The death toll of a coronavirus outbreak sweeping China has reached at least 1,523, with nearly 67,000 people infected.
A massive spike in deaths and confirmed cases was reported in Hubei province, where the outbreak started, on Thursday morning local time, due to a revised methodology for counting cases. But on Friday, China’s National Health Commission wrote off more than 100 deaths from the total, attributing the error to double-counting.
The only deaths outside of mainland China so far are one man in the Philippines, a 39-year-old man in Hong Kong, and a woman in her 80s in Japan.
The COVID-19 virus, as it’s now officially known, has spread to every province and region in China as well at least 26 other countries. Both the death toll and the number of infected patients exceed those of the 2003 SARS outbreak.
The zoonotic virus may have jumped from animals to people at a market in the city of Wuhan. Researchers think the virus originated in bats, and one study suggests the disease might have spread from endangered pangolins to people.
The US has reported 15 cases so far, the latest of which was confirmed near San Antonio, Texas, on Thursday.
The World Health Organization has declared he outbreak a public-health emergency, and Chinese President Xi Jinping said the virus poses a “grave threat.”
Here’s everything we know:
