Home  WORLD NEWS  Coronavirus Outbreak a Major Test of China’s System, Says Xi Jinping

Chinese leader Xi Jinping described the coronavirus outbreak rampaging through central China as a major test of the country’s system of governance, and vowed consequences for officials who shirk responsibility in tackling the crisis.

Meantime, American health authorities on Monday reported a second case of the coronavirus being passed from one person to another in the U.S. as they raised the number of confirmed cases in the country to 11.

Mr. Xi’s comments, delivered at a special meeting of the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo Standing Committee on Monday about the government’s response to the dangerous new pathogen came as the number of the number of infected people passed 17,000 and Hong Kong planned to close more border crossings with the Chinese mainland.

"Anyone who fails to perform their duties will be punished according to discipline and law," Mr. Xi said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Mr. Xi also said he was closely monitoring the effects of the epidemic on the operation of China’s economy, according to Xinhua.

Cases of the new virus in China on Sunday reached 17,205, the country’s National Health Commission reported, more than double the number afflicted world-wide by severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, nearly two decades ago.

           

         Tedros Adhanom, WHO director-general, met with Chinese President Xi in Beijing last Tuesday.

    

          

             Photo:

          

       Naohiko Hatta, press pool

        

Deaths in China hit 361, the commission reported, exceeding the 349 the World Health Organization said died in mainland China during the SARS crisis. Still, SARS, caused by a different strain of coronavirus, killed more people globally—nearly 800 as it spread in 2002 and 2003.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a California resident was infected by a member of the person’s household who became ill after returning from Wuhan, China. The transmission is the latest between two people in the U.S. after a Chicago woman who had traveled to Wuhan infected her husband after her return to the U.S.

All other infected people in the U.S. had recently traveled to the Wuhan area, the epicenter of the outbreak.

The CDC added five more confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. since its last update Friday, raising the total to 11. Four of the new cases were in California, while the fifth was in Massachusetts, the agency said. CDC officials said Americans remain at low risk of infection.

In China, the outbreak puts immense pressure on Mr. Xi, who in a meeting last week with WHO Director-General

     Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,

      took credit for personally directing the country’s response. Officials have come under fire, both internationally and at home, for being slow to react to the threat of the virus, and concerns are mounting that the virus could derail an economy already slowed by a trade war with the U.S.

The rapid construction of a hospital to treat patients at the resource-strained center of the coronavirus outbreak was completed Sunday. Built in 10 days, the hospital, which began accepting patients Monday, according to state media, is one of two going up to treat virus patients in the stricken central Chinese city of Wuhan. A video on the website of state-controlled news agency Xinhua, which reported the completion, showed a crowd of construction workers—all wearing face masks—applauding during the inauguration ceremony.

Roughly 1,400 military medical workers will staff the 1,000-bed Huoshenshan ("Fire God Mountain") hospital, Xinhua said.

The outbreak has strained resources throughout Wuhan’s province of Hubei, leaving lines long and hospital beds and gear short. The city of 11 million people has been under severe travel restrictions, as have some others.

U.S. national security adviser

     Robert O’Brien

      said Sunday that the U.S. was prepared to send a team from the CDC to help but that Chinese officials hadn’t responded to the offer.

Officials in Beijing said Monday that medical gear was flowing into the outbreak’s center. More than 150,000 pieces of protective clothing and more than 130,000 medical masks had been sent to Hubei, said Tian Yulong, chief engineer with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

           

         A pedestrian crossed an empty street at a usually busy intersection in Beijing’s central business district on Monday, the first day back after an extended Lunar New Year holiday.

    

          

             Photo:

          

       Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

        

In a regular Monday press briefing—held over Chinese social-media app

           WeChat

      instead of at the Foreign Ministry because of the outbreak—ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said more medical masks, protective suits and safety goggles were urgently needed.

China’s markets, opening Monday after the outbreak-extended Lunar New Year holiday, fell sharply. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed down 7.7%, catching up with last week’s declines in the rest of the world.

In the special Chinese territory of Hong Kong, hospital workers began a five-day strike Monday, an effort by organized labor to get the government to fully close the border with mainland China. Chief Executive

     Carrie Lam

      said that Hong Kong would shut some of its busiest checkpoints but stopped short of closing all border crossings with the mainland. The move wasn’t a concession to the workers, she said.

Previously, about half had been closed, including ferries and high-speed rail services from the mainland. Some governments have included Hong Kong and Macau, a neighboring territory, in their Chinese travel restrictions.

The medical workers’ strike had a big effect on hospital service in Hong Kong, said Hospital Authority Chief Executive Ko Pat-sing, who later met with the union. A union representative said that talks broke down and that the union would escalate the action on Tuesday, affecting the city’s hospital emergency service.

           

         A man wearing a mask walked through a deserted part of Shanghai’s Lujiazui financial district on Monday.

    

          

             Photo:

          

       aly song/Reuters

        

Russia, which has already tightened its borders and restricted air travel, might start deporting foreigners who are infected, Prime Minister

     Mikhail Mishustin

      said during a televised meeting Monday. President

     Vladimir Putin

      ordered the use of military aircraft to evacuate Russian nationals stuck in parts of China worst affected by the coronavirus.

Several governments, including the U.S. and the U.K., have chartered planes to repatriate people from Hubei.

The Israeli health ministry on Sunday began requiring all citizens returning from China to quarantine themselves at home for 14 days, and the country’s borders are closed to noncitizens who have been in China in the past two weeks. Several other countries in the Middle East—Iran, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq and Egypt—took measures to distance themselves from contact with China, including suspending flights to and from the mainland.

Ms. Hua, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, singled out U.S. restrictions in criticizing some governments as overreacting, saying the WHO doesn’t endorse a travel ban. "We hope countries will make reasonable, calm and science-based judgments and responses," she said.

In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security had announced new precautions on Sunday: U.S. citizens who have traveled in China within the past 14 days will be rerouted to one of seven designated airports for screening. The U.S., along with governments in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, is restricting visitors from China and screening returning nationals.

         Challenges for travel and leisure stocks, slower economic growth and a weaker Chinese yuan are among the new market implications investors are dealing with as the new coronavirus spreads rapidly. Photo: Bloomberg/Qilai Shen

—Xiao Xiao and Ann M. Simmons contributed to this article.

Write to Brianna Abbott at brianna.abbott@wsj.com, Shan Li at shan.li@wsj.com and Joyu Wang at joyu.wang@wsj.com

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