China reports the most virus deaths in one day
WHO team arrives to pave way for aid effort
China reported its highest daily coronavirus death toll Tuesday, the 103 additional fatalities pushing the total past 1,000 and providing a somber warning that the epidemic represents “a very grave threat to the rest of the world.”
All but two of the 1,018 deaths attributed to the outbreak that emerged in December took place in mainland China. The virus is continuing to spread into other countries, with almost 500 of the 43,138 confirmed cases elsewhere. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week reported the 13th case in the U.S.
The 103 deaths broke the daily record set one day earlier, when 97 deaths were reported.
“The rise in mortality cases is concerning,” said Ogbonnaya Omenka, an assistant professor and public health specialist at Butler University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. “In China, health workers are overstretched, and diagnostic processes are not keeping up with the cases.”
Omenka said testing and confirming cases takes longer due to a shortage of diagnostic tools. Supportive treatment is not available for many cases due to the shortage of facilities and health workers, he said.
A team from the World Health Organization arrived in China this week to “lay the groundwork for a larger international team” that will aid the Chinese efsymptoms fort while learning traits of the outbreak that could aid global efforts, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“With 99% of cases in China, this remains very much an emergency for that country, but one that holds a very grave threat for the rest of the world,” Tedros said. “It’s hard to believe that just two months ago, this virus – which has come to captivate the attention of media, financial markets and political leaders – was completely unknown to us.”
Almost 200 people evacuated from Wuhan, China, on the first charter flight from the country were being released Tuesday, said Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She said the 195 people had been monitored for of the respiratory virus for the past 14 days, the maximum incubation time. None had common symptoms such as fever or coughing.
Of the 800 people evacuated on five separate charter flights, only one person has been confirmed with coronavirus, Schuchat said.
Schuchat said the coronavirus seems to spread more easily than SARS – severe acute respiratory syndrome – but appears to be less lethal. SARS, which originated in China and spread globally in 2003, killed about 1 in 10 people. So far, the death rate for coronavirus is about 2% in China, and that figure might drop as China counts people with milder cases. The transmissibility of the virus may be more similar to that of the flu or the common cold, she said.