Xi assures Trump China can beat coronavirus outbreak

With the coronavirus spreading around the world, Chinese leader Xi Jinping told President Donald Trump in a phone call Friday that his government is confident and capable of defeating the epidemic.

China has reported more than 630 coronavirus deaths, including one in Hong Kong, and one person has died in the Philippines.

The outbreak is a major challenge for the ruling Communist Party. The death late Thursday of Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist who tried to share news about the new coronavirus long before Chinese health authorities disclosed its full threat, only to be silenced by police, sparked widespread anger online. On social media, people began demanding freedom of speech, echoing the sentiments of the 1989 Tiananmen uprising.

In his call to Trump, Xi asked the United States to "respond reasonably" to the outbreak. The Trump administration, along with many other countries, imposed travel restrictions on travelers arriving from mainland China in the wake of the deadly outbreak. Trump tweeted early Friday that Xi is "strong, sharp and powerfully focused on leading the counterattack on the coronavirus."

"Nothing is easy, but he will be successful, especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone," Trump added.

Meanwhile, anger was swelling online in China over the death of a whistleblower doctor who tried to sound the alarm about the deadly outbreak but was silenced by Communist Party authorities. On social media, users hailed Li Wenliang as a hero, after the ophthalmologist was first reported to have died of the virus late Thursday.

In response, netizens began voicing rare fury toward the Chinese government and demanding freedom of speech, echoing the sentiments of the 1989 Tiananmen uprising, as censors moved to squelch the dissent.

And Chinese researchers said they have found evidence linking the spread of coronavirus to the pangolin, a mammal illegally trafficked in huge numbers for the supposedly healing qualities of its scales and meat.

Chinese health officials say they confirmed more than 31,000 cases of the novel coronavirus, more than 4,800 of them considered severe.

An additional 41 people on board the Diamond Princess cruise liner, which has been quarantined in Japan, have tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total to 61.

Another cruise ship, the Westerdam, is at sea, and its crew is unsure where to go next, after being denied entry to the Philippines, Japan and South Korea. Passengers blame an ill-advised port stop in Hong Kong, where the boat took on many new passengers.

Two charter flights carrying about 300 Americans out of the virus-hit city of Wuhan are expected to arrive in the United States on Friday.

China's state-owned agriculture company, known as Cofco, is among the country's conglomerates that have stepped up their food supplies in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, China's National Development and Reform Commission said on Friday.

The Chinese agency said state-owned companies were supplying additional cooking oils, flour, rice noodles and meat, among other items, to Wuhan and Hubei province.

Cofco sends over 200 tonnes of rice to Wuhan daily, the agency said, adding that the company was expanding its storage space in the region to make room for further stockpiles of food.

Earlier this week, China's Assets Supervision and Administration Commission said its conglomerates were doubling or tripling their capacity in various sectors, including "manufacturing, chemical, petrochemical and grain processing," the state-run China Daily newspaper reported.

Other companies have repurposed their assembly lines to produce facial masks and respirators, amid a lack in medical equipment.

Concerns over the economic fallout of the novel coronavirus outbreak mounted in Australia and Japan on Friday, as Australia's central bank governor predicted slowing growth and the Japanese government announced measures to stimulate the economy.

Addressing a parliamentary panel on Friday, Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe said the impact of the novel coronavirus could potentially be more significant than the fallout from the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic in 2003.

"China is a larger part of the global economy and more closely integrated with other economies, including Australia," he said. "I think it is quite likely that the international spillovers will be larger than they were back in 2003 with SARS."

While Lowe emphasized that predictions remained difficult, he indicated that the bank was currently assuming a 0.2 percent reduction in economic growth during the first quarter of 2020.

Meanwhile, Japanese Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura announced on Friday that the government was prepared to draw from state reserves to bolster the country's economy in the wake of the outbreak.

The government is particularly concerned over the impact on tourism and consumption, Nishimura said, according to the Reuters news agency.

China's government has told companies to start preparing to return to work, after extending the Lunar New Year holiday to try to contain the outbreak of coronavirus.

Government offices in Beijing technically reopened on Monday, although many officials are working from home, while other cities and provinces have extended the holiday to Feb. 10 or beyond.

Even as they struggle to contain the outbreak, Communist Party leaders have called for an "orderly" return to work that will minimize the chance of transmission.

Businesses outside Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak, are "encouraged to create ways to make workplaces less populated or allow staff to take shifts to make production at full throttle," the Communist Party committee for fighting the epidemic, led by Premier Li Keqiang, has declared.

Railway and civil aviation authorities should try to enable passengers to sit further apart from each other to reduce the risks of virus spreading, the committee said, according to a state media report.

Chinese researchers say they have found evidence linking the spread of coronavirus to the pangolin, a mammal illegally trafficked in huge numbers for the supposedly healing qualities of its scales and meat.

Resembling a cross between an armadillo and an anteater but unrelated to either, the pangolin is the world's most trafficked mammal, with a million thought to have been poached from the wild in just a decade. Its meat is considered a delicacy and its scales are widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, wildlife experts say.

The research suggested the pangolin could have been an intermediate host, transmitting the new coronavirus from bats to humans.

"This latest discovery will be of great significance for the prevention and control of the origin [of the virus]," South China Agricultural University, which led the research, said in a statement on its website reported by Reuters news agency.

The discovery could also be a lifeline for the reclusive pangolin, a mammal that had been headed for extinction because of unchecked demand from China and Vietnam.

The air of mystery attaching to the pangolin has been its downfall, sparking an unjustified belief that its scales have magical medicinal properties.

In hospitals and pharmacies across China and Vietnam, powder made from pangolin scales is prescribed for a wide range of ailments, including rheumatism, wound infections, skin disorders, coronary heart disease and even cancer.

Mothers take powdered pangolin scales to help them lactate, while men drink pangolin blood or consume fetuses in the belief that this will make them more virile.

But Dirk Pfeiffer, a professor of veterinary medicine at Hong Kong's City University, told Reuters the study was still a long way from proving pangolins had transmitted the virus.

In South Korea, Welkeeps, a producer of respiratory masks in South Korea, says it has received 10 years' worth of demand in the past three weeks, as panic buying sparked by the coronavirus outbreak grips Asia.

Company president Park Jong-han said he can't deal with over 200 phone calls a day, while wholesalers are camping in the lobby cafe of his office.

While Beijing launched an "urgent" appeal for medical masks, suits and goggles this week, other countries such South Korea, Japan and Thailand are experiencing panic-buying of masks. Factories in China that produce half of the world's medical masks are also operating below capacity due to the virus epidemic

As store shelves are wiped clean in Thailand, Bangkok authorities on Thursday encouraged the public to make their masks and hand sanitizers at home. The citywide shortage in Hong Kong has led thousands of people to line up, sometimes overnight, to buy protective masks this week.

South Korea has also introduced tough penalties on mask "hoarders." Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki called for relentless crackdown to "root out" illegal hoarding, price gouging and smuggling of medical masks this week.

Hong announced this week that those stockpiling masks and hand sanitizers can face up to two years in prison or a fine of up to $42,000. To prevent "mass expatriation" of masks, a new rule in effect Thursday enforces those shipping over 300 units out of South Korea to report such shipments to customs.

Over three days since Wednesday, South Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety received nearly 1,000 consumer reports complaining about canceled mask orders and price gouging, with one accusing an online market of charging over $25 for a mask.

Welkeeps president Park said he hasn't increased prices, because he doesn't want to "capitalize on health concerns of the people." But there is no shortage of wholesalers, usually looking for supplies to China, lining up outside his company. One tried to leave $2.5 million in cash outside Park's office, telling him just to ship masks as they become available, he said.

The Washington Post’s Anna Fifield, Rick Noack and Min Joo Kim contributed to this report.