By Hillary Leung , Sanya Mansoor , Amy Gunia , Jasmine Aguilera and Tara Law
Updated: February 5, 2020 9:53 PM ET | Originally published: January 27, 2020

China’s national health commission reported 73 more deaths in the novel coronavirus outbreak Thursday, bringing the total number of fatalities linked to the virus to 563, with all but two occurring on the mainland.

The coronavirus—known as 2019-nCoV—has infected 28,009 patients globally, according to Johns Hopkins University’s virus tracker.

Japan and Singapore have reported the most patients outside of China, with 45 and 28 respectively.

The number of cases in Japan rose significantly after 10 more people tested positive on a quarantined cruise ship that docked in Yokohama Wednesday, local media reported. The ship was quarantined after the cruise company learned that a passenger from Hong Kong who has been diagnosed with the coronavirus was on board last month.

The WHO announced the launch of a strategic plan to respond to the outbreak Wednesday and requested $675 million to fund the plan over the next three months. Part of that money — $60 million — is to fund WHO’s operations, while the remainder is for “countries that are especially at risk,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Tedros reiterated that the agency’s “greatest concern” is the potential for the respiratory illness to spread to countries with weak health systems.

“Our message to the international community is: invest today or pay more later,” Tedros said. “$675 million U.S. dollars is a lot of money, but it’s much less than the bill we will face if we do not invest in preparedness now during the window of opportunity that we have.”

So far, 99% of confirmed cases are in China and 80% of the cases in China are in Hubei Province, the WHO stated. Excluding China, there are more than 190 cases across 24 countries. At least 31 of those cases involve people with no travel history to China, but all of those cases involve people considered in close contact of a confirmed case or of someone from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.

A second wave of American evacuations from the outbreak’s epicenter continued on Wednesday as a plane of 178 evacuees from Wuhan, China, landed at Travis Air Force Base in California, the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control confirmed. Those on board are now subject to a 14-day federal quarantine and will stay at the air force base temporarily. “Fourteen days is the longest incubation period ever observed with coronaviruses,” said Dr. Henry Walke, director of the CDC’s division of preparedness and emergency infections at a press conference on Wednesday.

“This is the first time in more than 50 years that CDC has issued a quarantine order,” Walke said, explaining that this is an “unprecedented action” in response to an “unprecedented public health threat.”

Walke said the ages of those on the flight range from less than 2 to over 65; one small child on the flight had a fever is being evaluated at a nearby hospital.

Coronavirus scares on two cruise ships Wednesday prompted authorities to hold thousands on board as health officials carried out checks. A Hong Kong ship was barred from docking in Taiwan after reports that three passengers from mainland China who were previously on board had since been diagnosed with coronavirus. The Hong Kong health department did not confirm how long the 1,800 passengers would remain on board the ship, adding that three crew members reported having a fever and will be quarantined. Local health officials confirmed later that three people on the ship had tested positive for the virus.

On the same day, authorities in Hong Kong announced that all arrivals from mainland China would be quarantined for 14 days starting this Saturday, acknowledging that there is risk of an outbreak in the city.

In Japan, officials quarantined 3,700 people aboard a cruise ship docked in Yokohama as 10 passengers aboard the vessel tested positive for the deadly virus, according to Reuters. A passenger from Hong Kong who has been diagnosed with the coronavirus sailed on the ship, the Diamond Princess, last month.

Also on Wednesday, authorities in Hong Kong announced that all arrivals from mainland China would be quarantined for 14 days starting Saturday, acknowledging that there is risk of an outbreak in the city. However, Chief Executive Carrie Lam once again stopped short of closing the border, despite demands from many Hong Kong residents, including thousands of medical workers who went on strike in an attempt to force the action.

In recent days, patients in the Philippines and Hong Kong have succumbed to the virus, making them the first cases of deaths outside mainland China. On Saturday, a 44-year-old man died in the Philippines, and on Tuesday, a 39-year-old man who was diagnosed passed away in Hong Kong. Authorities in Hong Kong warned of a risk of an outbreak in the city.

Spotlight Story
Inside the Company Working On a Coronavirus Vaccine
Researchers have found a potential shortcut that could shorten the time it takes to develop vaccines

A Chinese state broadcaster said Tuesday that the second hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, is nearing completion and will be ready to admit patients Thursday. A rush-built hospital with 1,000 beds was completed earlier in the week. Both hospitals were constructed in a matter of days to treat coronavirus patients, an attempt by authorities to contain the deadly outbreak.

The city is also planning to convert 11 venues, including exhibition centers and gymnasiums, into makeshift hospitals, which state media says could house 10,000 beds to accommodate the growing number of patients.

Experts say symptoms can be very difficult to detect and that many of those who died from the disease are older and had underlying health conditions like hypertension, diabetes or cardiovascular disease. They note that there is still a lot to be learned about the virus’ origins, clinical features and severity. It’s unclear how long the outbreak will last and how bad it may get.

Medical experts are suggesting that the illness could be passed from mother-to-fetus as a baby was confirmed to be infected only 30 hours after being born in China, according to Chinese state media.

More and more Chinese cities are being placed under varying degrees of lockdown—two more cities in Zhejiang, the province with the second-highest number of coronavirus cases after Hubei, have implemented policies to restrict the movement of its residents. The cities of Hangzhou and Taizhou, which together have a population of more than 15 million, announced the closure of highways and other transportation shutdowns, according to the social media accounts of local governments.

World Health Organization coordinates global response

The WHO has set a target of $675 million over the next three months to respond to the coronavirus outbreak.

At a press conference held by the agency on Wednesday, Tedros thanked the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has already pledged up to $100 million toward the global response to the outbreak.

The WHO has already released $9 million from its own contingency emergency fund and is sending half a million masks, 350,000 pairs of gloves and 40,000 respirators to 24 countries.

The WHO is monitoring all public health measures taken by all member states, and will “try and bring some cohesion and order to that process in the coming days,” said Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme.

Tedros also downplayed criticism from John Mackenzie, a member of WHO’s coronavirus emergency committee, who said that China’s initial response to the outbreak was “reprehensible” and that they did not report cases quickly enough. Tedros said he would expect more cases to spread from China to the rest of the world if China was hiding cases, but noted that the WHO would still have a retrospective review in the future.

China completes hospital in 10 days

China has completed a hospital in 10 days that it rushed to build to handle the surge of coronavirus patients, according to state media.

Huoshenshan Hospital is located in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, which is the epicenter of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. It has a capacity of 1,000 beds and is staffed by medical workers from the country’s military. A video of the brand-new facility shows one of the rooms, which is equipped with two single beds, a bathroom, an electric water heater and a ventilation system.

A project on this scale “usually takes at least two years,” a project manager told Xinhua, but the exponential increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the country forced construction crews to work day and night to build the hospital at lightning speed. Chinese state media live-streamed the around-the-clock construction progress online, drawing words of encouragement from netizens.

Another medical facility, Leishenshan Hospital, is also being built in Wuhan. It will be ready to take patients on Thursday, according to state media CGTN.

Chinese officials acknowledged previous “shortcomings and difficulties” in their response to the outbreak, explaining that the government “urgently” needed medical supplies. By Sunday evening, more than 8,000 medical staff from medical teams across China were responding to the virus in Hubei province, according to Chinese state media.

American response

This week, several planes evacuating Americans from Wuhan will arrive in California, Texas and Nebraska, according to a statement from the CDC issued on Wednesday. Public health personnel will screen, monitor and evaluate passengers and be issued quarantine orders upon arrival that begin on the day the flight departed Wuhan and last for up to 14 days.

The Department of Defense said in a statement that it is prepared to receive two evacuation flights from Wuhan on Wednesday, noting that initial flights have left China with about 350 passengers on board. One plane is set to refuel at Travis Air Force Base before continuing to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station — both in California. Another plane has already landed at Travis Air Force Base.

Those entering the U.S. within 12 days of having been in Hubei or the rest of mainland China will be directed to one of 11 U.S. airports for an additional health assessment, according to the CDC. They include Los Angeles International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Honolulu International Airport, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

Americans traveling back to the U.S. from Hubei province 14 days before returning to the country will be subject to up to 14 days of a mandatory quarantine, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar told reporters at a White House press briefing. Any American citizens who were in mainland China 14 days before returning to the U.S. will have to undergo a “self-imposed” quarantine for 14 days.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases says it is likely that some returning travelers will be infected with the virus. “This strategy is not meant to catch every single traveler returning from China with novel coronavirus,” she said. “Given the nature of this virus and how it’s spreading that would be impossible, but working together we can catch the majority of them and the goal here is to slow the entry of this virus into the U.S.”

Following travel alerts from the U.S. Department of State and news of human-to-human coronavirus spread in the U.S., the CDC had announced that it will quarantine 195 passengers who were repatriated back into the U.S. from the disease’s epicenter in Wuhan, China.

The CDC announced Friday that all of those individuals who were brought to March Air Reserve Base must stay there for 14 days, in an effort to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus within the U.S. Messonnier called the rare step a necessary response to “an unprecedented public-health threat.”

The State Department has also encouraged Americans in China to consider leaving.

International cases and response

At least 191 patients have tested positive for the illness across 24 countries, according to the WHO.

A 44-year-old man died in the Philippines on Saturday, the country’s Department of Health confirmed, marking the first person to succumb to the virus outside of China. The man, a resident of Wuhan, China, had arrived in the Philippines on Jan. 21 with a 38-year-old woman, who was also infected.

A 39-year-old man in Hong Kong died on Tuesday, making him the second death outside of mainland China. The patient reportedly had an underlying illness.

There are 21 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Hong Kong, which was hard-hit by the 2002-2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). More than one-third of the nearly 800 deaths from SARS worldwide were in Hong Kong, and the semi-autonomous Chinese territory had more than 1,700 of the 8,000 confirmed cases of the virus.

Hong Kong’s neighbor, the gambling hub of Macau, confirmed its 10th case of the virus Tuesday. Macau announced the same day that it would be shutting its casinos for two weeks. (The city’s casinos are overwhelmingly reliant on mainland Chinese tourists.)

On Tuesday, the South China Morning Post reported that the disease control authority of Guangdong province is now trying to track down passengers who were aboard a cruise ship that carried several confirmed cases of coronavirus. The ship carried about 4,000 passengers between Guangzhou and Vietnam from Jan. 19 – 24.

Russia, Sweden, Spain, the Philippines, Italy, India and the U.K. confirmed their first cases of coronavirus last week.

There are also at least 45 confirmed cases in Japan, 28 in Singapore, 25 in Thailand, 21 in Hong Kong and 19 in South Korea, according to Johns Hopkins University’s virus tracker. Governments and health officials in Nepal, Canada,Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia,Sri Lanka, UAE, France, the U.K., Italy, Russia, Sweden, Spain and Germany have also reported patients testing positive for the virus.

Several countries have tightened their borders to restrict the flow of mainland Chinese visitors.

In Hong Kong, the government has closed all but two entry points, leaving a cross-border bridge and a port in a northwestern part of the territory open. (Visitors can still fly to Hong Kong, though flights between mainland China and Hong Kong have been cut by half.) All travelers coming from China will be quarantined for 14 days starting Feb 8.

Singapore has said it is banning visitors with recent travel history to mainland China and has also banned the entry and transfer of travelers holding passports issued by China’s Hubei Province.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said Thursday that Russia would be closing its land border with China from Friday at least until March 1, the Associated Press reported.

Mongolia’s official news agency has said the country closed border crossings with China on Monday, according to AP.

Multiple countries are also warning against unnecessary travel to China, and many have already started evacuating their citizens from Wuhan.

A group of 21 Spanish citizens were evacuated and flown from Wuhan and landed in Madrid on Friday, according to Spanish media.

Two government-chartered planes carrying more than 300 Japanese citizens from Wuhan arrived on Wednesday and Thursday. At least three Japanese citizens on the flight tested positive for the new coronavirus, according to local media.

More than 80 British evacuees from Wuhan arrived on Friday, according to the BBC.

Pakistan has chosen not to evacuate Pakistanis in China after learning that four Pakistani students in China tested positive for the virus. State health officials have said they are “monitoring the situation around the clock.”

The European Commission says it has supported the repatriation of 447 E.U. citizens from Wuhan.

China travel restricted

Chinese officials have shut down travel in and out of Wuhan — home to 11 million people — and enacted similar, strict transportation restrictions in a number of other cities. Wuhan has suspended immigration administration services, local authorities said Monday, according to Chinese state media.

People in China have started going back to work after an extended Lunar New Year holiday ended, according to the South China Morning Post.

China’s Hubei Province has also suspended services to apply for passports and exit-entry permits.

Apple said Saturday it would close stores, corporate offices and contact centers in China “out of an abundance of caution,” the New York Times reported.

Royal Caribbean also announced restrictions, including the cancellation of eight cruises out of China due to the outbreak, according to the AP. The cruise line announced Monday that it would also prohibit any guest or crew member, regardless of nationality, to board a ship if they traveled through mainland China or Hong Kong less than 15 days prior. Royal Caribbean CEO Richard Fain said more cancellations are likely to take place in the future, according to the AP.

Japanese officials said that Japan would ban foreign nationals who have been to Hubei province within two weeks before their arrival. Those carrying Chinese passports issued in Hubei are also banned from entering the country, although special exceptions may be made, government officials said, according to Japan Times.

Australia said it would ban travelers who have visited or transited through mainland China from Saturday onwards for the next two weeks. The restrictions will not apply to Australian citizens, permanent residents and members of their immediate family, although these groups will be asked to isolate themselves for two weeks from when they departed China, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Saturday, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Additionally, Singapore has banned all travelers arriving from mainland China who had been there in the past 14 days from entry and transit by Sunday morning. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration says that Vietnam has suspended almost all flights from and to mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau until May 1, according to the New York Times.

As the deadly virus spreads, a growing number of airlines including British Airways, Air France, Delta and Lufthansa are suspending all flights to China. Many have cut down the number of flights, and some have stopped flying to major cities.

China organized at least three flights to bring home more than 300 Hubei residents from abroad and plans to dispatch nine flights to bring home about 2,000 Chinese tourists in the Philippines., according to Chinese state media.

CDC confirms second human-to-human transmission in the U.S.

On Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the second case of the disease transmitting from person-to-person within the U.S. The first American patient diagnosed with the new coronavirus was also discharged from hospital.

A patient in California, who had not recently traveled to China, tested positive for the virus. The patient is married to a person who had previously traveled to China and tested positive for the respiratory illness, according to the California Department of Public Health.

On Monday, hospital officials at the Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington, said the 35-year-old man who was the first to test positive for the new coronavirus in the U.S. has left the facility, the Associated Press reported. The unidentified man is recovering and looking forward to life returning to normal, he told the AP.

The CDC has now confirmed at least 12 cases of the coronavirus infection in the U.S. across Wisconsin, Arizona, Massachusetts, California, Washington state and Illinois. On Wednesday, Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services reported an additional confirmed case of the virus in an adult “with a history of travel to Beijing.”

“The individual is isolated at home, and is doing well,” the agency said.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, maintained that the risk to the American public continued to be low, but that the CDC expects to find additional cases in the U.S.

The newest confirmations include one patient in Massachusetts and another four in California. One patient in California, who had not recently traveled to China, is married to a person who tested positive for the virus and had previously traveled to China, according to the California Department of Public Health.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for the first 2019 new coronavirus diagnostic Tuesday, before which the test had been limited to being used at CDC’s laboratories. The authorization now allows the test to be used at any CDC-qualified lab in the U.S.

The CDC said as of Wednesday morning that 293 individuals across 36 states were considered to be “persons under investigation.” Of those, more than 200 had so far tested negative for the disease. The status of another 76 cases is currently pending.

Write to Hillary Leung at hillary.leung@time.com, Amy Gunia at amy.gunia@time.com, Jasmine Aguilera at jasmine.aguilera@time.com and Tara Law at tara.law@time.com.

Read More From TIME

EDIT POST