Coronavirus death toll jumps to 2,835 in China, 594 more cases in South Korea

World Health Organization revises risk assessment of COVID-19 from 'high' to 'very high' at global level due to increase in number of cases.

Passengers wearing masks walk outside the Shanghai railway station in Shanghai, China (Representational image) | Reuters via ANI File photo

Beijing/Seoul: Forty seven more people have died of the deadly coronavirus, rasing the death toll in the country to 2,835 while the number of confirmed cases climbed to 79,251 Chinese health officials said on Saturday.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) in its daily report on Saturday said it received reports of 427 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection and 47 deaths on Friday.

Among the deaths reported, 45 were from the epicentre of the virus Hubei Province, one in Beijing and Henan respectively, it said.

The overall confirmed cases on the mainland have reached 79,251 by the end of Friday, and 2,835 people have died of the disease, it said.

The virus, though slowing down its virulence, continued to affect more people as another 248 new suspected cases were reported taking the total to 1,418 people.

Also on Friday, 2,885 people were discharged from the hospitals after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 288 to 7,664, the NHC said.

A total of 39,002 people have been discharged from the hospitals after the recovery.

By the end of Friday, 94 confirmed cases, including two deaths, have been reported in Hong Kong, 10 confirmed cases in Macao and 34 in Taiwan, including one death.

Meanwhile, a senior World Health Organisation (WHO) expert said in Geneva on Friday that it is unhelpful to declare a pandemic when people are still trying to contain COVID-19, although the WHO has raised the epidemic risk alert to the highest level.

The WHO revised on Friday the risk assessment of the COVID-19 from “high” to “very high” at global level, as an increasing number of cases in more countries were reported over the last few days.

“A Pandemic is a unique situation, in which all citizens on the planet will likely be exposed to a virus within a defined period of time,” state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO Health Emergencies Programme as saying.

However, in the case of COVID-19, it has been proved that the course of the epidemic can be significantly altered through containment measures and robust public health response, the expert noted.

The word “pandemic” is “colloquial,” Ryan said, appealing for actions that go beyond colloquial terms.

The existing data do not support the concept of a pandemic so far, he said, highlighting that China has clearly shown that it is not necessarily the natural outcome of the COVID-19 epidemic if indispensable responses are made quickly.

Coronavirus in South Korea

While South Korea has confirmed 594 more coronavirus cases Saturday, the biggest increase to date for the country and taking the national total to 2,931 infections with three additional deaths.

More than 90 per cent of the new cases were in Daegu, the centre of the country’s outbreak, and its neighbouring North Gyeongsang province, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.

Three women in the Daegu area died of the illness, taking the national toll to 16, the statement added. One of the victims was aged in her 90s.

The national total is expected to rise further with screening of more than 210,000 members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a secretive entity often accused of being a cult that is linked to around half of the country’s cases.

The streets of Daegu — South Korea’s fourth-largest city with a population of 2.5 million — have been largely deserted for days, apart from long queues at the few shops with masks for sale.

Authorities have urged the public to exercise caution and anyone with a fever or respiratory symptoms to stay home.

But officials say they are not considering a citywide quarantine for the city in the manner of the lockdown imposed on the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged.

“Please refrain from holding big outdoor meetings or indoor religious assemblies,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun told a Saturday meeting in Daegu, where he is leading the government’s response.