Coronavirus spreads in Iran

Three more people have the coronavirus in Iran, and two others have died, the country’s official news agency said Thursday. The new patients lived in Qom, Iran, and do not appear to have had contact with Chinese nationals. All schools and universities in the city closed in an attempt to contain the spread of the illness. The virus has infected more than 75,000 people around the world, mostly in China.

How certain are the numbers? China again changed its method of counting, requiring officials to wait for lab results before making a diagnosis rather than relying on an examination and lung imaging. After that, the number of daily new cases in China declined again on Thursday to 394.

Dig deeper: Read Julie Borg’s report in Beginnings comparing China’s response to the coronavirus to the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2002.