Beijing has confirmed the number of
people who have died from a new type of
respiratory virus in China has now
passed 40 almost 1300 people now
infected with the corona virus and the
authorities have put more cities under
quarantine
that's affected about 56 million people
in total outside China three cases have
been confirmed in France that's the
first time the virus has been identified
in Europe Simon Jones has the latest for
some the holiday celebrations have begun
but in Wuhan the epicenter of the
outbreak of corona virus it looks more
like a ghost town home to around 11
million people while the streets are
empty the hospitals aren't overwhelmed
with potential cases the symptoms
include coughs fever and breathing
problems the city is now rapidly
building a new hospital which will have
a thousand beds
it could be ready within days a sign of
the concern about the virus some
tourists flying out of China to the US
were relieved we were cool at first but
then when everything started shutting
down we thought we should leave I've
been in and out of China a few times and
this is one of the rare times that I
felt like it was time
in France though confirmation that the
virus has spread really puka we have
today the first European cases it's
possible that we have them because we
developed the test very quickly and
we're capable of identifying them tests
in the UK have so far proved negative we
think that there's a fair chance we may
get some because some cases over time of
course this depends on whether this
continues for a long time or whether
this turns out to be something which has
brought under control
relatively quickly by the considerable
efforts of the Chinese government those
efforts involve travel restrictions in
an increasing number of cities and
medics from the military are being sent
in to try to contain the outbreak but
the World Health Organization has not
classed the virus as an international
emergency partly because of the low
numbers of overseas cases the Simon
Jones BBC News