Coronavirus outbreak: death toll rises to 54 as Canada confirms first case – updates

Sunday has brought an increase in the proportion of deaths outside of Hubei province, the epicentre of the pandemic. State media is reporting that Shanghai has recorded its first death, as well as Henan province.

Tianjin city has announced it will shut all inter-provincial shuttle buses from January 27 (Monday) to curb the coronavirus outbreak.

State media in China is now reporting the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak is 56. All of the known deaths from the virus have occurred within China.

Nearly 2000 cases have been confirmed, and there are another 2600 suspected cases.

To Canada next where health officials in Toronto have added a slight qualification to their initial statements saying that they had a confirmed case of novel coronavirus. They say the case is “presumptive” which means they’re waiting for definitive lab tests after initial tests at a provincial lab shoowed it was the virus.

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre had said on Saturday night local time that it was caring for a man is his 50s who had recently flown from Wuhan to Guangzhou and then on to Toronto on 23 January. “He really wasn’t in Toronto very long. He wasn’t feeling well. I think he was at home and the people that live with him are in self isolation,” said Dr Barbara Yafe, Ontario’s associated chief medical officer.

But Eileen de Villa, head of the city’s public health agency, said at a press conference in the last hour that “We have the first presumptive case confirmed of this novel coronavirus here”.

More on the latest figures on victims in China. The toll stood at 41 on Saturday but 13 fatalities have been added overnight to make 54 deaths so far. The Hubei health ministry says seven of the latest deaths were from that province with the remainder elsewhere in China, marking a rise in the proportion of deaths outside the epicentre region.

There were also another 323 people infected, taking the nationwide total to more than 1600. Only 46 of the new confirmed cases were in Hubei, the ministry said.

Welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in China and around the world. These are the main developments today:

• Officials in China said on Sunday that the death toll has risen to 54 and the number of people infected is more than 1,600.
• Chinese president Xi Jinping says the country faces a “grave situation” as it battle to contain the fast-spreading contagion.
• Lunar new year celebrations were subdued across China on Saturday with an estimated 50 million people subject to travel restrictions in the epicentre Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province.
• The outbreak has spread to many other Asian countries and three other continets with cases confirmed in Australia, France and the United States.
• A man in his 50s was confirmed as the first case in Canada on Saturday night. He had recently flown from Wuhan to Guangzhou in southern China and then on to Toronto on 23 January.
• The British Foreign office has advised citizens against all travel to Hubei province.
• French carmaker PSA, which makes brands including Peugeot and Citroen, on Saturday said it would repatriate expat staff from the Wuhan region where it has 38.
• Researchers are racing to work out if infections have been caused by animal to human contact, which would limit the spread, or whether the majority are being caused by human to human transmission.
• Li Bin, vice minister at the national health commission, will hold a media conference in Beijing about the outbreak at 3pm local time today.