The novel coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan in late December where it was listed as “pneumonia of unknown cause”, China said on Monday as it published an official timeline of the detection and control of COVID-19 for the first time, amid international criticism of Beijing for its alleged cover-up.
Since the coronavirus outbreak, the pandemic has killed 3,331 people with the number of infections rising to 81,708 by Sunday, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said on Monday.
A total of 1,299 patients are still being treated, while 77,078 patients have been discharged after recovery, it said.
The deadly COVID-19 has spread rapidly throughout the world, killing 70,590 people and infectecting more than 1.2 million across over 180 countries and territories, according to Johns Hopkins University data. In late last December, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in central China’s Hubei Province detected cases of “pneumonia of unknown cause”, state run Xinhua news agency reported, citing the timeline document.
On December 30, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issued an urgent notification to medical institutions under its jurisdiction, ordering efforts to appropriately treat patients with pneumonia of unknown cause, it said.
