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What we know so far about the coronavirus outbreak

  • The official death toll stands at 26 people, most of them in Hubei province in central China, but two people have died outside of that zone – one man just outside of Beijing, and the other in the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang, which borders Russia.

  • More than 800 people in China have been confirmed to have contracted the novel coronavirus so far.

  • The Chinese government has restricted the movement of about 33 million people with an unprecedented and indefinite lockdown after the virus originated in the city of Wuhan.

  • A new 1,000-bed hospital is being built in Wuhan specifically to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, and authorities there expect to have it completed next week.

  • South Korea has confirmed a second case of the virus, a man in his 50s who had been working in Wuhan earlier this month.

  • Japan has also confirmed a second case of the virus: a Wuhan resident in his 40s who arrived in Japan on 19 January.

  • The US has confirmed one case of the virus in Seattle, while authorities in Texas are investigating a second suspected case.

  • 14 people in the UK have been tested for the virus; so far, five have been cleared.

  • In Australia, at least six people are being monitored for signs of the virus, while public health authorities warn the world is likely to see more cases confirmed in countries outside of China in the coming days.

  • The World Health Organization’s emergency committee has concluded it’s “too early” to declare an international public health emergency, but says the situation is still to be considered an emergency in China. “It has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one,” said the WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.