Coronavirus: Death Count Rises To 908 In China, 40,000 Confirmed Cases Reported

The death count in China’s novel coronavirus outbreak has climbed to 908. There are now more than 40,000 confirmed cases across China. The death count due to the novel coronavirus outbreak in China has surpassed the toll from the SARS outbreak on the mainland and Hong Kong almost two decades ago. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a disease in the same family as the new coronavirus, left nearly 774 people dead in mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003. More than 120 others died around the world.

There were 97 deaths and 3,062 new confirmed cases of the lethal infection on Sunday, China’s National Health Commission said.

Ninety-one deaths were in Hubei province, the epicentre of the epidemic, two in Anhui, and one each in Heilongjiang, Jiangxi, Hainan and Gansu, according to the commission.

A total of 908 people have died of the disease and 40,171 confirmed cases of the outbreak were reported in 31 provincial-level regions so far, it said.

On Sunday, as many as 3,281 patients have been discharged from hospital after recovery. So far, over 630 people, including 356 in Hubei, have been discharged, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the commission as saying.

China has struggled to contain the current virus despite having placed some 56 million people under effective lockdown in Hubei and its provincial capital, Wuhan. Other cities far from the epicentre have also taken measures to keep people indoors, limiting the number of individuals who can leave their home.

China imposed a lockdown on a major city far from the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic. The United States, Australia, New Zealand and Israel have banned foreign nationals from visiting if they have been in China recently, and they have also warned their own citizens against travelling there.

China has opened a new hospital built in 10 days, infused cash into tumbling financial markets and further restricted people's movement in hopes of containing the rapidly spreading virus and its escalating impact.

WHO says coronavirus case numbers stabilising

The number of cases of the deadly novel coronavirus being reported on a daily basis in China is “stabilising”, the World Health Organisation said on Saturday. The UN health agency said this was “good news” but cautioned that it was too early to make any predictions about whether the virus might have peaked.

“There has been a stabilisation in the number of cases reported from Hubei,” Michael Ryan, head of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said at a briefing in Geneva.