Global fears escalate as coronavirus spreads around the world
The highly-contagious coronavirus continues to spread despite health officials' best efforts to contain the outbreak; Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel reacts.
The highly contagious coronavirus is continuing to spread despite health officials in several countries doing their best to contain the outbreak, Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel said Monday on "America's Newsroom."
Fears of a global pandemic continue to grow as coronavirus cases spike in several countries, including Italy, South Korea and Iran, as the U.S. stock market nosedived early Monday.
A staggering 50 people died in the Iranian city of Qom from the new coronavirus in the month of February, Iran's semiofficial ILNA news agency reported on Monday. The new death toll is significantly higher than the latest number of confirmed cases that Iranian officials had reported just a few hours earlier, which stood at just 12 deaths out of 47 cases, according to state TV.
CORONAVIRUS INFECTIONS SURGE IN ITALY, SOUTH KOREA AS VIRUS KILLS AT LEAST 8 IN IRAN
The 50 deaths date back as far as Feb. 13, according to an Iranian official. Iran previously reported its cases and deaths from the virus on Feb. 19. Authorities are struggling to contain and understand the outbreak in those countries, where infected cases have skyrocketed as they have increased over 2,000 percent in the past couple of weeks.
Italy is considered the site of Europe's first major outbreak and the largest outside of Asia. The number of infected cases jumped to 152, compared to just three 10 days ago.
Siegel told anchor Ed Henry that it's even "more concerning" to hear there are more than 800 cases reported in South Korea.
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"I've been saying that it's all about health care infrastructure, that China doesn't have it, we have it, other Western countries have it. Well, guess what, South Korea has a fantastic health care system. They tested over 20,000 people and ended up with over 800 positive cases. That's showing that this is a highly contagious virus that is spreading despite the best efforts of top health systems to contain it," he said.
South Korea President Moon Jae-in raised the threat level to "red alert," its highest national threat level for the first time in a decade.
Fox News' David Aaro and Associated Press contributed to this report.
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