The number of reported new cases of coronavirus in China's Hubei province has risen after two days of falls as authorities impose restrictions on movement to prevent the spread of the disease which has now killed more than 1700 people.
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With no end in sight for the outbreak, Japan and Singapore appeared to be on the brink of recession with data on Monday pointing to possible contractions in the current quarter.
In Cambodia, hundreds of people who had disembarked from a cruise ship that docked there last week were anxiously awaiting information on when they could return home, after a former passenger tested positive for the virus in Malaysia.
In Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak, health officials reported 1933 new cases and 100 new deaths on February 16, the lowest daily death count since February 11. The number of new cases rose nearly 5 per cent from the previous day, but the number of deaths fell from 139.
Nearly 90 per cent of the new cases were in the provincial capital of Wuhan, a city of 11 million people where the virus is believed to have originated at a market illegally trading wildlife late last year.
Across mainland China, officials said the total number of cases rose by 2048 to 70,548, with 1770 deaths.
Chinese health officials on Sunday said two days of falls in the number of new confirmed cases showed their efforts to halt the spread of the virus were bearing fruit, although international experts say it is too early to tell whether the epidemic has peaked.
Of the 70,000-plus cases in mainland China, 10,844 people have been treated and released from hospital.
Outside China, more than 500 cases have been confirmed, mostly of people who travelled from Chinese cities, with five deaths.
Restrictions were tightened further in Hubei on Sunday with vehicles, apart from essential services, banned from the roads and companies told to stay shut until further notice.
Across China many factories remain closed, disrupting supply chains around the world.
Beijing announced plans on Sunday to roll out targeted and phased tax and fee cuts to help relieve difficulties for businesses.
Virus-related damage to Japan's economy is expected to show up in the current quarter, stoking fears of recession in the world's third-largest economy.
Japan evacuated more nationals from the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak on Monday.
With more than 400 people infected, the majority passengers on a cruise ship docked off the country, Japan is the country most affected by the epidemic after China, where the outbreak was first detected in December.
Trade-dependent Singapore downgraded its 2020 economic growth forecast and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said a recession was a possibility.
Cruise ship firm Holland America Line said it was working with governments and health experts to track passengers who disembarked from its Westerdam ship docked in Cambodia after an American woman tested positive for coronavirus in Malaysia.
More than 100 have already left the country, while some 300 are reportedly still in Cambodia.
American passengers were taken off another cruise liner on Sunday to fly home after being quarantined for two weeks off Japan.
Seventy new coronavirus cases were confirmed on board the Diamond Princess where 3700 passengers and crew have been held since February 3. Some 355 people on board have tested positive for the disease, by far the largest cluster of cases outside China.
Australian, Canadian, Italian, South Korean and Hong Kong passengers were expected to follow soon, after their governments also announced plans to repatriate passengers.
Countries that have announced plans to fly their citizens home from the ship say they will take them only if they are symptom-free, and quarantine them on arrival.
Australian Associated Press
