Death toll in Coronavirus nears 1,500, cases over 64K

Beijing: The death toll in China's novel coronavirus outbreak has spiked to nearly 1,500 with 121 new fatalities reported mostly from the worst-affected Hubei province while the confirmed cases of infection jumped to nearly 65,000, health officials said on Friday.

The hard-hit Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, has reported 116 new fatalities and reported 4,823 new confirmed cases on Thursday, the provincial health commission said on Friday.

The death toll in China's coronavirus epidemic has gone up to 1,488, the health officials said on Friday.

The National Health Commission said, with 5,090 new cases the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases soared up to 64,894 as of Thursday.

The commission said it received reports of 121 deaths on Thursday with 5,090 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection from 31 provincial-level regions.

Among the deaths, 116 were in Hubei Province, two in Heilongjiang, and one in Anhui, Henan and Chongqing respectively, the commission said.

The number of new cases in Hubei Province included 3,095 clinically diagnosed cases, which have been seen as confirmed cases. The new deaths also include eight who were clinically diagnosed.

The latest report brought the total confirmed cases in Hubei province to 51,986, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The World Health Organisation on Thursday said a sharp rise of 254 cases of COVID-19 (official name for coronavirus) cases in China, due to a change in counting methods, did not represent a big shift in the epidemic.

Of the 254, Hubei and its provincial capital Wuhan reported 242 deaths, the single highest in a day so far.

"This does not represent a significant change in the trajectory of the outbreak," Michael Ryan, head of WHO's health emergencies programme, told a press conference in Geneva.

"We're not dealing, from what we understand, with a spike in cases of 14,000 on one day," he said.

"This increase that you've all seen in the last 24 hours is largely, in part, down to a change in how the cases are being reported." Ryan also said he expected members of a WHO-led international mission to China to arrive over the weekend.

Already 15-member advance WHO team has arrived in China on Monday.

Meanwhile, China on Friday rejected US allegations that it is not transparent enough in sharing the details about the coronavirus outbreak, saying it was working with the international community in an "open and highly responsible manner" to contain the global

crisis.

China's comments came after Larry Kudlow, the director of President Donald Trump's Economic Council, said that the US is little disappointed over not being invited in the medical operations and the lack of transparency coming from the Chinese over coronavirus outbreak.

Stressing that unanswered questions were mounting and there was no sign of the promised cooperation, Kudlow said: "We're more than willing to work with the WHO on this(coronavirus) and they won't let us".

"I don't know what their motives are. I do know that apparently, more and more people are suffering over there," Kudlow said in

Washington.

The death toll in China's novel coronavirus outbreak has spiked to nearly 1,500 with 121 new fatalities reported mostly from the worst-affected Hubei province while the confirmed cases of infection jumped to nearly 65,000, health officials said on Friday.

State-run CGTN reported that 505 cases of the virus were abroad, including 15 cases of the virus in the US.

Ever since the coronavirus outbreak that shook China and the world, Beijing has not acceded to requests by the US to permit American specialists to visit the country to take part in the medical operations to counter the virus.

Instead, China has permitted a team of the World Health Organisation (WHO) specialists to visit the country and assist it to contain the

virus.

While a 15 member WHO advance team has arrived on Monday, the rest expected to reach here soon.

However, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that China has been working with the international community to tackle the epidemic in an open, transparent and highly responsible manner.

China has been working with the international community to tackle the epidemic in an open, transparent and highly responsible manner for the sake of global public health security and all people's health," Geng was quoted as saying during an online media briefing here by the

reporter.

He also said that China has been active and open towards cooperation with the US.

"China has been active and open towards cooperation with the US. Since the epidemic began, the health authorities of the two sides have been in close communication on policies, timely exchanging information on the epidemic, with the heads of the departments having talks through phone calls and messages," he

said.

Geng stated that the Chinese and American departments of disease control, medical R&D and technology as well as scientists have also been engaging in various forms of exchanges.