Covid-19 claims 254 lives in a day

Beijing, Feb. 13: China said it confirmed 15,152 new cases and 254 additional deaths during a press conference on Thursday.

Those figures include the ones reported earlier by Hubei province under its new diagnosis methodology.

That brings the country’s total death toll to 1,367 as the number of people infected hit 59,804, according to the government.

A spokeswoman for the Shanghai Health Commission said at a press conference that the methodology for diagnosing coronavirus has not been changed in any Chinese provinces or municipalities except for Hubei.

Health workers in Hubei province began using a new method to diagnose the virus this week.

Previously, infections were only allowed to be confirmed with nucleic acid tests, which can take days to process, but Hubei province is now using CT scans which can diagnose the virus more quickly.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said there are no new cases of foreigners infected with the virus. It also said another foreign national had been discharged, bringing that total figure to eight cases.

The coronavirus is causing travel demand to slump across the whole Asia-Pacific region, according to data released by a travel analytics firm on Thursday, with the region seeing a 10.5 per cent slowdown in outbound travel bookings for March and April (excluding trips to and from China and Hong Kong).

Meanwhile, the chief executive of smartphone maker Xiaomi said the the disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak could impact first-quarter sales, but CEO Lei Jun said he believes demand will bounce back.

■ THE TOTAL death toll due to the virus is now at 1,367 with the number of people getting infected standing at 59,804.

■ THE METHODOLOGY for diagnosis of coronavirus has not been changed in any Chinese provinces or municipalities except Hubei

■ HEALTH WORKERS in Hubei began using a new method to diagnose the virus this week.