Here are the Facts NetNewsLedger Can Confirm:
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Global concern grows as the outbreak spreads.
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There is a presumed confirmed case in Toronto, Ontario
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The death toll rises to 56, with one fatality in Shanghai.
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A third U.S. case is confirmed in California.
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China temporarily halts the trade in wildlife across the country.
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Americans in Wuhan are being evacuated to San Francisco.
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Public health experts warn against mass anxiety.
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China’s central government deploys hundreds of workers.
China has announced there have been 15 more deaths as a result of coronavirus This includes a death in Shanghai, that death is the first one reported in Shanghai.
An additional thirteen deaths were also announced in Hubei Province, where the outbreak was first reported. There is one additional death reported in Henan Province.
This brings the death toll to 56.
Across China, 688 new cases were reported on Saturday, according to the Chinese government. This brings the total number of confirmed cases to 1,975 according to Chinese sources.
Chinese President XI said, “Life is of paramount importance. When an epidemic breaks out, a command is issued. It is our responsibility to prevent and control it.”
President Xi has ordered Party committees and governments at all levels to take novel coronavirus outbreak prevention and control as the top priority of their work.
Wuhan, a city of 11 million is the hardest-hit city from the novel coronavirus outbreak. Wuhan is planning to transform twenty-four general hospitals for temporary use to cope with the increasing number of patients with fever, according to Wuhan’s health commission on Saturday.
On the basis of the two designated hospitals and 61 fever clinics, the megacity decided to transform the 24 local hospitals in batches to provide thousands of beds for patients.
Construction is continuing on the 1000 bed hospital in the city which Chinese officials say will be ready later this week.
China Confident in Ability to Control Outbreak
Reporting in China News Service, a Chinese state-run media: “China is confident in its ability to end the novel coronavirus outbreak at a lower cost and a faster speed, health minister Ma Xiaowei said on Sunday, after being asked whether it would be more serious than the outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003.
“Ma, director of the National Health Commission, said the novel coronavirus is now spreading at a relatively fast rate, pressuring the country’s disease prevention and control work. “The outbreak has entered a severe and complicated stage,” he said.”
Chinese Officials – A Race to Create a Vaccine
The Wuhan pathogen is from a large family of viruses called coronaviruses, one of which also caused the deadly 2002-03 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars).
There had been speculation that Sars,
which spread to 29 countries and killed more than 700 people worldwide, was closely related to the Wuhan virus, known as 2019-nCoV.
But researchers in Beijing said the Wuhan coronavirus could be a novel virus rather than an evolved version of Sars.
