As cases of the novel coronavirus disease, now named Covid-19, cross 70,000, the World Health Organization's Director-General says this new data addresses some gaps in our understanding.

"These data give us a better understanding about the age range of people affected, the severity of the disease and the mortality rate," says Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus "As such, they are very important in enabling WHO to provide good evidence-based advice to countries."

The report covers 44,672 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with 1,023 deaths, signaling a fatality rate of 2.3 percent. The majority of fatalities occurred in patients over the age of 50. Although nearly 20,000 of the confirmed cases were in patients aged 49 and under, only 64 of those patients died.

No deaths were noted in children up to the age of nine despite 416 confirmed cases, whereas the fatality rate in patients over the age of 80 is 14.8 percent.

One of the prevailing mysteries surrounding this outbreak is why infection rates have been so low in children. Experts are still unsure of the reasons behind this, and while there may be a physiological reason why children are less likely to contract the virus, it is also just as likely these low infection rates are due to effective quarantine measures.