Death toll in China reaches 1,110; 39 New Cases on Japan cruise ship

Mangalore Today News Network

Bejing, Feb 12, 2020: Coronavirus Outbreak LIVE Updates: The number of fatalities from China’s new coronavirus epidemic jumped to 1,110 nationwide today after hard-hit Hubei province reported 94 new deaths. On board the Diamond Princess cruise ship off the Japan coast, which has been in quarantine since February 3, 39 more people tested positive, bringing the total to 174, News18 reported.

 

The Diamond Princess has been in quarantine since arriving off the Japanese coast after the virus was detected in a former passenger who got off the ship last month in Hong Kong. When the boat arrived off Japan, authorities initially tested nearly 300 people of the 3,711 aboard for the virus, gradually evacuating dozens who were infected to local medical facilities.

Two Japanese citizens evacuated from the epicentre of a novel coronavirus outbreak have been diagnosed with the infection after initially testing negative. One of the two, a man in his 50s who returned from the Chinese city of Wuhan on the first Japanese evacuation flight on January 29, previously twice tested negative for the virus. However, a third test 12 days later found the man — who has been isolated in his hotel room since his return — was infected.

The Indian smartphone industry, which relies heavily on China for components and sub-assemblies, has started feeling the impact of supply disruptions in certain product categories due to the coronavirus outbreak. The industry is keeping a close watch to see if shuttered factories in China reopen in the coming days and supplies resume sometime this week.

The Mizoram government’s Health Department on Tuesday confirmed that no case of novel coronavirus has been detected in the state. This comes after a person returning from Goa, who was admitted to hospital due a certain illness, was suspected to be infected with coronavirus.  Health department principal director Dr. F Lallianhlira told PTI that wrong information was circulated in social media.

A woman from Satara district of Maharashtra stranded in Wuhan in China due to the novel coronavirus outbreak there has appealed to the Centre through social media to airlift her and several compatriots facing a similar situation. Ashini Avinash Patil, in a video being circulated, claimed she was stuck in Wuhan, one of the worst-hit cities in China, along with 70-80 other Indians.

Three patients are under observation in hospitals in Maharashtra for the novel coronavirus and nearly 25,800 passengers have been screened at the airport here since January 18 for possible exposure to the infection, state health officials said on Tuesday. However, no confirmed case of the viral infection, which originated in China, has been found in the state so far.

Meanwhile, Thailand has also barred passengers from Holland America’s cruise ship MS Westerdam from disembarking, the latest country to turn it away amid fears of the coronavirus despite no confirmed infections on board.

An additional 39 people on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship off the Japan coast have tested positive for the new coronavirus, Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said on Wednesday, bringing the total to 174. "Out of 53 new test results, 39 people were found positive," he told reporters, adding that a quarantine official had also been infected with the virus.

The health authorities in Thailand have barred cruise ship Diamond Princess from docking and that has already been turned away by the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan out of concern over a new virus. The chief of the Department of Disease Control, Suwanchai Wattanayingcharoenchai said the ministry will further consider how to deal with the ship’s situation.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday said "Covid-19" would be the new official name for the deadly coronavirus that was first identified in China on December 31. "We now have a name for the disease and it’s Covid-19," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva, explaining that "co" stood for "corona", "vi" for "virus" and "d" for "disease".

The death toll for the coronavirus passed 1000 on Tuesday as President Xi Jinping called for more "decisive" measures to tackle the outbreak. In a rare move, he visited a frontline hospital after being largely out of the public eye since the virus outbreak spiraled across the country infecting more than 42,000 people. He appointed Premier Li Keqiang to lead a group tackling the outbreak and it was Li who visited ground zero in Wuhan last month.
Coronavirus Outbreak LIVE: Death Toll in China Reaches 1,110; 39 New Cases on Japan Cruise Ship
An ambulance from Japanese Self-Defence Force leaves the pier where the cruise ship Diamond Princess is anchored, as dozens of passengers were tested positive for coronavirus on board, in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, Japan, February 11, 2020.

In China, Hubei’s health commission confirmed another 1,638 new cases in the central province, where the outbreak emerged in December. There are now more than 44,200 confirmed cases across China, based on previously released figures from the government.

The new virus is believed to have emerged last year in a market that sells wild animals in Hubei’s capital Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak.

The virus was officially named "COVID-19" at a conference in Geneva held by the World Health Organization, where the body’s chief said countries had a chance of stopping its global spread.

WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on yesterdaythat although 99 percent of cases are in China, where it remains "very much an emergency," it also "holds a very grave threat for the rest of the world." He urged countries to share data in order to further research the disease.