As of 19 February, 2,012 deaths have been attributed to COVID-19. According to China's NHC, most of those who died were older patients – about 80% of deaths recorded were from those over the age of 60, and 75% had pre-existing health conditions including cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. The first reported death was a 61-year-old man on 9 January 2020 who was first admitted to a Wuhan hospital on 27 December 2019. The first death outside of China occurred in the Philippines, when a 44-year-old Chinese male citizen developed severe pneumonia and died on 1 February. His companion, a 38-year-old Chinese female citizen was also confirmed to have contracted the virus, but eventually recovered. She stayed in the same hospital in Manila as her companion until her discharge on 8 February. On 8 February 2020, it was announced that a Japanese and an American died from the virus in Wuhan. They were the first foreigners killed by the virus. The first death outside of Asia was confirmed in Paris, France, on 15 February 2020, when an 80-year-old Chinese tourist from Hubei died after being in hospital since 25 January.
On 17 January, a research group from the Imperial College London in the United Kingdom published a report that there had been 1,723 cases (95% confidence interval, 427–4,471) with onset of symptoms by 12 January. This was based on the pattern of the initial spread to Thailand and Japan. They also concluded that "self-sustaining human-to-human transmission should not be ruled out", which has since been confirmed. As further cases came to light, they later recalculated that there may be 4,000 symptomatic cases in Wuhan City by 18 January (uncertainty range of 1,000 to 9,700). A Hong Kong University group has reached a similar conclusion as the earlier study, with additional detail on transport within China.
Based on cases reported and assuming a 10-day delay between infection and detection, researchers at Northeastern University estimated that the number of actual infections may be much higher than those confirmed at the time of reporting. Northeastern University estimated 21,300 infections by 26 January, increasing to 31,200 infections by 29 January (95% confidence interval 23,400–40,400). On 31 January 2020, an article in The Lancet estimated that 75,815 individuals (95% confidence interval 37,304–130,330) had been infected in Wuhan as of 25 January, with an estimated doubling time of 6.4 days in the period of study.
There are concerns about whether adequate medical personnel and equipment are available in regions affected by the outbreak for hospitals to correctly identify coronavirus cases instead of misdiagnosing suspected cases as "severe pneumonia". Many of those experiencing symptoms were told to self-quarantine at home instead of going to a hospital to avoid close contact with other patients with different levels of symptoms. After two repatriation flights were conducted from Wuhan to Japan in late January, 5 out of approximately 400 persons repatriated were diagnosed with the virus, of whom 1 was symptomatic, and 4 were not.
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