BEIJING — Countries have began evacuating their citizens from the Chinese city hardest-hit by the coronavirus that has now infected more people in China than were sickened in the country by SARS.
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus jumped to 5,974 on Wednesday, surpassing the 5,327 in mainland China during the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003.
The death toll rose to 132.
A Japanese flight that brought back evacuees from Wuhan included four passengers with coughs and fevers. It wasn’t immediately known whether they were infected with the new virus that first appeared in the city in central China in December.
