BEIJING (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th February, 2020) The number of people who have been infected with a new coronavirus across China has reached 63,851, with 1,380 patients having died, the National Health Commission said on Friday.
"As of midnight on February 13 [16:00 GMT Thursday], the National Health Commission received information about 63,851 confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by a new type of coronavirus from 31 provinces [regions and municipalities], including 55,748 currently ill people. 10,204 people are in critical condition, 1,380 have died, 6,723 people have been discharged from hospitals," the commission said in a statement.
The commission explained that inconsistencies with the previous figures were because of an error in statistics gathered from the province of Hubei, where 108 fatalities were counted twice.
In Hong Kong, the number of confirmed cases of the novel strain of coronavirus has risen to 53, resulting in the death of one person. Eighteen people have contracted the virus in Taiwan, while a further ten cases have been reported in Macau, although three individuals have already been discharged from hospitals after undergoing treatment. Over 500 reported cases have been confirmed outside of China.
At present, roughly 178,000 people who were in close contact with people who contracted the virus are under surveillance.
Over the last day, 5,090 new cases of infection were reported by Chinese health authorities, while 1,081 people were discharged from hospital. A total of 121 people died over the course of the previous day after contracting the virus, while an additional 2,174 people were reportedly in a critical condition.
The new strain of coronavirus - COVID-19 - was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan, located in the province of Hubei, in December and has since spread to more than 25 countries. In late January, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency in light of the outbreak.
