The death toll from China’s coronavirus outbreak may surpass the total from SARS within days, if the disease continues to kill people at its current pace. The global toll has reached 724.
Total fatalities rose early Saturday in China after Hubei Province, epicenter of the outbreak, reported 81 new deaths. The 2002-2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, killed 774 people after starting in China and spreading worldwide.
Total deaths may be far higher, given reports of an overwhelmed health system in Hubei, central China.
China named two officials to lead the response in Hubei as the nation seeks to slow the spread. A new medical journal report said the infection was spreading inside a Wuhan hospital.
Key Developments
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. has barred passengers with Chinese, Hong Kong or Macau passports from boarding its ships this month, and will require extra screening for people who came in contact with someone who was in China in the past 15 days.
“These steps are very conservative, and we apologize that they will inconvenience some of our guests,” the cruise operator said in a statement.
In addition, the company said anyone who feels unwell or demonstrates flu-like symptoms or shows up with a fever will be denied boarding.
Passengers on the company’s Anthem of the Seas, docked in New Jersey, were cleared to leave Friday after more than two dozen were screened for coronavirus, the first such cruise scare on US shores. Four passengers, Chinese nationals, went to a local hospital and tests are pending, the company said. The ship has been cleared to depart.
The coronavirus hasn’t led to any disruptions in the US in the supply chain of medical and protective gear, much of which is made in China, officials from President Donald Trump’s task force said at a briefing Friday where they updated the public on progress.
Efforts to produce drugs to treat infections and vaccines to prevent new cases are proceeding smoothly, said Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
There are two studies underway using Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir to see if patients treated with it recover more quickly than those given standard supportive care. Efforts to start human studies of Moderna Inc.’s potential vaccine within the next two-and-a-half months are proceeding with no glitches, Fauci said.
The US is still waiting to hear from China about whether its offer to send experts in virology, drug development and epidemiology as part of a team from the World Health Organization will be accepted, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said at the briefing.
The US is prepared to spend as much as $100 million to help China and other nations fighting the spread of the coronavirus, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said Friday. The US this week helped ship to China 17.8 tons of donated supplies, such as masks, gowns, gauze, respirators and other materials this week, he said in a statement.
The financial assistance to foreign government is direct and through multilateral organizations, the Sate Department said.
A Chinese hospital taking care of patients with the novel coronavirus saw the infection spread at high rates among health-care staff and other patients, according to a study of cases at a Wuhan hospital.
The report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at 138 patients from the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University who had the coronavirus and developed pneumonia, which can be a sign that the infection has grown more severe.
Many of the pneumonia cases were in workers and other patients at the hospital: Transmission within the hospital was responsible for about 41% of cases, including 40 health professionals and 17 other patients.
Among the group of 138 patients, 26% required intensive care and 4.3% died, higher than other, broader estimates of fatality from the virus. Just 47 patients, or about one-third of the total, have been discharged.
China has assigned two new officials to be in direct control of the efforts to manage the coronavirus outbreak in Hubei province.
Chen Yixin, who was previously the top Communist Party secretary in the capital of Hubei, will be the the deputy head of the central government’s directing group on Hubei, according to a WeChat blog affiliated with state media. The group is in charge of sorting out the epidemic in the province and is led by Vice Premier Sun Chunlan.
Wang Hesheng, who is the deputy head of China’s National Health Commission, will become a member of Hubei’s standing committee, which is the top decision-making body for the province, according to the blog Taoran Notes, which is connected to the Economic Daily Newspaper.
