Hong Kong reports first death as China’s leadership admits ‘shortcomings’

Hong Kong has reported its first death from coronavirus, as the toll in China passed 420 and its leadership admitted “shortcomings” in its handling of the outbreak.

A 39-year-old man with an underlying health condition died on Tuesday morning, according to the public broadcaster RTHK.

His death is the second outside the mainland after a Chinese national from Wuhan was confirmed on Sunday to have died in the Philippines.

China announced 64 new deaths on Tuesday – surpassing Monday’s record to confirm the biggest daily increase since the virus was detected late last year in the central province of Hubei.

The virus has killed at least 426 people, exceeding the 349 mainland deaths from the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak of 2002-03, which killed nearly 800 globally.

The total number of infections in China also rose, to more than 20,000. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the crisis a global health emergency, with at least 151 cases in 23 other countries and regions.

The virus is taking an increasing economic toll, shutting businesses, curbing international travel and affecting production lines of global brands.

China’s currency and stock markets steadied in choppy trade after anxiety over the virus hit the yuan on Monday and erased about $400bn (£308bn) in market value from Shanghai’s benchmark index. Macau, the world’s biggest gambling hub, said it had asked all casino operators to suspend operations for two weeks to help curb the spread of the virus.

Wuhan, a bustling industrial hub where the virus is believed to have been transferred from animals at a market into humans, has been turned into a near ghost town as a de facto quarantine continues.

Residents say they are unable to find hospitals to care for their sick relatives. Several hospitals require patients to first get a referral from local community health centres, many of which are also overwhelmed. As the city remains under lockdown, with public transport and roads shut, people are also struggling to get to health facilities.

Authorities have been racing to build two hospitals to treat the infected. The first of those – a 1,000-bed facility – began to receive patients on Monday, the People’s Daily reported, only 10 days after construction began. A second hospital is due to open this week.

Authorities in Wuhan have also started converting a gymnasium, exhibition centre and cultural complex into makeshift hospitals with more than 3,400 beds for patients with mild infections, the official Changjiang Daily said.

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As the crisis has developed, people from Wuhan and Hubei have faced increasing discrimination in other parts of the country. Many say they have been kicked out or turned away from hotels. In the southern province of Yunnan, the culture and tourism bureau was forced to issue a notice ordering cities to designate at least one hotel for people from Hubei.

Passengers on a flight from Japan to Shanghai in late January reportedly refused to board a flight that had passengers from Wuhan on it. Neighbourhood committees, charged with rooting out any recent returnees from Hubei, have placed signs on the doors of those recently returned from the province advising other residents not to visit them.

Beyond China’s borders, fresh cases were reported in the US, including a patient in California infected through close contact with someone in the same household who had been infected in China. It was the second instance of person-to-person spread in the US after a case reported last week in Illinois.

There have been 15 confirmed cases in Hong Kong, where authorities announced new border closures after hundreds of medical workers went on strike on Monday over the government’s refusal to stop travellers from mainland China. Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, said measures would be taken “to reduce people movement across the border”.

Hospital staff said the 39-year-old victim had a pre-existing chronic illness and had visited Wuhan in January before falling ill. His 72-year-old mother was also confirmed to have contracted the virus.

Late on Monday, China’s elite Politburo Standing Committee called for improvements to the “national emergency management system” following “shortcoming and difficulties exposed in the response to the epidemic”. “It is necessary to strengthen market supervision, resolutely ban and severely crack down on illegal wildlife markets and trade,” it added.

The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, who led the meeting, said the outbreak was a “major test” of China’s system and ability to govern.

“We must sum up the experience and draw a lesson from it”, he said, according to a summary of the meeting, as well as “face shortcomings and weaknesses exposed by the outbreak” … The outcome of the epidemic prevention and control directly affects people’s lives and health, the overall economic and social stability and the country’s opening-up.”

Experts say much is still unknown about the pathogen, including its mortality rate and transmission routes. With more than 20,000 confirmed infections, the mortality rate for the new coronavirus is be lower than the 9.6% rate for Sars, but it appears to be more contagious. Reports of deaths not counted in official statistics have also cast doubt on the mortality rate.

Such uncertainties have spurred extreme measures by some countries to stem the spread. Australia sent hundreds of evacuees from Wuhan to a remote island in the Indian Ocean, while Japan ordered the quarantine of a cruise ship with more than 3,000 onboard after a Hong Kong man who sailed on it last month tested positive for the virus.