Hong Kong cuts rail links to China amid virus fears

Hong Kong’s chief executive announced Tuesday that the island will cut all rail links to mainland China as governments around the world work to limit the spread of a deadly coronavirus.

Carrie Lam, wearing a green medical mask, told reporters that train service to China will halt at midnight Thursday, and the two stations connecting to mainland China will be closed, according to The Associated Press.

She did not close the border, as North Korean and Mongolian leaders chose to do. However, flights to the mainland will be halved, according to Reuters. Lam also called on Hong Kong residents currently in China to return and quarantine themselves at home for two weeks.

Sophia Chan, Hong Kong’s commerce secretary, said the semi-autonomous region has eight confirmed infections and 100 patients quarantined, Reuters noted.

Hong Kong officials also announced that postal services and most government offices will stay closed through next week, according to the AP. Currently closed schools are scheduled to reopen on Feb. 17. A union of hospital workers also threatened to strike if the government does not meet its demands, which include blocking the entry of people from mainland China, Reuters reported.

The virus has now killed 106 people in China, with the first death reported in the capital city of Beijing and 24 others in the Hubei Province, where the first infections were confirmed late last year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. issued its highest travel warning Monday in response to the virus, calling on Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to China. The State Department also urged U.S. citizens to “reconsider travel” to the country.

The U.S. Consulate in Wuhan will fly its diplomats and some other Americans out of the central Chinese city on Wednesday. Japan and South Korea will also send planes to Wuhan this week to evacuate their citizens, in addition to planned evacuations from France, Mongolia and other countries, the AP reported.

In China, plane, train and bus connections to Wuhan have been suspended. The shutdown has now expanded to 17 cities throughout the country, impacting more than 50 million people. There were 4,515 confirmed cases of the new virus in the country as of Monday.

There have been five confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. All of the infected people recently traveled from central China.