Coronavirus still spreading

The death toll in the coronavirus epidemic topped 1,000 people on Tuesday. The Chinese Communist Party fired two senior health commission officers in the worst-affected Hubei province, state media announced the same day. China did not give a reason for the firing, but it was likely an attempt to place blame on local officials for the outbreak’s progression.

How is the virus spreading? It has infected more than 43,000 people globally, although most of the cases remain in China. British health officials traced at least 11 European cases to a businessman who contracted the viral pneumonia during a sales conference in Singapore. After leaving the conference, Steve Walsh, 53, went on a ski trip in the French Alps before returning to Britain. The World Health Organization on Tuesday began a two-day meeting to discuss possible treatment and vaccines for the virus.

Dig deeper: Read Julie Borg’s report in Beginnings about how the global health community is treating this outbreak of respiratory illness differently from the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003.