Medical staff in protective clothes are seen carrying a patient from an apartment suspected of having the virus in Hubei province on January 30, 2020. Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

China marked its most fatal day yet during the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak Thursday as the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus a global health emergency.

Chinese authorities reported more than 40 deaths Thursday, all of them in Hubei, the province at the center of the outbreak of which Wuhan is the capital, bringing the total death toll to 213, with almost 10,000 cases confirmed worldwide.

As of Thursday night, there were more than 9,600 coronavirus cases confirmed in China, authorities said, an increase of almost 2,000 from the previous day. That surpasses the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak that began in southern China, which infected 8,098 people worldwide, killing 774.

Much of China goes back to work on Monday, after the Lunar New Year holiday was extended in an attempt to rein in the virus. The fear now -- as tens of millions of people travel across the country and cities return to usual business -- is that new self-sustaining epidemic spots will rear up.

Many schools and universities across the country will remain closed for much of next week.

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