Wearing A Mask, Chinese President Xi Jinping Makes First Public Appearance After Coronavirus Outbreak

In his first public appearance after the deadly coronavirus outbreak, Chinese president Xi Jinping inspected efforts to contain the epidemic in the capital Beijing on Monday. Xi, who was wearing a mask while taking stock of the situation, visited a specially built center in the city’s Chaoyang district, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

In a surprising way, the Chinese president, who grabs headlines more often, was strangely missing from the front pages and even from CCTV’s main news broadcasts.

The reason behind Xi’s presence now is primarily the idea of the Chinese propaganda machinery to credit the president for the successful measures against the virus.

The Chinese media has appeared keen to project Xi working hard behind the scenes in order to counter the coronavirus outbreak.

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The death toll in China’s due to the coronavirus outbreak has gone up to 908. Most of the casualties have been reported from Hubei province in China. The confirmed cases of infection have crossed the 40,000-mark Chinese health officials said on Monday.

According to China’s National Health Commission, 91 deaths were reported in Hubei province, the epicentre of the epidemic, two in Anhui, and one each in Heilongjiang, Jiangxi, Hainan and Gansu.

There were 97 deaths and 3,062 new confirmed cases of the lethal infection on Sunday, it said. Moreover, by the end of Sunday, 36 confirmed cases, including one death, had been reported in Hong Kong, 10 confirmed cases in Macao and 18 in Taiwan. Overseas, over 300 cases of coronavirus have been reported, including from three from Kerala.

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A team of international experts led by the World Health Organisation (WHO) would arrive in China on Monday night to assist the Chinese health officials to contain the spread of coronavirus outbreak.

The WHO experts team, led by Aylward, will arrive in Beijing on Monday night, state-run China Daily reported.

(With PTI inputs)