China's highest court on Friday chastised police for a crackdown on doctors in the central city of Wuhan who spread "rumours" about the new coronavirus in the earliest days of its outbreak.
The Supreme People's Court said while doctors may have been incorrect in telling patients the new virus was a renewed outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), warning the public could have slowed down the spread of the virus.
"If the public had listened to this 'rumour' at the time, it would have adopted measures such as wearing a mask, strict disinfection and avoiding going to the wildlife market" in Wuhan, where the coronavirus first emerged in December, the court said.
The Chinese leadership has come under fire for reportedly silencing and punishing those who tried to draw attention to the outbreak in its early days.
Friday's statement is a possible sign that Chinese authorities will tolerate limited criticism of how the virus outbreak has been handled.
There are now nearly 10,000 confirmed domestic cases and over 200 deaths, thanks in part to the lunar New Year holiday this week, which saw hundreds of millions journey domestically and abroad before travel bans were put in place.
Alarm is growing as more cases of the coronavirus emerge around the world including Europe, the Americas and elsewhere in Asia.
The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak a global health emergency and every day governments tighten travel and border crossings with China.
China's National Health Commission said Friday that patients who have recovered should take care as it is still uncertain if they will experience a secondary infection.
Citizens who have travelled over the holiday, particularly to areas affected by the virus, have been called on to "self-quarantine" for 14 days as offices, factories and schools across China remain closed even as the holiday comes to an end.
Zang Bowan, a 24-year-old graduate student in the northern city of Xi’an, told dpa she was sticking close to home and taking precautions.
"I am afraid because once you are infected, even if you have a common cold and fever, you might become infected at the hospital,” she said.
A Beijing-based financial worker in his late 30s told dpa that in public he always wears a mask over his mouth and uses a plastic bag when he pushes elevator buttons, also taking care to wash his hands or bathe when he gets home.
"It felt quite shocking at first, now slowly I have a certain objective understanding of the severity of the situation and the severity of the disease," he said.
Hundreds of flights to and from China have been cancelled around the world, including those run by Air Canada, Lufthansa, British Airways and Turkish Airlines.
Several countries have already flown their citizens out of China - including the United States, Japan, South Korea and Britain - with a slew of other governments like Germany and India with plans in the works.
Both the US and Japan on Friday told citizens not to travel to China, with Washington issuing a warning on par with Afghanistan and Iran.
Japan decided to deny entry to holders of Chinese passports issued in Hubei province, as it confirmed three more coronavirus patients on its territory, who had been evacuated from Wuhan.
Two Chinese citizens in Siberia become Russia's first patients and Britain confirmed that it now has cases of the virus after two people from the same family tested positive.
Italy declared a state of emergency on Friday after the first two cases of the coronavirus were detected in the country in two Chinese tourists in Rome.
Declaring a state of emergency is a usual response in Italy to calamities such as earthquakes or public health crises. It allows public authorities to act more quickly and bypass red tape.
Meanwhile, the European Commission said on Friday it is making 10 million euros (11.05 million dollars) available for research into the epidemic.
The commission launched an emergency tender process to access the funds from its research and innovation programme. The money is expected to support two to four research projects, with work to start as soon as possible.
Hong Kong, which shares a border with mainland China, decided to suspend school until at least March 2 to safeguard against the spread of the disease. The city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, advised people to "stay home" when possible as not to worsen the city’s ongoing deficit of surgical masks and sanitizing products.
Lam said that as of Saturday, any Hong Kong citizens returning from Hubei province will be quarantined for up to 14 days whether they display symptoms or not.
The coronavirus broke out at a seafood market in Wuhan in December that reportedly sold exotic animals for consumption, similar to the outbreak SARS.
