BEIJING/TOKYO (Reuters) – Hundreds of people began disembarking a quarantined cruise ship off Japan on Wednesday as the death toll from the new coronavirus in mainland China passed 2,000 and the number of new cases in the country fell for a second straight day.

 

Around 500 passengers were due to disembark the virus-hit Diamond Princess docked at Yokohama near Tokyo, public broadcaster NHK said, ending an ordeal that began when the ship was quarantined on Feb. 3 after a former passenger was diagnosed with the virus in Hong Kong.

There were also more promising signs out of China, where the National Health Commission reported the lowest daily rise in new infections since Jan. 29, or 1,749 new confirmed cases. Hubei province – the epicenter of the outbreak – reported the lowest number of new infections since Feb. 11.

The latest figures bring the total number of cases in China to over 74,000 and the total death toll to 2,004, three quarters of which have occurred in the Hubei provincial capital of Wuhan. Six people have died outside mainland China, including a new fatality announced on Wednesday in Hong Kong.

Several Chinese cities have declared that a shortage in blood supply for clinical use was imminent, state media reported on Tuesday, as travel curbs keep potential donors at home.

Chinese officials have said the apparent slowdown in infection rates is evidence that strict measures are working to bring the virus under control, but global health officials say it is too early to predict how the epidemic will play out.

The number of new cases in mainland China excluding Hubei has now fallen for 15 straight days. The number of new infections ex-Hubei totaled 56 on Feb. 18, down from a peak of 890 on Feb 3.

The head of a leading hospital in Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated, died of the disease on Tuesday, the seventh health worker to have succumbed to the disease, known as COVID-19.