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  • On Sunday, 97 people in China died from the Corona virus.

  • That's the highest number in a single day since this crisis began.

  • We know the death toll is a hole is now over 900.

  • Across China, more than 40,000 people are infected and over 180,000 under medical observation.

  • The better news is that the number of newly infected people per day has stabilized.

  • But his president g in Beijing, at a prevention and control center, You can see him having his temperature checked like many people have done.

  • The president says he's working to prevent large scale job losses because of this virus, but that looks harder to avoid as each day goes.

  • Buying.

  • Let's bring in Carrie Allen, Chinese specialist with BBC monitoring.

  • Carrie, Thanks for joining us and tell us more about President Xi's visit on what he's been saying today.

  • This was really striking footage, just in general, anyway, given that I mean, we were talking about this Corona virus story back in January on Dhe.

  • Then during Spring Festival there was it was very parent that she Jinping was very much not in the public eye very quickly he appointed Lee Cho Chang, his deputy, to be the kind of the face of of handling the Corona virus on dhe.

  • He visited war hand visited various hospitals.

  • What people haven't really seen she jumping.

  • I mean, even on newspapers like People's Daily, the big official newspaper.

  • You'd expect him to see him every day on the front cover, but very much since this current fire story started becoming the story.

  • He has not been anywhere on dhe.

  • There has been speculation that he's not been in the public eye because people have wanted to criticize him.

  • So he's very much this footage today of him appearing meeting people, being very friendly, wishing people well, talking to locals about the food they're selling it.

  • It's the first time that we've seen him being open and talking about coronavirus in public.

  • Carrie, stay with us, please.

  • A couple of other things to ask you about now.

  • This virus was first detected in the city of Wuhan on Blue has been in lock down for weeks.

  • Now we have this graph from the Chinese authorities which show the number of deaths every day in China, and you can see those figures have been going up through the last few weeks.

  • We also have this map which shows which parts of China have the highest number of cases.

  • The dark of the red, the higher the number and you can see Wuhan and it's province who bay with the darkest read of all on what all of this has been playing out.

  • Chinese workers are meant to be celebrating their Lunar New Year.

  • As you can see, it's not really happening in Beijing, but we know the break for the Lunar New Year supposed to go to the end of January.

  • But it was then pushed beyond that.

  • It's now finished, but things are a long, long way from normal.

  • His Robin brand.

  • We're here in Shanghai, the commercial capital, usually home to 24 million people.

  • It was supposed to be the first day back, but I have to say itwas a trickle.

  • The banks remain closed.

  • Most of the shops remained close.

  • There's a small number of people out there, but there are clearly a lot of anxieties amongst people living here in Shanghai, and the numbers of those coming back is almost certainly going to be staggered as well well.

  • The BBC Steven McDonald has just finished a two week quarantine period after reporting from Who Bay, and he's been sharing these pictures off deserted streets in Beijing.

  • And, as Robin was saying, despite the encouragement for people to go about toe work, many, many people are obviously not turning out.

  • We know factories and offices remain closed in a number of cases.

  • Here's some residents in Beijing.

  • Our company has adopted some special measures, including sanitizing every day.

  • The building is in isolation were required to wear masks the whole day while at work.

  • Actually, I still think it's a normal life.

  • It's fine as long as we pay little attention to it.

  • For example, disinfection and being careful not to have close contact with people most bringing Carrie again from BBC monitoring.

  • Carried to what extent are employers allowing people just not to come to work very much so, I mean, even, you know, the government has been telling people that even if people are going to work, they need thio very much distance themselves.

  • Be at least a meter of heart, not eat food together.

  • So and also one of the things we have to factor is that schools haven't returned.

  • Children haven't returned to scores yet.

  • So a lot of parents, for example, they they physically can actually get to work because they need child care on dhe childcare centers like nurseries of closed as well.

  • So parents very much cos of being sympathetic and recognizing that until this virus dies down, it's probably better that people stay at home rather than business is going back to work.

  • And President Xi has been talking about wanting to avoid job losses.

  • Are we already at a stage where we can say those losses are beginning?

  • Well, I think I think there's a bit of leeway because of this virus.

  • I mean, yes, there are, Yeah, there are jobs that people are nervous and they're trying to get back to work.

  • But at the same time, there have been people who, if they're trying to race back over there trying Thio do things like this and put others at risk.

  • They do risk short prison sentences for about 10 to 15 days.

  • So So, yes, I say the recently way on this, but but yet basically people just thinking, you know, for the greater good at the moment Cos employers as well as employees stay at home and just tied this out.

  • Carrie, thank you very much indeed.

  • While we've also heard from the World Health Organization today, it says the fatality rate for this virus is about 2%.

  • It's also expressed concern about how it's spreading outside of China Is director general in Geneva.

  • In recent days, we have seen some concerning instances off onward transmission from people with no travel history to China.

  • Like the cases reported in France yesterday and the United Kingdom today, the detection off this small number of cases could be the spark that becomes a bigger fire.

  • But the UK government has introduced new measures in England that mean those in quarantine could be forcibly sent into isolation if they pose a threat.

  • They also cannot leave without permission.

  • The press association's reporting that this steps being taken after someone threatened to abscond from one of the two quarantine center's currently being operated.

  • We also know there are cases of the virus in 24 countries now eight in the UK, four of which have connected toe one businessman We know he contracted the virus of the conference in Singapore.

  • He then flew to a ski resort in France.

  • There the virus spread to five more people who remain in France.

  • He then traveled to the U.

  • K.

  • Initially to Brighton on the South Coast, But now he's being treated in isolation at a hospital in London.

  • But a doctor's surgery and Brighton is also saying one of its staff has tested positive for the virus, and that story has led to the phrase super spreader being used a lot in the news today.

  • That's when one patient infects significant numbers of people.

  • You can find much more detail on how that works.

  • In this article on the BBC news website, it's really important to stress, though it's not the patient's folds, as people who are showing no symptoms at all can inadvertently spread the virus.

  • For example, who found this study from The Lancet medical journal focusing on 2003 when a Corona virus known as murders It was a big issue that included a super spreading event that lets more than 80 people being infected by one person.

  • Well, for more on how this virus appears to be spreading, here's the BBC's Michele Roberts.

  • It appears that some people might be able to pass the virus more readily than others.

  • We don't know why eso expert so far had thought, possibly somebody who's infected my pass it to two or three other people.

  • In this most recent example, it seems to be more than that s o hence the term super spreader.

  • But it's not down to the individual is just how the virus behaves in different people.

  • So it is very much we're learning how this forest, if you know, is different for different people.

  • Next returned to Hong Kong and Japan because passengers on cruise ships have bean in the eye of the storm.

  • With this virus in Hong Kong, passengers leaving one ship and you can see them here.

  • They were on board a vessel called the World Dream.

  • It's been in isolation after some people on a previous crew's caught the virus well, they've now been allowed to disembark, and that was after the authorities in Hong Kong carried out tests on 1800 people on board on gave them the all clear.

  • It's a different story, though, in yoga, Homer, because they're one cruise ship has had to be kept isolated on another 65 cases have been confirmed among passengers, with ships being quarantined since last week.

  • Here you can see it pictured.

  • It's called The Diamond Princess.

  • There are 3700 passengers on board, and they've been held in isolation for two.

  • They're going to be held for at least two weeks.

  • And that was after a passenger disembarked at a previous stop on a tested positive.

  • But unlike in Hong Kong, where everyone was tested, that's not happened in the case of this boat.

  • What sort of the highlight this laboratory in Wuhan?

  • Because it's now specializing in testing tryingto under detect how this virus works and how it's spreading.

  • The World Health Organization says being able to diagnose the disease effectively is crucial.

  • To be here to give people the all clear once they have been tested is the W.

  • H.

  • O.

  • Is director general.

  • Again, W.

  • Joe is working to keep laboratories with the capacity to rapidly diagnose cases without vital diagnostic capacity.

  • Countries are in the dark as to how far and wide the virus has spread well for more on the difficulties of testing for this virus on board a cruise ship Here's Dr Jennifer News Oh, from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

  • Well, I think one of the challenges with these cruise ships is you have everybody captured at a moment in time, and if it's possible that they have been exposed and are infected by the virus, then they may show signs of that virus over the next, potentially up to two weeks.

  • And so testing everyone and any moment in time is going to be difficult to know truly whether a person is infected or not.

  • Um, and I think this really speaks to one of the challenges of trying Thio detain these individuals and then decide whether or not they're safe to go or not, particularly if they're on the ship, and then they're exposed to somebody who then later develops an infection.

On Sunday, 97 people in China died from the Corona virus.

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