Irish Examiner View: Cornonavirus figures climbing - Share plan to fight outbreak

The sight of a masked Chinese president, Xi Jinping, greeting workers in Beijing’s Chaoyang district yesterday as they returned to work after the lunar new year holiday, his first public appearance in weeks, was designed to inspire confidence in the face of an escalating coronavirus outbreak.

Whether or not that objective is realised remains to be seen, especially as World Health Organisation director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has warned that recent cases among patients who have never visited China could be the “tip of the iceberg”.