Doctors in China have adopted a new way of diagnosing the novel coronavirus, leading to a huge jump in both the official number of deaths blamed on the disease and the tally of confirmed cases in the country at the heart of the outbreak. Officials in Hubei province, the Chinese region where the virus is believed to have jumped into the human population from wild animals, reported 254 new deaths and 15,152 new cases of the flu-like virus. The increase brought the worldwide death toll to at least 1,369 and the number of confirmed cases to more than 60,000. Only about 400 of those patients, and just two of the confirmed fatalities, have been outside of mainland China.The sharp increase came after two days of reported declines in the number of confirmed new cases in China. It was the result of Chinese doctors in Hubei province starting to use lung imaging to diagnose the disease, in addition to the standard nucleic acid tests they had been using. The largest cluster of coronavirus cases outside of China, on a cruise ship that has been quarantined for almost two weeks in Japan, continued to grow Thursday. With 218 cases confirmed from the Diamond Princess, Japan’s government said it would allow some elderly passengers from the vessel to move into government-provided housing on land, where they would be monitored for symptoms apart from the general population.
The 26-year-old had been set to perform in Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, China, South Korea and Indonesia in March and April, as part of his “Heavy is the Head” tour. “I was seriously looking forward to bringing the #HITH world tour to Asia and playing some epic sold out shows,” Stormzy wrote on Instagram. “But due to the ongoing health and travel concerns surrounding the Coronavirus, I’m regrettably having to reschedule this leg. “Information regarding the rescheduled dates will follow in due course… I promise I’ll be back,” he added.