BEIJING: China’s coronavirus death toll rose by 97 early on Monday to 908, with the number of confirmed cases on the country’s mainland increasing to 40,171.
Some 3,062 new virus cases were reported early on Monday, most of them in the central province of Hubei, where the first patients fell sick in December.
On Sunday new cases were reported in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and Spain.
More than 400 cases have been confirmed outside mainland China.
“Dramatic reductions” in the spread should begin this month if containment works, Dr Ian Lipkin, director of Columbia University’s Centre for Infection and Immunity, said.
He assisted the World Health Organisation and Chinese authorities during the outbreak of Sars.
Warmer weather will reduce the virus’s ability to spread and bring people out of enclosed spaces where it is transmitted more easily, Dr Lipkin said in an online news conference.
But he said if new cases spike as people return to work after the Lunar New Year holiday, which was extended to reduce the risk of spreading the virus, then “we’ll know we’re in trouble”.
The fatality toll has passed the 774 people believed to have died of Sars, another viral outbreak that originated in China.
And the total confirmed cases of the new virus vastly exceeds the 8,098 sickened by Sars.
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