Coronavirus: Death toll surpasses 900, work resumes in China
The announced number of victims of the new coronavirus has reached 908. Starting Monday, February 11, work activities will resume in many government and non-government institutions and companies.
Authorities in central China's Hubei province, where the new coronavirus outbreak originated, said 90 more people had died and more than 2,600 new cases had been reported. Across China, the number of cases exceeded 4,000 on Sunday.
With this, the number of victims has reached approximately 910 and the number of infected people has reached more than 40,000.
Outside mainland China, only one person has died in the Philippines and one in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, so the statistics have not changed.
Outside of China, nearly 30 countries have officially reported cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the total to more than 300. However, not all of these countries have the same health and disease control mechanisms, and surveillance and quarantine vary.
The number of victims and infected people has long surpassed that of SARS, the coronavirus that was prevalent in 2002 and 2003. In those years, nearly 8,000 people were infected and 774 people lost their lives.
The rate of infection of the new virus is much higher than SARS, but the mortality rate is still lower than SARS and has remained at around two percent.
The World Health Organization recently announced that the spread of the virus appears to have stabilized, meaning that its rate of spread appears to have slowed, at least in recent days.
However, the increase in the number of infected people on Monday morning has once again caused concerns.
Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of the Center for Immunity and Disease Infection at Columbia University, said during an online news conference that if measures to contain the disease are effective, we should soon see a significant reduction in cases.
Dr. Lippiken, who helped the World Health Organization during SARS, added that if the number of cases spikes as business and office activities resume, "that's when we know we're in trouble."
Many government offices and organizations, stores, and private institutions in China will resume their work on Monday, February 11. The Chinese New Year holiday, which was supposed to end two weeks ago, has been extended until today.
Source: Radio Farda
