South Korea has witnessed a fresh spurt of 229 confirmed cases of COVID-19 between February 21 and 22, 2020, taking the number of positive cases in the country to 433. The country had only 28 positive cases till last week
Iran where the first case was confirmed in Qom on February 19, now has five deaths with 28 positive cases spread along the country. Israel and Lebanon also confirmed the first positive Coronavirus cases in the respective countries.
Here are the latest updates about the virus:
Global Developments
Vital Stats
The virus has so far claimed 2360 lives with five in Iran, two each in Hong Kong, Italy, South Korea, and one each in France, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan. The rest of the deaths are from mainland China which remains the epicentre of the outbreak.
The total number of confirmed cases for the Coronavirus have risen to more than 77,800 spread across 29 countries.
According to a real time data monitor by John Hopkins University, over 21,000 people have recovered globally. Most of the recovered cases are still under observation while some have been discharged.
International Organizations
Despite a 2% decrease in the number of reported cases, The World Health Organization believes that the window to contain the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus is narrowing down. WHO has also said that countries need to look out and tackle community transmissions of the virus after the increase in number of reported cases in Iran, Japan, and South Korea.
The WHO has reported worry about cases with no recent travel history to China or direct link to an already confirmed case.
Developments in China
Chinese officials have yet again changed the definition of confirmed cases. Read about it here.
Earlier, they were only counting laboratory confirmed cases to which they added clinically confirmed cases- cases with symptoms but no laboratory tests supporting the symptoms. They have now again decided to not count the clinically confirmed cases. The WHO considers this to be a natural change during an ongoing epidemic.
Following this change, Ying Yong the secretary of Provincial Party in Hubei has instructed that there should be no further subtraction of cases in the total tally. The cases that were earlier confirmed to be positive will not be removed after the definition has again changed.
China received $100 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak.
Other developments
The Diamond Princess, the cruise parked in Japan, recorded two deaths from its earlier quarantined patients and the number of positive cases has risen to 639. The cruise which currently has 31 passengers and 924 crew members, has disembarked its other passengers.
The United States of America has divided its confirmed cases into two categories: the ones that were evacuated and brought back from China or Japan and later tested positive, and the ones that were on US soil when they were confirmed.
Eleven of the 13 evacuees tested positive for COVID-19 after they were evacuated from the Diamond Princess and brought back to the USA. President Trump is disgruntled at his officials as he was under the impression that the ones who have tested positive would be isolated in foreign lands and not brought to America.
Australia also confirmed five positive cases among the passengers evacuated from the Diamond Princess.
According to AFP, almost half of South Korea's patients are linked to a 61-year-old woman who is a member of the Daegu branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, an entity often accused of being a cult.
The Iranian authorities believe that the spread of the virus in Qom is due to Chinese workers returning to work from China.
Coronavirus in India
The Indian crew members onboard the Diamond Princess have made repeated appeals to the Union Government to help in their disembarking from the cruise. The father of one of the crew members wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to help his daughter and all the other crew members.
The third patient who had confirmed positive for the Coronavirus in India is now stable and has been discharged from the hospital in Kerala.
Read our previous monitor here.
Also Read: Did The Simpsons And Comic Series Asterix Predict The 2019 Coronavirus Outbreak?
Misinformation around Coronavirus
The misinformation surrounding Coronavirus is increasing daily.
Also Read: No, Australia Did Not Fly Medical Aid For Coronavirus To China
BOOM has been actively debunking misinformation surrounding the virus.
#Thread🚨: Since the outbreak of #CoronaVirus, we have debunked #FakeNews around the novel Coronavirus. A WhatsApp forward is viral falsely claiming @MoHFW_INDIA has issued an emergency notification. (1/n) #CoronaVirusFacts @WHO https://t.co/0lbBu7FIfO
— BOOM FactCheck (@boomlive_in) January 30, 2020