Coronavirus Is Killing More People More Quickly Than SARS With 97 Deaths Reported In A Single Day

The New York Times: Coronavirus Epidemic Reaches Bleak Milestone, Exceeding SARS Toll
The coronavirus epidemic in China surpassed a grim milestone on Sunday with a death toll that exceeds that of the SARS outbreak 17 years ago, a development that coincided with news that World Health Organization experts might soon be in the country to help stanch the crisis. The outbreak has killed at least 908 people in China in the month since the first death was reported in January in Wuhan, the city where the novel coronavirus emerged in December, apparently in a wholesale food market. Two people have died outside China. (Myers and Zraick, 2/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Outbreak Has Killed More People Than SARS
The outbreak of SARS killed 774 people after its emergence in southern China in 2002 and 2003, mostly in mainland China and Hong Kong. The coronavirus now surpasses SARS in both the number of confirmed cases and fatalities. China’s cabinet-level National Health Commission on Sunday confirmed 3,062 new cases of infection, up from 2,656 on Saturday, bringing the total to 40,171. SARS infected 8,098 people during its outbreak. (Woo, 2/9)

The Associated Press: Mainland China Virus Cases Rise Again After Earlier Decline
Mainland China has reported another rise in cases of the new virus after a sharp decline the previous day, while the number of deaths grow by 97 to 908, with at least two more outside the country. On Monday, China’s health ministry said another 3,062 cases had been reported over the previous 24 hours, raising the Chinese mainland’s total to 40,171. (McDonald, 2/8)

The New York Times: As Deaths Mount, China Tries To Speed Up Coronavirus Testing
Dr. Zhang Xiaochun, who works in a hospital in Wuhan, was in dismay. Her patient had been running a fever for nine days, and a CT scan showed signs of pneumonia — symptoms of the new coronavirus sweeping across the central Chinese city. But a test to confirm the diagnosis would take at least two days. To Dr. Zhang, that meant a delay in isolating her patient — and getting potentially lifesaving treatment. This past week, Dr. Zhang started a social media campaign with an urgent call to simplify screening for the new coronavirus. (Wee, 2/9)

The New York Times: C.D.C. And W.H.O. Offers To Help China Have Been Ignored For Weeks
For more than a month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been offering to send a team of experts to China to observe its coronavirus outbreak and help if it can. Normally, teams from the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service can be in the air within 24 hours. But no invitation has come — and no one can publicly explain why. (McNeil and Kanno-Youngs, 2/7)

The Washington Post: WHO Has Praised China’s Coronavirus Response. That Baffles Some Health Crisis Experts.
As a mysterious virus spread through Wuhan last month, the World Health Organization had a message: China has got this. And as the coronavirus swept across the Chinese heartland and jumped to other nations, the WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, applauded the “transparency” of the Chinese response. Even as evidence mounted that Chinese officials had silenced whistleblowers and undercounted cases, Tedros took a moment to extol the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Rauhala, 2/8)

The Wall Street Journal: China’s Leader Wages A War On Two Fronts—Viral And Political
Faced with a coronavirus outbreak that so far has killed 630 people and infected more than 31,000 world-wide, China’s President Xi Jinping has mobilized the vast state machinery. China has quarantined entire cities, thrown up hospitals in days, and deployed military doctors and Communist Party members to the front lines, a massive effort Mr. Xi likens to a military campaign. That effort is intended to beat the coronavirus outbreak, and also win a battle on a second front—against the most intense volleys of public rage since he took power in 2012. (Page and Wei, 2/7)

Bloomberg: China’s Xi Appears in Public; Death Toll Hits 910: Virus Update
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Chaoyang district in Beijing Monday, according to state-run media Xinhua, which published photos of Xi wearing a mask and having his temperature taken. Meanwhile, the number of infections among those aboard a cruise liner quarantined off Japan has almost doubled to more than 130, the biggest outbreak outside China. (2/9)

WBUR: Critics Say China Has Suppressed And Censored Information In Coronavirus Outbreak
China’s state censors have clamped down this week on digital items related to the outbreak of a new coronavirus, removing local news reports that expose the dire circumstances in the city of Wuhan, epicenter of the outbreak, and scrubbing social media platforms of posts from Wuhan residents who say they are ill and desperate for medical care and supplies. Those restrictions were put to the test on Friday after the death of Dr. Li Wenliang, one of the eight whistleblowers reprimanded by police for warning others about a mysterious pneumonialike disease in December. (Feng and Cheng, 2/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals Pushed To The Brink In Wuhan: ‘I Just Want To Save His Life’
Patients packed the waiting room at Wuhan’s Tongji Hospital on Friday, intravenous drips in their arms. Medical staff wheeled patients slowly through the crowd. In the hallways, the sick lay curled up on cots, hooked to oxygen tanks. Doctors and nurses in full-body protective suits, gloves, goggles and masks waded through, changing IVs and trying to determine who was in most urgent need of medical attention. (Deng and Woo, 2/7)

The Wall Street Journal: ‘I’m So Sorry’: Coronavirus Survivor’s Cross-China Travel Left Dozens Quarantined
Looking back, Shen Wufu thinks he must have caught the virus during a few hours in Wuhan. The 32-year-old architect briefly stopped off in the city on Jan. 18 to hold a business meeting as he headed from northern China to the south for a family visit during China’s weeklong Lunar New Year holiday. It had been more than two weeks since China announced a mysterious pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan and 11 days since it confirmed the cause: a new type of coronavirus that has now claimed more lives—over 900 in mainland China as of Saturday—than severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, did nearly two decades ago. (Page, 2/10)

Reuters: In China’s Locked-Down Coronavirus City, Grocery Delivery Is A Lifeline
Reluctant to go outside for fear of catching the new coronavirus sweeping the Chinese city of Wuhan, Edward Wang found a lifeline: grocery delivery services provided by local retailers. But with hundreds of thousands of other people in Wuhan also stuck inside their homes doing the same thing, and retailers struggling to get hold of their staff, the service became overloaded. (Pailliez, 2/8)

The New York Times: Her Grandmother Got The Coronavirus. Then So Did The Whole Family.
Bella Zhang hung an intravenous drip on a spindly tree branch and slumped down on a large stone planter outside the crowded hospital. Her mother and brother sat wearily beside her, their shoulders sagging, both also hooked up to their own drips. In recent days, Ms. Zhang, 25, a perfume saleswoman with tinted blue hair, had watched helplessly as one by one, her relatives were sickened by the coronavirus that was tearing through her hometown, Wuhan. First, her grandmother got it, then it spread to her grandfather and mother. She and her younger brother were next. (Qin, 2/9)

The Hill: Chinese Health Officials Label New Coronavirus NCP
Chinese health officials have temporarily designated the recent strain of coronavirus the Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia, or NCP. The country’s National Health Commission announced the name at a news conference on Saturday in an attempt to give people an alternative to referring to the illness as Wuhan coronavirus, after the city where it is believed to have originated in an open-air market. Locals have expressed frustration with the city’s name being associated with the deadly virus and the resultant stigma, prompting officials to announce the temporary name, which will be replaced by a permanent designation at a later date, CNN reported. (Budryk, 2/9)

Bloomberg: WHO Is Watching 10 Chinese Provinces As Possible Virus Hot Spots 
The World Health Organization is closely watching other Chinese regions for signs that new infection hot spots are emerging as the deadly coronavirus outbreak spreads beyond the epicenter of Hubei. The 10 provinces, which include Zhejiang, Guangdong and Henan, have seen numbers of cases slowly rise, said WHO’s China Representative Gauden Galea, in an interview on Bloomberg TV Monday. “Those are the numbers to watch,” he said, adding that while the situation seemed under control it is too early to say the spread of the novel coronavirus has peaked. The global health agency’s focus on more Chinese provinces highlights the escalating battle against a pathogen that has claimed more lives than SARS in 2003. It has so far killed more than 900 people and infected over 40,000, mostly in China. As China ostensibly returns to work this week after a Lunar New Year holiday that was extended due to the outbreak, infections are still growing by the thousands everyday. (Du and Amin, 2/10)