ADVERTISEMENT

The Age, Sex and Symptoms of All the Coronavirus Victims

Several people who’ve died from a new virus in China didn’t display symptoms of fever.

The Age, Sex and Symptoms of All the Coronavirus Victims
Commuters wearing protective masks walk through a subway station ahead of the Lunar New Year in Shanghai, China. (Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Several people who’ve died from a new virus in China didn’t display symptoms of fever, potentially complicating global efforts to check for infected travelers by temperature screening at airports and other travel hubs.

The Hubei Health Commission said Friday seven more people had died in the central Chinese province from the coronavirus infection. Six died in Wuhan and the other death was in Yichang, which is about 200 miles away from the provincial capital and epicenter of the outbreak. Of the 24 people who’ve died in total in Hubei, seven had symptoms other than fever, such as breathing difficulty, chest tightness and coughing.

“If this virus can be transmitted without causing fever, then it’s easier for the infection to travel globally because it can simply stay under the radar for a while,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy in Washington, D.C.

The Hubei Health Commission said there were 105 new cases, taking the total to 549, including 495 in Wuhan. Thirty-one people have been cured, though many are being treated in hospitals and are critically ill, the department said. The youngest victim was a 36-year-old male who was admitted to hospital on Jan. 9 suffering from fever and fatigue. He died Thursday.

Elsewhere in China, Guangdong province in the south on Friday reported 53 confirmed coronavirus cases, including at least one 10-year-old child. The National Health Commission also said there’d been a death in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, though it didn’t provide details of the symptoms.

The Age, Sex and Symptoms of All the Coronavirus Victims

At least nine victims in Hubei had pre-existing conditions such as diabetes, coronary artery disease and Parkinson’s disease, the National Health Commission said. Ten were aged 80 or over, four were in their seventies, seven in their sixties, one in his fifties and another was 48. Eight of the victims in the province were women and the rest were men.

The Age, Sex and Symptoms of All the Coronavirus Victims
The Age, Sex and Symptoms of All the Coronavirus Victims

China has imposed travel bans in some affected areas, essentially putting millions of people under lockdown. The virus has spread to places including the U.S. and Hong Kong, triggering memories of the SARS pandemic in 2003 that killed nearly 800 people.

Lunar New Year holidays began in earnest Friday, heaping pressure on Chinese authorities trying to contain the virus as hundreds of millions of people travel to their hometowns in the biggest migration of humans on the planet. The World Health Organization on Thursday said the outbreak hadn’t yet become a global health emergency, but that it was closely monitoring the situation.

The Age, Sex and Symptoms of All the Coronavirus Victims

--With assistance from Matt Turner, Ari Altstedter and Sarah Chen.

To contact the reporters on this story: Will Davies in Hong Kong at wdavies13@bloomberg.net;Stephen Tan in Hong Kong at ztan39@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net, ;Rachel Chang at wchang98@bloomberg.net, Bhuma Shrivastava, Sharon Chen

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.