China reports 99 new cases of Coronavirus

China’s National Health Commission is reporting 99 new cases of the coronavirus on the mainland, including 97 involving overseas travellers as more than 108,000 people have died globally from the new coronavirus and confirmed infections topped 1.7 million at the end of Saturday.

The figure recorded in China is a jump from a total of 46 new cases reported a day earlier. Mainland China’s tally of infections now stands at 82,052, while the death toll stands at 3,339.

Meanwhile, Maurizio Cecconi, chair of Anasthesia and Intensive Care at the Humanitas Hospital in Milan, describes the strategies doctors are using to treat coronavirus patients in Italy in the absence of therapeutics.

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“In Lombardy, it became very clear there was a high percentage of cases that required respiratory support. Up to 10-12 percent required invasive mechanical ventilation,” he tells Al Jazeera.

“Unfortunately, so far, we don’t have specific therapies against this virus. What we do have is good supportive care. So what we try to do in intensive care is … to give our patients in intensive care rest while we do the work of breathing for them.

“We call some of these strategies protective lung strategies because the ventilators we use don’t cure the lung; they give precious time to the lungs to heal. So our job really is to buy time for our patients so that their immune systems can fight the virus.”

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