Zhejiang county in virus firing line

A county in Zhejiang yesterday reported seven new coronavirus cases from Italy, taking the number of imported cases in China to 13.

They worked at the same restaurant in Bergamo, Italy, as a 31-year-old woman who was the first imported case in Qingtian county.

Six of them were with the woman on an Aeroflot flight from Milan to Moscow and then flew to Shanghai on February 27.

They were all quarantined upon arrival in Qingtian in a rented car on February 28.

Another person who became a virus patient took a flight from Italy and transited in Germany on the way to Shanghai on February 29.

Zhejiang and Shanghai authorities tracked down 71 close contacts and quarantined them.

The county of 330,000 residents is a well-known hometown of overseas Chinese, with 100,000 living in Italy.

It is also a time of increasing anti-Chinese sentiments abroad, with a Chinese attacked in Adelaide in south Australia.

Chinese consular officials there said yesterday the person was "beaten and injured."

This came with the World Health Organization saying containment is "feasible" and a top priority for all countries.

In 24 hours "there were almost nine times more cases reported outside China as inside China," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

China's National Health Commission received reports of 125 new cases and 31 deaths on Monday in the mainland.

Of these, 114 of the new cases and all the deaths were in Hubei.

Overall cases reached 80,151 by Monday, with 2,943 deaths. There were 30,004 patients still in hospital while 47,204 were discharged.

Guangdong has also introduced a 14-day mandatory quarantine for those who arrived from regions and countries with serious outbreaks. The new policy came after a man who arrived in Shenzhen from London via Hong Kong tested positive on Sunday.

And about 91 percent of companies in Guangdong had resumed operations by Monday.