China’s currency and stock markets steadied in choppy trade after anxiety over the spreading coronavirus on Monday hit the yuan and erased some $400 billion in market value from Shanghai’s benchmark index.
More foreigners were evacuated from China’s locked down central city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, and thousands of people were stranded on a Japanese cruise ship after one passenger tested positive for the virus.
The Hong Kong fatality brought the total death toll from the virus to 427, including a man who died in the Philippines last week after visiting Wuhan. Chinese authorities said the toll in China rose by a record 64 from the previous day to 425, mostly in Hubei province of which Wuhan is the capital.
New cases were reported in the United States including a patient in California who was infected through close contact with someone in the same household who had been infected in China.
It marked the second instance of person-to-person spread of the virus in the United States after another such case was reported last week in Illinois.
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