The death toll from the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has increased on Wednesday to reach 1,115 cases, gaining 97 new deaths in 24 hours, despite Chinese health official statements saying that there has been a decline in the rate of new infections. Most new deaths were recorded in the Chinese province of Hubei, where the outbreak started in December 2019. According to Chinese health authorities, the total number of confirmed cases of the infection rose to 44,653. Moreover, the Chinese President Xi Jinping said that his country would meet its economic goals while battling the Coronavirus. On Monday, Jinping has visited a hospital treating coronavirus patients, marking the first visit of its kind since the start of the deadly outbreak. Chinese authorities announced that it has spent 31.55bn yuan ($4.5 bn) to combat the Coronavirus, from an allocation of 71.85bn yuan, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Furthermore, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced officially naming the disease caused by the novel coronavirus as COVID-19, replacing the old temporal name given to the virus by the China's National Health Commission "novel coronavirus pneumonia," or "NCP" In a press briefing on Tuesday, Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at WHO in Geneva, Switzerland said that "COVID-19 stands for coronavirus disease in 2019," explaining that there are many Coronaviruses, and this style of naming will provide a format for referring to new coronavirus diseases in future years. "The virus itself is named by international groups of virologists who will look into the taxonomy. But it is important to have a name for this disease that everybody uses," she said. Continued on page 2
