China's President Xi Jinping said the nation faces a “grave situation” as the number of deaths in the Novel Coronavirus 2019-nCoV outbreak jumped to 42 on Saturday.

Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations also began Saturday, and fears of a pandemic have put a pall on celebrations.

President Xi held a politburo meeting on Saturday on ways to fight the “accelerating” outbreak, reported Chinese state television.

From Reuters on Saturday, January 25:

As of 8 p.m. local time (1200 GMT) on Saturday, the death toll in China had risen to 42, authorities reported. Some 1,372 people in China have been infected with the virus - traced to a seafood market in Wuhan that was illegally selling wildlife.

The virus has also been detected in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Nepal, and the United States.

And you can now add Canada to that mix.

Patient zero in Canada was just confirmed in Toronto.

Wuhan city is located in Hubei province, and officials there are asking for help obtaining masks and protective suits.

“We are steadily pushing forward the disease control and prevention ... But right now we are facing an extremely severe public health crisis,” Hu Yinghai, deputy director-general of the Civil Affairs Department, told a news briefing.

Previous Boing Boing posts:

First Canada Wuhan virus case confirmed, more than 1,400 people worldwide now infected with 2019-nCoV

IMAGES, TOP, and BELOW courtesy of the Chinese government's Xinhua News.

Peng Zhiyong (C), head of the department of critical care medicine of Zhongnan Hospital, performs diagnosis on a patient with his colleagues in Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Jan. Read the rest

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