Death toll in China rises to 563 as lockdown enters third week. The death toll and number of infections continued to soar in China, officials said Thursday. It has been two weeks since the authorities in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, declared that the city would be locked down as they tried to contain the virus’s spread. The cordon that was first imposed around the city of 11 million quickly expanded to encircle roughly 50 million people in the province of Hubei. The lockdown is unprecedented in scale and experts have questioned its effectiveness . Wuhan and the province of Hubei have borne the brunt of the epidemic as the sudden shutdown of transportation links into and around it slowed down the transportation of vital medical supplies. The fatality rate in Wuhan is 4.1 percent and 2.8 percent in Hubei, compared to just 0.17 percent elsewhere in […]