BEIJING: Coronavirus is still out of control as fatalities due to the disease outbreak jumped on Wednesday to nearly 500, after Hong Kong reported its first death from the disease and millions more in China have been ordered to stay indoors.
The confirmed toll in mainland China rose to 490 after hardest-hit Hubei province reported 65 more people had died -the biggest single-day tally since the first fatalities emerged last month.
The number of confirmed infections in China coronavirus outbreak has reached 24,324 nationwide with 3,887 new cases reported, the National Health Commission said Wednesday.
More than 20 countries have confirmed cases of the virus, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a global health emergency, several governments to institute travel restrictions, and airlines to suspend flights to and from China.
The WHO said Tuesday that the dramatic measures taken by China had provided a “window of opportunity” to halt transmission, while calling for more global solidarity to combat the virus.
The novel coronavirus has continued to spread with Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand on Tuesday reporting new infections that were not imported from China.
In a sign of growing concern about a spread to other densely-populated Chinese metropolitan areas, authorities in three cities in eastern Zhejiang province — including one near Shanghai — limited the number of people allowed to leave their homes.
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Three districts in Hangzhou — including the area where the main office of Chinese tech giant Alibaba is based — now allow only one person per household to go outside every two days to buy necessities, affecting some three million people.
The city is only 175 kilometres (110 miles) southwest of the financial hub of Shanghai, which has reported more than 200 cases, including one death.
Zhejiang has confirmed 829 cases — the highest number outside the central province of Hubei, whose capital Wuhan is the epicentre of the outbreak.
The disease is believed to have emerged in December in a Wuhan market that sold wild animals, and spread rapidly as people travelled for the Lunar New Year holiday in January.
China has struggled to contain the virus despite enacting unprecedented measures, including virtually locking down more than 50 million people in Hubei.
The WHO has said the outbreak does not yet constitute a “pandemic”.
The head of the organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, accused wealthy countries of falling short on their duties in sharing data, stating that: “Of the 176 cases reported outside China so far, WHO has received complete case report forms for only 38 percent.”
The death of the 39-year-old man in Hong Kong came as the semi-autonomous city closed all but two land crossings with the Chinese mainland.
Hong Kong media said the man had underlying health issues. He had visited Wuhan last month and his 72-year-old mother was also infected.
The financial hub has been particularly on edge over the virus as it has revived memories of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03, which killed nearly 300 people in the city and 349 people in the mainland.
Health officials noted that the mortality rate for the new coronavirus stood at 2.1 percent, with most victims either old or with underlying health problems.
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