Global alarm about the Wuhan coronavirus is rising, with some governments arranging evacuation plans to get their nationals out of the city, which is under quarantine, via charter plane. On Tuesday, the European Commission announced it would partially fund two planes for EU citizens, including 250 French nationals. U.S. diplomats and other citizens were evacuated to California on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, British Airways has suspended all flights to and from mainland China and the British government is evacuating citizens—but in some cases U.K. authorities are dividing families by refusing to evacuate dual citizens and British permanent residents with Chinese passports, the Guardian reports.
The evacuations come alongside other prevention measures. Most of the virus cases—4,633, according to official figures—so far are in China, but Germany, Vietnam, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan have confirmed cases, raising fears of contagion elsewhere. The United States has increased its screening of passengers from Wuhan to include 20 ports of entry, and its health secretary said it wasn’t ruling out further travel restrictions.
China’s official response. In China, the death toll from the Wuhan virus exceeded 100 on Tuesday. The Chinese National Health Commission was expected to deliver an update on the virus on Wednesday, and the government will allow international experts to join the effort to contain the outbreak. There are concerns that a number of cases in China have gone unreported due to a shortage of test kits, including in Wuhan itself. Access to health care—mostly private in China—is becoming a critical issue, as Andreea Brinza writes for FP.
Will the virus wreck the economy? Markets rebounded on Tuesday, showing that investors are still trying to figure out how much the Wuhan virus outbreak will affect the global economy. If the epidemic extends into the summer as some experts predict, the effects on China’s economy could be wide-reaching, FP’s Keith Johnson and James Palmer report.
