Coronavirus death toll reaches 1,400 on Friday, and about 64,000 people are now recorded as having fallen ill from the deadly virus in China.
Six medical workers are among the victims, while 1,716 health workers had been recorded infected by coronavirus as of Tuesday. The new broke a week after the death of the whistleblowing doctor named Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist in Wuhan. He was reportedly asked by police to remain silent when he raised the alarm about the virus in December.
Authorities in central Hubei province, considered as the epicentre of the contagion, modified their criteria in counting the number of cases and added thousands of new patients to their tally.
More than two-dozen countries have reported cases triggered by the virus, and outside China, three people have already died.
Many health workers in Hubei's capital, Wuhan, were severely affected. Their worsening condition is blamed to the lack of proper masks and equipment to protect themselves in hospitals as they deal with patients. The number of medical workers present in Wuhan has reached 80,000 according to the city government.
Coronavirus Updates
Hubei's health commission reported that 116 people had died and more than 4,800 new cases were identified as of Friday. Of those cases, more than 3,000 were considered "clinically diagnosed."
The sharp one-day increase "does not represent a significant change in the trajectory of the outbreak," said Michael Ryan, head of World Health Organization's (WHO) health emergencies programme.
The move will ensure patients get treated as early as possible, instead of having to wait for laboratory tests, health officials claim.
"There have been some backlogs in testing and this is also going to help in ensuring that people get adequate care," Ryan said.
Authorities put 56 million people in Hubei under quarantine since late last month. This is their way of preventing the new coronavirus from spreading. Two field hospitals were also built within two weeks. Public buildings were converted into makeshift clinics to relieve Wuhan's hospitals.
