New virus cases in China continued to fall Wednesday, with 1,749 new infections and 136 new deaths announced after China's leader said disease prevention and control was at "a critical time."
The much-criticized quarantine of a cruise ship in Japan to avoid spreading the virus ended, with hundreds of passengers beginning to leave the ship. The 542 cases on the ship were the most in any place outside of China and medical experts have called the quarantine a failure.
The updated figures on the COVID-19 illness for mainland China bring the total for cases to 74,185 and deaths to 2,004. New cases have fallen to under 2,000 daily for the past two days.
