Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Peacocks, porcupines and pangolins among species bred on 20,000 farms closed in wake of virus
Nearly 20,000 wildlife farmsraising species including peacocks, civet cats, porcupines, ostriches, wild geese and boar have been shut down across China in the wake of the coronavirus, in a move that has exposed the hitherto unknown size of the industry.
Until a few weeks ago wildlife farming was still being promoted by government agencies as an easy way for rural Chinese people to get rich.
The World Health Organization has played down fears of a coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, despite sudden serious outbreaks in Italy and Iran, but some experts said they believed it was now inevitable.
“Using the word pandemic now does not fit the facts, but it may certainly cause fear,” said the WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a briefing.
Austria has said it will stop people suspected of carrying the coronavirus from crossing its border, after parts of northern Italy were put into lockdown over the weekend following a surge in cases.
The Austrian government released a travel warning for affected areas of Lombardy and Veneto, following a meeting of the government’s coronavirus taskforce that included the chancellor, Sebastian Kurz.
The World Health Organization has played down fears of a coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, despite sudden serious outbreaks in Italy and Iran, but some experts said they believed it was now inevitable.
“Using the word pandemic now does not fit the facts, but it may certainly cause fear,” said the WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a briefing.
A queue of hundreds of people wanting to buy face masks from a supermarket stretched round several streets in Daegu on Monday.
Customers queued outside one of Daegu's E-mart stores, which began to sell face masks at half price in the city, according to local media reports. South Korea has raised its infectious disease alert level to its highest for the first time since 2009
First there were Brexit hoarders, now it’s coronavirus preppers.Sirin Kale talks to some of them – and to the emergency food supplier who is enjoying a boom time
James Blake, the owner of Europe’s largest emergency food supplier, is one of the few people to be doing good business out of coronavirus. Are you planning to hole up indoors while a pandemic, natural disaster or terrorist attack runs its course? Blake’s company – Emergency Food Storage UK – has got you covered, but it’s not cheap: £385 will buy you one month of food, as long as you like freeze-dried macaroni cheese and chicken-fried rice.
The prices aren’t putting Blake’s customers off. Since coronavirus emerged in China in December, he has been swamped with orders. In the last two weeks alone, Emergency Food has done as much business as it normally would in six months. Which is bad news for anyone thinking now might be a good time to stock up on some of its powdered custard apple crunch, because it’s all gone.
People caught entering or leaving outbreak areas to be fined, after country’s third death
Italian authorities have implemented draconian measures to try to halt the coronavirus outbreak in the north of the country, including imposing fines on anyone caught entering or leaving outbreak areas, as a third person was confirmed to have died on Sunday.
The number of cases of the virus in the country has risen to 152.
78,000 cases confirmed, as Italy and Iran scramble to contain major outbreaks
The world is fast approaching a tipping point in the spread of the coronavirus, according to experts, who warn that the disease is outpacing efforts to contain it, after major outbreaks forced Italy and Iran to introduce stringent internal travel restrictions and South Korea’s president placed the country on red alert.
Some of the countries most affected by the virus are scrambling to halt its progress two days after Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said the international community needed to act quickly before the narrowing “window of opportunity” closed completely.
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.
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
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.
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.