INTERNATIONAL — The number of new cases of the coronavirus in China dropped for a second straight day, health officials said Wednesday, leaving a glimmer of hope amid the outbreak that has infected over 45,000 people worldwide and killed more than 1,100.

A look at the latest developments in the crisis, which started in December in the city of Wuhan:

NEW CASES DECLINE

The number of new cases has trended down in the past week, raising hopes that the epidemic may be plateauing.

China's National Health Commission said 2,015 new cases had been tallied on Tuesday, down from nearly 3,900 a week ago. 

“I’m going to be optimistic that is a sign that their aggressive actions have been effective, but I really do think it’s too soon to say that for sure, not having hands on the data ourselves," said Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 99 percent of all reported infections in the world have been in China, along with all the deaths recorded except for one.  The country has put an unprecedented 60 million people in a near quarantine.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT

China is struggling to restart its economy after the annual Lunar New Year holiday was extended to try to curb the spread of the virus.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's announcement of tax cuts came as companies face increasing losses because of the closing of factories, offices, shops and other businesses in the most sweeping anti-disease measures ever imposed.

A large cluster of cases in Tianjin, a port city southeast of Beijing, has been traced to a department store, Chinese state media said. One-third of Tianjin's 104 confirmed cases are in Baodi district, where the store is situated, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

A salesperson in the store's home appliance section was the first diagnosed on Jan. 31, Xinhua said, and a series of cases followed. None of those infected had visited Wuhan recently, and with the exception of one married couple, they worked in different sections of the store and did not know one another.

Elsewhere around the world, DBS bank in Singapore cleared its office, telling 300 employees to work from home after it learned that an employee had been infected. The city-state has 50 confirmed cases.

Formula One postponed the April 19 Chinese Grand Prix race in Shanghai due to the virus. It was one of 22 races on the F1 2020 calendar which opens next month in Melbourne. Race representatives say they will monitor the outbreak. 

Nokia, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom became the latest companies to pull out of a major wireless trade fair this month in Spain that usually draws 5,000 to 6,000 Chinese visitors.

CITIZEN JOURNALIST DISAPPEARS

A citizen journalist reporting on the epidemic in Wuhan has disappeared, activists said, becoming the second to vanish in recent days amid tightening controls on information in China.

Fang Bin, a seller of traditional Chinese clothing, stopped posting videos or responding to calls and messages on Sunday, activists Gao Fei and Hua Yong said, citing Fang's friends. His phone was turned off Wednesday.

Fang had posted videos of Wuhan's overcrowded hospitals, including bodies in a van waiting to be taken to a crematorium. The last video he posted was of a piece of paper reading, “All citizens resist, hand power back to the people."

Another citizen journalist, Chen Qiushi, vanished on Friday. Non-sanctioned reporting on the outbreak by actitivists is challenging the Communist Party’s tightly policed monopoly on information on an unprecedented scale.

CRUISE SHIP WOES

Passengers aboard a cruise ship that has been barred from docking by four governments may finally set foot on land again.

Holland America Line said the MS Westerdam will arrive Thursday morning in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. The ship has been turned away by the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, and Thailand, though its operator said no cases of the disease have been confirmed among the more than 2,200 passengers and crew.

As of February 10, at least 135 people aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan had became infected with the virus. Twenty four of them are Americans. The rest of the passengers, including four people from Citrus County, were put under mandatory quarantine until further notice.

TWO RUSSIANS FLEE QUARANTINE

Two Russian women who were kept in isolation for possible inflection by the virus say they escaped from Russian hospitals because of uncooperative doctors, poor conditions and fear they would become infected.

Both women said their hospital ordeals began after returning from Hainan, a tropical island in southern China popular with Russian tourists. One said she jumped out of a hospital window to escape her quarantine, while the other broke out by disabling an electronic lock.

Many of those quarantined in Russian hospitals have complained about conditions in the isolation rooms and lack of cooperation from doctors who are uncertain about quarantine protocols.

Two cases of the virus have been reported in Russia.

NO EVIDENCE YET OF MOTHER-TO-BABY SPREAD

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Lancet, Chinese scientists reported there is no evidence so far to suggest the virus can be passed from mother to baby.

The study looked at nine pregnant women who all had the COVID-19 virus and delivered via cesarean section in a hospital in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. After the babies were born, scientists tested samples from the newborns, including the amniotic fluid, cord blood and throat swabs. All tested negative for the virus.

But the scientists acknowledged the study was small.

To date, two cases of the virus have been confirmed in babies, including a newborn diagnosed just 36 hours after birth. It is unknown how the child was infected.