Coronavirus: Global stocks tumble, Yuan hit its lowest

BEIJING: Coronavirus victims increased to more than 8,100 people globally on Thursday, surpassing the total from the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic in a fast-spreading health crisis forecast to deal a heavy blow to the world’s second-largest economy.

Economists fear the impact on global growth could be bigger this time as China now accounts for a larger share of the world economy. One Chinese economist has forecast the crisis would lop a percentage point off China’s first-quarter growth, international media reports.

Global stocks tumbled on Thursday, while the Yuan hitits lowest this year, oil prices slid again and safe haven assets like gold gained. The main stock index in Taiwan, 40% of whose exports go to neighboring China, closed down 5.75% on the first day of trade after the Lunar New Year holiday.

Almost all the deaths have been in Hubei province - of which Wuhan is the capital - where 60 million people are now living under virtual lockdown, only venturing outside with masks.

“Most of the shops are closed. We cannot go out and buy food,” Si Thu Tun, one of 60 students from Myanmar trapped in Wuhan, told online news outlet the Democratic Voice of Burma. The crisis has stoked a wave of anti-China sentiment around the globe, from shops barring tourists to online mockery.

In the corporate world, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Sweden’s IKEA were the latest big names to close China operations. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics extended holiday closure for some Chinese production facilities.

Airlines to suspend flights to mainland China include Lufthansa, Air Canada, American Airlines and British Airways. Air France cabin crew unions were demanding the same, sources said, though the company has already allowed pilots and crew to opt out of China flights.

Fuelling concern over damage to productivity, thousands of Chinese factory workers on Lunar New Year holidays may struggle to get back to work next week, due to travel restrictions.

Policymakers are anxious, with China dominating US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s news conference on Wednesday.

“China’s economy is very important in the global economy now, and when China’s economy slows down we do feel that,” he said.

Streets in many Chinese cities were largely deserted and tourist attractions shut. Starbucks coffee shops were requiring temperature checks and masks. Cases of human-to-human transmission outside China are of particular concern to medics, but it is too early to determine how lethal the coronavirus is, as there are likely to be many cases of milder infections going undetected.

It has an incubation time of between one and 14 days. With local officials facing a backlash from China’s public, especially over their early response, the health chief of Huanggang city - also in Hubei province, with a population of 7.5 million - was dismissed, authorities said.