“How to separate Covid-19 patients from seasonal influenza patients, and how to separate healthy people from Covid-19 patients, and how to separate other patients from Covid-19 patients: if you don’t solve that problem, human-to-human transmissions will not stop,” Zhong told a briefing on Tuesday.

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Only isolated cases were being found to have incubation periods longer than the average of two to seven days, said Zhong, whose research team have released a draft paper for peer review that was based on analysis of 1,099 cases in China. Among the 1,099 cases, only one had an incubation period longer than 24 days, and only 13 were longer than 14 days.

Use of antimalarial drug chloroquine diphosphate as a coronavirus cure merited further investigation after some patients responded to it, Zhong said.

Business relief measures

Beijing announced selective cuts to corporate burdens on Tuesday to help an economy battered by the coronavirus outbreak. SMEs nationwide and businesses in Hubei will receive the most help, being exempt from pension, unemployment and work accident payments until June, while large enterprises will have their contributions halved until April.

The business measures were announced after a State Council meeting on restarting agricultural production, including by expanding eligibility for pig farming subsidies.

The Ministry of Agriculture said on Tuesday that the poultry industry had suffered severe losses after the suspension of feed factories and interruption to logistics disrupted the entire supply chain. One poultry farm had reported a loss of over 100 million yuan as a result.

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The government was taking steps to address the feed shortage and resume logistics, with a third of feed manufacturers yet to resume production, the ministry said.

Also on Tuesday, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) – which oversees state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and reports to the State Council, China’s cabinet – introduced financial relief such as low-interest loans and rent reductions to support businesses hit hard by the outbreak. It said these were available to all corporations, with “no special treatment for SOEs”.

Some 80 per cent of China’s 20,000 SOEs had resumed operations, with some of the rest still unable to restart because of the outbreak, SASAC said. In some industries, including petrol, telecommunications and transport, almost all had resumed, it said.

Xi reassures Macron

Chinese President Xi Jinping reassured his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in a telephone conversation that the coronavirus outbreak would not have a long-lasting impact on China's economy, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

“The impact of the outbreak on China’s economy is temporary,” Xi was quoted as saying. “I believe that through hard work, we will still be able to achieve our socio-economic development set for this year.”

Xi said that China had provided help for businesses to resume productions to ensure stable supplies, and that China was willing to cooperate with France on public health.

WHO experts to head south from Beijing

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday that its delegation of medical experts had on Monday visited two hospitals in Beijing and held detailed discussions with the municipality’s health authorities and the China Centre for Disease Control.

The team, who arrived in Beijing at the weekend, would visit the provinces of Sichuan, in China’s southwest, and Guangdong “later this week” to gather information on measures taken at local level and their impact in containing the outbreak, the organisation told the South China Morning Post by email.

Neither the Chinese government nor the WHO has explained why Hubei province, where most cases continue to be reported, is not on the itinerary.

Tourism counts cost

The tourism sector continued to feel the effects, with Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines between them refunding 13 million tickets and cancelling 78,000 flights between January 20 and February 13.

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Leading state-owned tourism companies have suffered, with China National Travel Service closing 30 tourist sites, 19 hotels and 113 tourist retail shops, and Overseas Chinese Town Enterprises closing 74 tourist sites, seven theme parks and 10 of its travel agencies.

Neurosurgeon and nurse among medics to die

A 50-year-old neurosurgeon and director of a hospital in Wuhan died from Covid-19 on Tuesday morning.

State broadcaster CCTV and Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily reported that Liu Zhiming, director of the Wuchang Hospital, was the first hospital director to die in the outbreak.

The National Health Commission said on Friday that 1,716 medical workers – 1,502 from Hubei province and 1,102 from Wuhan – had been infected with the virus and that six medical workers had died, as of last Tuesday.

A female nurse named Liu Fan died from Covid-19 on Friday evening, also at Wuchang Hospital.

Taiwanese in clear, 700 still stranded

The first batch of Taiwanese evacuees from the mainland returned to their homes on Tuesday after being isolated in quarantine for 14 days at three centres on the island.

Besides a businessman who tested positive for coronavirus and was immediately sent to an isolated hospital ward after arriving in Taiwan on February 3, the rest were confirmed to be not infected after their two-week quarantine, according to health minister Chen Shih-chung.

The group were the first batch of Taiwanese citizens repatriated to the island by mainland Chinese authorities. There are about 700 Taiwanese still stranded in Hubei province, but their evacuation has been stalled by a dispute between Taipei and Beijing over how they should be repatriated.

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Taipei has complained about the first repatriations, in which one person sent back by the mainland was found to have been infected. Its request to send a plane and medical personnel to pick up the rest of the stranded citizens 14 days after the previous group was rejected by the mainland, on the grounds that it would take too long and jeopardise patients’ safety.

Kazakh villagers told to stay at home

The local government in Ili, in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang, has told its predominantly Kazakh citizens to stay at home to try to contain the outbreak. In an open letter published online on Monday, the government also promised to take care of citizens’ basic needs.

“For your safety and health, please rest at home and don’t go out,” the letter said. “Health care workers as well as production and operation staff of key enterprises will work in closed operations. Please rest assured the government will increase the procurement and distribution of daily necessities and medical supplies to ensure that normal life is not affected.”

Staff from village neighbourhood committees would buy necessities such as vegetables, grains and coal and deliver them to people’s doorsteps, the letter said, with water, electricity, gas and communication bills also to be paid by the staff.

The staff would also go to hospitals to get diagnoses and treatment on behalf of citizens with common illnesses, and pick up prescribed medicines for chronic conditions, it said.

Medical gear production ramped up

SOEs are leading the production of masks and protective suits in mainland China, with one military supplier making 45,000 protective suits a day – one third of the national total.

State firms such as Sinopec are making 1.3 million masks a day, with capacity set to increase.

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SOEs have also donated 2.5 billion yuan to fight the outbreak and sent millions of masks, protective suits, goggles and gloves to Hubei.

A China National Pharmaceutical Group subsidiary which researched and developed the test kit for Covid-19 is producing enough kits to test 20,000 people each day. The company has so far provided test kits for 1 million people.