US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that his deputy Mike Pence will lead the administration efforts against coronavirus in the country.

Hours after returning from India, Trump on Wednesday held a series of meetings to take stock of the situation in the United States

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During a press conference at a White House, Trump announced that Vice-president Pence will lead the efforts to contain the spread of the virus that has claimed over 2,700 lives globally.

“We are doing really well and Mike is going to be the in-charge. Mike will report back to me, but he’s got a certain talent for this,” Trump told media.

The US president said the safety of the American people was a priority for them due which they had earlier barred flights from the affected areas.

“Because of all that we have done, the risk to the American people remains very low,” he said, adding that they were ready to do everything possible to contain the disease.

Earlier in the day, while taking to the Twitter, Trump wrote, “I will be having a News Conference at the White House, on this subject, today at 6:00 P.M.”

Trump added that officials from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would attend.

The deadly coronavirus toll in China increased to 2,744 with 78,497 confirmed cases, a Chinese health expert on Thursday said that the coronavirus outbreak would be “basically under control” in the country by the end of April.

After China, South Korea has emerged as the biggest centre of Coronavirus with 161 more reported coronavirus cases on Monday, taking the nationwide total to 763.  The country has seen a rapid surge in the number of coronavirus cases, adding more than 700 cases in less than a week, since a cluster of infections emerged from a religious sect in the southern city of Daegu.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Sunday raised the country’s virus alert to the highest “red” level, in a bid to strengthen the government response to the spiralling outbreak. The government has extended kindergarten and school holidays by one week nationwide and plans to enforce tighter two-week monitoring of arrivals from China.

Thailand, which has imposed no such restrictions, reported a 90 per cent slump in arrivals from the mainland this month, a gut punch to an already beleaguered tourist sector which makes up nearly a fifth of the economy.

In 2003, 299 Hong Kongers were killed by an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) — 40 per cent of the global total fatalities.

Hubei Province, a centre of the novel coronavirus outbreak, reported 411 new confirmed cases and 115 new deaths on Thursday, according to the provincial health commission on Friday.

The novel Coronavirus outbreak has caused alarm as it has crossed global fatalities in the 2002-03 SARS epidemic.