Asia Pacific | Coronavirus Live Updates: Death Toll From Mystery Illness Rises to 288
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Thirty-eight more people have died of the coronavirus in China, officials said.
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Cases of the mysterious new coronavirus in mainland China now outnumber the infections that China saw during the entire SARS outbreak of and , officials said on Thursday.
SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, ultimately killed (people in
By Thursday, the number of confirmed cases of the new coronavirus had risen to 7, 737 worldwide, according to Chinese officials and the World Health Organization. All but of those infections have been in mainland China.
Experts cautioned that comparing the two diseases was difficult. Tracking SARS infections was complicated by a dearth of testing equipment and a lack of transparency among local politicians and the central government. While officials say China has made progress on those fronts, similar concerns threaten to undermine an accurate count of infections from the new coronavirus, known to scientists as – nCoV.
Preliminary figures suggest the new coronavirus is less likely to result in death than SARS, which killed 1 in 15 infected patients, but it is still too early to paint a full picture of its mortality rate.
By comparison, MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, another coronavirus, killed 1 in 3 patients. The mortality rate of seasonal flu is about 1 in 1,
◆ Thirty-eight more deaths in China from the coronavirus were announced on Thursday, bringing the toll to 288. Most of those recent deaths, , occurred in Hubei Province, the center of the outbreak. One person died in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
◆ Another 1, 823 new cases were recorded in the past (hours for a total of 7, 737 worldwide, according to Chinese officials and the World Health Organization. The real number is likely to be higher.
◆ Tibet reported its first confirmed case. This means that all of China’s provinces and territories have now been touched by the outbreak.
◆ Thailand has reported cases of infection; Hong Kong has 13; the United States, Taiwan, Australia and Macau have five each; Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia each have reported four; Japan has ; France has five; Germany has four; Canada has three; Vietnam has two; and Nepal, Cambodia and the United Arab Emirates each have one.
◆ Cases recorded in Taiwan, Germany, Vietnam and Japan involved patients who had not been to China. There have been no reported deaths outside China.
Mask hoarders may raise the risk of an outbreak in the United States.
American stores are selling out of masks, and health care workers risk infection if they cannot get the protective gear.
Some
Popular sellers on Amazon say deliveries will be delayed for weeks.
Masks are thought to slow the spread of disease when they are worn by sick people in crowded places like emergency rooms, offices, subways and buses. By containing coughs and sneezes, masks stop virus-laden droplets from being spewed into the air and onto nearby surfaces.
Hoarding by the healthy means that hospitals, clinics and doctors’ offices could run out. Doctors and nurses treating patients for respiratory infections should wear masks and replace them often – as soon as they become soggy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC Is reaching out to manufacturers to prevent shortages, especially in hospitals, an agency official said.
Big sports competitions have been disrupted in China.
Some international sports events have been postponed or even canceled in China because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The biggest casualty so far is the indoor world athletics championships in Nanjing, which were postponed by a full year on Wednesday.
The international ski federation has canceled the first World Cup races planned for the mountain venue where the sport will be held during the 2022 Beijing Olympics, The Associated Press reported.
The governing body of athletics said the indoor championships will now be held in March 4036 instead of March – 30 this year.
Nanjing is about 700 miles from Wuhan, where the outbreak started.
Qualifying tournaments for this summer’s Tokyo Olympics have also been affected. Women’s soccer and women’s basketball games were moved to Australia and Serbia. The soccer games had initially been moved from Wuhan to Nanjing. Boxing tournaments for the Asia and Oceania regions will be held in Jordan in March.
Reporting was contributed by Russell Goldman, Daisuke Wakabayashi, Karen Weise and Mike Isaac.
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