Key points
The first coronavirus death in Britain has been confirmed, Reuters quoted medical authorities as saying on Thursday.
“The patient, who was being treated at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, was an older patient who had underlying health conditions,” England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said in a statement.
“We believe they contracted the virus in the UK and contact tracing is already underway,” he added.
Switzerland on Thursday reported its first death from the coronavirus, according to AFP.
The victim — a woman — who was hospitalised in the western city of Lausanne with the virus on Tuesday, died overnight, regional police in the canton of Vaud said in a statement.
To date, Switzerland has registered 87 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across 17 of the country's 26 cantons since the disease first surfaced in the country on February 25.
According to The Independent, Vietnamese artist An Nguyen had their appearance at a London exhibition cancelled after being told their presence would “create hesitation” because of the coronavirus.
Nguyen had curated an installation for an arts fair scheduled to launch next week when Raquelle Azran — a collector and museum curator — emailed to say: “The coronavirus is causing much anxiety everywhere, and fairly or not, Asians are being seen as carriers of the virus.”
Read more here.
In an unprecedented move, Saudi Arabia emptied the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site, for sterilisation over fears of the new coronavirus.
The move was a “temporary preventive measure” but the upper floors of the Grand Mosque in Makkah were still open for prayers, a Saudi official told AFP. According to Saudi Gazette, the Prophet’s Mosque in Madina will also be closed one hour after Isha prayers and will reopen an hour before Fajr prayers.
Read more here.
The total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus across the United Kingdom rose to 115 on Thursday, up from 85 a day earlier, the health ministry said, according to Reuters.
According to BBC, South Africa has detected its first case of the coronavirus in a 38-year-old man who visited Italy with his wife.
The South African couple, who have two children, were part of a group of 10 who returned from Italy on March 1, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.
Read more here.
Speaking to Dawn.com, Media Coordinator to the Health and Population Welfare Minister Meeran Yousuf confirmed that Pakistan's sixth coronavirus patient was a resident of Karachi's District East.
"The patient had returned from Iran on February 25. The health department was already monitoring the situation, so when he started showing symptoms, officials took his samples and sent them for testing.
"The patient is currently in isolation at a hospital, while his family members have been quarantined for the time being," she said, adding that there are now three confirmed cases of coronavirus in Sindh.
Read more here.
Muslims in the UAE have been advised to arrive for Friday prayers well in time as duration of the prayers, including the Khutba, on March 6 has been reduced to 10 minutes, reported Gulf News.
Earlier, the UAE’s Sharia Council issued a fatwa prohibiting those infected or suspected of contracting coronavirus from attending congregational prayers including Friday prayer, Eid prayer and being in public places.
Read more here.
Pakistan's sixth coronavirus case was reported in Karachi on Thursday. The patient was identified as a 69-year-old male residing in the city's District East.
Taking notice of the case, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah directed officials to trace and test all those who have been in contact with the patient.
The number of patients infected with the coronavirus in the Netherlands has more than doubled to 82, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health (RIVM) has confirmed, Reuters reports.
The number of coronavirus cases in the Netherlands increased from 38 a day earlier.
The first case of coronavirus in Birmingham, United Kingdom, has been confirmed, according to a Twitter post by the Birmingham City Council. The patient is under treatment.
The council also said that it, along with the National Health Service partners are fully prepared to deal with the virus and reduce the risk of more cases.
Greek health officials have reported 21 new coronavirus infections among a group that had recently travelled to Israel and Egypt by bus, raising the country's total to 31.
“It was a closed group of people who were on a bus for several days,” Sotiris Tsiodras of the national public health organisation (EODY) said, adding that they had returned to Greece on February 27.
British health minister Matt Hancock has warned of “tough” weeks ahead in the battle to combat the spread of coronavirus, but added that the government was not planning to shut schools and universities at this stage.
“In the coming weeks, it will be tough, but with calm heads and clear determination, together we can see it through,” Hancock told a British Chambers of Commerce conference.
India says it has postponed a planned summit with the European Union due to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reports. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi was due to travel to Brussels later this month for meetings with EU leaders.
“Both sides have agreed that due to health authorities advising against travel between regions, it would be wise to reschedule the summit to a later, mutually convenient date,” Raveesh Kumar, a spokesman for India's foreign ministry, told a news conference.
People should not jump to cancel their plans for international travel amidst the spread of coronavirus, advises luxury and lifestyle travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler in an article titled 'Why We're Still Travelling'.
"In the midst of the coronavirus epidemic, the solution isn't avoiding trips—it's being smart about them," it says.
Japan will quarantine people coming from China and South Korea for two weeks on arrival to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, the country's prime minister said, according to AFP.
“We will strengthen immigration quarantines on people from the two countries,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a cabinet level task force meeting on the virus.
“We will ask them to stay in designated areas for two weeks and not to use public transport in the country,” Abe added, saying the measures would come into force from March 9 and last at least until the end of the month.
The government of New Delhi has decided to close all primary schools in the Indian capital as a precautionary measure, according to a tweet by Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
He said all government and private schools in the city will remain closed until March 31.
Various Chinese government entities have allocated $16 billion in coronavirus-related funding as of March 4, Vice Finance Minister Xu Hongcai said at a press briefing today.
China would ensure the smooth operation of local governments amid the coronavirus outbreak and that the finance ministry will ensure the funding needs of Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, Xu was quoted as saying by Reuters.
He warned that the outbreak could temporarily affect the government’s revenues but he expected the pressure on the government’s fiscal position to ease as the economy recovered.
Read more here.
Mainland China reported a rise in new confirmed cases of coronavirus today — reversing three straight days of declines — because of a spike in new infections in Wuhan, the city at the center of the outbreak.
Wuhan’s new infections climbed to 131 from 114 a day earlier, reported Reuters. There was no immediate elaboration and health officials were due to hold a briefing later in the day.
With a new case being reported in Ghaziabad on Thursday, India's COVID number is now at 30, The Economic Times reported.
According to CNN, Starbucks has announced that it has temporarily suspended the use of personal cups and tumblers at its stores to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
"We are optimistic this will be a temporary situation," the company said in an open letter posted on its website.
Read more here.
The legal fraternity in Gilgit have boycotted the courts in protest over "inadequate" arrangements for prevention of coronavirus.
"The government is not serious about stopping the spread of coronavirus in Gilgit-Baltistan," said vice-chairman of the Gilgit-Baltistan Bar Council Advocate Javed Iqbal.
Iqbal added that hearings in the high court and other courts have been postponed.
Airlines will lose $63 billion to $113bn in revenue for passenger traffic globally in 2020, depending on how the coronavirus spreads, International Air Transport Association (IATA) said according to Reuters.
IATA on February 20 estimated the outbreak would cost carriers $29.3bn in revenue.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent a letter expressing hope for South Korea to overcome a coronavirus outbreak, President Moon Jae-in's office said.
In the letter, Kim voiced concern over Moon's health, and expounded what he described as his "honest view and position" regarding the situation on the Korean peninsula, Moon's office said, without elaborating.
"Chairman Kim wished to console our citizens who are fighting the coronavirus," Moon's senior press secretary Yoon Do-han told reporters.
"He said he believes we will win, and hoped the health of southern compatriots will be protected."
Moon responded with a letter of thanks, Yoon added.
Read more here.
The Pasteur Institute of Morocco has confirmed a second case of coronavirus in the country, according to Morocco World News.
The patient is a resident of the country who had recently returned from Italy. She is now quarantined and receiving treatment at a hospital in Casablanca.
The Carnival period in Venice usually marks the start of peak season in one of the world's most visited cities, with hordes of tourists piling onto vaporettos to cruise the Grand Canal, strolling through cobblestone streets and lingering in picturesque cafes, AP reports.
Venice in the time of coronavirus, though, is a shell of itself, with empty piazzas, shuttered basilicas and gondoliers idling their days away.
Read more here.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany jumped by 109 within a day, a public health institute said according to Reuters.
There were 349 cases spread across all but one federal state, up from 240 on Wednesday morning and compared with 262 on Wednesday afternoon, the Robert Koch Institute said.
The hardest-hit state is the western region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous, with 175 cases.
A 74-year-old woman in western Switzerland has died after contracting the new coronavirus, the country's first death from the rapidly spreading disease outbreak, regional police said, according to Reuters.
The woman had been hospitalised in the canton of Vaud since Tuesday, police said. She was a high-risk patient suffering from chronic disease, authorities added.
The global spread of the coronavirus has disrupted travel in various parts of the world.
Here are some of the most recent developments on the travel front:
Take a look at CDC's COVID-19 risk assessment by country here.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Japan has been postponed because both countries have agreed to prioritise the fight against the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reported quoting Japan's top government spokesman.
The Asian neighbours agreed the visit would take place at a better time and that a new itinerary would be arranged, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.
Suga said the delay in Xi's visit, which had been originally planned for early April, would not affect Japan-China relations
Millions of Chinese stuck indoors due to fears of the coronavirus epidemic are turning to mobile games to keep themselves occupied, according to a report by Reuters.
Global mobile game downloads shot up 39 per cent in February, with China accounting for a major portion of the boost, data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower showed.
Apple’s App Store in China saw a 62pc jump in game downloads alone.
Read more here.
The World Health Organisation's technical lead for the WHO Health Emergency Plan has said that it is unprecedented to have a virus identified and a sequence shared a few days later.
"We are learning more and more about COVID-19 every day," she said in a video shared on Twitter.
In Israel, the country's chief rabbi urged observant Jews to refrain from kissing the mezuza, the small box containing a prayer scroll that is posted by Jews on their doorposts, AP reported.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also urged people to adopt the Indian greeting of namaste rather than a handshake.
Facebook Inc confirmed that a contractor at a Seattle office has been diagnosed with the coronavirus and the social media giant said it would close that location until March 9, Reuters reported.
"A contractor based in our Stadium East office has been diagnosed with the COVID-19," a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
Facebook said it has notified employees, adding that workers in all Seattle locations were being encouraged to work from home until the end of the month.
The United Arab Emirates warned its citizens and its foreign residents not to travel anywhere abroad amid the ongoing worldwide coronavirus outbreak, a stark warning for a country home to two major long-haul airlines, AP reported.
The country's Health and Community Protection Ministry warning comes as its capital, Abu Dhabi, sent 215 foreigners it evacuated from hard-hit Hubei in China to a quarantine set up in its Emirates Humanitarian City. They include citizens of Egypt, Sudan and Yemen.
Health officials warned that those travelling abroad could face quarantine themselves at the discretion of authorities.
Police in Lithuania intervened in a domestic dispute after a man locked his wife in the bathroom over fears that she may be carrying the coronavirus.
"We got the report that a husband and two adult sons refused to let the woman out of the bathroom after she told them that she could have contracted the coronavirus," national police spokesman Ramunas Matonis told AFP.
The woman reportedly told her husband she may have caught the disease new coronavirus when she spoke with a person who had arrived from abroad.
"Police officers arrived, there was no violence, no complaint, therefore an ambulance was called," the police spokesman said.
Local media reported that the woman tested negative for the presence of the new coronavirus, which has so far infected one person in Lithuania.
California declared a state of emergency over the novel coronavirus as a cruise ship was held off the coast over fears of a new outbreak, AFP reported.
Thousands travelling aboard the Grand Princess — the same cruise ship on which California's first victim was thought to have contracted the virus — were held offshore.
The ship cut short its current voyage back from Hawaii after passengers and crew members developed symptoms. But its planned return to San Francisco was held up in order to carry out testing on board for those potentially infected.
Eleven passengers and 10 crew members were potentially infected with the virus, California Governor Gavin Newsom said.
Read more here.
Read the full piece by CNN here.