With its outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the coronavirus has now claimed more lives than the SARS outbreak in 2003, reaching a total death toll of 811.
The flu-like virus has surpassed the 774 fatalities seen nearly two decades ago from SARS, infecting 8,096 people worldwide, according to data from the World Health Organization.
China’s National Health Commission also reported that the total number of coronavirus cases has reached 37,198.
Within the last 24 hours ending at midnight on Saturday, China reported 2,656 new cases, with most of them being in the central province of Hubei, where the first patients fell sick in December. This number was down by about 20% from the 3,399 new cases reported in the previous 24-hour period.
While the virus has been confirmed in about two dozen countries, it has only claimed the lives of two people outside mainland China: a Chinese man in the Philippines and a man in Hong Kong.
The coronavirus, first reported to the World Health Organization in late December, is believed to have originated from a seafood market in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei.