Philippines reports first coronavirus death outside China

A crowd receives coronavirus masks in Philippines.

(Image credit: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

last updated 2 February 2020

The Philippines reported the first death resulting from the Wuhan coronavirus outside of China on Sunday.

A 44-year-old man who tested positive for the new coronavirus died Saturday in the Philippines after developing what officials called "severe pneumonia." He was reportedly in stable condition until the final 24 hours before his condition "deteriorated." The patient was a native of Wuhan, China, where the virus appears to have originated. He arrived in the Philippines in January with a 38-year-old woman who also tested positive for the coronavirus and remains isolated in a hospital in Manila.

In China, officials reported Sunday that the country's death toll rose to at least 304 people while the worldwide total of confirmed cases — the vast majority within China — has reached nearly 14,380, per Chinese and World Health Organization data. People in all of China's provinces and territories have been affected by the virus at this point. Read more at The Associated Press and The New York Times.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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