China wages 'people's war' on coronavirus as cruises, companies hit

Chinese President Xi Jinping declared a "people's war" on Thursday against the fast-spreading coronavirus whose impact has been felt around the world from slowing factory floors to quarantined cruise liners.

The death toll in mainland China jumped by 73 to 563, with more than 28,000 infections also confirmed inside the world's second largest economy. Xi, speaking to Saudi Arabia's King Salman by telephone, said the whole nation was working as one to combat the virus and would maintain transparency.

"China has a strong mobilisation capacity, rich experience in responding to public health incidents and is confident and capable of winning the battle for epidemic prevention and control," Xinhua news agency paraphrased him as saying.

In a striking image of the epidemic's reach, about 3,700 people moored off Japan on the Diamond Princess faced testing and quarantine for at least two weeks on the ship, which has 20 virus cases. Japan now has 45 cases. Gay Courter, a 75-year-old American novelist on board, said he hoped the U.S. government would take the Americans off.

"It's better for us to travel while healthy and also, if we get sick, to be treated in American hospitals," he told Reuters.

In Hong Kong, another cruise ship with 3,600 passengers and crew was quarantined for a second day pending testing after three cases on board. Taiwan, which has 13 cases, banned international cruise ships from docking.

In China, sometimes dubbed the world's workshop, cities have been shut off, flights cancelled and factories closed, shutting supply lines crucial to international businesses.

Companies including Hyundai Motor, Tesla , Ford, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Nissan , Airbus, Adidas and Foxconn are taking hits.

Financial analysts have cut China's growth outlook, with ratings agency Moody's flagging risks for auto sales and output. Nintendo Co Ltd said on Thursday delays to production and shipping of its Switch console and other goods to the Japan market were "unavoidable". Honda Motor Co was considering keeping operations suspended for longer than planned at its three plants in Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus, Japan's Nikkei newspaper reported.

Indonesia said it stands to lose $4 billion in tourism if travel from China is disrupted for the whole year.

More than two dozen large trade fairs and industry conferences in Asia, where billions of dollars worth of deals are usually done, have been postponed.

Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, hit by months of anti-China unrest, said the coronavirus was hurting its economy and urged banks to adopt a "sympathetic stance" with borrowers..