(Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse)
Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud on Monday said he and the Saudi government are confident that China's health officials have what it takes to prevent the coronavirus from getting worse and even fully get rid of it.
The Kingdom, Al-Saud disclosed, has been keeping a tight watch on the updates regarding the virus' impact on the global economy, particularly on oil, on which the virus has badly affected in the past few weeks.
Stock markets in the US and elsewhere, including major oil markets, had dropped significantly late Friday as traders and investors sought safe-haven assets in the midst of jitters that the coronavirus would disrupt demand in travel and the economy in general.
According to the energy official, the epidemic's impact on world markets was mainly sparked by psychological factors and "extremely negative expectations taken by some market players" despite the outbreak's very limited effect on oil.
Prices of crude and oil were down over 2 percent late Friday and Brent registered its largest weekly slide in over four quarters on worries that the Wuhan disease will make its way deeper into the Chinese mainland and the rest of the world.
Al-Saud stated that extreme negativity brought about by the viral scare took place in 2003, during the SARS pandemic although it did not cause a huge setback in global oil demand.
The energy minister also disclosed that he was confident Saudi Arabia and other OPEC member states have the capability to deal with any scenarios to keep oil markets stable.
The new virus, referred to by authorities as the 2019-nCoV, has caused major alarm around the globe because there is so much the new strain that scientists and medical experts do not yet know about.
Meanwhile, in Thailand, health authorities have called for an emergency meeting late Sunday with transport and tourism officials to address the growing anger of the public on how the Thai government has been handling the coronavirus.
Thailand has the most number of confirmed cases of the Wuhan virus outside of China. So far, Thai health authorities have recorded 8 coronavirus cases. China is Thailand's number one source of tourists and had more than 11 million visitors from China in 2019.
In an interview with members of the press, Anutin Charnvirakul, Thailand's Public Health Minister, said they can control the situation and are confident in their "capacity to handle the crisis."
Charnvirakul pointed out that of the recorded 8 viral cases, three infected patients were being treated and five had been discharged after doctors determined they were free of any infections.
As this developed, the hashtag #Crapgovernment flooded Thailand's social media sites, Twitter in particular, with more than 400,000 tweets. Users ranted about government's management of the coronavirus and other health matters.
Charnvirakul emphasized that if the situation reaches a point where "public health is in danger, the government will take more action," adding that the government would not prioritize tourism profits over its people's health.
