• Many countries have implemented travel restrictions on China and foreigners who have visited China to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
• In Hong Kong, hospital workers launched a 5-day strike after leader Carrie Lam refused to fully close the city’s border with China, despite pressure from across the political spectrum and the fact that other countries have closed their shared border with China.
• China slammed the U.S. in particular for its strict travel restrictions, arguing that U.S. media condemned the Trump administration’s decision to impose the new rules.
• Some disputed that claim, noting that media outlets in the U.S. have received criticism for sensationalist headlines and fostering xenophobia.

WHO Announces More Coronavirus Cases and Deaths

More and more countries around the world have ramped up travel restrictions as fears over the coronavirus continue to spread.

World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that there have been 17,238 confirmed cases and 361 deaths in China.

He also said that there were 151 confirmed cases in 23 other countries and one death, which was reported by the Philippines on Sunday. 

“Last week I declared a public health emergency of international concern over the outbreak of #2019nCoV.
As of this morning, there are 17,238 confirmed cases in 🇨🇳 & 361 deaths. Outside 🇨🇳, there are 151 confirmed cases in 23 countries & 1 death”-@DrTedroshttps://t.co/JvKC0PTett

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) February 3, 2020

In a warning to his colleagues at the WHO executive board meeting, Tedros stated that “panic and fear” were the real challenges in addressing the coronavirus outbreak.

“It’s no reason to really panic now,” he said. “The chances of getting this going to anywhere outside China is very low, and even in China, when you go to other provinces, it’s very low.”

Tedros also reiterated that there was no need for measures that “unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade,” a point the WHO has repeated since it declared that the coronavirus an international emergency.

U.S. Travel Restriction

But global leaders appear to be ignoring that warning.

The U.S., for example, has already implemented some of the strongest measures. On Friday, President Donald Trump’s administration declared the coronavirus a public health emergency and imposed strict travel restrictions.

In the announcement, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said that all foreign nationals who have been to China in the past 14 days will be barred from entering the states starting Sunday. 

Those restrictions do not apply to immediate family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

The secretary also described restrictions for the Hubei province, which houses Wuhan, the city where the coronavirus first broke out. Under the new rules, U.S. citizens who visited the Hubei province in the last two weeks will be subject to quarantine for 14 days.

U.S. citizens who have been to other areas of mainland China in the last two weeks will be subject to screening for 14 days as well.

Following Azar’s announcement, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman criticized the Trump administration’s response. 

“Just as the WHO recommended against travel restrictions, the U.S. rushed to go in the opposite way,” she said. “Certainly not a gesture of goodwill.” 

Other Countries Impose Restrictions

The U.S. is not the only country to impose travel restrictions.

According to reports, Australia, Singapore, and New Zealand have implemented similar travel bans on foreign nationals who have gone to China.

Other countries like Japan and South Korea have denied entry from foreigners who visited the Hubei province. 

Italy and Israel have reportedly stopped all incoming air traffic from China, while airlines all over the world have also announced they will not fly to or from the country. 

North Korea and Mongolia, which share borders with China, have sealed them entirely.

But Hong Kong, which is an autonomous city-state of China and shares a land border, has not fully closed its borders with the country.

That decision, however, has been highly contested in Hong Kong, which has reported 15 confirmed cases of coronavirus.

Pro-democracy protestors, hospital workers, businesses, and even some pro-government lawmakers have all called on the city’s embattled leader, Carrie Lam, to close the border shared with China immediately.

Lam put some travel restrictions in place last week. On Monday she announced the closure of four more crossing points along the city’s border with mainland China, defying calls for full closure and leaving three crossing points open.

In response, thousands of hospital workers in Hong Kong have launched a five-day strike calling for all border crossings to be sealed. Lam, for her part, has said a full closure would be “a discriminatory approach.”

But others have argued that Lam is just listening to directives from the Chinese Communist Party, and is putting her obligations to the party before her own people in the face of a growing public health crisis.

Chinese Response and Media Criticism

A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said in a statement Monday that China respects the decision of some countries to “adopt or enhance quarantine measures at border entry,” but added, “some countries, the US in particular, have inappropriately overreacted, which certainly runs counter to WHO advice.”

The spokeswoman said that the U.S. response “could only create and spread fear, which is a very bad example.”

“Even American media and experts doubted the government’s decision, saying that the US government’s restrictions on China are precisely what the WHO rejects, that the US is turning from overconfidence to fear and overreaction, and that banning the entry of visitors who traveled to China in the past 14 days is suspected to be violating civil rights instead of reducing risks of virus spreading,” she continued.

Following this statement, some argued that the opposite may be true, noting that the media, especially in the U.S., has been criticized for creating hysteria and fearmongering around the coronavirus outbreak.

Some have even blamed the media for fostering a recent spike in xenophobia. According to reports, the University of California Berkeley faced backlash after the administration stated that “xenophobia” is a “common” or “normal” reaction to coronavirus.

However, reports of xenophobia are not limited to the U.S. Chinese Canadians have also reported an uptick in nationality and race-based prejudice, which they say is largely due to social media.

On Monday, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte called on his country to stop stirring up anti-Chinese sentiments.

See what others are saying: (The New York Times) (BBC) (Al Jazeera)