The outbreak of a new strain of coronavirus, first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan, in Hubei province, has led to massive efforts to quarantine major cities and halt the spread. As of Thursday, the nationwide death toll from China's novel coronavirus epidemic has jumped to 170 with 38 more fatalities while confirming more than 1,700 new infections. Since then, it has been described as a "ghost town" with residents staying home, cars banned from the roads and store shelves emptied of masks, disinfectants and even full body suits. Here are some scenes from Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak.
Information technology (IT) and textiles could emerge as the possible areas of cooperation between West Bengal and the Hubei province in China.
The death toll in the Chinese cruise ship that capsized in the mighty Yangtze river on Saturday jumped to nearly 400 as hundreds more bodies were found by disaster teams, making it China's deadliest boat disaster in 70 years.
China has firmly denied that its Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted gain-of-function studies on coronavirus, rejecting allegations that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) funded such research at the lab. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, emphasized that the lab has never engaged in gain-of-function research, designed, made, or leaked COVID-19. China has also reiterated its stance on the origins-tracing of COVID-19, stating that the pandemic was "extremely unlikely" to have originated from a lab leak, as concluded by the WHO-China joint mission.
The government has downgraded the risk level of Wuhan for Covid-19 outbreak from high to medium, according to official media reports.
The overall confirmed cases on the mainland have reached 80,881 by the end of Monday.
A 55-year-old from Hubei province could have been the first person to have contracted the viral infection on November 17 last year and cases rapidly began piling up since then, it said, without revealing the gender of the individual.
Hantaviruses are a family of viruses spread mainly by rodents and can cause varied disease syndromes in people worldwide, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which is the leading national public health institute of the United States.
Former Everton midfielder and national team coach Li Tie was sentenced to 20 years in prison for giving and receiving bribes.
China is set to build a rail link connecting Xinjiang province with Tibet, part of which will run near the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India.
All the 27 deaths occurred in the virus-hit central Hubei province, China's National Health Commission (NHC) said. The confirmed cases for the first time fell below 50 since COVID-19 surfaced in Hubei province in January.
China has delivered a second advanced submarine to Pakistan, part of a larger deal to bolster the South Asian nation's naval capabilities in the Indian Ocean. The move underscores China's growing influence in the region and its strategic partnership with Pakistan.
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.
Rediff.com takes a look inside the capsized Eastern Star ferry and finds remnants of the ruination of over 400 lives in its detritus.
The coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan, capital of China's Hubei province, in December and has now spread across the globe. The Chinese authorities are trying to contain the epidemic while other countries, including India, are working on plans to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak.
The six students may have to undergo tests to determine whether they have symptoms of the coronavirus. Ahead of the evacuation, the Indian Embassy had informed the Indians that they will be tested before the flight and undergo 14 day quarantine after reaching India.
President Xi, who attended a meeting in Beijing to double efforts in coordinating the prevention and control of the COVID-19 outbreak, said the epidemic 'has the fastest transmission, widest range of infection and has been the most difficult to prevent and control'.
The outbreak has resulted in Chinese cities being largely deserted, with tourist attractions shut and a few eateries requiring temperature checks and masks.
The vaccination, available at 48 designated clinics in 15 districts, began on December 24, targeting certain groups of people aged between 18 and 59 years, He Zhenyu, deputy director of the centre for disease control and prevention in Wuhan, told the media in Wuhan.
However, a total of 34 new COVID-19 cases were reported on the Chinese mainland.
So far about 124 positive cases have been reported in a host of countries, including India where the first case was confirmed in Kerala.
The overall confirmed cases on the mainland have reached 81,518 as of Monday, which included 3,305 people who died of the of 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.
India's largest airline has also told its crew members -- who are working on flights connecting India with East Asian countries like Thailand and Singapore -- to wear N95 masks at all times when they are on ground.
China has seen a surge in COVID-19 cases since the government lifted its strict zero tolerance measures to contain the virus and hospitals in many cities with severe COVID-19 outbreaks have been overwhelmed by the increase in patients.
Thousands of medical workers deployed in the capital of central Hubei province from across the nation also left Wuhan after completing their mission.
With flowers pinned to their chests, Xi and other Chinese leaders paid a silent tribute in front of the national flag to the victims of the COVID-19, which is regarded as the worst public health disaster in China's history.
The overall confirmed infection cases have climbed to 75,465, Chinese health officials said on Friday.
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 World Health Organization on Thursday had said that a sharp rise in reported COVID-19, (official name for coronavirus) cases in China was due to a change in counting methods and it did not represent a big shift in the epidemic.
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.
The overall confirmed cases on the mainland reached 80,735 by the end of Sunday which included 3,119 people who have died so far.
Chinese officials say imported cases are on the rise as hundreds of people are returning to the country from various COVID-19 hotspots abroad, even though the deadly virus has been contained in epicentres of Hubei province and its capital Wuhan.
The Wuhan lockdown was lifted even as epidemiologists warned that it is not the time to completely lower the guard and ease on full-scale restrictions, considering the looming asymptomatic patients and possible rebound in infections, the official media reported.
Ashish Kurme, an MBBS student studying at a university near Wuhan, tells the grim story of ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak.
The total deaths from the more than two-month-old outbreak as reported on Thursday stood at 1,367, with the total number of confirmed cases mounting to 59,804, health officials were quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
Besides controlling the spread of the virus, a major task of the WHO team along with their Chinese counterparts was to come up with a standard medicine to cure the disease.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for undiminished vigilance on the prevention and control work of the COVID-19 as the situation in the Wuhan City and Hubei Province remains severe
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.
The Chinese foreign ministry said on Tuesday that majority of the imported cases are the Chinese nationals returning from abroad.
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