Wuhan were deserted on Sunday morning, with staff at a hotel telling AFP they had to walk to work. Authorities have also started to curtail travel in other parts of the country.

Long-distance bus services entering and leaving Beijing, the capital of 20 million, were suspended on Sunday. The neighbouring northern city of Tianjin, with a population 15 million, announced it would follow suit on Monday.

Overseas Chinese tour groups will be suspended from Monday while domestic trips have already been halted since Friday.

The nationwide death toll rose to 56 after 15 new deaths, most in Hubei.

In a worrying sign for containment efforts, the country’s financial hub Shanghai on Sunday reported its first death from the virus — an 88-year-old man with pre-existing health problems.

China’s military has dispatched 450 medics, many with experience combating infectious diseases, to help treat patients in Wuhan, where hospitals are overwhelmed and medical supplies like goggles and masks running low.