China : the country where not to go

European nations are evacuating, more and more quickly, residents from Chinese cities as the deadly coronavirus spreads, with new cases in Finland, Germany and China, where 170 people have “officially” died and thousands infected.
With 5,974 confirmed cases in China – according to Chinese authorities – as of Wednesday, the coronavirus has now infected more people than during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.
Most airlines are canceling flights to and from China as the number of coronavirus cases increase rapidly and that further deaths are expected.

St. Lucia, one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the Caribbean, on Wednesday called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to allow the full participation of Taiwanese authorities in its response to the spread of a deadly new coronavirus.
In a press release, the St. Lucian embassy in Taiwan said that in order to effectively prevent the spread of a virus that “respects no borders,” the WHO must “ensure the full involvement of Taiwanese authorities” in its response to the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

“Short-term or myopic considerations must not be permitted to impede international information exchange, consultation and collective action,” the embassy said in the statement.

The virus has already spooked stock markets over the past week amid the growing threat to the global economy. Tourism industry, Airlines, hotel groups and luxury goods firms have been among the worst hit. IAG, the owner of British Airways, is down 12 percent. Intercontinental Hotels Group has lost 10 percent.
Shortly, the ongoing coronavirus outbreaks is hitting the tourism industry in China, Japan and Thailand “hard,” industry experts have claimed. In one recent example, about 20,000 tourists canceled trips booked with a Tokyo-based tour company. Group travel to China are stopped and tour operators specialized in Asia are hard hit and lot of those “niche” operator could experience serious difficulties in the future.

The impact on the mondial economy will be very important this year, especially as the situation is expected to persist for some time.

J.S.