Coronavirus: China reports 27 virus deaths, 44 new cases, lowest since January

Beijing, Mar 8: China on Sunday reported 27 new deaths from coronavirus, the lowest number of fatalities in more than a month, taking the death toll to 3,097, while the COVID-19 infections for the first time fell below 50 since the disease surfaced in Hubei province in January.

All the 27 deaths occurred in the virus-hit central Hubei province, China's National Health Commission (NHC) said. The confirmed cases for the first time fell below 50 since COVID-19 surfaced in Hubei province in January.

Of the 44 new cases reported on Saturday, 41 were in Wuhan in Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak. The overall confirmed cases on the mainland has risen to 80,695 by the end of Saturday.

The total number of deaths reached 3,097. Over 20,500 patients were still undergoing treatment and 57,065 discharged after recovery, the NHC said. Also on Saturday, three coronavirus cases in people arriving from abroad were reported, including two in Beijing and one in Gansu province. By the end of Saturday, 63 such cases had been reported, the NHC said. By the end of Saturday, 109 confirmed cases including two deaths in Hong Kong, 10 confirmed cases in Macao and 45 in Taiwan including one death were reported.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Saturday that a total of 21,114 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported by 93 countries and regions outside China - an increase of 3,633 infections from the previous day. The number of confirmed cases worldwide has risen to 101,927, the WHO said on Saturday. Outside China, 78 more people died of COVID-19, bringing the total deaths to 413, Xinhua reported, quoting a WHO report.

According to WHO's daily situation report on Saturday, there has been 3,486 deaths worldwide due to the coronavirus. Colombia, the Vatican, Peru, Togo and Slovakia have reported cases of COVID-19 for the first time in the past 24 hours, the WHO report said.

The world health body has revised the transmission classification of Iceland, Palestine and Cameroon from "imported cases only" to "local transmission", bringing the total number of countries and regions where local transmission emerged to 45 in addition to China. It said the spread of COVID-19 can be significantly slowed or even reversed through implementing robust containment and control activities.

China and other countries are demonstrating that the spread of the virus can be slowed and impact reduced through the use of universally applicable actions, WHO said in a statement, referring to measures such as working across society to identify people who are sick, bringing them to care, following up on contacts, and training health workers. It underlined that containing and slowing the spread of the virus helps buy time for health systems and all of society to prepare and for researchers to identify effective treatments and develop vaccines.

"Allowing uncontrolled spread should not be a choice of any government, as it will harm not only the citizens of that country but affect other countries as well," it said.

The WHO said it will continue to work with all countries, partners and expert networks to coordinate the international response, develop guidance, distribute supplies, share knowledge and provide people with the information so as to protect themselves and others.