China: Coronavirus cases near 1,300, death toll now 41

As many as 237 patients are critical; 1,965 suspected cases have been reported

Wuhan hospital Reuters Medical staff in protective clothing at a hospital in Wuhan | The Central Hospital of Wuhan via Weibo/via Reuters

The deadly coronavirus continues to wreak havoc in China and abroad as the death toll due to it in China rose to 41 with 1,287 confirmed cases, China's National Health Commission announced on Saturday.

Of the 1,287 confirmed cases as of Friday night, the condition of 237 is stated to be critical, the Commission announced.

The confirmed cases have crossed 1,000 mark for the first time, with many Chinese cities struggling to fight the afflictions.

The pneumonia situation had resulted in 41 deaths, including 39 in central China's Hubei province and one in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, it said.

Additionally, a total of 1,965 suspected cases have also been reported, it said.

The virus has spread to Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Nepal, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and the US as of Thursday. Japan on Friday reported a second confirmed case.

It has triggered a cause of concern for India too as many of the 700-odd Indian students studying in universities of Wuhan and Hubei provinces are still stuck there. The Indian Embassy has established hotlines to keep close contact with them.

Battling the fast-spreading coronavirus, China has begun building a 1,000-bed hospital in Wuhan, which is expected to be completed in less than 10 days.

It also began deploying military medics to step up the treatment facilities in Wuhan and 12 other cities in Hubei province, which are under total lockdown with suspension of all public transport.

The fast-spreading virus dampened the celebrations of China's Lunar New Year, which began today. On Friday, Chinese bid goodbye to 'the year of the pig' to welcome 'the year of rat' on Saturday.

In the Chinese lunar calendar, years are grouped into a 12-year cycles, with each year assigned an animal symbol: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

In view of the virus scare, several cities, including Beijing, have cancelled special events. The festival is also known as the Spring Festival. Large cultural activities during the spring festival in Beijing such as temple fairs were cancelled to prevent the spread of the virus.

China's biggest city, Shanghai, raised the emergency response to public health safety to level 1, the highest, following Beijing and the provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Zhejiang, Anhui and Guangdong as more cases were reported.

Beijing, so far, has reported 34 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection, official media reported.

The Chinese disease prevention authority on Friday released pictures and information of the first Wuhan coronavirus that Chinese experts had discovered.

Dozens of excavators were feverishly working at the site in Wuhan where the hospital is being built on a 25,000-sq metre plot in just about 10 days. It will be ready by February 3, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Workers are being paid the equivalent of $173 per day, three times their usual wage, to accelerate the construction.

The hospital will be modelled on the one built in Beijing for the treatment and control of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, that spread rapidly on the Chinese mainland in 2003, killing over 800 people. Beijing then had built the Xiaotangshan Hospital, a temporary medical centre in the northern suburbs of the city.

Amid the unknown virus wreaking havoc, Chinese and American researchers are working together to develop a vaccine against the deadly new strain of coronavirus.

At present, there is no cure for the virus, which has pneumonia-like symptoms and is contagious among humans.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday stopped short of declaring the virus a global public health emergency, despite China's climbing death toll.