As Coronavirus Death Toll Jumps, Xi Jinping Says His Country Facing A ‘Grave Situation’

As the death toll in China from the coronavirus outbreak mounted to 56, Chinese President Xi Jinping has admitted that his country is facing a “grave situation”, The Financial Times reported.

Xi was addressing a meeting of the elite seven-member politburo standing committee held to discuss how to respond to the coronavirus outbreak.

The New York times quoted Xi as saying “Confronted with the grave situation of this accelerating spread of pneumonia from infections with the novel coronavirus, we must step up the centralised and united leadership under the party central”.

Xi outlined a plan for country-wide measures to arrest the spread of the outbreak, including ramping up treatment for patients and distributing resources to affected areas.

Chinese scientists have stepped up efforts to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus. Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Sunday that researchers had isolated viruses and were selecting a strain, The South China Morning Post reported quoting Xu Wenbo, a director of CDC’s virus institute.

Taiwan announced today that it will be barring visitors from China in a bid to stop the spread of coronavirus. The US State Department said on Sunday it was evacuating staff from its consulate in Wuhan.