Beijing, Feb 10 (UNI) China’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Monday reported 3,062 new cases of SARS like coronavirus infection as of Sunday at midnight, taking the total to date to 40,171 with death toll at 910 and over 97 deaths in a single day in the country.
South China Morning Post reported that the latest daily increase took the total number of confirmed deaths caused by the “novel coronavirus pneumonia” – officially named by China’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Saturday – to 910. All but two of those had occurred in mainland China.
Of those in hospital, almost 6,500 are severe cases, according to the data.
Sars – or severe acute respiratory syndrome – killed 813 people as it swept through China and other parts of Asia in 2002-03, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) figures. Sars had a much higher fatality rate (around 10 per cent) than that of the new coronavirus, which has killed around 2 per cent of all those infected.
Also on Monday, health authorities in the province of Hubei, where the disease first broke out in December, reported 2,618 cases overnight, as its total number of infections rose to almost 30,000.
Of the 97 deaths reported nationwide on Sunday, 91 were in Hubei. Almost 1,800 of the province’s cases have recovered and been released from hospital.
Amid a steady rise of cases overseas, numerous governments, including those of Japan, the United States and Singapore, have implemented restrictions barring entry to those with recent travel history to China. Countries have also evacuated their citizens from Wuhan, the contagion’s epicentre and one of the many cities in China to have been put under lockdown.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Twitter on Sunday that a WHO team of international experts had left for China to help investigate the outbreak.
UNI XC-RHK0922