SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The death toll from the coronavirus in the US climbed to six Monday and the disease spread to ever more countries and world capitals, even as new cases in China dropped to their lowest level in six weeks.

A shift in the crisis appeared to be taking shape, as hundreds of patients were released from hospitals at the epicentre of the outbreak in China and the World Health Organization reported that nine times more cases were reported outside the country than inside it over the past 24 hours.

At the same time, the virus popped up for the first time in New York, Moscow and Berlin, and clusters of the disease surged around the world. In the US, health officials announced four more people died, bringing the total to six, all in Washington state, where researchers said the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks.

The global death toll pushed past 3,000, and the number of people infected topped 89,000, with fast-expanding outbreaks in South Korea, Italy and Iran.