(A health official checks passengers' body temperatures at the entrance of a subway station in Beijing on Feb. 3, 2020.)
BEIJING - The number of people infected with a new coronavirus spreading in China has topped 20,000, with the death toll rising to 425 in the mainland, the country's health authorities said Tuesday.
Hong Kong, on the same day, reported its first death from the virus, a 39-year-old male resident who had developed pneumonia after visiting Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the center of the outbreak.
Outside China, one person infected with the pneumonia-causing virus has died in the Philippines, with cases also confirmed in other parts of Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania and the Middle East.
The authorities received reports of 3,235 new cases and 64 deaths on Monday, bringing total infections in mainland China to 20,438. All the latest deaths were recorded in Hubei Province, where Wuhan is the capital, according to the National Health Commission.
The daily increase in cases in China has exceeded 3,000 for the first time in the current outbreak.
Even though China is rushing to increase its capacity to cope with the epidemic, such as building more hospitals, it is struggling to keep up with the rapid increase in the number of patients.
In Wuhan and surrounding areas, where the epidemic has hit hard, some people appear to have been unable to stay in the hospital despite being diagnosed with the virus or suspected of having contracted it.
There is also a concern that more people could get infected with the country getting back to work after the Lunar New Year holiday, which ended Sunday after being extended by three days on account of the outbreak.
The Hong Kong pneumonia patient who died had traveled to Wuhan by high-speed train on Jan. 21 and returned to the territory from Changsha, the capital of the neighboring province of Hunan, on Jan. 23. He was being treated at a local hospital after developing a fever last Friday.
The resident, who was Hong Kong's 13th case of infection, also had underlying illnesses, according to the territory's Center for Health Protection.
(Supplied photo shows medical workers involved in treating patients infected with a new coronavirus at a hospital in Wuhan, China, on Feb. 3, 2020.)
Hong Kong has so far reported 17 cases, with the two latest being a 62-year-old woman and 60-year-old man, neither of whom had traveled outside Hong Kong in the past 14 days, which could mean they contracted the virus locally, health officials said.
Meanwhile, Macau will, by midnight, suspend casino operations for half a month to prevent the spread of the virus, its chief executive, Ho Iat Seng, announced Tuesday as the Chinese territory, known as the world's largest gambling hub, reported its 10th case of infection.
Also Tuesday in Hong Kong, a strike staged by some 6,000 members of a medical workers union entered its second day, with demonstrators calling for the Hong Kong government to close all points of entry from the mainland to protect the territory from the epidemic, according to the union.
Hong Kong has shut most of its entry points to curb visitors from the mainland, but leader Carrie Lam has said it will not close three remaining entry points, including the international airport and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.
However, at a regular press briefing on Tuesday, she left room for more stringent measures depending on how the situation evolves.
On Monday, the Chinese leadership in Beijing admitted "shortcomings and deficiencies" in response to the outbreak, while President Xi Jinping called for "prompt and resolute actions" to contain the epidemic.
The admission came at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party's Central Committee chaired by Xi, the party's general secretary, on the prevention and control of pneumonia epidemic caused by the novel coronavirus, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
In Huanggang, a Hubei city that has the second-largest number of people infected with the virus after Wuhan, more than 300 people, including senior party officials, have been disciplined over their handling of the outbreak.
The death toll in mainland China has already surpassed that recorded during the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic, which totaled 349 in the mainland, according to the World Health Organization.
The virus has also already infected more people than did the SARS virus, which left 8,098 people stricken worldwide. Globally, severe acute respiratory syndrome killed 774 people.
As the new coronavirus virus continues to spread, with confirmed cases and deaths jumping daily in mainland China, a number of foreign governments have imposed entry restrictions on travelers from China.
As of the end of last month, 62 countries had had some form of restrictions in place, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
The United States on Sunday began banning the entry of foreign travelers who had been in China in the last 14 days, prompting China to criticize the U.S. move and similar restrictions imposed by other countries as an overreaction.
The new coronavirus is part of a large family of viruses that cause the common cold and, in some cases, more severe diseases, such as SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome, known as MERS.
The virus was first detected in Wuhan, a major business and transportation hub, in December. With more countries reporting cases of infection in their territories, the WHO last week declared the outbreak in China as a global public health emergency.
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