WRAPUP 12-Coronavirus spreads outside China, pandemic fears grip Wall Street

With coronavirus cases rising in Italy and several Middle East countries dealing with their first infections, fears of a global pandemic sent markets into a tailspin, even as China eased curbs with no new cases reported Beijing and other cities. The virus has put Chinese cities into lockdown in recent weeks, disrupted air traffic and blocked global supply chains for everything from cars to smartphones.

But China's actions, especially in Wuhan, had probably prevented hundreds of thousands of cases, said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) delegation in China, Bruce Aylward, urging the rest of the world to learn the lesson of acting fast. "They're at a point now where the number of cured people coming out of hospitals each day is much more than the sick going in," he said.

The surge of cases outside mainland China triggered sharp falls in global markets as investors fled to safe havens. European equities markets suffered their biggest slump since mid-2016, gold soared to a seven-year high and oil tumbled nearly 5%. The Dow Jones Industrials dove to a two-month low while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were at their lowest in three weeks on Monday, all off by more than 3%.

Wall Street's fear gauge, CBOE Volatility Index, jumped to a six-month high. Early, last week, Wall Street's main indexes notched record highs, partly on optimism that the global economy would be able to snap back from the coronavirus. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said using the word "pandemic" did not fit the facts.

"We must focus on containment while preparing for a potential pandemic," he told reporters in Geneva, adding that the world was not witnessing an uncontained spread or large-scale deaths. The epidemic in China peaked between Jan. 23 and Feb. 2 and has been declining since, the WHO said.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, speaking in Geneva, said it was still possible to contain the disease. But he cautioned, "if some do not do everything that is needed, this can still become out of control with dramatic consequences in global health and the global economy." The White House is considering asking lawmakers for emergency funding to ramp up its response to the fast-spreading virus, a White House spokesman and an administration source said on Monday. Politico and the Washington Post had reported the Trump administration may request $1 billion.

"We need some funding here to make sure that we ... protect all Americans, that we keep us safe," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said on Fox News Channel. He later told reporters at the White House that there was no announcement yet on the amount. MEASURE OF RELIEF

Liang Wannian of China's National Health Commission said while the rapid rise had been halted, the situation was still grim. He said over 3,000 medical staff had become infected, most in Hubei province surrounding Wuhan, probably due to the lack of protective gear and fatigue. Excluding Hubei, mainland China reported 11 new cases, the lowest since the national health authority started publishing nationwide daily figures on Jan. 20.

The coronavirus has infected nearly 77,000 people and killed more than 2,500 in China, most of them in Hubei. Overall, China reported 409 new cases on the mainland, down from 648 a day earlier, taking the total number of infections to 77,150 cases as of Feb. 23. The death toll rose by 150 to 2,592.

But there was a measure of relief for the world's second-largest economy as more than 20 province-level jurisdictions, including Beijing and Shanghai, reported zero new infections. Outside mainland China, the outbreak has spread to some 29 countries and territories, with a death toll of about two dozen, according to a Reuters tally.

South Korea reported 231 new cases, taking its total to 833. Many are in its fourth-largest city, Daegu, which became more isolated with Asiana Airlines and Korean Air suspending flights there until next month. Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Afghanistan and Iraq reported their first new coronavirus cases, all in people who had been to Iran, where the toll was 12 dead and 61 infected. Most of the infections were in the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Qom.

A WHO team is due in Iran on Tuesday. ITALY AT RISK

Europe's biggest outbreak is in Italy, with some 150 infections - compared with just three before Friday - and a sixth death. In northern Italy, authorities sealed off the worst-affected towns and banned public gatherings across a wide area, halting the carnival in Venice, where there were two cases.

The Italy outbreak originated in Codogno, a small town southeast of Milan where Lombardy's first infected patient, a 38-year-old man now in stable condition, was treated. Austria briefly suspended train services through the Alps from Italy after two travelers coming from Italy showed symptoms of fever. Both tested negative for the coronavirus.

Japan had 773 cases as of late Sunday, mostly on the cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo. In South Korea, drone footage https://share.insider.thomsonreuters.com/link?entryId=1_jqhog27w showed what appeared to be hundreds of people queuing in a neat line outside a Daegu supermarket to buy face masks.

(Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)