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Coronavirus latest: China blocks spread; Singapore, Malaysia cases spike; Hong Kong bans tourists
- Malaysia reported 212 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the biggest daily jump in Southeast Asia’s worst-hit country
- New Zealand became the latest country to announce strict self-isolation measures as global death toll surges
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China declared on Monday that it had mostly blocked the spread of coronavirus within the country, but warned of the risk of imported infections and localised outbreaks.
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“Local transmission across the country has been basically cut off,” said the government’s Covid-19 steering group in a statement following a meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang.
“But the risk of isolated cases or localised outbreaks still exists. All must keep a calm mind and never take the situation lightly, as the situation remain complex and grim in the global pandemic.”
Priorities will now shift to preventing imported cases or a revival of domestic infections, it said, with low-risk provinces being urged to remove lockdown measures and resume normal business.
The announcement came 60 days after Wuhan – the city at the epicentre of China’s outbreak – was put under quarantine and with zero new cases being reported in the surrounding Hubei province for four days in a row.
Cases and deaths are still soaring outside China, however, with Germany banning gatherings of more than two people and Chancellor Angela Merkel going into quarantine.
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