Wuhan Coronavirus Infections Could Be 30 Times Higher Than Official Total, Hong Kong Researchers Warn

The number of people infected with a SARS-like form of coronavirus in Wuhan, China could already be more than 30 times higher the the official tally, researchers in Hong Kong have warned.
Gabriel Leung, the chair of public health medicine at the University of Hong Kong, said at a press conference Monday that his team’s research models show that some 44,000 people in Wuhan alone—where the virus is believed to have originated in a seafood market—may be infected as of last Saturday.
Chinese officials have shut down travel in and out of Wuhan and many surrounding cities in an effort to stop the spread of the virus. Fewer than 2,800 cases of the virus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, have been officially confirmed in mainland China so far, according to a virus tracker maintained by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, which uses numbers from China’s National Health Commission and DXY.cn, an online medical professional network. About 1,400 of those are in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located—a fraction of the total estimated by Leung’s team.

The virus has killed 80 people in China and spread to at least 10 countries, including the U.S.

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Source: TIME: Health - January 27, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Amy Gunia Tags: Uncategorized Infectious Disease onetime overnight Source Type: news