Coronavirus updates: death toll rises to 813 with 37,047 infected, 2,152 recovered

• China’s Hubei province, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus epidemic, reported 81 new deaths from the disease on Saturday, bringing the province’s total fatalities from the outbreak to 780.

• The U.S. embassy confirmed early Saturday that an American citizen diagnosed with coronavirus died at Jinyintian Hospital in Wuhan, China. It appears this is the first death of an American citizen from the disease.

• Total deaths globally stood at 805, just short of the 813 total fatalities attributed to the deadly Sars epidemic of 2002-2003 by the World Health Organisation.

• Chinese authorities will report new figures for all of China later today.

The provincial health authorities also reported 2,147 newly confirmed cases of the disease in the past 24 hours. This brings the total cases in Hubei to 27,100.

Related: US citizen dies in Wuhan the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak

These figures compared to the reported deaths and newly confirmed cases of 81 and 2,841, respectively, on Friday.
Among all the new cases announced early Sunday morning, 1,379 infections were confirmed in Hubei’s capital of Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated at a seafood and meat market.

Coronavirus updates: as of 07:00am, Feb 09, 2020

As the disease continues to spread around the world, some major cruise lines have joined airlines in suspending certain routes to and from China as well as barring some travelers in an attempt to curb the contagion.

Royal Caribbean Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Lines announced Friday they will now ban all travelers with Chinese, Hong Kong, Macau passports, regardless when or whether they’ve been in China recently.

Four passengers on Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas ship were sent to a New Jersey hospital Friday morning after 27 travelers on board were screened for coronavirus when the ship docked in Bayonne, New Jersey, just south of New York City.

The Japanese Health Ministry reported Saturday that another three passengers on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Yokohama, Japan had tested positive for the virus, bringing the total of the infected passengers to 64. Including those on the cruise ship, the number of confirmed virus cases in Japan stood at 90 as of Saturday, the largest number of any country outside China.

The coronavirus emerged from China two months ago. Globally, 805 deaths and 37,045 cases of infection have been reported as of Saturday. The first non-Chinese facility from the virus was reported Saturday, with the U.S. embassy confirming that American citizen had died in a Wuhan hospital on Thursday.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry also reported Saturday that a Japanese citizen had also died in Wuhan, possibly from the coronavirus, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. The patient tested positive for the virus, but the hospital could not make a definite diagnosis and reported the cause of death as virus-related pneumonia.

More to follow …

By Jodi Xu Klein in New York @ SCMP