Death toll of coronavirus in China climbs to 2,835 with 47 more fatalities
Beijing: Forty seven more people have died of the deadly coronavirus, rasing the death toll in the country to 2,835 while the number of confirmed cases climbed to 79,251, Chinese health officials said on Saturday.
China's National Health Commission (NHC) in its daily report on Saturday said it received reports of 427 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection and 47 deaths on Friday.
Among the deaths reported, 45 were from the epicentre of the virus Hubei Province, one in Beijing and Henan respectively, it said.
The overall confirmed cases on the mainland have reached 79,251 by the end of Friday, and 2,835 people have died of the disease, it said.
The virus, though slowing down its virulence, continued to affect more people as another 248 new suspected cases were reported taking the total to 1,418 people.
Also on Friday, 2,885 people were discharged from the hospitals after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 288 to 7,664, the NHC said.
A total of 39,002 people have been discharged from the hospitals after the recovery.
By the end of Friday, 94 confirmed cases, including two deaths, have been reported in Hong Kong, 10 confirmed cases in Macao and 34 in Taiwan, including one death.
Meanwhile, a senior World Health Organisation (WHO) expert said in Geneva on Friday that it is unhelpful to declare a pandemic when people are still trying to contain COVID-19, although the WHO has raised the epidemic risk alert to the highest level.
The WHO revised on Friday the risk assessment of the COVID-19 from "high" to "very high" at global level, as an increasing number of cases in more countries were reported over the last few days.
"A Pandemic is a unique situation, in which all citizens on the planet will likely be exposed to a virus within a defined period of time," state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO Health Emergencies Programme as saying.
However, in the case of COVID-19, it has been proved that the course of the epidemic can be significantly altered through containment measures and robust public health response, the expert noted.
The word "pandemic" is "colloquial," Ryan said, appealing for actions that go beyond colloquial terms.
The existing data do not support the concept of a pandemic so far, he said, highlighting that China has clearly shown that it is not necessarily the natural outcome of the COVID-19 epidemic if indispensable responses are made quickly.
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India win toss, elect to bowl against NZ in first ODI
Vadodara (PTI): India skipper Shubman Gill won the toss and opted to bowl first in the first One-day International against New Zealand here on Sunday.
India have included six bowlers in their playing Xi with Giil saying he wants to "try different combinations and see how that works".
Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja have been included as spin-bowling options, while Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna are the pacers.
NZ skipper Michael Bracewell said Kristian Clarke and Adithya Ashok will be making their ODI debut.
Teams:
India: Shubman Gill (capt), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna.
New Zealand: Devon Conway, Henry Nicholls, Will Young, Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Hay (w), Michael Bracewell (c), Zakary Foulkes, Kristian Clarke, Kyle Jamieson, Adithya Ashok.
