ABOVE: Passengers wait in a train station in Wuhan in 2012
© ISTOCK.COM, HU-JUN
China’s National Health Commission said today (January 21) that the number of confirmed infections of a newly identified coronavirus has risen to 291 in the country, the Associated Press reports, and six people have died from the pneumonia-like illness it causes. Chinese officials now say that confirmed cases of person-to-person transmission of the virus have taken place.
Meanwhile, cases of infection with the virus, known as 2019-nCoV, have also been reported in travelers from China to other countries, including Japan and Thailand, and the US Centers for Disease Control announced a case in Washington state. The flurry of news comes at the start of the world’s largest human migration, in which millions of people travel across China to spend Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival or Chinese New Year, with their families.
“The outbreak is ...
