The coronavirus that has rapidly infected currently 40,171 confirmed cases on China’s mainland and reports of 908 deaths.
The death toll from the new virus shows that more have been killed with the Coronavirus than during the SARS virus outbreak in 2003.
Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said Monday that the Japanese government was testing all 3,711 passengers and crew on the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship for the new coronavirus.
As of Monday 135 people from the ship had been diagnosed with the virus and taken off the ship for treatment in Japanese hospitals. Everyone on the ship has been told to remain in their cabins and report immediately any symptoms – which often resemble flu symptoms, but only those considered at risk have been tested for the virus up to now.
As of February 7th, a U.S. citizen diagnosed with the novel coronavirus has died in China in what appears to be the first death of an American from the virus.
“We can confirm a 60-year-old U.S. citizen diagnosed with coronavirus died at Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, China…” a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said.
Here’s what else you should know about the new coronavirus, called 2019-nCoV, which originated in the city of Wuhan:
“This is a new virus that has not been previously identified in humans,” said Debra Chew, a former epidemic officer at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It belongs to a large family of viruses called coronaviruses. These viruses can cause respiratory illnesses such as the common cold, and more severe illnesses such as the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS),” Chew said.
“Currently, a lot is unknown about the Wuhan coronavirus, but the CDC and the World Health Organization are actively