China coronavirus: tens of millions of masks on way to Hong Kong and prisoners will work around the clock to make more as city confirms its 12th case

Hong Kong authorities promised an increasingly anxious and agitated public yesterday that tens of millions of masks were on their way to help protect them from the rapidly advancing Wuhan coronavirus, and even that prison inmates would be working around the clock to manufacture more.

Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, the No 2 official, said more than 32 million masks would be made available for public use, as frustrated residents formed snaking queues around shops selling limited and overpriced stocks.

“I’m sure that in the next few days more masks will be available on the market,” he said.

With 12 people confirmed as being infected by the coronavirus in the city and more suspected cases cropping up, the government was under intense public and political pressure to order a total shutdown of Hong Kong’s borders with mainland China, where the pneumonia-like illness that first emerged in Hubei’s provincial capital has killed 170 people and hospitalised more than 7,000 so far.

As mainland China confirmed infections in all 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, and alarmed countries ramped up efforts to pull their nationals out, the World Health Organisation was also besieged by calls to declare the epidemic a global emergency.

South Korea, India, the Philippines and Finland confirmed new cases of the coronavirus, which has not proved as deadly but is spreading faster than the Sars virus that killed more than 600 people worldwide in 2002-03.