London's Lunar New Year celebrations overshadowed by coronavirus
London's Chinese community welcomed the Year of the Rat on Sunday (January 26) with a traditional parade, as fears about a new coronavirus outbreak mounted worldwide.
Crowds including tourists and residents gathered in central London for the annual celebration, famous for being the biggest outside China.
For China's 1.4 billion people, the holiday is the most important holiday of the year and millions of people travel thousands of miles back to their hometowns to gather with family and friends. But authorities, seeking to control the spread of the illness, cancelled many large-scale celebrations of the holiday, closed part of the Great Wall and suspended public transport in many cities, stranding millions.
The ability of the new coronavirus to spread is strengthening and infections could continue to rise, China's National Health Commission said on Sunday, with more than 2,000 people in China infected and 56 killed by the disease.
