Mainland China now has more cases of coronavirus than it had of SARS, a respiratory infection that spread across China in 2002 and 2003 and killed 774 people in 17 countries. During the SARS outbreak, China had 5,327 cases and 349 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
The number of confirmed cases increased to more than 7,700 worldwide by early Thursday, according to Chinese officials and the World Health Organization, with all but 68 of the infections taking place in mainland China. On Wednesday, there were about 6,000 infections worldwide.
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