Coronavirus sparks Starbucks, McDonald's closures in China
The new viral illness being watched with a wary eye around the globe has sparked the temporary closures of McDonald's and Starbucks chains in China as the country takes drastic measures to halt its spread.
McDonald's Corp. has temporarily closed all five of its locations in Hubei province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, which has claimed 81 lives and sickened thousands in China and has since made its way overseas.
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"Staff and customers’ safety is our first priority and we have comprehensive precautious measures being implemented to all restaurant operations and office staff," Barry Sum, McDonald's spokesperson, told FOX Business.
The company plans on maintaining close communication with local health and other relevant authorities to work together to fight the spread of this virus, according to Sum.
"This virus is traveling very quickly with human contact and with the dense population that exists in China, I think it is important they take every precaution to isolate these people that have the virus and keep it out of the public domain," former McDonald’s CEO Ed Rensi told FOX Business' Stuart Varney on Friday.
Rensi told Fox Business that he believed the corporation was doing the "right thing."
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Coffee giant Starbucks has also suspended operations at all of its stores in Hubei province for the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, a spokesperson for Starbucks confirmed to FOX Business.
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Starbucks said it will continue to monitor the situation closely and plans to take further action if the situation evolves. The chain also announced that it is working with health authorities to ensure its employees are safe.
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On Monday, China expanded sweeping efforts to contain a viral disease by extending the Lunar New Year holiday to keep the public at home and avoid spreading infection that has already claimed the lives of at least 80 and sickened nearly 3,000 people across China.
Hong Kong announced it would bar entry to visitors from the province at the center of the outbreak following a warning the virus's ability to spread was growing. Travel agencies were ordered to cancel group tours nationwide, adding to the rising economic cost.
Anti-disease efforts began with the Jan. 22 suspension of plane, train and bus links to Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in central China where the virus was first detected last month. That lockdown has expanded to a total of 17 cities with more than 50 million people in the most far-reaching disease-control measures ever imposed.
The end of the Lunar New Year holiday, China's busiest travel season, was pushed back to Sunday from Thursday to "reduce mass gatherings" and "block the spread of the epidemic," a Cabinet statement said.
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The virus has since spread to neighboring counties such as South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Thailand. Five people have also been confirmed to have the respiratory virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed. All of the confirmed cases in the United States were travelers who had been to Wuhan, the city at the center of the outbreak.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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