The first fatality from China’s new virus would come to represent a common set of traits among most of those who have died of the disease: he was over the age of 60 and in poor health. Since China reported the emergence of a new coronavirus in December, the SARS-like disease has infected more than 20,400 people and killed 425. Over 97 percent of victims from the new virus hailed from central Hubei province, where a market that sold wild animals in the capital city, Wuhan, is believed to be the epicentre of the epidemic.
