Chinese officials raised the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak to 80, as Australian officials weigh their options on getting our people out of Wuhan City and Hubei province where the disease originated.

The US is evacuating its people to San Francisco; France is getting its citizens out; Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says all Japanese who want to leave Hubei will get a ride out.

Australia is not doing that yet, and Foreign Minister Marise Payne says there are limits to what the federal government can do.

"We don't have a consular presence on the ground so getting in to help, given the travel restrictions, continues to be a significant difficulty," Ms. Payne said.  "We also have to remind ourselves that the Chinese Government has placed the travel restrictions in place in these areas to contain the coronavirus outbreak itself."

Meanwhile, Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang says there could be another 1,000 cases in his city on top of the thousands already confirmed.  But more ominously, he says as many as 5 million people might have left the area before China order the regional travel ban, now being expanded in varying degrees around the country.  

That's terrifying, because doctors are coming to the realization that people infected with the 2019-nCoV novel coronavirus could be contagious for a full week or longer before they begin coming down with symptoms of pneumonia.  A study by the medical journal The Lancet (.pdf link), published last week, had raised concerns that people infected with the coronavirus might be able to spread it even if they do not have flulike symptoms.

"If an exposed person becomes contagious before they become sick, you can almost think of them as a secret spreader," said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University.  "They're healthy.  Nobody suspects they're sick.  Nobody's avoiding them, and they're not staying home with their illness."

Not all researchers are convinced, with many arguing that more information.

"Mother Nature is throwing us a curveball with this outbreak," said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, "but we shouldn't accept every claim like this until we see the data." 

China continues to throw medical personnel and resources at Hubei, now planning to construct two hospitals in two weeks to handle thousands of patients.

"The epidemic has entered a more serious and complex period," said Dr. Ma Xiaowei, the director of China's National Health Commission.