China extends New Year holiday to Feb 2 over Wuhan virus fears: Official
27 January, 2020
China will extend the Lunar New Year holiday to Feb 2, the State Council said Monday (Jan 27), to try and reduce the spread of a virus which has killed 80 people and infected more than 2,700 nationwide.
The holiday, which sees hundreds of millions of people travel around the country to visit family, was due to end on Thursday this week.
State news agency Xinhua earlier reported that a working group chaired by Premier Li Keqiang to tackle the outbreak decided on Sunday "to reduce population flows" by extending the Spring Festival holiday.
The group also ordered changes to "the starting dates of schools" and "people to work from home by working online."
"The meeting stressed that the country is at a crucial time in the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus outbreak, urging Party committees and governments at all levels to take more 'decisive, powerful and orderly, scientific and well-planned' measures to effective curb the spread," Xinhua reported.
In a bid to slow the spread of the respiratory virus, the government had previously locked down hard-hit Hubei, a province in central China that is at the outbreak's epicentre, in an unprecedented operation affecting tens of millions of people.
The previously unknown virus has caused global concern because of its similarity to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) pathogen, which killed hundreds across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003.
Originating in Hubei's capital of Wuhan, the virus has spread throughout China and across the world - with cases confirmed in around a dozen countries including as far away as the United States.
Several countries were making arrangements to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan, where an eerie calm pervades as new restrictions prohibit most road traffic in the metropolis of 11 million.
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