China’s state-run CCTV says the death toll in China from the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, now stands at one-thousand-300 while the number of confirmed cases has reached 59-thousand. 

According to CCTV Thursday, 242 deaths and 14-thousand-840 cases were reported on Wednesday alone in Hubei province, where ground zero for the coronavirus, Wuhan, is located. The figure included 216 deaths and 13-thousand-436 confirmed cases for Wuhan alone.  

The surge in new confirmed cases in the province came after authorities changed the way they count infections to include patients whose certainty of infection was 90 percent or higher. 

The report comes after China’s National Health Commission announced that as of 12 a.m. Wednesday, the death toll from COVID-19 stood at one-thousand-113 and the number of cases reached 44-thousand-653.