People wearing masks walk on a bridge in Shanghai, China - Reuters

SHANGHAI (Reuters): The death toll in China from the new coronavirus reached 213 on Friday, with overall cases worldwide rising rapidly in an outbreak that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency.

The death toll in Hubei, the Chinese province at the centre of the epidemic, had risen to 204 and there were 9,692 cases of infection nationally as of Thursday, Chinese health authorities said. About 100 cases have been reported in at least 18 other countries, with no deaths outside China.

Even as the WHO said cases had spread to 18 countries, Italy announced its first confirmed cases, in two Chinese tourists.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the government had decided to close all air traffic between Italy and China, a more drastic measure than most countries have undertaken.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said the organisation “doesn’t recommend – and actually opposes” restrictions on travel or trade with China.

Nonetheless, foreign governments have been flying home their citizens from Hubei and holding them in quarantine, while airlines including Air France, American Airlines and British Airways have stopped flying to mainland China.

Airlines are facing mounting pressure by cabin crew to stop all flights due to unease about exposure to the virus.

Stocks around the world have tumbled on fears of the economic fallout from the outbreak in the world’s second-biggest economy.

Lockdown in Wuhan

Some 60 million people in Hubei province are living under virtual lockdown.

There had been a further 1,220 cases detected in Hubei by end of 30 January, taking the total for the province to close to 6,000, Hubei’s health commission said.

Tedros praised China’s response in a news conference in Geneva on Thursday evening but said the WHO was declaring a global health emergency because it was concerned about the virus spreading to countries that did not have the resources to deal with it.

“The main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China but because of what is happening in other countries. Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems,” he said.

The WHO move will trigger tighter containment and information-sharing guidelines to all countries, but may disappoint Beijing, which had expressed confidence it can beat the “devil” virus.

China’s UN ambassador, Zhang Jun, said Beijing was assessing the declaration.

“We are still at a very critical stage in fighting the coronavirus. International solidarity is extremely important and for that purpose all countries should behave in a ... responsible manner,” Zhang said.

WHO says countries should keep borders open despite coronavirus

GENEVA, (Reuters): Borders should be kept open and people and trade flowing in the face of the coronavirus outbreak, although countries have a sovereign right to take measures to try to protect their citizens, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.

The WHO, which declared the accelerating outbreak a global emergency on Thursday, voiced fresh concern that the virus could spread undetected in a country with a weak health system.

There is a “huge reason to keep official border crossings open” to avoid people entering irregularly and going unchecked for symptoms, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a Geneva briefing. “If travel restrictions would be imposed we hope they are as short-lived as possible to try to continue the normal flow of life,” he added.

Singapore bans all China travellers to keep out coronavirus

Foreigners who have been to China recently are also banned

SINGAPORE, (Reuters): Singapore said on Friday it was banning entry to all Chinese visitors and foreigners with a recent history of travel to China in some of the most far-reaching moves worldwide to deter the fast-spreading coronavirus.

The ban, effective from Saturday, will also apply to transiting passengers but will exempt residents and long-term pass holders such as those on work permits, student visas or long-term visit passes, the health ministry said.

The move to suspend visas to mainland Chinese passport holders effectively shuts out the island’s largest group of visitors and will also bar other travellers who have been to China in the last 14 days.

It comes as the toll from the virus reached 213 on Friday, a day after the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency.

Singapore has reported 13 cases of the virus – all travellers from the Chinese city of Wuhan at the centre of the outbreak – and has warned that the outbreak will hit its economy this year just as it shows signs of recovery from decade-low growth. “In view of the growing possibility of transmission from new travellers arriving from other parts of mainland China, the Ministry of Health has assessed that it is prudent to take additional pre-emptive measures at this stage,” the ministry said in a statement.

Chinese nationals make up the largest share of visitors to the Southeast Asian travel and tourism hub, one of the worst hit countries outside of China in the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which killed 800 people globally.

Elsewhere, Italy’s aviation authority on Friday said all flights between China and Italy had been suspended until further notice after the country reported its first two cases of the virus which has now spread to more than 20 countries.