as the battle could to contain the virus
continues fears about the impact of the
corona virus have now reached the
economy hundreds of billions of dollars
have been wiped off the value of leading
Chinese companies on the first day of
trading since China's markets opened
after the Lunar New Year holiday now
it's the Shanghai Composite Index we're
talking about it closed nearly eight
percent down that's its worst
performance in nearly five years the
slump coming despite the Chinese
government injecting more than 170
billion dollars into the markets to try
and ease investors concerns meanwhile a
special hospital to deal with the crisis
has been opened in whoo-hah and that's
the city at the center of the outbreak
what is amazing about this hospital it
was built in just eight days the 1,000
bed hospital one of two dedicated
facilities built to help tackle the
outbreak we are expecting the second one
to be finished on Wednesday more than
360 people in China have now died from
the virus more than 17,000 people have
been infected and in Hong Kong medical
workers have been striking to demand the
closure of the border with mainland
China there are real fears of the virus
spreading into the territory and in the
last few minutes we've been keeping an
eye on a press conference from Hong
Kong's chief executive Kerry LAN she has
now said that 10 out of 13 with the
mainland will be suspended and as I said
after they leave they will come back
again and therefore they may still cause
concern because there's risk of them
bringing back the disease so today I'm
going to announce that for all land
crossings and sea crossings there will
be just two boundary control points
there's a sunchun Bay PCP as well as a
Hong Kong or Macau bridge it's taking
you straight to Shanghai and join our
correspondent there Robin Brandt a
significant move there from Carrie Lam
Robin what's been the reaction or you're
right further restrictions put in place
by
the semi-autonomous government there in
Hong Kong first they reduced air traffic
coming from the mainland to Hong Kong
last week by about 50% and shut down
various other ways of getting into Hong
Kong today they've gone even further now
just leaving three ways to get into Hong
Kong from the Chinese mainland the first
is by air into the main airport the
second is through the Schengen Bay Area
and the third is through that newly
built bridge opened last year that links
Macau the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong
so they're trying to restrict the areas
to restrict the travel but also so they
can create these bottlenecks whereby
they can assess people going out but of
course more importantly as well coming
in I mean the context here is that Hong
Kong is a travel hub obviously a huge
number of people going through it so
that presents a concern with spread many
of them from the Chinese mainland but
also during the SARS outbreak some 18
years ago Hong Kong was hit
disproportionately hard and that's why I
think it is even keener to take the
measures it can to try and ensure that
isn't repeated this time around and
Robin there's been worries for days now
about the impact of the coronavirus on
the Chinese economy and we're seeing
evidence very real evidence of that
today yes certainly in the short term I
mean the markets here today were just a
kind of a sea of red in the context is
it's the first time investors have had a
chance to express their feelings since
the end of the extended Lunar New Year
Festival so yeah there was going to be a
sell-off anyway but it was pretty severe
when it came and the market here in
Shanghai where I'm talking to you from
that closed down nearly eight percent
overall about 400 billion dollars worth
of value wiped off leading companies it
spread to commodities as well which is
hugely important in terms of a gauge of
China's economic health so you know
copper steel rubber cotton all of those
down by six 78 percent this is a
barometer not so much of how investors
think the Chinese government has dealt
with or is dealing with the outbreak but
about the future and about the impact
they'll think it have on will have on
China's economy and remember China's
economy is already having to deal with a
slowdown in its growth rate the like of
which it hasn't seen for some three
decades so all
the government has been trying to use
some measures to try and ease the
slowdown there it's now gonna have to go
further you wonder what else is left in
the tank well I'm good to see you thanks
for joining us from Shanghai