Coronavirus: Tally mounts to 908 as 97 more deaths reported

The death toll from China's coronavirus outbreak climbed to 908 as 97 more fatalities reported on Monday with at least two more outside the country.

China has faced another rise in cases of the new virus after a sharp decline the previous day.

On Monday, China's health ministry said another 3,062 cases had been reported over the previous 24 hours, raising the Chinese mainland's total to 40,171.

Earlier, France closed two schools after five British visitors contracted the virus at a ski resort. Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam reported one new case each.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Saturday that the number of cases being reported daily in China was "stabilising", although the health body warned it was too early to say if the virus had peaked.

A WHO "international expert mission" left late Sunday for China, the agency´s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Twitter.

The only confirmed fatalities outside the mainland are a Chinese man in the Philippines and a 39-year-old man in Hong Kong.

That had prompted optimism that the “joint control mechanism of different regions and the strict prevention and control measures have worked,” in the words of a spokesman for the National Health Commission, Mi Feng.

Also Sunday, new cases were reported in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, the UK and Spain.

More than 360 cases have been confirmed outside mainland China.

“Dramatic reductions” in the pace of the disease’s spread should begin this month if containment works, Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity, said in an online news conference on Sunday.

Warmer weather will reduce the virus’s ability to spread and bring people out of enclosed spaces where it is transmitted more easily, Lipkin said.

However, he said, if new cases spike as people return to work after the Lunar New Year holiday, which was extended to reduce the risk of spreading the virus, then “we’ll know we’re in trouble.”

The WHO director-general said it will send experts to China starting Monday or Tuesday.

Asked whether that will include members of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus replied, “We hope so.”

As per details, 27 countries around the world are affected with the Corona virus in which, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, USA, Malaysia, Germany, Taiwan, Macao, Vietnam, France, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Philippines, India, UK, Russia, Italy, Nepal, Cambodia , Sri Lanka, Finland, Sweden, Belgium and Spain included.

On the other hand, the committee, headed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, has decided that the issue of illegal trade in wildlife must be dealt with and "permanently banned."

The virus is believed to have originated from an animal market in Wuhan, a city in Hubei Province.

The committee was told that Wuhan is being given "top priority" by authorities in China and additional medical staff is being sent there.

Every province in China with a population of more than 30 million has been declared mandatory to wear masks in public places.