Increasingly desperate officials in the quarantined epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak have tightened controls on an already frightened population, likening the growing crisis to “wartime conditions”.

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Authorities in Wuhan city have started going door to door checking temperatures, and rounding up suspected coronavirus patients for forcible quarantine in stadiums and exhibition centres that are serving as warehouses for the sick, the New York Times reported. The city and country face “wartime conditions”, the paper quoted vice-premier Sun Chunlan, who has been put in charge of the national campaign against the virus, as saying on a visit to Wuhan. She said: “There must be no deserters, or they will be nailed to the pillar of historical shame forever.”

Meanwhile another three people on a cruise liner off Japan have tested positive, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 64. Foreign passengers on another ship, Holland America’s Westerdam, have also been barred, with suspected virus patients on board, according to authorities. The ship, with more than 2,000 people, was near Okinawa and seeking another port.

More than 34,500 people have been infected around the world, the vast majority inside China and two-thirds of them in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province. There have been 724 deaths, all but two of them in mainland China.

Chinese scientists claimed they may have found the animal source of the outbreak, based on genetic analysis, though their results have yet to be published. The coronavirus is thought to have originated in bats but passed through an intermediate host before infecting humans. The researchers have identified a coronavirus in pangolins that is 99% similar to the one causing the current outbreak.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Researchers have identified a coronavirus in pangolins. Photograph: Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images

The only scaly mammal, the long-snouted, ant-eating pangolin is endangered but often hunted for meat or use in Chinese medicine.

The World Health Organization on Friday hailed a fall in the number of new infections for a second consecutive day, which could signal some progress in containing the outbreak.

But across mainland China there were 3,399 new confirmed infections in the last twenty four hours. And Sun’s dramatic visit to Wuhan, stepping up efforts on the ground there, and promises of more help from Beijing suggest that party officials in China fear the epidemic is still not under control.

Containment efforts across Hubei province should be stepped up, with efforts to increase the number of hospital beds and medical staff, top communist party officials agreed at a meeting chaired by the premier, Li Keqiang.

The death rate in Wuhan was 4.1%, the New York Times reported, far higher than the 2.8% across Hubei province, and the national rate of about 2%.

Some in Wuhan fear they are being sacrificed for the national good, and the death of a whistleblower doctor from the virus has stirred up popular anger across China.

Li Wenliang had been reprimanded by security officials for warning fellow doctors in late December 2019 about a mystery new disease; he then caught the coronavirus from one of his own patients in January and, despite youth and apparent good health, he died early on Friday morning.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A security guard looks out of the window of a sentry box in Wuhan. Photograph: Stringer/Getty Images

The hashtag “we want free speech” was briefly circulating on social media, amid memorials and tributes to Li, before it was wiped by censors.

For weeks China has ignored offers of help from the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US and the WHO, the New York Times reported, though a spokeswoman for the WHO said it was just “sorting out arrangements”.

There have been thousands of cases in other parts of China where increasing numbers of cities, towns and even remote villages are locking themselves down.

Two weeks into the crisis, however, it is clear that Beijing cannot afford to keep all of the country closed for business indefinitely.

When the growing scale of the outbreak was first made public in mid-January the country was on holiday for the most important celebration on the Chinese calendar, the lunar new year festival.

But after festivities that normally bring in a large slice of retail and service sector income were effectively cancelled, and the nationwide holiday was prolonged by a week, the cost of shuttered shops, factories, restaurants and other businesses has started mounting.

Small businesses have warned about problems with everything from keeping livestock fed, to paying rent, and staff salaries for shops that can’t make any sales.

The impact of the shutdown has also been felt beyond China’s borders, since the world’s second-largest economy is now so integrated into international markets.

South Korea’s Hyundai has shuttered the most productive car factory in the world, a five-plant network that can make 1.4m cars a year, as the shutdown in China meant it ran out of a key component.

Quick guide What are coronavirus symptoms and should I go to a doctor? Show Hide What is Covid-19? Covid-19 is caused by a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it a pandemic. What are the symptoms this coronavirus causes? According to the WHO, the most common symptoms of Covid-19 are fever, tiredness and a dry cough. Some patients may also have a runny nose, sore throat, nasal congestion and aches and pains or diarrhoea. Some people report losing their sense of taste and/or smell. About 80% of people who get Covid-19 experience a mild case – about as serious as a regular cold – and recover without needing any special treatment. About one in six people, the WHO says, become seriously ill. The elderly and people with underlying medical problems like high blood pressure, heart problems or diabetes, or chronic respiratory conditions, are at a greater risk of serious illness from Covid-19. In the UK, the National health Service (NHS) has identified the specific symptoms to look for as experiencing either: a high temperature - you feel hot to touch on your chest or back

a new continuous cough - this means you’ve started coughing repeatedly As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work, and there is currently no vaccine. Recovery depends on the strength of the immune system. Should I go to the doctor if I have a cough? Medical advice varies around the world - with many countries imposing travel bans and lockdowns to try and prevent the spread of the virus. In many place people are being told to stay at home rather than visit a doctor of hospital in person. Check with your local authorities. In the UK, NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms should stay at home for at least 7 days. If you live with other people, they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home.

Authorities may initially have planned only a short quarantine, hoping the disease would be brought under control as Sars was over a decade ago.

But it is clear China cannot afford to delay most of its population going back to work, and a meeting of top Chinese leaders has called on businesses to “resume operation in an orderly manner”, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

It suggested adapting working methods to reduce the risk of infection; options could include remote working or staggered shifts. Foxconn, the electronics company that supplies Apple, has begun manufacturing its own surgical masks, allowing Chinese workers to churn out iPhones uninterrupted.

As people gear up to return home there are special regulations on trains and planes to try to reduce the risk of infection.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Flight attendants wearing protective clothing and serve snacks to evacuated Canadians on an American charter plane. Photograph: Edward Wang/Reuters

Ticket sales will be capped at under half the usual numbers so passengers can sit further apart to reduce the risk of infection, the South China Morning Post reported. There will also be more temperature checks and quarantine areas at train stations.

The effort to get people back to work might be complicated by childcare problems if schools do not reopen; authorities said only that they should “postpone the start of new semester in an appropriate manner”, Xinhua reported.

President Xi Jinping spoke with Donald Trump and urged the US to “respond reasonably” to the outbreak, echoing complaints that some countries are overreacting by restricting Chinese travellers.

Play Video 2:13 'Contact is limited': inside the world's coronavirus quarantines – video

In a sign of growing worries overseas, Hong Kong has begun a mandatory two-week quarantine for anyone arriving from mainland China and announced fines and jail terms of up to six months for quarantine breaches. Singapore has upgraded its coronavirus alert level, sparking panic-buying of essentials.