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Coronavirus: number of deaths in China rises to over 1000

2020-02-11T03:22:30.285Z


While the number of victims is growing faster than ever, the new illnesses are decreasing slightly. China's President Xi Jinping speaks of a "very serious" situation. The WHO hosts an expert summit.


While the number of victims is growing faster than ever, the new illnesses are decreasing slightly. China's President Xi Jinping speaks of a "very serious" situation. The WHO hosts an expert summit.

Beijing (dpa) - The novel corona virus has already killed more than 1000 people in China. A further 108 people have fallen victim to the lung disease within the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 1,016 people in China who have died from the lung disease. This was announced by the Health Commission in Beijing.

103 new victims alone were reported from the particularly hard-hit province of Hubei. While the number of deaths has risen faster than ever since the onset of the disease, the number of new infections decreased compared to the previous day. Nationwide, 2,478 other diseases were reported, bringing the total number of infections detected to mainland China to 42,638.

Meanwhile, China's President Xi Jinping said the situation was still "very serious," according to the Chinese agency Xinhua. China would "certainly win a full victory" in the fight against the epidemic.

Xi Jinping made the comments during one of his first public appearances since the disease broke out. State media showed the president visiting a residential complex and hospital in Beijing, where he was wearing a white coat and face mask. According to Xinhua, the party leader called for the impact of the epidemic on the economy to be minimized. Mass layoffs should be avoided. The economic impact of the coronavirus epidemic is "short-lived".

In the meantime, the chiefs of the health commission in the particularly hard-hit province of Hubei have been fired. Zhang Jin, party secretary of the Hubei Health Commission, and Liu Yingzi, director of the authorities, were replaced by Wang Hesheng, deputy head of the National Health Commission, according to China's state television.

After the forced extension of the Chinese New Year holidays, many cities were slow to start working again. In Beijing and Shanghai, subways and other public transport remained unusually empty during rush hour at the beginning of the week, suggesting that many companies were still closed or asking their employees to work from home.

Many German companies are also affected. Volkswagen announced that it had postponed the start of production at its factories in China due to the ongoing epidemic. There would be challenges due to delays in the resumption of nationwide supply chains and also due to limited travel opportunities for employees. Production is expected to resume in all factories by the beginning of next week at the latest.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is hosting an expert summit on coronavirus this Tuesday and Wednesday. The WHO hopes that this will enable a swift and well-founded exchange of previous knowledge on the mysterious lung disease. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the conference should focus on science. He refused to politicize the event. "Let's focus on this common enemy of humanity," said Tedros in Geneva.

The world's leading experts want to deal with therapies, the possible source of the virus and its transmissibility in the two days. Possible vaccinations should also be discussed.

In its daily press conferences on the virus, the WHO recently emphasized that around 80 percent of the cases take a mild course. Nevertheless, it is important now to fight the virus vigorously. "We as a human race should work hard to fight this fire before it gets out of control," said Tedros.

So far, more than 300 infections have been detected outside of China, including 14 in Germany.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-02-11

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