BEIJING, Feb 17, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The death toll from China’s new
coronavirus epidemic jumped to 1,770 after 105 more people died, the National
Health Commission said Monday.
More than 70,500 have now been infected nationwide by the virus, which
first emerged in December in central Hubei province before spreading across
the country.
Chinese authorities have placed about 56 million people in Hubei and its
capital Wuhan under quarantine, virtually sealing off the province from the
rest of the country in an unprecedented effort to contain the virus.
New cases outside of the epicentre have been declining for the last
thirteen days.
There were 115 fresh cases outside the central province, according to the
commission on Monday — sharply down from nearly 450 a week ago.
Local authorities elsewhere in China have introduced measures to try and
stop the virus spreading, including a rule in Beijing requiring people coming
to the capital to self-quarantine for 14 days, according to official media.
Most cases are still in Hubei, where nearly 2,000 were reported Monday.
The number of reported infections ballooned on Thursday last week after
Hubei authorities changed their criteria for counting cases, retroactively
adding 14,000 cases in a single day.
Monday’s figures for new cases were around 100 higher than those on Sunday
but still sharply down on those from Friday and Saturday.
A spokesman for China’s national health authority said that the slowdown
was a sign the outbreak was being controlled.
However, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has
warned it is “impossible to predict which direction this epidemic will take”.
International experts have arrived in Beijing and begun meeting with their
Chinese counterparts over the epidemic, Tedros said on Twitter.
Global worries about its spread remain high and the epidemic’s reach was
highlighted by the US announcing that more than three dozen Americans from a
cruise ship quarantined off Japan were infected.