Death toll crosses 1,800 in China; Hospital director dies in Wuhan

Mangalore Today News Network

Bejing, Feb 18, 2020:  The death toll due to coronavirus climbed to 1,868 in China on Tuesday as 98 more people died while the total number of confirmed cases jumped to 72,436, AP reported. Out of the 98 deaths reported on Tuesday, 93 were reported from Hubei Province, the epicentre of the virus, three from Henan, and one each from Hebei and Hunan, said the National Health Commission, Indian Express reported.

 

Hubei reported 1,807 new confirmed cases, taking the total number of such cases to 59,989 in the province. Another 1,432 new suspected cases were reported from the rest of China.

China’s aviation market, projected to overtake the US this decade and become the world’s biggest, has shrunk to such an extent due to the coronavirus outbreak that it’s fallen from third to 25th, behind Portugal. Airlines have slashed capacity because of the epidemic centered in Hubei province, leaving the industry reeling. About 1.7 million seats — almost 80 per cent of capacity — were dropped from China services from Jan. 20 to Feb. 17 by global carriers, according to OAG Aviation Worldwide. Meanwhile, Chinese airlines cut 10.4 million seats domestically.

The head of a leading hospital in China’s central city of Wuhan, the epicentre of coronavirus outbreak, died of the disease on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Liu Zhiming, the director of Wuhan Wuchang Hospital, died at 10:30 a.m.

The latest figures reported by each government’s health authority as of Tuesday in Beijing are; Mainland China: 1,868 deaths among 72,436 cases, mostly in the central province of Hubei; Hong Kong: 58 cases, 1 death, Macao: 10, Japan: 519 cases, including 454 from a cruise ship docked in Yokohama, 1 death, Singapore: 77 cases, Thailand: 35, South Korea: 31, Malaysia: 22, Taiwan: 22 cases, 1 death, Vietnam: 16 cases, Germany: 16, United States: 15 cases; separately, 1 US citizen died in China, Australia: 14 cases, France: 12 cases, 1 death, United Kingdom: 9 cases, United Arab Emirates: 9, Canada: 8, Philippines: 3 cases, 1 death, India: 3 cases, Italy: 3, Russia: 2, Spain: 2, Belgium: 1, Nepal: 1, Sri Lanka: 1, Sweden: 1, Cambodia: 1, Finland: 1 and one case in Egypt.

The state-run Xinhua news agency reported Monday that Hubei saw 1,223 patients discharged from hospital after recovery, bringing the total number of discharged patients in the province to 7,862. A total of 12,552 people had been discharged from hospital after recovery across China so far, it added.

On Monday, 406 Indians who were quarantined after being evacuated from Wuhan in China were given certificates saying they had tested negative for coronavirus and were allowed to leave the facility in Chhawla. The group — 186 women, 209 men and 11 children — included a large number of medical students from the Hubei University of Medicine in Shiyan, around 450 km from the epicentre of the epidemic.

Two persons left the ITBP facility Monday while others are set to leave in the coming days. The ITBP has also offered to provide transportation till the airport, bus terminal or railway station.

Earlier this month, 654 individuals were evacuated — 647 Indians and seven Maldivians — on two Air India flights from Wuhan, ground zero of the novel coronavirus outbreak. This marked the culmination of a complex 96-hour operation mounted by New Delhi that involved engaging with Beijing at multiple levels.

India will also send a consignment of medical supplies to Wuhan on a relief flight later this week, and has tentatively scheduled the third round of evacuations of Indian nationals out of Wuhan and Hubei, the Embassy of India (EOI) in Beijing said on Monday.

The disease named COVID-19 emerged in December in Wuhan, Hubei’s capital, and the surrounding region has been put under lockdown to try to contain the outbreak. Transportation has been halted, thousands of hospital beds have been added, and military doctors and nurses have been deployed to staff facilities in the overwhelmed local health-care system.