Coronavirus: US citizen dies from deadly virus in China

Sixty-year-old becomes first American to succumb to disease

A 60-year-old has become the first American to die from the coronavirus, US officials have said.

The US citizen, who has not yet been publicly identified, died on Thursday in Wuhan, in the central Chinese province of Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak.

The New York Times reported the victim is believed to be a woman who may have had an underlying health condition.

It was not immediately clear why they had not been evacuated from Wuhan along with other Americans. About 530 people were flown back to the US last week, some of whom are being tested and treated at Travis air force base in California.

The US has instituted quarantine measures for people arriving from China. A dozen people in the United States have tested positive for the virus.

A Japanese man in his sixties also died in Wuhan after suffering symptoms consistent with the virus, Japan’s foreign ministry said.

The death toll in mainland China had risen to 722 by Saturday, with some 31,774 cases reported across the country. The death toll is expected to exceed the 774 people killed by the Sars outbreak in 2002-2003.

The deadly virus has spread to two dozen countries, including the United States, Britain and France. Among the latest reported cases in Europe are five Britons in a French ski resort. They are not thought to be in a serious condition.

China has reacted by sealing off cities, cancelling flights and closing factories – policies which already seem to have hit the country’s already slowing economy. Goldman Sachs has cut its first-quarter GDP growth target from 5.6 per cent to 4 per cent.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics in Singapore, told the Reuters news agency: “It’s certainly not going to be a return to normal next week.”

US health experts are awaiting permission to enter China to help deal with the outbreak.

A woman wearing a protective suit and face mask walks past a closed building in Beijing (Getty Images)

The New York Times reports that authorities in Wuhan have been making house-to-house searches and forcibly moving sick people to enormous quarantine centres.

Meanwhile, flowers have been laid at the Houhu branch of the Wuhan central hospital in honour of Li Wenliang, a doctor who died from coronavirus after being targeted by police for “spreading rumours” when he was trying to raise the alarm about the deadly virus.

Reuters contribute to this report