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Coronavirus spreads
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building a second field hospital to relieve overwhelmed medical facilities and closing more travel routes as the country marked the Lunar New Year holiday.
“As long as we have steadfast confidence, work together, scientific prevention and cures, and precise policies, we will definitely be able to win the battle,” Xi said, after more countries reported cases.
In Wuhan, 450 military medics were deployed to help treat patients in the central city, where a seafood and live animal market has been identified as the centre of the outbreak.
When they should have been celebrating Lunar New Year, people waiting at one hospital in the city were angry and frustrated.
“It takes at least five hours to see a doctor,” one woman, who didn’t want to be named, told AFP.
One man in his 30s said some people had to queue for two days.
The country’s most important celebration has been all but cancelled for at least 56 million people as authorities expanded travel bans across central Hubei province to try and contain the spread of the virus.
On the eastern outskirts of Wuhan, police manning a roadblock turned away a handful of vehicles trying to exit the city.
“Nobody can leave,” an officer told AFP.
But the police allowed some medical workers who had gone home for the holidays to re-enter the city to help at crowded hospitals.
The government says most of the cases have been in Hubei and most of the deaths involved people who already suffered pre-existing health conditions.
Underscoring fears that the virus could spread further, Beijing will suspend long-distance bus service entering and leaving the capital of 20 million people from Sunday due to “requirements of epidemic prevention and control,” the official People’s Daily newspaper reported.
The National Health Commission also ordered nationwide measures to detect and isolate people carrying the virus on planes, trains and buses across the country.
Xinhua said that temperature screening checkpoints have been set up in 387 railway stations across the country.
Meanwhile, tourists from Hubei in Haikou, capital of the island province of Hainan, were told by the city government they had to spend 14 days in a hotel for centralised medical observation, and were forbidden to leave.
Foreign citizens were set to be evacuated from the virus-hit Wuhan within the next few days.
Residents in Wuhan were stocking up on masks, gloves and disinfectant.
The virus has caused global concern because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).
The new virus has now infected people nationwide and in nearly a dozen other countries, with France saying three cases were confirmed there -- the first known European infections.
The virus has also been detected in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Nepal, and the United States.
Beijing’s Forbidden City, Shanghai Disneyland and a section of the Great Wall are among many attractions that have closed as a precaution. China’s film box-office earnings for Lunar New Year’s Eve on Friday were just one-tenth of last year as people shunned crowds.
Xi chaired a Communist Party leadership meeting which urged regional governments to make “the safety of the masses’ lives and their physical health a top priority”, state media said.
Xinhua said the Standing Committee agreed to set up a working group that would visit Hubei.
In Hong Kong, where five people have tested positive for the virus so far, city leader Carrie Lam declared the situation an “emergency” and schools, currently on holiday, will remain closed until February 17.
China’s aggressive response has won praise, especially compared to the SARS outbreak, when it was accused of reacting sluggishly and stonewalling the international community.
“China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus,” US President Donald Trump tweeted, hours after the United States confirmed its second case.
“The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency,” he added.
The World Health Organization on Thursday stopped short of declaring a global emergency, which would have prompted greater international cooperation, including possible trade and travel restrictions.

Torrential rain kills dozens in Madagascar
Afp, Antananarivo
At least 26 people have died in Madagascar after almost a week of heavy rain in the north-west of the island, the government said on Friday.
The tropical Indian Ocean nation is in the midst of an intense six-month rainy season that often results in casualties and widespread damage.
Flooding in the districts of Mitsinjo and Maevatanana has claimed at least 26 lives since Sunday, and 15 more people are still missing and thousands have been displaced, the National Bureau of Disaster Risk Management (BNGRC) announced on Friday.
Strips of road were swept away by the rains and access to affected areas has been cut off.
The BNGRC warned that flooding in lowland and rice-growing areas also posed a risk of “food insecurity and malnutrition”.
A disruption in the supply of basic goods could also lead to surge in prices, it added.
Prime Minister Christian Ntsay declared the situation a “national loss”.
“The government is calling on national figures and international partners to help the Malagasy people with emergency aid, early recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction,” spokeswoman Lalatiana Andriatongarivo said in a statement.
The rainy season usually stretches from October to April in Madagascar, a former French colony off Africa’s southeastern coast.
Global warming has increased the risk and intensity of flooding, as the atmosphere holds more water and rainfall patterns are disrupted.
Built-up urban areas with poor drainage systems are especially vulnerable to heavy downpours, scientists say.
Nine people were killed in January 2019 after heavy rains caused a building to collapse in the capital Antananarivo.
During this period, the country is also often hit by cyclones and other tropical storms.
Cyclone Belna landed in the northwest last month, killing at least two people and displacing hundreds.