The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in mainland China reached 1,770 as of the end of Sunday, up by 105 from the previous day, according to the country's National Health Commission.To get moreShanghai breaking news, you can visit shine news official website.

At least 100 of the new deaths were from the province of Hubei, the epicentre of the epidemic, the commission said on Monday morning. Across the country, there were 2,048 new confirmed infections, about 1,933 from Hubei alone, pushing the new total to 70,548.On Sunday, Hubei announced tough new measures to try to curb the outbreak, ordering its cities to block roads to all private vehicles. Meanwhile, a newly published speech revealed Chinese President Xi Jinping was aware of the potential severity of the outbreak long before the public was informed.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said Chinese medical data shows that more than 80 percent of patients have mild symptoms and will recover, while 14 percent suffer from severe complications such as pneumonia, 5 percent are in critical condition and 2 percent die from the disease.

"It appears that COVID-19 is not as deadly as other coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva, adding that officials were starting to get a clearer picture of the outbreak.

The UN health agency's chief also said that children were not suffering from COVID-19 the same as adults and that the risk of death increases the older you are. 
Chinese doctors 'using plasma therapy' on patients
Doctors in Shanghai are using infusions of blood plasma from people who have recovered from the coronavirus to treat those still battling the infection, reporting some encouraging preliminary results, said Lu Hongzhou, professor and co-director of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre.

According to Hongzhou, the hospital had set up a special clinic to administer plasma therapy and was selecting patients who were willing to donate. "We are positive that this method can be very effective in our patients," he said.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Mike Ryan, the head of WHO's health emergencies programme, said using convalescent plasma was a "very valid" approach to test, but that it has to be carefully timed to maximise the boost to a patient's immunity.

"You are essentially giving the new victim's immune system a boost of antibodies to hopefully get them through the very difficult phase," Ryan said, cautioning, however, that the method is not always successful.The latest data provided by China on people infected indicates a decline in new cases but "every scenario is still on the table" in terms of the epidemic's evolution, according to Tedros.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, the WHO chief cited a new Chinese medical report that analyses more than 44,000 COVID-19 cases.

Asked whether the outbreak was a pandemic, Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies programme, said: "The real issue is whether we are seeing efficient community transmission outside of China and at the present time we are not observing that".

Separately, WHO expert Sylvie Briand said the health agency was working closely with Japanese authorities and the chief medical officer on the Diamond Princess docked off Yokohama on infections and evacuations, adding: "Our focus is on our public health objective that we contain the virus and not contain the people".