President Xi Jinping said that China was sure of defeating a 'devil' coronavirus that has killed 106 people, but international alarm was rising as the outbreak spread across the world.
Beijing - President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that China was sure of defeating a "devil" coronavirus that has killed 106 people, but international alarm was rising as the outbreak spread across the world.
From France to Japan, governments were organising evacuations, while Hong Kong - scene of anti-China unrest for months - planned to suspend rail and ferry links with the mainland. The United States said it was expanding screening of arrivals from China from five to 20 airports and Health Secretary Alex Azar said nothing was "off the table" in terms of imposing further travel restrictions.
Among countries pulling nationals out of Wuhan, the central Chinese city of 11 million people where the outbreak started, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said a chartered plane would pick up its consular staff on Wednesday. The European Commission said it would help fund two aircraft to fly EU citizens home, with 250 French nationals leaving on the first flight.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Xi met in Beijing to discuss how to protect Chinese and foreigners in areas affected by the virus and possible evacuation alternatives, a WHO spokesman said.
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