AFP, Beijing :
Chinese authorities have ordered the extension of a public holiday in an effort to contain an epidemic that has killed 56 people and infected nearly 2,000 worldwide, state-run media reported.
A working group chaired by Premier Li Keqiang to tackle the outbreak decided on Sunday “to reduce population flows” by extending the Spring Festival holiday which had been scheduled to end on January 30, state news agency Xinhua said.
It was not immediately clear how long the extension is.
The group also ordered changes to “the starting dates of schools” and “people to work from home by working online.”
“The meeting stressed that the country is at a crucial time in the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus outbreak, urging Party committees and governments at all levels to take more ‘decisive, powerful and orderly, scientific and well-planned’ measures to effective curb the spread,” Xinhua reported.
In a bid to slow the spread of the respiratory virus, the government had previously locked down hard-hit Hubei, a province in central China that is at the outbreak’s epicentre, in an unprecedented operation affecting tens of millions of people.
Chinese authorities are locking down three cities that are home to more than 18 million people in an effort to contain the deadly coronavirus; Seventeen people have died, all of them in and around Wuhan, China.
The previously unknown virus has caused global concern because of its similarity to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) pathogen, which killed hundreds across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.
Originating in Hubei’s capital of Wuhan, the virus has spread throughout China and across the world-with cases confirmed in around a dozen countries including as far away as the United States.
Several countries were making arrangements to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan, where an eery calm pervades as new restrictions prohibit most road traffic in the metropolis of 11 million.
China on Monday extended its biggest national holiday to buy time in the fight against a viral epidemic and neighbouring Mongolia closed its border, after the death toll spiked to 81 despite unprecedented quarantine measures.
In a sign of the mounting official concern, Premier Li Keqiang visited ground-zero to oversee containment efforts in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people where the coronavirus emerged late last month.
The government has sealed off Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province, effectively trapping tens of millions of people, including thousands of foreigners, in a bid to quarantine the virus that struck amid the Lunar New Year holiday.
Twenty-four new deaths were confirmed in Hubei on Monday, and the southern island province of Hainan reported its first fatality, bringing the nationwide toll to 81, as confirmed infections swelled to more than 2,700.
Isolated Mongolia, which is heavily dependent on trade with China closed the border with its huge neighbour to cars, and shut schools, universities and other “public events”, Vice Prime Minister Enkhtuvshin Ulziisaikhan said on Sunday.
