THE death toll in China from the coronavirus epidemic rose to 2,233 today after 115 more people died in Hubei province, the hard-hit epicentre of the outbreak.

The vast majority of the deaths were in the provincial capital of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in December, according to the daily update from the Hubei health commission.

Around 75,000 people have been infected by the new coronavirus in China, and hundreds more in more than 25 countries.

The Hubei health commission said there were 411 new cases of the virus in the province, with 319 in Wuhan and the rest spread out across several other cities.

China said yesterday it once again changed the method of counting patients with the novel coronavirus and will now include only those diagnosed by laboratory tests.

It was the second revision of criteria in just eight days, a move that could muddle statistics and complicate efforts to track the spread of the illness.

Chinese health officials said last week patients from Hubei diagnosed through clinical methods, including lung imaging, would be added to the count in addition to those confirmed by lab tests.

That led to a huge one-day increase in the number of confirmed cases – 14,840 – on February 13.

The change was blamed on a backlog of patients awaiting nucleic acid tests whose condition was deteriorating and needed urgent treatment. – AFP, February 21, 2020.