Chronicle Editor
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called the coronavirus the ‘largest public health emergency’ since the founding of communist China, as the death toll in the mainland reached 2 442 with 76 936 infections reported as of yesterday.
Meanwhile, fears are mounting over the rise of cases outside of China, with South Korea reporting a surge in new infections and Iran recording an eighth death from COVID-19, as the disease is known.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said it was concerned about the jump in cases with no clear link to China, where the virus was first detected in late December, and called for urgent funding to support countries with weaker health systems.
In Italy, the worst-affected country in Europe, the virus has killed two people — a man and a woman in their 70s — and infected another 113.
According to available data, the disease remains mild in 80 percent of patients and severe or critical in 20 percent.
The virus has been fatal in 2 percent of reported cases.
The coronavirus epidemic that has killed over 2 400 people is communist China’s “largest public health emergency” since its founding, President Xi Jinping has said.
“It has the fastest transmission, widest range of infection and has been the most difficult to prevent and control,” Xi said at a meeting on curbing the epidemic, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
He added it was is necessary to learn from “obvious shortcomings exposed” during China’s response, a rare acknowledgement by a Chinese leader.
A third passenger from the quarantined Diamond Princess has died after contracting the coronavirus, the national broadcaster NHK has reported, citing the health ministry.
A man in his 80s became infected on the cruise ship and was treated at a hospital, according to NHK. A man and a woman in their 80s, who had both been passengers on the ship, died last Thursday.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in South Korea jumped to 602 and the death toll rose to five, authorities said.
More than half the new cases are linked to a church in the southeastern city of Daegu after a 61-year-old woman known as “Patient 31” who attended services there tested positive for the virus last week. The woman had no recent record of overseas travel.
Israel may quarantine some 200 visitors from South Korea in a military base south of Jerusalem over coronavirus worries, Israel’s Ynet news site reported yesterday.
Israeli officials had no immediate comment on the report. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said separately yesterday that he had ordered South Korea and Japan to be added to a list of Asian countries to which travel to and from Israel was being barred.
Venice’s famous carnival is going to be suspended due to the new coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy, the President of the Veneto Region Luca Zaia has said.
“We have to adopt drastic measures,” Zaia said.
When asked if that included calling off the carnival in Venice, which runs until tomorrow, he replied that measures about to be announced will cover that “and even more”.
Iran has confirmed 15 new cases of the new coronavirus, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said on state TV, adding that the death toll has reached eight in the country.
“So far, we have 43 infected cases and the death toll is eight,” said Kianush Jahanpur.
Iran’s health minister has said that travel from China brought the coronavirus to the Middle Eastern country, where it has killed at least seven. — Al Jazeera
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