The novel coronavirus, officially called 'Covid-19', cases in China's Hubei province, soured from 1,638 a day earlier to 14,840 on Wednesday. Likewise, the number of fatalities surged more than twice, from 94 on Tuesday to 242 on Wednesday. Thus, February 12 has proved to be the deadliest day for Hubei, where the total number of cases has now come close to 50,000.
Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, where the virus is said to have originated from a local sea-food and wet market, confirmed more than 90 percent cases. 13,436 cases were reported in the city.
With such a large number of Covid-19 infections reported in a single day, the total number of cases reported from around the world has surged to 60,063. Similarly, the number of fatalities reached 1,363; with all but two occurring in the mainland, itself. Since the virus outbreak, a total of 59,539 cases have been reported in mainland China.
What led to such surge in infection cases?
The ten-fold rise in the number of cases is due to a change in the method of diagnosis, South China Morning Post reported. Previously, patients were diagnosed only by test kits, which have been in shortage of supply across the country.
"From today on, we will include the number of clinically diagnosed cases into the number of confirmed cases so that patients could receive timely treatment," Hubei's heath commission announced on Wednesday.
Such inclusion is designed to ensure patients receive quicker diagnosis and treatment, and will further increase the treatment success rate, the National Health Commission (NHC) told media on Thursday, Global Times reported.
According to Zeng Guang, the chief epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC), the term "clinically diagnosed case" refers to cases with clinical symptoms similar to those of confirmed cases, though lab tests have yet to determine an infection. Among the 14,840 new cases that Hubei announced, 13,332 were clinically diagnosed cases.
