Hong Kong Leader Increases Funds to Tackle Coronavirus

Scramble to Track Cambodia Cruise Passengers After Coronavirus Case Reported

SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia—Health authorities scrambled on Feb. 17 to track hundreds of passengers who disembarked from a cruise ship in Cambodia last week after a woman tested positive for coronavirus, heightening fears about the spread of the disease around the world. The new case raises questions about how companies and countries should handle monitoring and quarantine for people who may have been exposed to the new virus, since the American woman from the Westerdam cruise ship had passed the usually presumed incubation period of 14 days. Holland America Line, which is owned by cruise giant Carnival Corp., said it is working with governments and health experts to track passengers. “Guests who have already returned home will be contacted by their local health department and be provided further information,” the company said…

HONG KONG鈥擧ong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Feb. 18 increased a relief fund to tackle the impact of the coronavirus outbreak as she urged residents to accept the government’s quarantine plans for returning passengers from a cruise ship stranded in Japan.

Lam said the government would increase handouts to tackle the outbreak to HK$28 billion ($3.60 billion) from HK$25 billion pledged previously, to ease the impact on the Chinese-ruled city’s battered economy.

Lam last week announced one-off payments to businesses across the Asian financial hub and the Hospital Authority.

The coronavirus has killed one of 60 patients in Hong Kong.

Anger has been brewing over Lam’s handling of the crisis, with critics calling on her to shut the entire border with mainland China and some medical workers going on strike.

Lam has said a full closure of the border would be impractical, inappropriate and discriminatory.

The virus has opened up a new front for protesters, coming after months of demonstrations over the perceived erosion of Hong Kong freedoms by Beijing.

Hundreds of protesters marched in multiple neighborhoods over the weekend against plans to turn some buildings into coronavirus centers.

More than 300 Hong Kong passengers on the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess will be sent to a newly built public housing estate for quarantine when they arrive in the city from Japan on Thursday, Lam told a media conference.

“We currently don’t have any back up plan, our construction works for other quarantine centers need time, and we have a few projects ongoing,” Lam said in response to a question on public anger at the decision to house the cruise passengers in an area in the city’s New Territories.

The government is sending aircraft to bring back the passengers to Hong Kong where they will have to do a further 14 days of quarantine. They are among some 3,700 passengers and crew on the cruise ship, owned by Carnival Corp., which has been quarantined in Yokohama since Feb 3.

Separately, Hong Kong’s Department of Health said it was prosecuting two people who tried to flee the city while they were meant to be in quarantine.

The government imposed a mandatory two week quarantine period for anyone entering Hong Kong from the mainland from Feb 8.

People who break quarantine rules risk a HK$25,000 ($3,200) fine and six months’ jail. Hong Kong citizens who have visited the mainland are meant to stay at home while non residents must remain in their hotel or in government isolation centers.

Travel restrictions and other efforts to contain the virus have added to economic strains brought on by months of protests, with tourist arrivals plummeting and residents staying away from shops at a time when the city is mired in its first recession in a decade.

By Donny Kwok and Clare Jim

This article is from the Internet:Hong Kong Leader Increases Funds to Tackle Coronavirus

University Tells Professors to Stop Sending Students for Coronavirus Tests Over Coughing

After receiving complaints, the University of Florida (UF) has told its faculty members that they should not exclude students who may be visibly sick from class due to fears of the new coronavirus. There has been no confirmed case of the coronavirus, called COVID-19, on the UF campus that hosts some 6,000 international students, but at least one professor reportedly asked coughing and sniffing students to leave class and be tested for the virus, reflecting anxieties about the disease’s spread amid Florida’s flu season. “We are aware that some instructors have asked students who are showing visible cold- or flu-like symptoms to leave class and return with a letter from the Student Health Care Center confirming that they do not have coronavirus,” the school’s provost, Joseph Glover, wrote to deans…