Indian army's toll double as compared to Pak: Lt Gen Iqbal

Shanghai, Jan 27: The death toll from a coronavirus outbreak in China rose to 81 on Monday, as the government extended the Lunar New Year holiday and more big businesses shut down or told staff to work from home in an effort to curb the spread.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited the central city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, as the government sought to signal it was responding seriously to the crisis.

The total number of confirmed cases in China rose about 30% to 2,744, about half of them in Hubei province, whose capital is Wuhan.

As worries grew around the world, Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, which has had eight confirmed cases, banned entry to people who had visited Hubei in the past 14 days. The ban did not cover Hong Kong residents.

The number of deaths from the flu-like virus in Hubei climbed to 76 from 56, health officials said, with five deaths elsewhere in China, including the southern island province of Hainan, which reported its first fatality on Monday.

While a small number of cases have been confirmed in more than 10 countries, linked to people who traveled from Wuhan, no deaths have been reported elsewhere.

Li is the most senior leader to visit Wuhan since the outbreak began. Clad in a blue protective suit and mask, he inspected efforts to contain the epidemic and spoke to patients and medical staff, the government said.

The government is extending the week-long Lunar New Year holiday by three days to February 2, in a bid to slow the spread of the virus. The Lunar New Year is usually a time for millions of people to travel, but many have had to cancel their plans because of travel curbs over the virus.

Incubation

Wuhan is already in virtual lockdown and severe limits on movement are in place in several other Chinese cities.

The city of 11 million clamped down further on Monday, announcing the suspension of visa and passport services until January 30.

Despite the curbs, the mayor of Wuhan said on Sunday that five million people had left the city for holidays and other reasons.

Images from Wuhan showing hospital corridors packed with people seeking treatment have circulated on social media, along with complaints of soaring prices for essentials such as vegetables.

Chinese leaders have urged transparency in the crisis, after public trust was eroded by the cover-up of the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a coronavirus that originated in China and killed nearly 800 people globally in 2002 and 2003.

Much is not known about the newly identified coronavirus, including how easily it spreads and just how dangerous it is. It can cause pneumonia, which has been deadly in some cases.

National Health Commission minister Ma Xiaowei said on Sunday the incubation period could range from one to 14 days, and the virus was infectious during incubation, unlike SARS.

That compares with a World Health Organization (WHO) estimate of two to 10 days for the incubation period.

“Understanding the time when infected patients may transmit the virus to others is critical for control efforts,” the WHO said.

The virus is believed to have originated late last year in a Wuhan market illegally selling wildlife. It has spread to other cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, as well as more than 10 countries including France, Japan and the United States.

‘Overwhelmed’

Australia confirmed its fifth case on Monday involving a woman on the last flight out of Wuhan to Sydney before China’s travel ban.

Health minister Greg Hunt told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) authorities aimed to get about 100 Australian children and young people out of Wuhan.

One father of two, Nathan Wang, told the ABC his wife was stuck in Wuhan with the children. “We absolutely want the children to come back, because hospitals in Wuhan are overwhelmed,” he said.

Airports around the world have stepped up screening of passengers from China, although some health experts have questioned its effectiveness.

Last week the WHO stopped short of calling the outbreak a global health emergency, but some health experts question whether China can contain the epidemic.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is due to travel to Beijing to meet officials and health experts.

Australia, France, Italy, Japan and the United States have all said they are working to evacuate citizens from Wuhan.

Some of China’s biggest companies have been affected, with hotpot restaurant chain Haidilao International Holding shutting branches nationwide from Sunday until Friday.

Gaming giant Tencent Holdings Ltd advised staff to work from home until February 7, and e-commerce firm Alibaba removed vendors’ offers of overpriced face masks from its online Taobao marketplace as prices surged.

More than one in six youths were jobless since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic while those who remain employed have seen their working hours cut by 23 per cent, according to a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

According to the 'ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work: 4th edition' published on Wednesday, youths are being disproportionately affected by the pandemic, and the substantial and rapid increase in youth unemployment seen since February is affecting young women more than young men, reports Xinhua news agency.

The pandemic is inflicting a triple shock on young people.

Not only is it destroying their employment, but it is also disrupting education and training, and placing major obstacles in the way of those seeking to enter the labour market or to move between jobs, said the report.

At 13.6 per cent, the youth unemployment rate in 2019 was already higher than any other group.

There were around 267 million young people not in employment, education or training worldwide.

"If we do not take significant and immediate action to improve their situation, the legacy of the virus could be with us for decades," said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.

"If their talent and energy is sidelined by a lack of opportunity or skills, it will damage all our futures and make it much more difficult to re-build a better, post-COVID economy."

The report called for urgent, large-scale and targeted policy responses to support youth, including broad-based employment/training guarantee programs in developed countries, and employment-intensive programs and guarantees in low- and middle-income economies.

Moscow, May 19: Russia confirmed 9,263 new coronavirus infections Tuesday, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 299,941.

On Sunday, the head of Russia's public health watchdog, Anna Popova, said the growth of new coronavirus cases in Russia is stabilizing.

Russia is the second most-affected country in terms of infections.

A record 115 people have died over the past 24 hours, bringing the total toll to 2,837 — a rate considerably lower than in many other countries hit hard by the pandemic.

Russia began easing nation-wide lockdown restrictions last week and announced the national football league would restart in late June.

Critics have cast doubt on Russia's low official mortality rate, accusing authorities of under-reporting in order to play down the scale of the crisis.

Russian health officials say one of the reasons the count is lower is that only deaths directly caused by the virus are being included.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova over the weekend denied manipulation of numbers, saying hospitals had a financial interest in identifying infections because they are allocated more money to treat coronavirus patients.

Authorities also say that since the virus came later to Russia, there was more time to prepare hospital beds and launch wide-scale testing to slow the spread.