Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Giuseppe Conte says cases of the the Covid-19 virus in Italy have risen dramatically in the past two days. The prime minister told a press conference Italy would not try to suspend the Schengen treaty as such a measure would be disproportionate.
Schools in Milan will be closed, however, and people will not be allowed in and out of affected areas. Social and sporting events in Lombardy and Veneto have also been cancelled. As of Sunday morning, there were 89 confirmed coronavirus cases in Lombardy – with two in its industrial centre, Milan – 16 in Veneto, three in Piedmont – including two in Turin – and two in Emilia-Romagna
Four of the 32 British and Irish Diamond Princess cruise ship passengers taken to Arrowe Park, Merseyside on Saturday have tested positive for coronavirus strain Covid-19, the chief medical officer for England has said.
Prof Chris Whitty said: “Four further patients in England have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 13.
The World Health Organization has raised concerns about cases where there has been no contact with someone known to be infected nor travel to China
Thousands of members of a secretive religious sect in South Korea are being screened for the new coronavirus after more than 430 cases were confirmed in the country by officials, the Guardian’s Rebecca Ratcliffe reports with Nemo Kim in Seoul.
Around 150 people brought to the Kents Hill Park hotel and conference centre in Milton Keynes earlier this month after being evacuated from Wuhan will be discharged tomorrow.
They arrived in the UK on February 9, having been on a second evacuation flight from the virus-hit city, and the Department of Health confirmed that the 14-day quarantine period will come to an end on Sunday but did not say what time the group would be released.
Thousands of members of a secretive religious sect in South Korea are being screened for the new coronavirus after more than 430 cases were confirmed in the country by officials, one of several fresh clusters of the disease globally.
More than 78,000 people around the world have been infected by the Covid-19 virus, with most cases in mainland China, though clusters that have unclear origins have emerged in Singapore, Iran and South Korea.
Hundreds of Filipino couples participated in a mass wedding wearing face masks because of coronavirus fears. As part of efforts to prevent the spread of the virus, officials in the city of Bacolod conducted health tests and provided the 220 couples with masks before they tied the knot
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, has expressed concerned over the ‘narrowing window of opportunity’ to tackle Covid-19, and has urged the international community not to squander it. With four new cases in Iran, concern has increased about the epidemic spreading across the Middle East, and the sharp devaluation of the Iranian rial means it will be hard for its government to throw the same resources at the epidemic as China has
Virus is spreading in Middle East, with confirmed cases in Lebanon and Israel
Four Iranians have died after contracting the coronavirus, with health authorities warning it has spread to multiple cities, while Israel and Lebanon declared their first domestic cases as the deadly epidemic spreads across the Middle East.
Asked on Friday if the new cases put the crisis at a tipping point, the World Health Organization director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the “window of opportunity is narrowing, so we need to act quickly before it closes completely”.
From Wuhan to the north of England, people have been affected by the outbreak in different ways
The coronavirus is a public health emergency, but its threat is not only medical. Millions of lives have been altered by the outbreak, from those in self-isolation in China to Chinese nationals experiencing racism abroad. We talk to those affected in different ways, from Wuhan to the north of England.
Justice chief sacked in Shandong province with prison guard reported to be source of outbreak, as South Korea adds 52 new cases. Follow latest news
China’s Global Television Network is reporting that 200 prisoners in a facility in the eastern province of Shandong are infected with Covid-19. The sources of the infection is reported to be an affected prison guard.
These prison cases may partly explain the spike in new cases today to 889, up from 394 reported on Thursday.
East China's Shandong Province reported 200 #COVID19 cases from the Rencheng Prison on Thu., bringing the total to 207 in the facility
- Virus brought in by affected prison guard - Treatments underway - Provincial justice chief among eight officials removed from office pic.twitter.com/yyMWa21a86
Car sales plummeted in China in February, state media is reporting.
Retail of domestic passenger #vehicles in China plummeted 92% y-o-y in the first half of Feb, a record decline, due to #COVID19: industrial report pic.twitter.com/SkLUjtOdqA
A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in northern Syria after the government’s attempt to take back the opposition-held city of Idlib. Bethan McKernan describes how the fighting and freezing conditions have caused hundreds of thousands of displaced people to flee for their lives. Also today: Justin McCurry on the evacuation of the coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship
At the Syria-Turkey border, thousands of refugees are fleeing for their lives, having left the opposition-held city of Idlib, which is under assault from government forces back by Russia. More than 900,000 men, women and children have made the journey north in appalling conditions, the largest exodus of people in the country’s long civil war.
The Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, Bethan McKernan, has been following the story and tells Rachel Humphreys that the humanitarian crisis is worsening – as the world watches on.
Mayor of Daegu orders shutdown of all kindergartens and public libraries in while two Japanese passengers from stricken Diamond Princess ship die
Two more Russians aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan have been diagnosed with a new virus, the Russian Embassy in Japan said Thursday.
The two will be transferred to a hospital in Japan for treatment, according to the embassy statement published on Facebook.
Dominic Raab said information had been provided to those registered for the flight, but he urged other British nationals still seeking to leave to contact the Foreign Office. He added: “We will continue to support British nationals who wish to stay in Japan.”
I can confirm the evacuation flight out of Tokyo on Friday for British nationals from the Diamond Princess cruise ship: https://t.co/vBYNRkvBbK
Hotel bookings plummet by 40,000 in recent weeks as ban on incoming flights from China bites local businesses
The idyllic holiday island of Bali has been hit by the ripple effect of the coronavirus crisis, with tourism plummeting and suggestions it “does not have the capacity” to treat patients if they become sick.
Indonesia, the largest country in south-east Asia, claims to have no cases of coronavirus, but according to the Bali’s tourism board, there have been around 40,000 cancellations of hotel bookings in recent weeks nonetheless. In the first half of February about 740,000 people visited the island – 16.25% fewer than the same period last year – Bali’s airport spokesman told state news agency Antara this week.
British passengers stuck on the cruise ship in Japan where more than 600 people have been infected with the coronavirus have have been told to stay onboard by the Foreign Office, while those who are evacuated face a 14-day quarantine in the UK.
Japanese authorities said those who had tested negative for the virus were allowed to leave on Wednesday, but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) warned that passengers who disembark may not be allowed to board a British evacuation flight scheduled for later this week.
A British couple who had been asking the UK government to
organise a repatriation flight for passengers stuck on a cruise ship in Japan will not be on the plane after testing
positive for coronavirus. David Abel said in a video on Facebook that he and his wife, Sally, were being taken to a hostel as there were no available hospital beds nearby. The couple, who are in their 70s, were diagnosed with the virus one day before the ship’s quarantine was due to end
Inspectors in protective suits have been going door to door in Wuhan in an effort to find every infected person, the Associated Press reports.
Wednesday marked the final day of a campaign to root out anyone with symptoms whom authorities may have missed so far.
Britons returning home from the Diamond Princess cruise ship that has had more than 600 cases of coronavirus will be quarantined at the same NHS facility that housed people flown back to the UK from Wuhan.
The Department of Health said: “We can confirm that an accommodation block on the Arrowe Park NHS site will be used to isolate those returning from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan. They will be kept in this location for the 14-day quarantine period, with around-the-clock support from medical staff at all times.”
Hundreds of passengers have begun leaving the stricken Diamond Princess in Japan after testing negative for the coronavirus, ending two weeks of quarantine that experts say failed to prevent the virus spreading onboard.
Japanese TV showed passengers – who spent quarantine largely confined to their cabins – leaving the ship on Wednesday morning to board waiting buses, while others left the pier in Yokohama, near Tokyo, by taxi.
Analysts say epidemic poses gravest threat to authorities since Tiananmen Square – and Beijing’s tight control could backfire
The coronavirus crisis in China has posed unprecedented political challenges to the authorities and prompted them to further crack down on speech freedom and tighten control over people in a desperate move to bolster the regime, say analysts and activists.
After President Xi Jinping ordered “resolute efforts” to curb the spread of coronavirus in his first public remarks on the disease on 20 January, Wuhan was swiftly placed under lockdown. Millions of communities across China also began to implement draconian epidemic control measures.
Beijing’s draconian measures to contain outbreak have delayed global transmission
The World Health Organization is having to perform a diplomatic balancing act over the new coronavirus outbreak, caught between China – whose draconian measures to contain the disease have delayed transmission to the rest of the world –and China’s critics, who say its behaviour is typical of its disregard for human rights.
At every press briefing, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has defended China’s handling of the epidemic in the face of critical questions, very often from US journalists. At the end of January, when Tedros declared a public health emergency of international concern – having put it off a week earlier under what was assumed to be pressure from Beijing – he praised China for protecting the rest of the world.
The Italian luxury fashion house Prada has postponed a fashion show due to take place in Japan in May.
In a statement, the company said:
Due to the current uncertainty related to the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Prada Resort fashion show originally scheduled for May 21 in Japan will be postponed.
Repatriating passengers from the coronavirus-stricken cruise ship in Japan is not without risks, a medical expert has said.
Paul Hunter, professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia, said:
Considerable care needs to be made to ensure that the passengers do not transmit infection between themselves or to cabin crew during the flight home and once back on home soil they do not act as a focus for the spread of the disease into their home countries – any returning passengers may be put in quarantine on their return.
It is well known that certain infections such as influenza and norovirus can spread rapidly on board cruise ships. Cruise ships take passengers and crew from all over the world, often passengers are relatively elderly, they spend most of their time on board indoors mixing with others.
The most likely [infection] route is direct person-to-person transmission when people are close to an infected person, but with currently publicly available information it is not possible to rule out other issues at this stage.
Keeping passengers on ship may have helped spread of coronavirus, says one lawyer
Quarantine conditions imposed on a stricken ship in Japan are both morally dubious and appear counterproductive, according to health experts who fear the vessel has become an incubator for the coronavirus Covid-19.
Thousands of people have spent the past two weeks stuck onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which now accounts for the biggest cluster of cases outside mainland China. More than 540 passengers in the Japanese port Yokohama are confirmed to have the virus, after 88 additional cases were confirmed on Tuesday.