What’s happening on the cruise ship: The remaining passengers aboard the Diamond Princess in Japan began disembarking Wednesday after a 14-day quarantine. A total of 545 cases of the virus are linked to the stricken ship.

Cases spike in Japan: Seven new infections were confirmed in Japan Tuesday, bringing the total in the country to 68 outside the ship. Along with Singapore and Hong Kong, Japan has the most cases outside mainland China.

The numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths in mainland China is still rising, with more than 2,000 people killed in the country alone.

But Chinese President Xi Jinping said the prevention measures were “achieving visible progress” in a phone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday.

Xi said, “the battle has reached a crucial time” and China had “mobilized the entire country, and adopted the most comprehensive, rigorous and thorough prevention and control measures,” state news agency Xinhua reported.

Positive messaging: There has been a tone of optimism in Chinese state media and government statements today, implying the worst is over as the country begins to get back to work.

But experts have warned that it is too soon to tell whether the virus is under control.

“This trend must be interpreted very cautiously.

Trends can change as new populations are affected. It’s too early to tell if this reported decline will continue. Every scenario is still on the table,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said during a news conference on Monday.

The largest and most comprehensive study yet of the novel coronavirus has found it is highly contagious but not as fatal as similar, previous diseases.

Carried out by a group of experts at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and published in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology on Monday, the study looked at more than 72,000 confirmed and suspected cases of the coronavirus.

It found clear indications that the virus which originated in Wuhan, central China is more contagious than the related coronaviruses that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

While the resulting disease, Covid-19, is not as fatal on a case-by-case basis, its quick spread has meant it has killed more people already than either of the other viruses.

International experts have cautioned reading too much into the early numbers, saying case fatality rates may come down as officials discover patients with milder symptoms who didn’t seek medical care.

“My sense and the sense of many of my colleagues, is that the ultimate case fatality rate … is less than 2%,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto on “New Day” Tuesday.

“What is likely not getting counted is a large number of people who are either asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic.”
CNN