China death toll rises to over 360, China’s new hospital set to open
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The number of confirmed deaths from China’s coronavirus outbreak has risen to 361, with Hubei province — the center of the outbreak — reporting 57 new deaths on Monday, according to the National Health Commission.
The death toll exceeds that of the 2002-03 SARS outbreak, which killed 349 people in mainland China. The commission also confirmed 2,829 new cases of the virus nationwide on Sunday, bringing the total number of people infected within China to 17,205. The total number globally is 17,300.
The World Health Organization has said the number of confirmed cases will keep growing because thousands of specimens from suspected cases have yet to be tested.
On Sunday, China’s eastern port of Wenzhou became the first city outside of Hubei province to impose quarantine measures due to the outbreak. Wenzhou, a city of 9 million on China’s east coast, is around 700 kilometres (430 miles) from Wuhan, the city where the coronavirus outbreak originated in December.
The city joins the 14 cities in Hubei province that remain on lockdown amid a rising death toll.
Families will only be allowed to send one family member out of the house every two days, and only to buy necessities, according to city authorities. Residents have also been advised not to leave their homes except to seek medical treatment.
China also finished building a 1,000-bed hospital to tackle the outbreak in Hubei province. Medical workers and equipment were sent to the brand-new facility in the city of Wuhan, once it was completed after just 10 days of construction.
Medical teams continued to arrive in Wuhan to work at the new hospital, located in a rural area outside of the city centre.
