Coronavirus live updates: China goes back to work as cases exceed 40,000 – latest news

Foxconn, the company that makes the iPhone, says it is still in talks with the Chinese government over when it can reopen its factories in Shenzhen in the country’s south and Kunshan west of Shanghai, Reuters reports.

But it has been given approval to get workeers back into its facility at Zengzhou in the central province of Henan.

Phillip Inman, economics editor of the Observer, has taken an in-depth look at the effect that coronavirus is having on the global economy.

Among the gloomier possibilities is this:

If the virus continues to spread and Chinese activity remains deeply disrupted for months, a contraction of the global economy is not impossible, particularly as central banks have little effective monetary ammunition for emergencies.

Here’s the full story:

Reuters reports that China’s agriculture ministry has said the highly pathogenic H5N6 strain of avian flu has been found in a poultry farm in southwestern Sichuan province.

This is the first H5N6 avian flu detected from a poultry farm after four cases found in swans this year.

The ministry said on Sunday night 1,840 birds had died in the farm of 2,497. The rest have been culled.

A memorial for whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang has been held in New York. Li’s death sparked an outpouring of anger inside China. Li was silenced by the government for trying to warn people over the threat of the new virus, and later died after contracting it.

Some welcome news for the 3,700 people onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which is quarantined in Yokohama harbour after several cases of coronavirus among passengers.

Reuters has more details on the advance team of international experts led by the World Health Organization (WHO) that has left for Beijing to help investigate the epidemic.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who made a trip to Beijing for talks with President Xi Jinping and Chinese ministers in late January, returned with an agreement on sending an international mission.

But it has taken nearly two weeks to get the government’s green light on its composition. The only member of the team that has been made public is WHO veteran Dr Bruce Aylward, a Canadian epidemiologist and emergencies expert, was heading it.

“I’ve just been at the airport seeing off members of an advance team for the @WHO-led £2019nCoV international expert mission to £China, led by Dr Bruce Aylward, veteran of past public health emergencies,” Tedros said in a tweet from Geneva.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus outbreak. Here is where things stand:

• Total deaths in China: 908, up by 97.
• Total infections in China: 40,171, up by 3,062.
• The rise in confirmed cases reverses the significant reduction reported on Sunday. Then, there were 2,656 new cases, which was down by about 20% from the 3,399 reported in the previous 24-hour period.
• China returns to work today, after the end of the new year break, which was extended by 10 days to try to prevent the virus from spreading.
• An advance team of international experts led by the World Health Organization has left for Beijing to help investigate the epidemic.
• There have been reports of “shocking” levels of racism in Britain in the wake of the crisis.
• 3,600 people quarantined on a cruise ship in Hong Kong have been allowed to disembark after tests came back negative.
• French health officials have confirmed that new cases of coronavirus detected in the UK and Mallorca are linked to a cluster in a ski resort.
• A doctor who blew the whistle on the Sars epidemic in 2003 is under house arrest.