China virus death toll nears 1,500 but new cases fall

A man wears a face mask as he walks past the closed Lama Temple in Beijing on February 13, 2020. – The number of deaths and new cases from China’s COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak spiked dramatically on February 13 after authorities changed the way they count infections in a move that will likely fuel speculation that the severity of the outbreak has been under-reported. (Photo by GREG BAKER / AFP)

BEIJING, China (AFP) — The death toll from China’s coronavirus epidemic rose to 1,483 on Friday but the number of new infections in hard-hit Hubei province fell after a change in case definitions caused a massive increase the previous day.

The central province’s health commission reported 116 more deaths and 4,823 new cases, the majority involving “clinically diagnosed” patients.

The province, the epicenter of the outbreak, had 242 more deaths and over 14,800 new cases on Thursday.

More than 64,600 people have now been infected in the country.

Health officials in Hubei said they started to count clinically diagnosed cases to ensure that patients get treated as early as possible instead of having to wait for laboratory tests to confirm they have the COVID-19 disease.

But the change raised concerns that the crisis may be more serious than Chinese authorities have reported.