China reports 1,886 new virus cases, death toll up by 98

BEIJING (AP) — China reported 1,886 new virus cases and 98 more deaths in its update Tuesday on a disease outbreak that has caused milder illness in most people, an assessment that promoted guarded optimism from global health authorities.

The update raised the number of deaths in mainland China to 1,868 and the total confirmed cases to 72,436.

On Monday, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention published a study of earlier cases of the disease, finding more than 80% of people infected had mild illness and the number of new infections seem to be falling since early this month.

Monday's report gives the World Health Organization a clearer picture of where the outbreak is headed, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference.

But he added it was too early to know if the reported decline would continue. "Every scenario is still on the table," he said.

The seeming drop in the number of cases follow a large spike last week after hard-hit Hubei province began counting cases by doctors' diagnoses without waiting for laboratory test results. Health authorities there said the change was meant to get patients treated faster.

The disease named COVID-19 emerged in December in Wuhan, Hubei's capital, and the surrounding region has been put under lockdown to try to contain the outbreak. Transportation has been halted, thousands of hospital beds have been added, and military doctors and nurses have been deployed to staff facilities in the overwhelmed local health-care system.

China may postpone its annual congress, its biggest political meeting of the year. The standing committee for the National People’s Congress will meet Feb. 24 to deliberate postponing the meeting that is due to start March 5.

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