China on Sunday held a mourning ceremony for the victims of its worst shipping disaster in 70 years after the death toll in the cruise ship that capsized in the mighty Yangtze River jumped to 431.
Ashish Kurme, an MBBS student studying at a university near Wuhan, tells the grim story of ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak.
The cases of infection have been rising rapidly in Europe and other parts of the world, with Italy being the hardest-hit country.
As of Friday, the total confirmed cases on the mainland were 82,875. As many as 77,685 patients have been recovered, the NHC said.
Doubles specialist Markis Kido won gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics partnering Hendra Setiawan, a year after the pair won the men's doubles title at the world championship in Kuala Lumpur.
The eggs were discovered by workers during the construction of the expressway that runs through Jinyin Mountain in Yunxi County of the province.
The affected nurse is being treated and is recovering well, junior foreign minister V Muraleedharan said. Meanwhile, China has locked down five cities, including Wuhan, suspending all public transport in an unprecedented move to contain the coronavirus that has infected over 630 people and left 17 others dead.
The NHC said, 78 new confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported on the Chinese mainland on Monday, of which 74 were imported from abroad taking the number of overseas cases to 427.
An Air India flight was sent to Wuhan on Friday to bring back the Indian students stuck in Hubei province, the epicentre of coronavirus.
Over 500 soldiers, 1,000 people and 62 speedboats have been sent for rescue work while more than 10,000 people have been sent to ensure the safety of river banks.
The deadly coronavirus is wreaking havoc globally, killing over 50 people in Iran, 34 in Italy and 22 in South Korea.
Asymptomatic cases refer to people who tested positive for the coronavirus but develop no symptoms such as fever, cough or sore throat.
The Diamond Princess cruise ship arrived in Yokohama, near Tokyo, on February 3 with 3,711 passengers and crew on board, 621 people were found to be infected with the deadly coronavirus after it was diagnosed in a man who disembarked last month in Hong Kong.
'India's acts of goodwill fully demonstrate its friendship with China'
Speaking at a press conference, Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the WHO mission in Wuhan, stated four hypotheses on how the virus spread but reiterated that "laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population".
Wang Xinghuan, the head of the Wuhan Leishenshan (Thunder God Mountain) Hospital, advocated the use of facial masks specially in cities like New York which are experience a higher rate of cases and casualties of coronavirus.
The country's National Health Commission in its daily update said it received reports of 52 deaths, all from Hubei, and 406 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection from all over the country.
Meanwhile, passengers began leaving the ship on Wednesday after the end of a two-week quarantine period that failed to stop the spread of the virus among passengers and crew.
The Wuhan local administration earlier announced that people who are not quarantined and seeking special treatment or stranded in the city can leave in batches.
After launching the world's longest high-speed rail line, China on Friday opened its subway line across the mighty Yangtze River to connect the two sides of Wuhan, the most populous city in Central China.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said international experts were now on the ground in China to understand the outbreak and inform the next steps in the global response.
Eighty-nine deaths were reported on Saturday -- the highest single-day death toll -- and there were 2,656 new confirmed cases of the deadly infection, China's National Health Commission said in its daily report on Sunday.
The confirmed cases climbed to 571 mostly from the city of Wuhan with 17 deaths so far. The Wuhan government required all people in public places such as hotels, restaurants, cinemas, parks, shopping centres and public transports to wear masks to prevent the spread of the virus, according to an announcement on Wednesday night. The rule took effect immediately.
Shanghai on Monday reported 425 confirmed and 8,581 asymptomatic domestically transmitted cases, the highest daily increases since the latest outbreak, bringing the total number of COVID-19 infections in the city to over 60,000.
The overall confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland has reached 44,653 by the end of Tuesday and 1,113 people has died of the disease.
Year after year, the number of yoga practitioners participating in the official and unofficial events on International Yoga Day in different cities is growing, especially the young people, officials say.
A train carrying 900 passengers left from Yichang City, central Hubei Province for Chongqing in Wanzhou district.
The Chinese health authorities announced on Wednesday that 5,974 confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus had been reported in 31 provincial-level regions by the end of Tuesday.
It has triggered a cause of concern for India too as many of the 700 odd Indian students studying in universities of Wuhan and Hubei provinces are still stuck up there.
The cruise ship Diamond Princess with 3,711 people on board arrived at the Japanese coast early last week and was quarantined after a passenger who de-boarded last month in Hong Kong was found to be the carrier of the COVID-19 on the ship. The embassy has contacted all three Indian nationals who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are currently receiving treatment at medical facilities.
China's National Health Commission in its daily report on Monday said that 2,829 new cases of coronavirus were reported nationwide on February 2, taking the total number of infection to 17,205.
China has carried out a national campaign to crack down on phone sex services starting from July 2004.
The head of the World Health Organisation said on Saturday that the UN health agency would send an international mission to China as it received a response from Beijing.
Over 2.52 lakh who were in close contacts with patients had been traced with over 1.85 lakh others still under medical observation.
Chinese officials hope the cases will come down in the coming days with more specialised hospitals being set up in Wuhan. China's ministry of science and technology said that a batch of Remdesivir, an antiviral drug, which will be put into clinical trials to test its efficiency on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), is expected to arrive in China soon.
China has imposed strict quarantine measures for all those returning from other countries.
The Indian Embassy in China has also operationalised two helplines which are open to respond to any concerns of Indians in that country as the death toll due to the virus has risen to 56.
The death toll climbed to 2,592 with 150 new fatalities while the total number of confirmed cases increased to over 77,000, health officials said on Monday.
A total of 138 Indians, including 132 crew and 6 passengers, were among the 3,711 people on board the quarantined ship that arrived at the Japanese coast earlier this month. Three Indians were among the 218 people infected with COVID-19 on the ship.
The flight arrived at Wuhan's Tianhe International Airport on Friday evening. While the official number of students to be airlifted in the two flights is not known, Indians who reached the Wuhan airport on Friday said they were told that 374 were expected to be airlifted by the Air India flight. India has taken an undertaking from the Indians travelling in the two flights that they would be quarantined for 14 days after their arrival, besides undergoing special checks at the Wuhan airport.
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