COVID-19 infections spike in China's Hubei Province; 40 more cases confirmed on Diamond Princess

코로나19, 중국 후베이서 '급증', 다이아몬드 프린세스호 40명 추가 확진

More cases of coronavirus have been reported on the cruise ship Diamond Princess.
The Japanese government has says 44 new cases have been confirmed, and thousands of people are stuck in the ship docked at Japan's Yokohama Port.
For more on that, we connect live to Lee Kyung-eun on the line.
Kyung-eun, what's the latest?
Hi Devin, just a couple of hours ago, the Japanese health ministry said 44 more people on the cruise ship tested positive for the coronavirus.
They are mostly elderly people.
29 of them are Japanese while 15 are from other countries.
This brings the total number of infections on the cruise ship to 2-hundred-18.
The ministry also said that it will discharge elderly people or those with pre-existing conditions as early as Friday if they test negative for the coronavirus.
But they will be sent to designated facilities for extended monitoring.
As of now, all the confirmed patients have been sent to local hospitals, but more than 2-thousand passengers and crew members are still quarantined on the ship.
They've been stuck there 9 days now.
With other ships also not being accepted by any country, the World Health Organization has called on countries to practice freedom of port entry, saying that it will sign a joint communique with the International Maritime Organization on the matter.
Now over to China.
Hubei Province the epicenter of the virus has reported a sharp increase in its figures overnight.
Tell us more about that.
Yes Devin, both the number of new infections and the death toll in Hubei Province increased drastically on Wednesday.
China's state-run CCTV reported Thursday that the province reported more than 14-thousand new cases and an additional 2-hundred-42 deaths.
The number of cases has surged nearly 10 fold from the previous day, reversing the declining trend of the past couple of days.
The officials explained on Thursday that the spike is attributed to their new counting method.
They decided to count "clinically diagnosed" cases as confirmed cases along with those ones that have been confirmed in a lab.
It means that they are counting anyone who is diagnosed to have symptoms of the coronavirus like severe respiratory tract disease and lesions in their lungs.
The rest of China apart for Hubei Province had already been applying these guidelines.
So far, China's National Health Commission is yet to release the figures for the whole of the country.
But with around 44 thousand total cases as of Tuesday, the total number of infected people in China is expected to be around the 60 thousand mark.
That's all for now, back to you Devin.

#Wuhan #coronavirus #Hubei

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