Doctor who helped sound alarm on coronavirus dies

One of the first Chinese doctors who tried to warn the world about a new coronavirus died on Friday from the illness, a grim milestone for the fast-spreading outbreak.

34 year old Li Wenliang was an ophthalmologist at a hospital in Wuhan, the Chinese city hardest hit by the outbreak.

He and seven others were reprimanded by Wuhan police last month for spreading "illegal and false" information about the coronavirus.

On Friday, China's Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, reported 69 new deaths, taking the death toll in China to over 600. It also reported nearly 2,500 new cases... for a total of over 30,000 cases, according to state TV.

But the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday said it was too early to claim the outbreak was peaking.