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The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on Thursday as the coronavirus outbreak spread well beyond China, where it emerged last month. The move reversed the organization’s decision just a week ago to hold off such a declaration. Since then, there have been thousands of new cases in China and clear evidence of human-to-human transmission in several other countries, including the United States. All of which warranted a reconsideration by the W.H.O.’s emergency committee, officials said. (Wee, McNeil and Hernandez, 1/30)

The WHO designation, pointing to an increase in the number of cases, indicates that international public-health authorities now consider the respiratory virus a significant threat beyond China, where it originated last month. The move could further heighten the global response to the outbreak. The agency made the declaration after a meeting of its emergency committee, which declined to do so last week. Since then, China, other governments and multinational businesses have taken emergency steps to limit the virus’s spread, including halting some travel to China. (Abbott, CAmero and Mendell, 1/30)

The designation gives the global health agency the ability to ramp up the responses of governments and organizations around the world as they try to control the outbreak. In making the announcement in Geneva, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the decision was made to prevent the further spread of the virus to countries with weak health systems that are ‘‘ill-prepared to deal with it.’’ (Denyer, Schemm and Taylor, 1/30)

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the organization is not recommending any measures that would limit travel or international trade. Those are some of the most potent tools at his agency’s disposal, but they are not necessary at this time, he told reporters in Geneva. Health experts who have been tracking the virus’ spread said the WHO’s declaration was more than justified. (Healy, 1/30)

"Let me be clear: This declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China. On the contrary, the WHO continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak," Ghebreyesus said, thanking the country for the "extraordinary measures" it had taken to control the disease, which originated in the central city of Wuhan. (Mischke, 1/30)

There have been 7,834 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus since December 2019, with 99% of all reported cases coming from China. All 170 deaths that have been reported globally have been in China. This is the sixth time the WHO has declared a global health emergency since the agency established the designation in 2005 following the 2003 SARS outbreak. The last WHO global health emergency occurred in 2019 in response to the Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Johnson, 1/30)

In Japan, the hashtag #ChineseDon’tComeToJapan has been trending on Twitter. In Singapore, tens of thousands of residents have signed a petition calling for the government to ban Chinese nationals from entering the country. In Hong Kong, South Korea and Vietnam, businesses have posted signs saying that mainland Chinese customers are not welcome. In France, a front-page headline in a regional newspaper warned of a “Yellow Alert.” And in a suburb of Toronto, parents demanded that a school district keep children of a family that had recently returned from China out of classes for 17 days. (Rich, 1/30)

One week into a lockdown, anger and anxiety deepened in China on Thursday as the central province at the center of the coronavirus outbreak endured shortages of hospital beds, medical supplies and doctors. In a sign of growing frustration, a relative of a patient infected with the virus beat up a doctor at a hospital in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, the state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday, citing the police. The man was accused of pulling and damaging the doctor’s mask and protective clothing — potentially exposing him to the virus — after his father-in-law died in the hospital. The man was later detained. (Buckley and Qin, 1/30)

Chinese authorities are rushing to build two new hospitals in Wuhan, the city at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak, in a matter of days to help combat the fast-spreading virus. The outbreak is straining the resources of Wuhan’s front-line hospital staff, who have been forced to turn patients away because of a lack of beds and basic medical supplies. The 1,000-bed Huoshenshan facility is expected to be in operation Feb. 3, while the second, a 1,600-bed hospital called Leishenshan, is supposed to be ready by Feb. 5, just 10 to 12 days after plans for their construction were first announced. (Wang, Zhu and Umlauf, 1/30)

Buoyed by Lunar New Year bonuses, Chinese consumers are supposed to be spendthrift this time of year — splurging on gifts, trips to the movies and lavish foreign vacations. But the spread of a deadly coronavirus in recent days has brought the world’s No. 2 economy to a virtual standstill, raising fears of a serious economic slowdown that could ripple across the globe. (Pierson and Chang, 1/30)

Forget about clinging to hopes that China, the world’s largest car market, will recover from its unprecedented two-year slump anytime soon. Though concrete estimates on the financial toll of the coronavirus outbreak are still scarce, signs are emerging that the final cost will far outweigh that of the 2003 SARS epidemic, when China’s auto market was one-sixth the size it is today and smaller than that of Japan. Companies from Tesla Inc. to Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp. have warned they anticipate disruptions, while a top parts supplier predicted automakers will cut China production 15% this quarter. (Patel, Horie and Dawson, 1/31)