Summary
Thanks for following our live coverage of the coronavirus outbreak today. We are about to close this live blog, but you can pick up our live coverage here.
In the meantime, here’s a summary of the key points so far:
- Italy’s death toll has risen to 52, with 1,835 confirmed cases
- The US has now recorded six fatalities from the virus, with 75 confirmed cases
- WHO chief says: “We have never before seen a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission, but which can also be contained with the right measures.”
- UK supermarkets have drawn up plan to “feed the nation” as coronavirus spreads. Confirmed cases stand at 39.
- The virus outbreak has reached more than 60 countries.
- The level of risk of contracting coronavirus within Europe has been raised from moderate to high.
- Australia’s chief medical officers will meet on Tuesday to discuss if extra measures are needed to combat outbreak.
You can follow our new liveblog here:
Updated
The republican broadcaster Scottie Nell Hughes told the BBC’s Emily Maitlis that president Trump “believes he is stepping up with leadership” by having appointed vice president Mike Pence as the person in charge of the outbreak, and his housing minister, Ben Carson, as one of the experts on his coronavirus task force.
“(President Trump) doesn’t want another see another Bush-Katrina situation happen to him.”
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) March 2, 2020
Republican broadcaster Scottie Nell Hughes tells @maitlis “he believes he is stepping up with leadership” over the coronavirus outbreak#Newsnight | @scottienhughes pic.twitter.com/VyJlKP1x3h
The Australian market has opened up more than 1%, its first rise after more than a week of falls caused by concerns over the economic damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
This morning’s increase follows relief rallies on overseas markets that saw the US S&P500 index soar by 4.6% and the UK’s FTSE book a more modest 1.1% rise.
It comes ahead of a meeting of the Reserve Bank of Australia this afternoon at which the futures market expects interest rates to be cut from 0.75%, which is already a record low, to 0.5%.
Futures market trades imply a 100% chance of a rate cut today, according to ASX data.
Further out, traders expect the official cash rate to drop to 0.25% by July.
Jonathan Ashworth MP, the shadow health secretary, told BBC Newsnight the NHS “will struggle” to cope with an escalation of the Covid-19 outbreak, because of “ten years of cutbacks”.
“If this (coronavirus outbreak) escalates, and it is now becoming extremely serious, our NHS - with the current resources it has - will struggle."
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) March 2, 2020
Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth says this is because "we’ve got ten years of cutbacks”#Newsnight | @JonAshworth pic.twitter.com/Wn9L62i9VG
The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg has written an analysis about the government’s scramble to respond convincingly to the challenges the coronavirus outbreaks poses.
She writes:
Behind closed doors in government there is a realisation that an outbreak of coronavirus could go on for many months and cause a lot of disruption to many people’s lives.
Many of us might be asked to work at home. There are questions too about how self-employed people or those on zero hours contracts can make a living. What happens to the local elections in May? Can the NHS, already under a lot of pressure, really cope?
[...] Boris Johnson’s government is certainly no longer in the position of surveying the new political landscape and wondering which of its priorities it can choose to deal with first. Instead, it faces an immediate and highly complicated question it needs to answer.
Get it wrong and there could be serious political damage too.
The UK government will launch a major public information campaign later this week, as it aiming to set out clear steps the public can take to limit the spread of the virus, a No 10 spokesperson has said.
The spokesperson added that a new bill will be published in the coming weeks “to ensure the government has all the necessary powers to prepare for and tackle the coronavirus outbreak.”
They added that, should the virus spread, the government might encourage more home working and discourage unnecessary travel as part of a “social distancing” strategy that could delay the peak of the outbreak until later in the year, potentially helping combat the virus in warmer weather conditions.
In Australia, the Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has just held a press conference in Melbourne to update the public about efforts to prepare the health system for any coronavirus spread throughout the community. It follows news from NSW on Monday that there had been two cases of community transmission, including the first case that could not be immediately traced back to direct contact with an infected person.
While there is no immediate threat of widespread community risk, Australian doctors are preparing.
Andrews said there were now 33 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, including nine in Victoria.
“While we are doing what we can to contain COVID-19, we are also preparing to take more targeted action if, as expected, the virus starts impacting more Victorians,” he said. “We are working closely with the Commonwealth and our response is being guided by the very best expert advice.”
The government is currently monitoring and investigating cases as they occur, and working with the primary care sector to ensure it has the appropriate clinical knowledge, response and capacity available to treat patients. The government is communicating with at-risk groups, such as the elderly.
There is also preparation for hospital surge management. The state government is providing $6m to the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity working with the Burnet Institute and other experts to fast-track new treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. There are efforts around the world to develop a vaccine, and any vaccine is likely to be the result of a global effort.
Australia might detain people to prevent virus spread, attorney general says
Australia’s attorney general Christian Porter said the laws used to detain people at airports and other entry points could also be used to stop people elsewhere, as the government attempts to keep a lid on the coronavirus spread in Australia.
“It’s very likely that these laws will get used on a larger scale,” Porter told ABC radio RN on Tuesday morning.
“And it’s very likely that Australians will encounter practices and instructions and circumstances that they have not had to encounter before,” he said.
My colleagues Jasper Jolly and Rebecca Smithers have written a story about how the UK’s supermarket sector is bracing for panic buying, should the coronavirus threat worsen in the UK.
This just in from the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake:
Trump says he is looking at more travel restrictions "from certain countries where they're having more of a breakout."
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) March 2, 2020
And this from Reuters’ Jeff Mason:
At meeting with pharma companies, @realDonaldTrump says he is hearing that a vaccine can be ready in three to four months but Dr Fauci makes clear, after a question from this reporter, that it won’t be ready *to deploy* for at least a year. pic.twitter.com/jBAJsp88qX
— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) March 2, 2020
London mayor Sadiq Khan has issued a statement aiming to “reassure Londoners” in regard to the outbreak.
Khan said:
Today, I brought together senior officials from Public Health England, the NHS, our emergency services, TfL, and representatives from councils across London, and the Government, to review and ensure we are fully prepared to respond to the coronavirus.
I want to reassure Londoners that, although the risk to individuals currently remains low, I’m in regular contact with Public Health England to ensure that we work together as closely as possible to monitor the impact on our city and be ready to take the necessary action required.
Khan stressed that people with symptoms should not go to their GP or an A&E unit and call 111 for advice instead.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, told NBC News that the coronavirus outbreak had “likely reached pandemic proportions”.
Fauci said:
We’re dealing with clearly an emerging infectious disease that [has] now reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic proportions.
Asked whether concerned members of the public were reacting correctly by getting off public transport if a co-passenger coughed, Fauci said: “No, no. Getting off is not going to help.”
In response to the question of whether people should stop attending sporting events and concerts, he said:
We are not at the stage right now of mitigation for this. It may come to a point where, when you have enough community spread, that you switch from trying to contain it, from coming into the country or containing it from spreading, and trying to protect yourself and your community. We’re not there yet.
Australia’s top medical officers to consider whether mass gatherings should be cancelled
Australia’s top medical officers will meet on Tuesday to consider whether mass gatherings such as sporting events should be cancelled as the country grapples with the first two cases of community transmission of coronavirus.
The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee – made up of Australia’s chief medical officers – will meet to consider whether it was necessary to introduce bans on mass gatherings including large sport and entertainment events.
It comes after officials in New South Wales on Monday confirmed a 53-year-old health worker and 41-year-old woman as the first two cases of patient-to-patient transfer in the country.
The woman was believed to have contracted the virus from her brother, who had recently returned from Iran. However officials expressed concern about the origin of the health worker’s illness; he had not recently travelled to an affected country and had not knowingly been in contact with an infected person. Previously, the only people with the virus in Australia were those who had contracted it in other countries.
Updated
City of San Antonio declares state of emergency
The city of San Antonio in the US state of Texas has declared a state of emergency, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg declared a public health emergency on Monday afternoon local time to keep more than 120 coronavirus evacuees from a cruise ship quarantined at an airforce base at the outskirts of San Antonio until further notice, and banned new evacuees from entering the city.
The cruise ship evacuees were originally to be released Monday.
Updated
My colleagues Matthew Weaver, Denis Campbell and Severin Carrell have written up a story about the latest Covid-19 developments in the UK, and how the outbreak could test NHS resources.
Four further deaths in US
Four more people in Washington state have died from coronavirus, officials have said.
This brings the total number of US fatalities to six.
At a news conference Monday Jeff Duchin from Public Health Seattle & King County said five of the deaths were people from King County and one was a person from Snohomish County, north of Seattle, AP reported.
Researchers said earlier that the virus may have been circulating for weeks undetected in Washington state.
Here my colleague Amanda Holpuch’s story:
Updated
Most of Google’s 8,000 staff and contractors in Ireland have been told to work from home tomorrow after a member of staff reported flu-like symptoms, RTE reports.
While the worker is only vaguely suspected to have the virus, it is understood that the company decided to test having all staff work remotely in case the situation surrounding the coronavirus escalates.
A Google spokesperson said:
We continue to take precautionary measures to protect the health and safety of our workforce, and as part of that effort we have asked our Dublin teams to work from home tomorrow.
The Formula One season-opening Australian Grand Prix will go ahead on 15 March despite a rising threat of becoming infected with coronavirus, my colleague Giles Richards reports.
The Chinese Grand Prix has already been postponed because of the outbreak and infection from the virus has now spread throughout Europe where the F1 teams are based.
The French health chief, Jérôme Salomon, corrected earlier reports that there had been four deaths from coronavirus in France, and reduced the number down to three.
There are now 191 cases confirmed in the country. The third death was an 89-year-old woman who was declared positive for the virus after a postmortem examination.
Salomon said that for 75% of cases in France there was a clear chain of transmission that could be identified. Across France, 12 regions have reported cases, five of which have more than 10 infected people.
Asked why certain events, like the Paris half marathon had been cancelled, Salomon said it was a “rational, scientific response”.
“It’s not a question of whether people are confined (in a space) or not, it’s a question of proximity,” he said.
Updated
East and North Hertfordshire NHS trust now says that a clinician at the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre who had tested positive for the virus has since been given the all-clear. Its update suggest that Public Health England may need to revise down their total by one.
An update on the trust’s website said:
After initial PCR testing by Public Health England, subsequent genomic testing shows that the member of staff from Mount Vernon has now proven to be negative for Coronavirus (Covid-19). Public Health England has just informed us of this latest result.
This is obviously a source of relief to the individual in question, and also to those members of staff and patients who had been advised to self-isolate and/or undergo testing.
We are thankful to colleagues at NHS England and Public Health England who have been in close communication with us, both as they tested, and then supported us as we implemented national guidance.
Nick Phin, deputy director at the National Infection Service at Public Health England, said:
As part of our highly precautionary approach, we are acting on all presumptive positive cases as though they are confirmed in order to limit spread of the virus. This means we begin tracing close contacts of all cases and asking them to self-isolate before definitive confirmation by the PHE reference laboratory at Colindale. The confirmatory test for one case at Mount Vernon hospital has found that the result was negative and the person does not have novel coronavirus. This is obviously good news and we will therefore no longer ask the individuals to self-isolate.”
Updated
While airlines have cancelled hundreds of flights in response to the outbreak, the Six Nations rugby competition organisers have said no additional match postponements were planned for the time being.
England’s men’s match in Italy is expected to go ahead on 14 March. However, organisers said the women’s and under-20s fixtures between the two countries could be relocated.
Updated
The UK government has been advised to provide “resilience” training for teenagers so they can help support the authorities in civil contingencies like floods or the coronavirus outbreak, according to PA Media.
A report by the Royal United Services Institute military thinktank said the nation’s teens represented an “untapped” resource when it came to dealing with emergencies.
It called for 16- to 18-year-olds to be offered training during the school holidays in “crisis preparedness” and “emergency response”.
Updated
Hello, I’m taking over from my colleague Frances Perraudin. I have compiled a short overview of today’s developments regarding the coronavirus outbreak.
Updated
A majority of Britons are not taking any extra steps to reduce their risk of contracting coronavirus such as washing their hands or using a hand sanitiser, a new survey has found.
Only 35% of Britons have improved their personal hygiene in those ways in a bid to protect themselves against the virus, according to new YouGov research.
Other findings from the pollster’s survey of 1,618 British adults show strong public support for the government’s handling of the outbreak so far, a widespread belief that the NHS will be able to cope if large numbers of people become unwell with Covid-19 and – so far – a lack of fear about the virus, which first arrived in Britain in late January.
YouGov’s findings show that:
• Overall 35% of those questioned are washing their hands more regularly, 14% are avoiding public places and 14% are not touching objects in public such as lift buttons.
• However, 54% are not taking any extra precautions.
• While 24% are “fairly” or “very” scared about the prospect of contracting Covid-19, 70% are “not scared”.
• A majority – 54% – think the government is handling coronavirus well, and people of all party loyalties are more likely to think that the government has been doing well rather than badly, while only 16% say handling has been “bad”.
• Almost two-thirds (64%) are confident the NHS will respond well to a major outbreak but 29% are not confident.
• 62% feel they have enough information about what to do if they suspect they may have become infected.
Asked what measures the government should take to try and contain coronavirus 65% want anyone who has been in contact with an infected patient to be quarantined, 50% want all flights from mainland China banned and 36% support the potential ban on sporting events, concerts and other large gatherings that Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, said last week may become necessary.
Britons on Coronavirus:
— YouGov (@YouGov) March 2, 2020
97% have heard of
62% feel they have enough info about what to do if they think they have it
24% are scared of catching it
54% think govt is handling it well
64% are confident NHS can handle an outbreakhttps://t.co/1edqEY9UXe pic.twitter.com/hoUndYhSaW
Updated
PM: we must prepare for 'very significant expansion'
The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg has interviewed Boris Johnson about the country’s preparedness for the coronavirus outbreak. She started by asking him what the worst case scenario was. He responded:
Well, I think the most important thing now is that we prepare against a possible very significant expansion of coronavirus in the UK population – that … that’s clearly on the … on the cards. It’s … it’s possible that we will see a big expansion in the number of cases. And I’ll just remind everybody what I’ve said for a while now: this country is very well prepared, we have a fantastic NHS, we have a fantastic ability to conduct large-scale testing.
He said the government would be announcing further protective measures in the morning. Kuenssberg asked if the prime minister could give a sense of the kind of numbers that could be affected by the virus. He said:
Well, I think it’s important to stress that there are … there is… there is a range of possibilities, of course, Laura, but you know, and at the moment, it’s… it’s difficult to … to speculate about exactly how it may or may not progress. But what I think you can say, with a fair degree of certainty, it is, in my view, much more likely than not that we will face a challenge in the weeks, months ahead…
Updated
The NHS’s 111 online service to provide advice about coronavirus was used by more than 35,000 people in a single day this weekend.
The service was set up last Wednesday to help deal with the volume of enquiries relating to covid-19 and has since given advice to more than 70,000 people.
NHS England said it would spend an initial extra £1.7m on the 111 helpline so staff could offer more clinical advice over the phone. The funding will provide 500 additional initial call responders with the capacity to answer around 20,000 more calls every day. They said investment would increase if demand continued to rise.
A home diagnostic testing programme is currently being rolled out across the country, while a “drive-through” testing centre has started operating in west London.
Prof Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said:
NHS staff are working round the clock to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. We know that 111 has come under pressure as people have understandably turned to the service for help, support and advice which is why we are ploughing in funding to increase staff available to field calls.
The public is also now benefiting from the new NHS 111 online service which is helping increase capacity and free up clinicians time by offering specific help and advice on coronavirus at the touch of a button and has already had more than 70,000 hits since launched on Wednesday.
I would like to say a personal thankyou to all those NHS staff who are doing an incredible job caring for patients, testing thousands of worried people and taking calls from thousands more.
Updated
Big businesses and wealthy people are chartering private jets for “evacuation flights” out of countries hit by the coronavirus outbreak, reports the Guardian’s wealth correspondent Rupert Neate.
Adam Twidell, the chief executive of the private jet booking service PrivateFly, said the company had been inundated with requests from multinational firms arranging the mass evacuation of staff from China and south-east Asia.
Twidell said rich families were also chartering private jets to reduce the risk of exposing their families to the virus by avoiding commercial flights and busy airports.
“Over the past few weeks, there’s undoubtedly been a rise in demand for short notice on-demand charter relating to the coronavirus Covid-19,” he said. “We’ve had a very significant number of inquiries for group evacuations and from corporates and individuals.”
You can read the full story here:
Updated
British Labour MP Tulip Siddiq has had confirmation from the family of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman detained in Iran, that she has not been tested for coronavirus. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband told broadcasters this morning that his wife suspected she might have the virus and was displaying all the symptoms.
Just spoken to Nazanin’s family about what was said in the chamber in my Urgent Question - she told them this morning categorically that she has NOT been tested for coronavirus and remains petrified about her health #FreeNazanin
— Tulip Siddiq (@TulipSiddiq) March 2, 2020
Updated
A former head of the UK civil service said the coronavirus highlighted a dilemma for Boris Johnson’s government, arguing that ministers should be prepared to close schools or halt public gatherings such as football matches within days to disrupt the spread of the disease.
Lord Bob Kerslake told the Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh that “if ministers believe that emergency measures will be necessary, they should act now”.
Their problem is that by the time we know for sure how serious the coronavirus outbreak is, it’ll be too late, because such measures will be unable to halt its transmission.
The additional difficulty for ministers, the former official said, is that such actions could have “economic consequences”, but he argued that the only reason for not introducing emergency measures quickly was because “you don’t believe they are necessary in the end”.
The crossbench peer also said the government’s communications efforts had been insufficient, and were damaged by boycotts of the Radio 4’s Today and other programmes.
You are reliant on communications in these situations, and need every media outlet necessary. You certainly shouldn’t be boycotting programmes. Frankly that’s pretty feeble.
He said there were also not enough ministers appearing in the media to support Matt Hancock, the health secretary, who has been leading communications efforts on coronavirus almost single handedly in the past few days.
Although Johnson himself chaired his first Cobra meeting on the crisis on Monday, Kerslake said it had come late in the day: “No criticism of Hancock, but if I was him, I’d want a bit more back up.”
Updated
On the closure of Guildhall School, a spokesperson for the City of London Corporation said:
Guildhall School can confirm that a member of its teaching staff has tested positive for Covid-19. The school has been given PHE advice.
The staff and principal are working closely with students to ensure that they receive urgent appropriate advice.
Updated
London's Guildhall drama school closed due to coronavirus
The principal of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London emailed staff and students shortly after 5pm today to say it would be closed for up to 14 days after a teacher was diagnosed with the virus. The email said:
We regret to inform you that a member of teaching staff has tested positive for Coronavirus. He is currently recovering well at the Royal Free hospital. He was present and teaching in one of the ancillary school buildings on one day last week. He came into contact with a limited number of students and we are working closely with those students to ensure that they receive urgent appropriate advice.
As a precautionary measure, the school will be closed for up to 14 days from today (Monday 2 March), to allow time for a review of the situation and for appropriate measures to be taken. In line with current government advice, we are advising any staff and students who exhibit any symptoms during the 14-day period to use the Coronavirus online helpline (www.111.nhs.uk/covid-19 ) and to notify their line manager or their department head. Whilst I understand this will cause anxiety amongst the school community, all necessary steps are being taken to minimise risk to others.
All meetings, performances, workshops, masterclasses and any other on-site school engagements in the next 14 days should be cancelled. Staff are encouraged to work remotely during this period and if they are in any doubt of how to do so should contact their line manager.
Updated
Donald Trump has accused Democrats of “fearmongering” over the coronavirus outbreak in the US, while claiming his decisions have “saved many lives” and asking drug companies to accelerate work on a vaccine.
I was criticized by the Democrats when I closed the Country down to China many weeks ahead of what almost everyone recommended. Saved many lives. Dems were working the Impeachment Hoax. They didn’t have a clue! Now they are fear mongering. Be calm & vigilant!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2020
Two people have died from the coronavirus in the US and new cases were reported over the weekend in Washington state, New York, Florida, Rhode Island and Illinois. There are about 75 cases of the respiratory illness recorded in the US.
“The country’s doing very well, our professionals are doing an incredible job,” Trump told journalists at the White House on Monday. “We’re also working with other countries to help them because they really have a fear of the unknown.”
Read the full story here:
Updated
A teenage daughter of a Greek coronavirus victim on a school trip to London with 100 or so classmates has tested negative for the virus, reports the Guardian’s Lisa O’Carroll. However, those close to the incident say it took three days before the girl was given the all clear.
The teenager arrived in London last Monday and had been in Italy days previously when she and her mother had been on a trip. Her mother tested positive last Thursday, prompting her teachers to contact the authorities on Friday.
Her classmates were all flown home on Friday but the girl and one friend were told to remain in their rooms in a central London hotel while the tests were done.
They did not get the test result until Sunday night causing bewilderment among those who were taking care of her who had expected a test to be done as soon as the authorities were notified.
The hotel also remained open, raising questions about the scale of the contact-tracing that would have been required had the girl tested positive.
Updated
The Guardian football editor, Marcus Christenson, is reporting that RB Leipzig have been forced to apologise for an “error” towards Japanese fans during Sunday’s game against Bayer Leverkusen. The club did not specify what the “error” was but reports in Germany said that up to 20 supporters were asked to leave after the start of the game because of coronavirus fears.
Leipzig said in a statement released on Monday that security officers at the stadium had been asked to follow guidelines from the Robert Koch institute – Germany’s centre for disease control and prevention – in regards to groups of people from affected areas but that an error had been committed towards “our Japanese guests”.
You can follow the story here:
Updated
Here’s some more on those cases in the UK:
Debra Lapthorne, the centre director for Public Health England South West, said two confirmed cases were from the south Devon area and had become infected in northern Italy.
Public Health England is contacting people who had close contact with two confirmed cases of Covid-19. Both cases are residents from the south Devon area and became infected whilst in northern Italy.
Staff from PHE continue to support a secondary school in Torbay where one case attends.
Caroline Dimond, the director of public health for Torbay council, said:
I’d like to reassure people that the risk to the general public remains low in both Torbay and south Devon and we are working with health colleagues to do everything we can to stop the virus spreading and ensure the people of Devon and Torbay are protected.
An another individual confirmed to have Covid-19 in Kent had recently returned from Italy and is now in a treatment centre in London. They were located at offices of the North East London NHS Foundation Trust in Maidstone.
Dr James Mapstone, the acting regional director, Public Health England South of England, said:
Close contacts will be given health advice about symptoms and emergency contact details to use if they become unwell in the 14 days after contact with the confirmed case. This tried and tested method will ensure we are able to minimise any risk to them and the wider public.
Updated
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank have issued a joint statement on the coronavirus, saying they are prepared to provide financial and technical help to their member countries.
The IMF and the World Bank Group stand ready to help our member countries address the human tragedy and economic challenge posed by the Covid-19 virus. We are engaged actively with international institutions and country authorities, with special attention to poor countries where health systems are the weakest and people are most vulnerable.
We will use our available instruments to the fullest extent possible, including emergency financing, policy advice, and technical assistance. In particular, we have rapid financing facilities that, collectively, can help countries respond to a wide range of needs. The strengthening of country health surveillance and response systems is crucial to contain the spread of this and any future outbreaks.
International cooperation is essential to deal with the health and economic impact of the Covid-19 virus. The IMF and the World Bank Group are fully committed to provide the support that people in our member countries expect from us.
Updated
A spokeswoman for the US vice-president, Mike Pence, has said that the White House will hold meetings this week with top executives from US airlines and the cruise industry amid the growing coronavirus outbreak, reports Reuters.
Pence, who is overseeing the administration’s efforts to tackle the outbreak, will attend a meeting with airline officials on Wednesday. Those planning to attend include the chief executives of American Airlines Group Inc, United Airlines Holdings Inc, Southwest Airlines Co, Spirit Airlines Inc and JetBlue Airways Corp.
Updated
Tedros said 62 countries have reported coronavirus cases, 38 of which have reported 10 or fewer cases. He said that surrendering to the virus was not right and that we had to give it our best using a containment strategy irrespective of the number of cases.
Updated
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director general, is speaking at a press conference. You can watch the live feed at the top of this blog.
He said the epidemics in South Korea, Italy, Iran and Japan were the body’s main concern. In the past 24 hours there were almost nine times more coronavirus cases reported outside China than inside, but the disease can be contained with the right measures, he said.
Updated
Ryanair to reduce short-haul flights
Ryanair said in a statement:
Ryanair today notified passengers that it was reducing its short haul flight programme (mainly to and from Italy) by up to 25% for a three-week period from Tuesday March 17 to Wednesday Apr 8, in response to the Covid-19 virus.
Over the past week, Ryanair has seen a significant drop in bookings over that late March/early April period, in response to the Covid-19 virus.
There has also been a significant step up in passenger no-shows on flights, particularly from and within Italy.
Updated
The UK education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has told parliament schools “should stay open unless they’re advised otherwise by Public Health England”. Speaking earlier during education questions in the Commons, he said:
We, as like all government departments, are, right across the country, making sure that we have regular communications to all educational settings, making sure that they have a clear understanding of some of the challenges in dealing with the coronavirus.
We’re advising that schools should stay open unless they’re advised otherwise by Public Health England and we’re planning for reasonable worst-case scenario, working closely with other departments and of course PHE.
Updated
Italian health associations are appealing for more blood donors as medics warn a fall in the number of volunteers amid the coronavirus outbreak could have serious repercussions for those in need of blood transfusions, reports the Guardian’s Rome correspondent.
“We need everyone’s help to prevent the emergency from becoming more serious,” the Association of Voluntary Blood Donors at Rome’s Bambino Gesù said in a Facebook post.
Gianpietro Briola, the president of Avis, the Italian blood donor charity, said there had been a fall in the number of blood donors, particularly in the outbreak areas in northern Italy.
“It is important that all donors go, without fear, to donate,” he said. “I emphasise that there is no scientific evidence of coronavirus transmission through transfusion. So whoever is in good health can donate, a rule that is always valid.”
Stefania Saccardi, a health councillor in the Tuscany region, said: “I urge people to keep their nerve, get information only from official sources and avoid unjustified alarmism which has far more serious consequences than is necessary, such as the lack of transfusion support for the health services.”
Updated
Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of Sinn Féin, has revealed that her children attend the Dublin school that has been closed because of a coronavirus outbreak, reports the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent, Rory Carroll.
Health authorities ordered the secondary school to close on Monday for two weeks after a pupil who returned from Italy was diagnosed with the virus – Ireland’s first confirmed case. All the estimated 400 students and staff have been advised to stay at home and restrict their movements.
McDonald tweeted that she was staying at home and would restrict her meetings this week. Sinn Féin is holding a series of rallies to bolster the party’s efforts to enter a coalition government in the wake of its election success last month.
Sinn Féin has postponed two public meetings due to be held in Galway & Cavan
— Darran Marshall (@DarranMarshall) March 2, 2020
Party leader @MaryLouMcDonald confirms her children attend the school which is now closed for 14 days due to #coronavirus
pic.twitter.com/08vt9O62wj
Updated
Here is a video of Boris Johnson’s statement following the Cobra meeting earlier –
It is being reported in the French press that less than a week after the death of a high-school professor in the Oise region of northern France, two other people have died from the coronavirus in the same hospital. Le Parisien newspaper says it has the information from three sources.
“The hospital at Compiègne has suffered two further deaths, according to the last information I have,” said Philippe Marini, the city mayor.
In Nice, a three-year-old child was admitted to hospital with the virus.
Updated
The UK government’s plan to tackle the coronavirus outbreak will be released tomorrow after Boris Johnson chaired his first emergency Cobra meeting, reports the Guardian political correspondent Kate Proctor.
Emergency legislation will also be introduced by the end of the month. This includes suspending rules on classroom sizes to try to keep nurseries and schools open. The prime minister’s official spokesperson said:
One of the purposes of the plan which we will be publishing will be to set out to the public some potential changes in relation to everyday things, action that might need to be taken to deliver that best possible response.
He added:
[The plan] was agreed by all four parts of the United Kingdom and they will be working closely together on ensuring we have the best possible response for dealing with the outbreak.
Significant work has gone on already, you will hopefully have seen the adverts in particular stressing the need for people to wash their hands but there will be further and extensive public information campaigns in the coming days and weeks.
Every Whitehall department in government was represented by a minister or secretary of state, and the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, and Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill, the joint first minister of Northern Ireland, were also present via phone-ins or video links. The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, was not invited.
On criticism that the government has been slow to act over the virus, the spokesman said:
I simply don’t accept that. We have been taking extensive steps led by the best medical and scientific advice since the very beginning of this outbreak.
Updated
Two patients die in France - Le Parisien
Two patients have died of coronavirus in northern France, bringing the death toll in the country to four, Le Parisien newspaper has said, citing the mayor of the city of Compiègne and other sources. Reuters reports:
“As of Monday, according to the latest information I have, there were another two deaths in the hospital of Compiegne,” Philippe Marini, the mayor of Compiegne, was reported as saying by Le Parisien.
As of Sunday, France had 130 confirmed cases of the flu-like disease. The French health ministry did not return calls for comment.
Updated
A widespread halt in economic activity could put the viability of banks in question and spread financial disruption further, writes Tony Yates, an adviser at Resolution Foundation, for the Guardian’s comment section.
The first cases of coronavirus were recorded in China’s landlocked Hubei province, which has a population of about 59 million. Despite the Covid-19 virus and the respiratory disease it causes starting out as a local healthcare problem, it has become a global and an economic one because of the ways in which humans are profoundly interconnected through the world’s economy.
The first kind of interconnectedness is the one epidemiologists study: the human travel network. How a disease spreads depends on the number of physical encounters, and the probability of the virus jumping from carrier to new host. These encounters, caused mostly by global air and sea travel, are the ones policymakers have been trying to stop, albeit belatedly.
The second kind of interconnectedness that is transmitting economic pain out of China and other heavily affected countries is the global supply chain: the “goods network”. China now accounts for 9.6% of total UK imports; Italy, 4.1%; South Korea, just 0.8%. But because of their positions in the global supply chain, the absence of what these countries produce – from semiconductors, computer chips, plastics and phone network hardware to automotive components – will be felt more broadly.
Four new infections detected in England
Four more patients have tested positive for coronavirus in England, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 40, PA Media quotes the chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, as saying.
Updated
A 29-year-old Russian man diagnosed with coronavirus has became the country’s first citizen to be found ill with the disease while inside of the country, Andrew Roth reports from Moscow.
David Berov, who had returned from a ski trip to northern Italy on 23 February and checked into a hospital several days later, had tested positive for the disease, Russian authorities said on Monday. Two tests had returned negative results before a third test showed Berov was indeed infected with the coronavirus.
In a series of videos reposted by Russian media, Berov filmed scenes from his quarantine, where he was being held in a single room with other suspected coronavirus patients.
“When we got there we asked the medical staff why we are all lying together in the same room – any one of us could infect the others,” Berov told the Moscow Times, an English-language newspaper, by phone from the hospital. Doctors at Moscow’s Infectious Diseases hospital No 1 had later told him not to tell Russian health officials that he had been held in a single room with other suspected coronavirus patients, the paper said.
So far, two Chinese citizens have been diagnosed with the disease in Russia and since released from hospital. Three Russians onboard the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship hit by the coronavirus while it was docked in Yokohama, Japan, have also tested positive for coronavirus.
Russia has stepped up measures against coronavirus in recent days, banning entry to Chinese citizens and to most Iranian travellers, and also deploying dozens of medical staff clad in white protective suits to meet planes arriving from Italy. More than 200 suspected coronavirus patients have been admitted to hospital in Moscow alone, Russian authorities have said.
Updated
The European Central Bank called off on Monday a joint event with the European Commission that was to take place on the following day, citing cancellations by participants as the region is hit by the coronavirus outbreak.
The ECB said in a statement:
The ECB has decided, in close consultation with the co-organising European Commission, to postpone for now the conference on European financial integration that was scheduled for Tuesday, 3 March 2020.
Several cancellations by conference participants and otherwise increasingly challenging travel logistics have made it preferable to defer a physical meeting for now. The report publication will go ahead as planned.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has published an up to date list of cases of infection and fatality within the European economic area, the UK, San Marino, Monaco and Switzerland, Daniel Boffey reports.
There have been 2,199 cases and 38 deaths reported: Italy (1,689), France (130), Germany (129), Spain (83), UK (36), Switzerland (24), Norway (19), Sweden (14), Austria (14), Netherlands (13), San Marino (8), Greece (7), Croatia (7), Finland (6), Denmark (4), the Czech Republic (3), Iceland (3), Romania (3), Belgium (2), Estonia (1), Ireland (1), Lithuania (1), Luxembourg (1) and Monaco (1).
The EU organisation said that of the fatalities 35 deaths were in Italy; two deaths have been reported in France, and one death has been reported from San Marino.
Updated
The Bank of England has promised to do whatever it can to shore up the economy against the impact of coronavirus after mounting anxiety about the disease sent stock markets into freefall, Rob Davies reports.
The value of FTSE 100 companies slumped by £200bn last week, in tandem with a broader global sell-off in which global stock markets suffered their steepest falls since the 2008 financial crisis.
However, Asian markets rallied overnight as investors gambled that central banks will respond by cutting interest rates to stimulate growth, offsetting the coronavirus effect.
The UK’s central bank joined the Bank of Japan in telling investors that it is keeping tabs on the situation and stands ready to use its monetary policy levers to promote financial stability.
“The Bank is working closely with HM Treasury and the FCA [Financial Conduct Authority] – as well as our international partners – to ensure all necessary steps are taken to protect financial and monetary stability,” a spokesman said.
New York confirms first infection
Health officials in Washington state said late on Sunday a nursing home resident had died after contracting coronavirus, while New York’s governor confirmed his state’s first positive case, Reuters reports.
Late on Sunday, Florida declared a public health emergency as it confirmed its first two cases. Cases in Chicago and Rhode Island were also reported.
The coronavirus, which emerged in China late last year, has sent global markets falling as it quickly moves around the world. It appeared poised for a spike in the US, in part because of more testing to confirm cases.
Trump administration officials worked on Sunday to soothe nerves and calm fears that a global recession is looming, arguing that the public and media were over-reacting and saying stocks would bounce back because the US economy was fundamentally strong.
The total number of confirmed cases in the US is more than 75 with two reported deaths, both in Washington state. Globally there have been more than 87,000 cases and nearly 3,000 deaths in 60 countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
British guests at a quarantined hotel in Tenerife are being flown back to the UK after testing negative for coronavirus, Jet2holidays has said. PA Media has the story:
Holidaymakers at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace had previously been told they would have to remain in quarantine until March 10, after at least four tourists were diagnosed with Covid-19.
But travel operator Jet2holidays said on Monday that its customers at the hotel will return to the UK in the afternoon.
It is understood that a number of other hotel guests were flown back on Sunday evening after testing negative for coronavirus.
A Jet2holidays spokeswoman said:
We are pleased to confirm that Jet2holidays customers at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace will be flying back to the UK with us on a dedicated flight this afternoon, following their negative test results for Covid-19 and subject to them showing no symptoms on departure.
Updated
Nicky Bandini, the Guardian’s Italian football correspondent, has written about the knock-on effects in Serie A after five matches were postponed over the weekend.
Atalanta and Lecce did their best to pick up the slack on a weekend missing its headline act. Cagliari and Roma, too. For the second week running, Serie A’s Sunday schedule was reduced to two games, with the rest all postponed amid disagreement over the appropriate response to Italy’s coronavirus outbreaks. This time, the cancellations included the Derby d’Italia.
No other match could capture the imagination like that one: Juventus taking on Internazionale in the first season when both have truly contested the title against one another for almost two decades. But the four teams who did take the field entertained us instead by combining for 16 goals.
Updated
The spread of coronavirus in the UK is likely to worsen, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, has warned.
Speaking after an emergency Cobra meeting where ministers gathered to discuss a “battle plan” to be published on Tuesday, Johnson reiterated advice from health authorities for people to wash their hands thoroughly.
We have also agreed a plan so that if and when it starts to spread, as I’m afraid it looks likely it will, we are in a position to take the steps necessary to contain the spread of the disease as far as we can, and to protect the most vulnerable.
Johnson said closing schools and banning mass gatherings would only be taken upon scientific advice, adding:
The most important thing for people to understand is that (measures) will be guided by scientific advice.
All four nations of the UK and the chief medical officers are involved in this and they will be helping us to take key decisions on when and how to take protective steps.
We cannot forget that the single most useful thing that we can all do to support the NHS is to wash our hands, two times to Happy Birthday with hot water.
It’s very important that people should continue (doing) that and they should go about business as usual.
UK-wide coronavirus action plan to be published tomorrow, No 10 says
[Cross-posted from the politics live blog]
The prime minister’s spokesman is here.
He starts by setting out the PM’s day. He has just chaired a Cobra meeting on coronavirus, and done a clip for broadcasters. Later he will be hosting a World Cup day reception in No 10.
Liz Truss has published negotiating objectives for the UK-US trade talks, he says. There will be a statement in the Commons this afternoon.
In Brussels, the first round of negotiations with the EU starts at 1pm UK time. It will start with a meeting between David Frost, the prime minister’s Europe adviser, and Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, which is due to last an hour.
Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, is holding talks in Oman.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has confirmed that the government has taken over rail services on the Northern network.
The spokesman is now taking questions.
Q: What happened at the Cobra meeting?
The spokesman says the PM has set that out in his clip for broadcasters. A UK-wide action plan for coronavirus was agreed. It will be published tomorrow, the spokesman says.
He says the devolved administrations were represented via conference call.
Q: Why was Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, not there.
Today was about setting out a national response, the spokesman says.
The spokesman says the plan will be published. Reporters will be properly briefed on it, he says.
Q: What sort of input did the devolved administrations have? Are there differences in the different parts of the UK?
It is as single plan for the UK, the spokesman says.
Q: Will the plan explain how emergency services will be sustained?
The spokesman says it will be published tomorrow.
Q: What worst case scenarios were discussed?
The spokesman says he does not want to do that before the report is published.
He says the public will need access to the best and clearest information.
Q: Do you know if Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has contracted coronavirus in prison in Iran?
The spokesman says the government is urgently seeking an update about her condition.
Regarding the government’s plans for emergency legislation, the spokesman says the government wants to ensure it has the powers it needs when it needs them.
The spokesman says we may get a Commons statement from the health secretary on the plan tomorrow.
Q: Can you tell us more about the “war room” on coronavirus?
The spokesman says there is a room in the Cabinet Office where health and communication officials from across the UK will be based. It will ensure that “joined-up messages” go out to the public.
Q: How many people will be working in the “war room”?
The spokesman does not have those figures.
Q: Will the military need to get involved?
The spokesman says the government will take whatever steps are deemed helpful.
Updated
Wall Street’s most famous face is worried. Peter Tuchman, the trader whose Einstein-esque features are the most photographed on the floor of the New York stock exchange (NYSE), has not witnessed a sell-off as bad as this since the 2008 financial crisis. And he thinks it is going to get worse.
“There’s a lot of fear here. A lot of confusion,” Tuchman said at the end of a week when investor panic over the likely impact of the coronavirus had triggered the worst sell-off in US stock markets for a dozen years.
Tuchman has been working at the world’s most famous stock market for 35 years and his picture crops up in media worldwide whenever things go right or wrong. He first rose to prominence in 2008 when a picture of his fretful face came to symbolise panic on the stock markets. There he was just a few short weeks ago, positively beaming when the key Dow Jones stock market index crossed 29,000 for the first time. Tuchman was everywhere again last week as US markets crashed.
Updated
In the US, health officials in Washington state say that a second person had died from the coronavirus, the Associated Press reports. The victim was a man in his 70s from a nursing facility near Seattle where dozens of people were sick and had been tested for the virus. According to AP:
Researchers said earlier the virus may have been circulating for weeks undetected in Washington state.
In a statement, Public Health Seattle & King County said the man died Saturday. On Friday, health officials said a man in his 50s died of coronavirus, the first death from the virus in the US. Both had underlying health conditions, and both were being treated at a hospital in Kirkland, Washington, east of Seattle.
Washington state now has 12 confirmed cases.
State and local authorities stepped up testing for the illness as the number of new cases grew nationwide, with new infections announced in California, Florida, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York and Washington state.
Authorities in the Seattle area reported four new cases Sunday night, including the man who died. Two health care workers in California were also diagnosed. Of the new Washington state cases, two were women, one in her 80s and another in her 90s. Both were in critical condition. A man in his 70s was also in critical condition. All three were from the LifeCare nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington, where health officials said 50 people are sick and being tested for the virus.
On Sunday night, the International Association of Fire Fighters said 25 members who responded to calls for help at the nursing facility are being quarantined.
The number of known coronavirus cases in the US had reached at least 80 as of Sunday, counting people evacuated from a cruise ship and Wuhan.
Trump said Saturday at a White House news conference that he was thinking about closing the southern border with Mexico as a precaution.
Updated
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is unhappy after he was excluded from the UK government’s Cobra meeting to discuss the coronavirus outbreak, PA Media reports.
A city hall source said people might think it was “a bit strange” he was not invited, given the size of London, its status as a global travel hub, its large transport network and its sport and entertainment venues.
Khan is due to meet senior officials and health specialists from across the capital to review preparations for dealing with the outbreak.
He said: “I want to reassure Londoners that although the risk of coronavirus to individuals remains low, we are not complacent. I’m in regular contact with Public Health England to ensure we have the latest advice and to monitor the impact on our city.”
For the benefit of our international readers, the UK government is led by the Conservative party, while Khan is a member of the opposition Labour party.
Updated
Airlines have been suspending flights or modifying service in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Reuters has compiled details of the modifications to services (in alphabetical order):
Airlines that have cancelled all flights to mainland China
- American Airlines – extends suspension of China and Hong Kong flights until 24 April.
- Air France – said on 6 February it would suspend flights to and from mainland China for much of March.
- Air India – suspends flights to Shanghai, Hong Kong until 30 June.
- Air Seoul – South Korean budget carrier suspended China flights from 28 January until further notice.
- Air Tanzania – Tanzania’s state-owned carrier, which had planned to begin charter flights to China in February, postponed its maiden flights.
- Air Mauritius – Suspended all flights to China and Hong Kong
- Austrian Airlines – until end of February.
- British Airways – 29 January-31 March.
- Delta Airlines – 2 February-30 April.
- Egyptair suspended flights on 1 February, but on 20 February said it would resume some flights to and from China starting next week.
- El Al Israel Airlines – extended its suspension of flights to Hong Kong and Beijing until 2 May.
- Iberia Airlines – Spanish carrier extended its suspension of flights from Madrid to Shanghai, its only route, from 29 February until the end of April.
- JejuAir Co Ltd – Korean airline to suspend all China routes starting 1 March.
- Kenya Airways – 31 January until further notice.
- KLM – said on 2 March it would extend its ban on flights to Chengdu, Hangzhou and Xiamen in China to at least 3 May. The airline expects to resume flights to Beijing and Shanghai on 29 March.
- Lion Air – all of February.
- LOT – extends flight suspension until 28 March.
- Lufthansa – extends China flight cancellations until 24 April.
- Oman and Saudia, Saudi Arabia’s state airline, both suspended flights on 2 February until further notice.
- Qatar Airways – 1 February until further notice.
- Rwandair – 31 January until further notice.
- Scoot, Singapore Airlines’ low-cost carrier – 8 February until further notice.
- United Airlines – 5 February-23 April. Service to Hong Kong suspended 8 February-23 April.
- Vietjet and Vietnam Airlines - suspended flights to mainland China as well as Hong Kong and Macau from 1 February-30 April, in line with its aviation authority’s directive.
Airlines that have cancelled some China flights or modified service
- Air Canada – extended the suspension of its flights to Beijing and Shanghai until 27 March. It also suspended its Toronto to Hong Kong flights from 1 March to 27 March, but its Vancouver to Hong Kong route remains active.
- Air China – said it would cancel flights to Athens, Greece, from 17 February to 18 March and “adjust” flights between China and the US. On 28 February it resumed flying to Frankfurt from Chengdu, following a 21-day suspension, state-run Xinhua news agency said.
- Air New Zealand – suspended Auckland-Shanghai service 9 February-29 March. Reduced capacity on Shanghai route throughout April and Hong Kong route throughout April and May.
- ANA Holdings – suspended routes including Shanghai and Hong Kong from 10 February until further notice.
- Brussels Airlines - Lufthansa subsidiary said on 28 February it would cut flights to northern Italy by 30% from 2-14 March.
- Cathay Pacific Airways – plans to cut a third of its capacity over the next two months, including 90% of flights to mainland China. It has encouraged its 27,000 employees to take three weeks of unpaid leave in a bid to preserve cash.
- China Southern Airlines recommenced flights on 25 February to Nairobi from Guangzhou.
- Emirates and Etihad – the United Arab Emirates, a major international transit hub, suspended flights to and from China, except for Beijing.
- Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways has suspended flights to Hong Kong until 28 March, the airline said on 26 February, citing a drop in demand.
- The UAE suspended all flights to mainland China, except Beijing, on 5 February.
- Finnair – cancelled all flights to mainland China and decreased the number of flights to Hong Kong until 28 March.
- Hainan Airlines – suspended flights between Budapest, Hungary, and Chongqing rom 7 February-27 March.
- Kenya’s high court ordered flights from China to be temporarily suspended, following a petition.
- Korean Air Lines Co. - The national flag carrier suspended eight routes to China and reduced services on nine Chinese routes between 7 Feb and 22 Feb.
- Philippine Airlines – cut the number of flights between Manila and China by more than half.
- Qantas Airways – suspended direct flights to China from 1 February. The Australian national carrier halted flights from Sydney to Beijing and Sydney to Shanghai from 9 February-29 March.
- Royal Air Maroc - Moroccan airline suspended direct flights to China from 31 January-29 February. On 16 January, it had launched a direct air route with three flights weekly between its Casablanca hub and Beijing.
- Russia – all Russian airlines, with the exception of national airline Aeroflot, stopped flying to China from 31 January. Small airline Ikar will also continue flights between Moscow and China. All planes arriving from China will be sent to a separate terminal in the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport. Aeroflot reduced the frequency of flights to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou until 29 February.
- Vistara Airlines makes temporary reduction in flights to and from Bangkok and Singapore.
- Nordic airline SAS extended its suspension of flights to Shanghai and Beijing until 29 March.
- Singapore Airlines – suspended or cut capacity on flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xiamen and Chongqing, some of which are flown by regional arm SilkAir.
- UPS – cancelled 22 flights to China because of the virus and normal manufacturing closures due to the lunar new year holiday.
- Virgin Atlantic – extended its suspension of daily operations to Shanghai until 28 March.
- Virgin Australia – said it will withdraw from the Sydney-Hong Kong route from 2 March because it was “no longer a viable commercial route” due to growing concerns over the virus and civil unrest in Hong Kong.
Airlines that have modified service on other routes
- Asiana Airlines has decided to halt all flights to Daegu until 9 March, while Korean Air Lines will also suspend flights until 28 March.
- Air Canada to allow travellers to rebook flights to parts of Italy at no charge. United Airlines adds South Korea to travel waiver list but is not cancelling flights.
- Bahrain civil aviation authority suspends all its flights from Dubai and Sharjah airports for 48 hours.
- British Airways said it would cancel some flights to and from Italy, Singapore and South Korea, as a result of reduced demand.
- easyJet said on 28 February it would cancel flights, particularly in and out of Italy and cut costs across its business.
- El Al Israel Airlines said it would suspend flights to Italy, including Milan and Rome from 28 February to 14 March, and to Bangkok from 2-27 March. It will also delay launching a new route to Tokyo from March until 4 April.
- Kazakhstan plans to suspend flights to Iran from 1 March and reduce the number of South Korea flights
- Kuwait’s civil aviation authority halts all its flights to and from South Korea, Thailand, and Italy. Kuwait had earlier suspended all its flights to and from Iraq.
- Lebanon halted flights for non-residents from countries including China, Iran, Italy and South Korea, the transport ministry said on 28 February. The ban excludes Lebanese citizens and foreign residents of the country.
- Lufthansa to cut number of short- and medium-haul flights in response to the accelerated spread of the coronavirus, adding it will suspend flights to Tehran until 30 April.
- Mongolia’s national emergency commission said on 24 February it had halted all flights from South Korea and would block entry through its borders until 2 March. Mongolia had previously suspended all entries from China.
- Oman’s civil aviation authority halted all flights between the sultanate and Iran.
- Royal Jordanian Airlines has suspended flights between Amman and Rome until further notice starting from 26 February.
- Russia’s ministry of transport said on 27 February it would suspend some flights to and from Iran, except those operated by its national carrier Aeroflot and Iranian airline Mahan Air.
- Tajikistan has suspended all flights to and from Iran until the virus situation there stabilises, the Civil Aviation Agency said on 24 February.
- Tunisia may suspend some flights to Italy.
- Turkish Airlines extended a cancellation of flights to Iranian cities, with the exception to flights to Tehran, until 10 March.
- Turkish commercial flights between Turkey and Iran are suspended until further notice. “The Iranian carriers will fly empty to Turkey and be permitted to carry passengers destined for Iran. Turkish passengers will not be transported on these flights,” Turkey’s civil aviation authority announced on its Twitter account.
- United Airlines – sharply cutting number of flights to Japan and South Korea as travellers have slashed ticket purchases for those destinations.
- Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways suspends flights between Da Nang and Nha Trang to Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, starting on 26 February.
- Wizz Air said it would decrease the frequency of its Romania, Poland, Italy and Israel routes, cutting two-thirds of all flights on affected routes over three weeks between 11 March and 2 April.
Updated
The number of confirmed cases in France jumped from 100 to 130 in 24 hours to Sunday evening, reports Kim Willsher, the Guardian’s correspondent in Paris.
The director general of France’s health service, Jérôme Salomon, gave the latest figures on Sunday evening. Of the 130 people who have contracted the virus, two have died, 116 are in hospital – nine of them in a serious condition – and 12 have recovered after treatment and have returned home.
France has declared it is in “Stage 2” of an epidemic. Stage 1 is attempting to avoid the virus entering the country. Stage 2 is attempting to avoid it spreading. The health authorities would only move to Stage 3 when it was considered impossible to mitigate the spread of the virus and necessary to introduce compulsory collective measures, such as the closure of schools and other public buildings.
Salomon said this would be an “observational and not a political decision”. “This epidemic, as we’ve already seen with the flu or bronchiolitis, is not necessarily homogeneous. That’s why we’ll have a very adapted, pragmatic and reactive attitude depending on the territories,” Salomon said.
The new cases include two children aged one year and five years from Alsace in eastern France, who have been hospitalised in Strasbourg along with their 27-year-old mother who also tested positive. Their condition was described as not worrying.
Salomon says French travellers should avoid journeys abroad outside the European Union unless necessary. He pointed out the death rate worldwide is 3.4% of confirmed cases.
The Manga and Sci-Fi Show salon planned for next week, which was to have featured giant karaoke and K-pop concerts have been cancelled.
Several schools and creches have been closed in the Morbihan in Brittany after a cluster of suspected coronavirus cases. This was announced shortly before midnight on Sunday.
Most schools remain open, but students who travelled to areas considered risky, including China and northern Italy, have been asked to self-quarantine for two weeks.
The Louvre will remain closed. The museum’s staff have exercised their “right to withdraw” (their services). Apparently they called a meeting with management after concerns about the number of tourists, reportedly from Asia, entering the museum wearing masks.
Updated
The European commission said there had been 2,100 people infected so far by Coronavirus, including 38 fatalities in 18 member states, as it raised its risk of contraction from low to moderate up to moderate to high, Daniel Boffey reports.
Nearly 300 million people have gone back to work in China since the Lunar New Year break as more companies restart business and coronavirus travel restrictions ease, although many small firms are still struggling to find enough workers to run plants, Reuters reports.
Indications from China are that the country has managed to get a handle on the coronavirus outbreak, with the numbers of new cases continuing to slow in the country, even as they accelerate elsewhere in the world. According to Reuters:
Eighteen regions in mainland China have cut the emergency response level as of Monday, and authorities eased travel restrictions amid a sharp drop in new coronavirus infection cases.
The flu-like epidemic has killed 2,912 people and infected more than 80,000 across the country.
China transportation ministry data showed an average of 15.8 million passengers returned from their hometowns last week, the third week after the prolonged Lunar New Year break.
That brings the total to 295 million people so far tracked by the ministry as having returned to their workplaces since the holiday, according to Reuters calculations based on transportation ministry data.
Increasing traffic flows in big cities also indicate more commuting across the country. Location technology firm TOMTOM’s traffic index shows congestion levels picked up noticeably in most major cities on Monday to their highest levels since the virus outbreak.
Public transportation systems have also gotten busier. Of the 33 Chinese cities that have metro lines, only three have system restrictions still in place: Wuhan where the virus originated, Wenzhou in manufacturing hub Zhejiang province, and Urumchi in northwestern Xinjiang.
Average daily passenger volumes at metros across the country reached 10.2 million last week, up 65.15% from a week earlier, according to data compiled by China Association of Metros.
But air quality measures indicate China’s industrial emissions remain well below normal.
Updated
In the UK, cabinet ministers have been attending No 10 Downing Street for a Cobra national security committee meeting chaired by the prime minister, Boris Johnson.
Updated
Health officials in Ireland are expected to decide on Monday whether to restrict mass gatherings, including the St Patrick’s Day festival, Rory Carroll reports from Dublin.
The possible curbs come as a secondary school in Dublin closed for two weeks to prevent the spread of infection after a pupil was identified as Ireland’s first case of coronavirus.
Health officials ordered the school to close after the student, who had returned recently from a mid-term visit to Italy, was diagnosed over the weekend. He is being treated in isolation at a Dublin hospital.
Officials have not named the school, which has about 400 pupils, but several media outlets identified it. Pupils, staff and relatives have been asked to restrict their movements during the two weeks.
The national public health emergency team is due to review potential curbs on public gatherings, including celebrations in the run-up to St Patrick’s Day on 17 March.
Tony Holohan, the chief medical officer at the department of health, told RTE he believed the risk of the Covid-19 infection spreading across Ireland is low.
Last week, Northern Ireland reported its first confirmed case: a woman who returned from northern Italy, a coronavirus hotspot, via Dublin airport and travelled to Belfast by train.
Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach, and Simon Harris, the health minister, discussed cross-border co-operation in a conference call with Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s first minister, Michelle O’Neill, the deputy first minister and Robin Swann, the health minister.
Updated
Portugal registered its first two cases of the new coronavirus on Monday, SIC television channel reported. Reuters reports:
SIC said one case was discovered in a man who had recently travelled to Italy and another one in a man who had returned from Spain. Both were taken to hospital in Porto.
Health ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
Updated
OECD slashes global growth forecast
An escalation in the coronavirus outbreak could cut global economic growth in half and plunge several countries into recession this year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has warned.
Sounding the alarm as the disease spreads around the world and rattles investors, the OECD said global GDP growth could plunge this year to as little as 1.5%, almost half the 2.9% rate it forecast before the outbreak took hold.
Against a backdrop of already weak GDP growth, the economies of Japan and the eurozone could slide into recession this year, it added, while warning that failure in the UK’s post-Brexit trade talks with the EU also represented a significant downside risk.
The influential Paris-based group – which represents the 36 most advanced economies – urged governments around the world to take greater steps to work together, calling for an international response as Covid-19 spreads.
Updated
Ireland’s chief medical officer has defended the decision to close a secondary school after it was confirmed a student was diagnosed with coronavirus.
Dr Tony Holohan said the move to shut the school for two weeks was a “proportionate measure”. PA Media reports:
Dr Holohan also said he believes the risk of the infection spreading in Ireland is still low.
It was confirmed on Saturday night that the male student who lives in the east of the country contracted the virus in one of the affected areas of northern Italy. The school has been closed for 14 days from today, during which all pupils and teachers are being asked to restrict their movements.
Speaking on RTE’s Morning Ireland, Dr Holohan said authorities are not naming the school to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the patient.
Dr Holohan said health officials carried out an assessment of the case, which concluded in the closure of the school. “We felt this was a proportionate measure and I (want) to stress that we believe that the risk of transmission infection, even despite the contact, will still be low,” he said.
In a letter sent to parents from the HSE, it was confirmed that children, teachers and school staff have been advised to limit their social interactions, avoid social gatherings and not attend sporting events.
“This measure is focused on the children, it’s not focused on their families and it’s not focused on the wider community,” Dr Holohan added.
“Each of the parents will get a text message on each of the days of the incubation period, asking whether or not their child or staff member have symptoms and if they say yes to that text message they will have follow up engagement with public health doctors.
“The purpose of that is to at the earliest possible stage identify another case.”
Updated
Global coronavirus death toll passes 3,000
The global death toll from the coronavirus outbreak exceeded 3,000 on Monday as South Korea reported almost 500 new cases of the disease and a second person died in the US, Justin McCurry, the Guardian’s Tokyo correspondent, reports.
Covid-19 has now infected more than 88,000 people and spread to more than 60 countries after first emerging in China late last year. Indonesia, which has so far claimed to be virus-free, registered its first two cases on Monday.
More than two months on, most cases and deaths are still confined to China, whose health commission reported 202 new infections on Monday – the lowest daily rise since late January – and 42 new deaths. Hubei province, where the outbreak has been concentrated, recorded 196 of the 202 new cases and all of the new deaths.
The death toll in China rose to 2,912, but it is also creeping up in other countries. Iran has the second highest number of deaths, with 54, Australia reported its first Covid-19 death over the weekend. Infections nearly doubled over the weekend in Italy – Europe’s hardest-hit country with nearly 1,700 cases.
The number of cases in the US rose to at least 76 with two deaths, both in Washington state. The second victim was a man in his 70s who died on Saturday in a nursing home where several other people are infected, local health authorities said.
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Authorities in China have closed the first of 16 hospitals specially built in Wuhan to tackle the coronavirus epidemic, the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has said. According to Reuters:
News of the closure coincided with a sharp fall in new cases in Hubei province and its capital of Wuhan but China remained on alert for people returning home with the virus from other countries where it has spread.
“The rapid rising trend of virus cases in Wuhan has been controlled,” Mi Feng, a spokesman for China’s national health commission told a briefing.
“Outbreaks in Hubei outside of Wuhan are curbed and provinces outside of Hubei are showing a positive trend.”
The virus emerged in Wuhan late last year and has since infected more than 86,500 people, the majority in China, with most in Hubei.
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Paul Cosford, the emeritus medical director of Public Health England, who we reported earlier as telling Good Morning Britain that the UK could expect to see widespread coronavirus infection “fairly soon”, has also been speaking on the Today programme this morning.
Cosford told today that there will come a point “where we reduce social contact if we see more widespread transmission”.
I think the increase in number that we are seeing, coupled with the increases in countries nearby in Europe and of course in south-east Asia, do make it much more likely we will get more widespread transmission in the UK.
It’s still the case that the vast majority of the cases we’ve got in the UK, we can trace a link to countries where there’s infection and people returning from those countries, but we’ve not been able to identify that in every single case now, so that’s something we are looking at extremely carefully to understand where the source of those infections may be.
I think we now have to expect there to be more widespread infection in the UK that we will need to deal with.
We’ve got to be prepared for that. We’re not there yet but we’ve got to be prepared for it, and it will give us some challenges.”
Cosford said, however, that it was important that people remembered the infection was mild in most cases.
The vast majority of people will make a recovery from it and it is a relatively mild illness. Children and otherwise healthy adults seem to be at much lower risk of getting into serious complications you get with this sort of disease.
It’s older people and people with severe underlying conditions that we will be particularly concerned about.
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People in Israel are voting in a national election today and the government has set up 16 special voting booths for roughly 5,000 people who are in precautionary home isolation, Oliver Holmes, the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, reports. The polling stations are small tents made of plastic sheeting, with staff in full protective suits.
Ten Israelis in total have contracted the virus and have been quarantined. The health ministry, however, has said it does not see a threat to the general public from voting today and urged people to go out.
Police are also on alert as there are fears some people might spread false reports about coronavirus to suppress votes for their opponents.
India said on Monday two people in the country had tested positive for coronavirus. According to Reuters:
One case was detected in the capital, New Delhi, while the other was in the southern state of Telangana, the government said in a statement.
The patients had a travel history from Italy and the United Arab Emirates, respectively, the statement said. Both patients were stable and being closely monitored.
Updated
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany has risen to 150 on Monday from 129 on Sunday, Reuters reports the Robert Koch Institute for disease control as saying.
More than half of the cases, 86, are in the western region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, where several schools and daycare centres will be closed on Monday to try to prevent the spread of the virus after staff members tested positive.
Iraq has detected two new coronavirus patients, both of whom had recently visited Iran, the Health Ministry said on Monday, bringing the total cases recorded so far to 21, Reuters reports. The news agency goes on:
The two new cases were detected in Baghdad and had recently returned from Iran, the ministry said in a statement.
The first case was detected on Tuesday and was of an Iranian student who has since been sent back home.
The other 20 are all Iraqis who had recently been in Iran.
Public Health England’s emeritus medical director, Paul Cosford, says the UK can expect to see widespread coronavirus infection “fairly soon.” Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Cosford said:
The extent of infection we are seeing in other countries suggests it is likely that we will see more widespread infection in the UK and that is what we have to be prepared for.
We should expect at times that might be quite challenging for us, it is therefore very important that we do everything we can to reduce the spread of infection.
At the moment, the vast majority of cases we see in the UK are still linked to countries where there is more widespread infection, either in Italy or south east Asia.
It is true to say there is a small number now where it is much more difficult to find that link, and that is leading us to think we may well see more widespread infection in the UK fairly soon.
It could happen in the next few days or it could take a little longer.
In the UK, Jonathon Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, says he would support shutting down cities to control the spread of coronavirus.
Ahead of a meeting of the government’s Cobra national security committee this morning, to be chaired by the prime minister, Ashworth told BBC Breakfast this morning that he wanted greater clarity from the government about its next steps.
He said Labour would support shutting down cities to prevent the spread of Covid-19 within the UK, “if the medical advice and the scientific advice is to take measures along those lines.” Ashworth went on:
It would be a move by Government so drastic that we hadn’t seen it. And I’m not sure how practical it could be in reality. However this virus is serious and appears to spread very easily and we need to contain it and slow down the spread.
If the medical advice is to do something like that then of course we should support it. That is why I am keen, however, that Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, comes to the House of Commons today after the Cobra meeting to update MPs on plans.
We just need clarity from Government.
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Concern is growing among campaigners that vital UN climate talks will be derailed by the coronavirus outbreak, while government officials are working to find ways round the problem, reports Fiona Harvey, the Guardian’s environment correspondent.
This year’s UN talks on the climate are the most important since the Paris agreement in 2015, as the world is now far adrift of the Paris goals and the Cop26 summit – scheduled for Glasgow this November – is seen as one of the last chances to put nations back on track to avoid climate breakdown.
But while the talks will take place over a fortnight in November, the frantic round of global diplomacy required to reach a settlement is already under way and is being affected by the outbreak of the virus. Campaigners fear that preparations are being hampered by both the travel restrictionsand the urgent demands the outbreak is putting on governments’ time and resources.
China, the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, is the key player in the climate talks. As the US is withdrawing from the Paris accord, whether or not China takes on strong new commitments on carbon will help determine whether Cop26 (the conference of the parties) is a success. But with the coronavirus taking hold across the country, the climate is likely be much less of a priority.
Italy also plays a vital role in this year’s talks as the country is officially co-host of Cop26 and some key pre-meetings are planned there.
Normally, at this stage before crunch climate talks, officials and politicians from the host nation would be convening meetings in key countries.
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A member of the council that advises Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, has died today after falling sick with Covid-19, the Associated Press reports, citing Iranian state radio.
Expediency council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi, 71, died at a Tehran hospital of the virus, making him the the first top official to succumb to the illness that is affecting members of the Islamic Republic’s leadership.
The council advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as settles disputes between the supreme leader and parliament, according to AP. The agency’s report continues:
His death comes as other top officials have contracted the virus in Iran, which has the highest death toll in the world after China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
Those sick included include Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, better known as Sister Mary, the English-speaking spokeswoman for the students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and sparked the 444-day hostage crisis, state media reported. Also sick is Iraj Harirchi, the head of an Iranian government task force on the coronavirus who tried to downplay the virus before falling ill.
Iran has reported 978 confirmed cases of the new virus with 54 deaths from the illness it causes, called COVID-19. Across the wider Mideast, there are over 1,150 cases of the new coronavirus, the majority of which are linked back to Iran.
Experts worry Iran’s percentage of deaths to infections, around 5.5%, is much higher than other countries, suggesting the number of infections in Iran may be much higher than current figures show.
Trying to stem the outbreak of the new coronavirus, Iran on Monday held an online-only briefing by its Foreign Ministry.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi opened the online news conference addressing the outbreak, dismissing an offer of help for Iran by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
A school in London, UK, Wimbledon College, is to close for at least a week and undergo a deep clean after a member of staff tested positive for coronavirus.
The school will be closed to all pupils as of Monday 2nd March. Parents are asked to read the letter from the Head Master sent on 1/3/2020'
— Wimbledon College (@Wimb_Coll) March 2, 2020
According to a letter to parents, the member of staff, who had recently travelled to Italy, was last in school on 25 February and has not had contact with pupils since the new half-term began.
“However, as some staff members are now classed as close contacts of a confirmed case of Covid-19 they are required to self-isolate as a precautionary measure for 14 days,” the letter says. As a result, the school is low on staff and must close.
Confirmed case of coronavirus at Wimbledon College, one of the most exclusive schools in south London.
— Leon Watson ♛ (@LeonWatson) March 2, 2020
A member of staff contracted COVID-19 after a recent trip to northern Italy. #CoronavirusOutbreak pic.twitter.com/j1fHYqZh4c
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G7 countries will take “concerted action” to limit the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on economic growth and their finance ministers will discuss by phone this week how best to act, the French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said on Monday.
According to Reuters:
“There will be a concerted action. Yesterday I spoke with the G7 president, the US. Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and this week we will have a meeting by phone of the finance G7 ministers to coordinate our responses,” Le Maire told France 2 television.
He also said that eurozone finance ministers would be in touch with each other and that he would speak with the ECB chief, Christine Lagarde.
“We must act so that this impact that we know will be important on growth, be as limited as possible,” he added.
Le Maire said that when the coronavirus outbreak was limited to China, he had expected the crisis to shave 0.1 percentage points off French economic growth this year.
“Now that the outbreak is reaching other countries, the impact on French growth will be much more significant,” he said, adding it was too early to provide a new figure.
He reiterated that the hotel, restaurant, air transport and event industries were the worst hit sectors in France.
As of Sunday, France has 130 confirmed cases of coronavirus, the head of the public health service, Jérôme Salomon, said on Sunday, raising the count from 100 a day earlier.
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A medical worker from the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre is one of three people confirmed to have coronavirus in Hertfordshire, UK, the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust has confirmed.
The trust said the risk to patients and staff at the centre in Northwood is very low. Patients were told they should continue to attend appointments. In a statement on its website, the trust said:
We are very well-prepared for incidents like this and the NHS and Public Health England are taking all necessary steps to manage the situation.
All individuals who were in contact with the clinician have been identified and the appropriate measures taken. The risk to patients and staff at Mount Vernon Cancer Centre is very low and we are working with individual patients to appropriately manage their care.
We would like to offer assurance that it remains safe for patients to attend Mount Vernon Cancer Centre as normal and ask patients to attend scheduled outpatients appointments.
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Boris Johnson to chair Cobra meeting
This is Damien Gayle taking over the live blog from London, where concerns are beginning to grow about the domestic spread of Covid-19, following a weekend in which the number of people infected in the UK climbed to 36.
Later this morning, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, is to chair a meeting of the UK government’s Cobra national security committee regarding the coronavirus. There is “little doubt” coronavirus will present a “significant challenge” for the UK, Johnson will tell those signing off the government’s battle plan to fight the disease. That’s expected at about 10.30am.
Also today, a leading union is to warn that outsourced hospital staff, including cleaners, porters and caterers, are being forced to work while ill because of lack of sick pay, even in the face of the coronavirus crisis.
As usual, throughout the day I will be posting the latest coronavirus news from the Guardian’s global network of correspondents, while also keeping you notified of the latest breaking news from the wire agencies. But I can’t do it all without your help, so if you have any news, tips, questions or suggestions, please let me know, either via email at damien.gayle@theguardian.com, or via my Twitter profile, @damiengayle.
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Summary
It’s been a very busy news day on this live coverage of coronavirus. Here are the main points:
- Australia has announced its first two cases of local transmission of Covid-19.
- Two people have died in the US – both in Washington state – and New York state has recorded its first case of Covid-19.
- Indonesia reports its first two cases.
- South Korea infections pass 4,000, with 22 fatalities.
- China reports 202 new cases, with 42 new deaths.
- Italy has confirmed 34 deaths from the virus.
- Iran raised its death toll from 43 to 54 with confirmed infections rising by more than half to 978.
Updated
Nike shuts European HQ after employee infection
Nike will close its European headquarters in the Netherlands on Monday and Tuesday after an employee was infected with the coronavirus, the Dutch news agency ANP said.
Citing an internal email, ANP reported overnight that the office in Hilversum would be disinfected. The employee was staying home in isolation for 14 days, it said. Roughly 2,000 employees from 80 countries work at the site.
A Nike representative could not immediately be reached for comment.
Dutch health authorities have reported 10 coronavirus infections since 28 February.
Updated
Iran risk is 'probably equivalent to Wuhan', says Australian health officer
Chant is talking about the risk in Iran and from people who have been to Iran: “It’s probably equivalent (risk) to the risk we have seen in Wuhan” – the centre of the outbreak in China.
Updated
Kerry Chant is now talking about how they identify close contacts with confirmed cases. She says health authorities are working through the process of getting in touch with contacts of people diagnosed.
There’s particular concern with regards to the health worker who has been diagnosed and who he has been in contact with.
She says it wouldn’t be surprising if the healthcare worker had been in contact with people over 65 years of age.
Updated
'It would be sensible not to shake hands' says Australian health minister
Hazzard has taken the floor again. He tells people he is not changing anything he is doing at the moment in his day to day life.
He suggests people stop shaking hands as a greeting, and instead pat each other on the back.
“It would be sensible not to shake hands”.
Hazzard also tells people to “exercise some degree of caution” when kissing.
Updated
We’re now hearing from Kerry Chant, the chief medical officer for the state of New South Wales.
She applauds the family for coming forward to be tested. Both members are now in Westmead hospital in Sydney.
She’s now talking about the male healthcare worker. They are unsure how he has acquired the virus. They are now tracing his close contacts. The infected man is in ICU.
Updated
Australia confirms community transmission of virus
Brad Hazzard, the New South Wales health minister is now speaking. He confirms that there are three new cases of Covid-19 in the case, taking the total to 9.
One of the new cases was a man who arrived from Iran on Saturday, the day before the travel ban on entry from Iran began. The man’s sister has also been confirmed as having the virus. She had not travelled to Iran so, he says it appears she caught the infection in NSW.
“It’s likely that the transmission has occurred from her brother,” Hazzard says.
A 53-year-old health worker has also tested positive.
Hazzard says that case is likely the second likely case of “person-to-person transmission”.
The health worker has continued worked and NSW health is now looking at where he has been working and who he has been working with.
He says there are no indications that anyone else is infected at the moment.
Updated
Australia reportedly confirms first local transmission
We are about to hear from the health minister in the Australian state of New South Wales, Brad Hazzard, and the state’s chief health officer, Kerry Chant.
Australia now has 30 confirmed cases of coronavirus. The numbers are moving very quickly ... the last four (at least) cases of the virus were in people entering the country from Iran.
Australia reported its first death from the virus on Sunday – a 78-year-old passenger who was repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.
The state of Tasmania recorded its first case of Covid-19 today. That person had returned from Iran.
We understand that this first case of transmission between people is from a patient to a doctor, and we will confirm that shortly.
All other cases have been people who have contracted the virus outside Australia.
Updated
Indonesia reports two coronavirus cases
The confirmation of two coronavirus cases in Indonesia - the first to be reported in the world’s fourth most populous country - follows mounting concern that the country is failing to identify transmission of the virus.
Health experts have warned that the lack of confirmed patients in Indonesia, a country of 272 million people, was surprising, especially given its close links to China.
Last month, researchers at Harvard University analysed air traffic from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak originated, and concluded case numbers were lower than expected. They also raised concerns about other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Cambodia. At the time, Indonesian health minister Terawan Agus Putranto called the study “insulting”.
Further concerns were raised when New Zealand and Malaysia reported that patients who tested positive for their disease within their borders had recently traveled to Indonesia.
On Saturday, Ary Hermawan of the Jakarta Post, questioned whether officials were being transparent, adding that the government appeared more worried “about the social and economic impact of a mass hysteria created by the virus outbreak than the outbreak itself”.
Indonesia’s Balitbangkes, the sole agency tasked with testing suspected coronavirus patients, had only concluded around 140 lab tests, he wrote. “To put things in perspective, as of 26 February, the United Kingdom has conducted 7,132 tests, 13 of which have come back positive.”
Details of the two cases confirmed by officials on Monday are not yet known, though Indonesian President Joko Widodo said both patients were Indonesians and that they had been hospitalised.
On Sunday Australia updated its travel restrictions for people arriving from Iran.
You need to isolate yourself in your home or hotel if you have been:
- in or transited through Iran on or after 1 March 2020
- transited through mainland China (not including Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan) in the past 14 days.
It also advises to self-isolate if you have been:
- in contact with a person sick with COVID-19 infection
- in mainland China in the past 14 days
Australia records first local transmission of virus – reports
We are hearing reports that Australian health authorities say there has been the first case of community transmission in the country. We are expecting a news conference from the health authorities in the state of New South Wales shortly.
Updated
Australian supermarkets say sales of long-life products have increased
On the reports of empty shelves in Coles and Woolworths as a result of people stockpiling food in Australia as a result of coronavirus, both supermarkets say there has been an increase in long-life product sales but say they’re well equipped.
A spokeswoman for Coles said the company had boosted deliveries this week to increase stock of long-life food and healthcare products.
“Like many retailers, we currently have a shortage of some antibacterial handwashes and hand sanitiser products due to high customer demand. We are continuing to work with our suppliers to maintain availability for customers.”
A spokesman for Woolworths said they’ve been restocking shelves after the weekend.
“We’ve seen a sharp increase in demand for long life pantry items and household staples in recent days, which has led to partial stock shortages across some of our stores,” he said.
“We have good stock levels to draw on in our distribution centres and will continue working closely with our suppliers to maintain supply.”
Empty toilet paper shelves in the IGA in Castlecrag, Sydney, on Monday pic.twitter.com/JqZQ2HfPZ5
— Alison Rourke (@AlisonRourke) March 2, 2020
New England Journal of medicine study on 1,099 Covid-19 patients
In case some of you may have missed this from Friday, the New England Journal of Medicine published its latest report on the coronavirus, in which it extracted data regarding 1,099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 from 552 hospitals in 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China through January 29, 2020.
You can read the whole study here, but here are the main points:
- The median age of the patients was 47 years and 41.9% of the patients were female.
- 0.9% of the patients were younger than 15 years of age.
- 5% were admitted to intensive care, and 1.4% died.
- Only 1.9% of the patients had a history of direct contact with wildlife.
- The most common symptoms were fever (43.8% on admission and 88.7% during hospitalisation) and cough (67.8%).
- Among the overall population, 23.7% had at least one coexisting illness (e.g. hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
- On admission, the degree of severity of Covid-19 was categorised as non-severe in 926 patients and severe in 173 patients.
- The median incubation period was 4 days.
- Many did not have abnormal radiologic findings (X-ray/CT scan).
- A majority of the patients (58.0%) received intravenous antibiotic therapy, and 35.8% received oseltamivir therapy.
- Oxygen therapy was administered in 41.3% and mechanical ventilation in 6.1%; higher percentages of patients with severe disease received these therapies
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Thailand reports 43rd case of virus
Thailand has reported one new coronavirus case, bringing the total number of such cases in the country to 43 since January, a senior health official said on Monday.
The new case is a 22-year-old Thai woman who works with another Thai patient, a Thai driver for foreign tourists, Sukhum Kanchanaphimai, the permanent secretary of the health ministry, said in a news conference.
So far 31 coronavirus patients have recovered and returned home and 11 are still being treated in hospitals.
Australia reports another case from passenger arriving from Iran
We are hearing that the Australian state of Tasmania has its first coronavirus case, a 40-year-old man who travelled from Iran, via Melbourne to Launceston. People on the same flight as the man are being contacted by health authorities. He arrived in Tasmania on Saturday, prior to restrictions on entry from Iran being introduced.
Indonesia reports first cases of Covid-19
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Monday two Indonesians had tested positive for coronavirus, marking the first confirmed cases in the world’s fourth most populous country.
The two had been hospitalised, Widodo told reporters at the presidential palace in Jakarta. He did not specify where the patients were being treated.
Indonesia confirms its first two cases of coronavirus - a 64 yo woman and daughter, 31, from the Jakarta satellite city of Depok. Health minister says their cases were confirmed on Sunday and they are already in a hospital isolation ward
— amanda hodge (@hodgeamanda) March 2, 2020
Updated
Stock markets rally on stimulus hopes
Shares across Asia Pacific have returned to positive territory after a week of heavy losses on the hope of stimulus measures from central banks.
In Japan the Nikkei is up 1.4% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong has risen 0.9%. In Shanghai the Composite is up nearly 3% while Seoul is 0.9% to the good. Australia’s ASX200 is still off 1% but that’s an improvement on earlier when it plunged 2.7%. The Aussie dollar, a China proxy, has been under pressure for weeks but recovered slightly to US65.25c.
The FTSE100 is expected to bounce by 1.89% this morning, according to futures trading. Wall Street is seen opening up 0.34%.
Quite the turnaround in financial markets from what was seen earlier in the session.
— David Scutt (@Scutty) March 2, 2020
The reversal largely mirrors the price action in Chinese stocks . CSI300 was +3.2% at lunch, its highs for the session. pic.twitter.com/G5KFYQTMlY
The US Fed is widely expected to cut rates by 50 basis points when its policy makers meet on 17-18th of this month – if not before. It’s priced in, as traders say.
Australia’s Reserve Bank will most likely get there first with a cut of at least 0.25% when it convenes its monthly monetary policy tomorrow. The Bank of Japan said on Monday that it would take all action possible to stabilise financial markets.
US bond yields, which we talked about earlier, have recovered a bit as well. It’s a crucial part of the markets equation. Allianz chief economist Mohamed El-Erian says it shows there will be a lot of volatility around when the European and US markets start up later.
Back to 1.11%. If nothing else, we should view these pre-market fluctuations as a forward indicator of a volatile session on Monday and the immediate future. #economy #markets #stocks #bonds https://t.co/reEdHlXvxS
— Mohamed A. El-Erian (@elerianm) March 2, 2020
And in case you’re wondering, the Vix volatility index, sometimes called the “fear index”, is up slightly to 40.11.
Updated
Australians empty aisles of essentials at some supermarkets
Australian officials have been telling people there’s no need to stock up on essentials due to the coronavirus. But it would seem many are not listening.
Below are some pictures from Woolworths supermarket in Northbridge, on Sydney’s lower North Shore. The photos were taken at around 3pm. A store employee said many of the aisles in the photos had been empty for a few hours. One shopper said it was so busy it felt like trying to buy goods on Christmas eve.
Woolworths supermarket in Northbridge (Sydney) at 3pm on Monday. In order top left to bottom right: empty shelves including toilet paper, hand wash, tissues and Panadol. pic.twitter.com/MXr1SreH2F
— Alison Rourke (@AlisonRourke) March 2, 2020
China reports fifth case of 'imported' coronavirus
The Chinese city of Shenzen, which borders Hong Kong, has identified its first case of imported coronavirus.
The China Daily says the male patient surnamed Sun, 35, flew from London to Hong Kong on 27 February, where he took a ferry to cross the Shekou port to arrive in Shenzhen the next day, according to the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission.
Sun has been working in Bristol in the United Kingdom for the past two years and has not traveled to Hubei before, the outlet said.
Beijing reported two imported coronavirus cases from Iran on Sunday, the first in the capital since the outbreak began in Wuhan. Ningxia Hui autonomous region confirmed two imported cases from Iran last week.
Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong province has confirmed one imported case of novel #coronavirus disease (#COVID-19), local health authorities said.
— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) March 2, 2020
Japan sumo tournament to be held behind closed doors
Sumo wrestling has become the latest sport to be affected by the coronavirus outbreak, after officials decided that the spring tournament would be held behind closed doors.
“To those many who were looking forward to this, we are sorry for this huge inconvenience,” Hakkaku, the chairman of the Japan Sumo Association, told reporters.
“There were various viewpoints, but there was an absolute desire to hold it for the sake of the fans.”
The tournament, which opens in Osaka next Sunday, will be televised by public broadcaster NHK, but will be canceled if a wrestler is found to have contracted the virus, Hakkaku added, according to Kyodo news agency.
The decision to ban spectators from the 15-day tournament - one of six major sumo competitions held throughout the year - comes after Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said sports and cultural events should be cancelled or scaled down until the middle of the month.
Preseason baseball games are being played in empty stadiums through to 15 March, while Japan’s professional football league said that all 94 matches scheduled to run through to the same date would be postponed. Rugby’s Top League has postponed 16 matches, while the Japan Racing Association is holding horse races without spectators, and keirin cycling races are being held behind closed doors until 11 March.
On Sunday, just a few hundred elite runners took part in the Tokyo Marathon, after 38,000 amateur runners were told they would not be able to participate. Members of the public had been discouraged from turning out to watch the race, which last year drew more than a million spectators.
While Tokyo 2020 organisers insist there are no plans to cancel this summer’s Olympics, the coronavirus has disrupted preparations for the Games, due to open on 24 July. Last week, Tokyo postponed training for Olympic volunteers and Toshiro Muto, chief executive of the organising committee, said it would scale back the torch relay, due to begin in Fukushima in late March.
Updated
South Australia plans to amend its Public Health Act to allow for the compulsory quarantine of people with coronavirus.
Premier Steven Marshall announced the move on Monday, saying:
My number one priority is the safety of all South Australians.
This is about getting on the front foot and making sure we have the legislative necessities in place as soon as possible.
BREAKING: SA Government will introduce legislation to Parliament tomorrow to strengthen laws to allow people to be detained if they are engaging in conduct that risks spreading disease #coronavirus @abcadelaide pic.twitter.com/NNLl4x0mah
— Stacey Lee (@Staceylee_) March 2, 2020
The move has the support of the state’s Chief Public Health Officer, Nicola Spurrier, who said it would provide “clarity” about government powers.
The proposed amendments will allow the chief public health officer to say where a particular person should be detained for quarantine purposes, and allow for the police to be called in our court orders issued to ensure compliance.
Sixteen temporary hospitals have been set up in gyms and other buildings in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province to cope with demand caused by the coronavirus.
These images of some of one of those temporary hospitals, Wuhan Living Room Temporary Hospital, were taken last week but released today.
The captain of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, Gennaro Arma, has been praised by passengers for his frequent messages and strong leadership during their gruelling quarantine.
In a profile of Arma by AFP (which you can read here), the Italian says the experience gave him “a few grey hairs.”
In one of his updates to the ship’s 2,600 passengers, he said:
For all of you who are concerned about me, I’m extremely moved by your kindness and I’d like to reassure you all that I’m absolutely fine. I’m very much the same captain that I was 12 days ago, just with the addition of a few new grey hairs.
That nursing home is under close monitoring after five residents and a staff member tested positive to the virus, and 50 more showed respiratory symptoms, Hallie Golden reports.
One of the confirmed cases is a woman in her 70s, who is in a serious condition. The man who died was also in his 70s.
There are 108 residents and 180 staff members at the aged care home, and officials said that 27 residents and 25 staff members had respiratory symptoms. They are all being tested for coronavirus.
More than two dozen firefighters and police who have responded to calls at the centre over the past two weeks have also been placed under isolation.
Dr Jeff Duchin, health officer for Seattle and King county, said he “would not be surprised to find additional cases” among residents.
We are very concerned about an outbreak in a setting where there are many older people, as we would be wherever people who are susceptible might be gathering.
The Australian Academy of Science has published a fact-check video on the coronavirus with Professor Raina MacIntyre, a global biosecurity expert and head of the biosecurity program at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales.
MacIntyre said this about how the virus spreads, and why global health agencies keep telling you to wash your hands:
We know that the load of virus, the number of viruses you can find, is higher in the lungs, deep in the lungs, than in the throat or the nose.
But we also know that like Sars and Mers coronavirus is spread by droplets... large respiratory droplets coming from the throat and the nose.
[It also spreads] through contact. So contaminated surfaces. If someone has coughed or sneezed on a handrail or a table or a chair and you put your hand there you can then infect yourself.
Second death in US
Health officials in Washington state have confirmed another death from coronavirus – the second in the US and the state.
A man in his 70s with underlying health conditions who had been hospitalised with Covid-19 died on Saturday at a Kirkland nursing facility, Public Health – Seattle & King County said on Sunday local time.
A man in his 50s who died on Saturday in King County after contracting the virus was the first US fatality.
#BREAKING: 2nd U.S. death from #coronavirus reported in Seattle's King County, Washington state public health officials say. The first reported death Saturday was also in King County https://t.co/yRXHRxnrPe
— KPIX 5 (@KPIXtv) March 2, 2020
The department said three other new reported cases are older people in critical condition, Reuters reported. In total, 10 cases have been reported in King County. All of the four new cases were residents of a Kirkland nursing facility that reported two prior cases.
With regards to South Korea, the Australian government is advising people to “reconsider your need to travel” to Daegu and Cheongdo, the centre of the infections.
Australia advises against travel to 10 Lombardy and 1 Veneto towns
I’m just looking at the detailed advice for Australians travelling to Italy. The Level 3 advice (“reconsider your need to travel”) to northern Italy includes 10 towns in Lombardy and one in Veneto.
Lombardy towns:
- Codogno
- Castiglione d’Adda
- Casalpusterlengo
- Fombio
- Maleo
- Somaglia
- Bertonico
- Terranova dei Passerini
- Castelgerundo and
- San Fiorano
Veneto:
- Vo’ Euganeo
Outside that area, the advice is Level 2, which is “exercise a high degree of caution”.
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Murphy says the travel ban is a way of slowing things down. He says in Italy and South Korea the outbreaks are confined and localised and that travel bans were not needed for those countries at the moment.
In the case of Iran are very such a high risk that a travel ban is worth doing it because it will slow it down the number of cases.
Australia's chief medical officer says concerns remain over Iran
We’re now hearing from Brendan Murphy, Australia’s chief medical officer. He emphasises the risk from travel to Iran.
I think as we have been saying for some time, these additional cases that we have seen over the weekend from Iran were expected and I think as we also said over the weekend we had a very high index suspicion that the caseload in a run was much greater than being reported, because of the death rate.
Murphy says the most important thing for anyone coming from an area of risk is to monitor their health and isolate if they become unwell, with any sort of flu-like symptoms, contact their doctor or the hospital and let them know.
“That is the time when people are most infectious is when they are symptomatic,” he says.
The most important thing, anyone who has come back from a country with a COVID-19 outbreak who gets unwell in any way, please isolate yourself and contact medical advice.
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Greg Hunt also says they are changing entry advice to Japan for people travelling home from Italy or South Korea.
The chief health and medical offices have recommended that if you are returning from Italy or South Korea, and you work as a healthcare worker, or as a residential aged care worker, you should not attend your regular work for 14 days. That is an additional level of protection which has been advised by the Chief health and medical offices and accepted by the Australian government.
Australia raises travel advice to Italy
We’re now hearing a press conference from Australia’s health minister, Greg Hunt. He says coronavirus is now in 67 countries globally.
Australia has 29 cases, he says: 15 who had travelled from China, 10 cases from the Diamond Princess cruise ship (including one man who died on Sunday). In addition there are four cases of people who have travelled from Iran. They are all under treatment and are tracing people who may have been in contact with them.
He announces the Australian travel advice to Italy has changed:
“That has been raised to level two for the whole of the country. And Level three for selected towns in the north of. Level two means it has a high degree of awareness and Level three is to reconsider traveller.”
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South Korean cases of virus pass 4,000
We’re getting new figures on South Korea .... 476 new cases taking their total number of infections to 4,212. The country has also recorded 22 fatalities, a jump of 4 from yesterday.
It’s believed 60% of confirmed cases are linked to a branch of Shincheonji religious sect in the southeastern city of Daegu.
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Despite that poor Chinese data, stocks markets are recovering across Asia Pacific on the prospect of rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve that we referred to earlier.
The Nikkei is Tokyo is up 0.28%, the Kospi in Seoul is up 0.95%, the Hang Seng has risen 0.7% at the opening and Shanghai is up 1.2%. Oil has also rebounded on hopes of a production cut by Opec.
Market now sees FOUR rate cuts from the Fed by January 2021. So significant policy support is arguably now priced in.
— David Ingles (@DavidInglesTV) March 1, 2020
Questions: Is this too much now? Have markets (again) overshot the target? pic.twitter.com/LwDqYG9WBG
Chinese factory slowdown is sharpest on record – survey
Chinese factory activity slumped to its sharpest contraction on record, according to a survey released on Monday, after the virus crippled manufacturing in February.
The closely watched Caixin/Markit manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) tumbled to 40.3 last month, the lowest level since the survey began in 2004, and down sharply from the 51.1 reading in January, Reuters reports. The 50 mark separates growth from contraction.
It follows official PMI data on Saturday that showed a reading of 35. it tracks larger companies while the Caixin PMI tracks smaller companies.
JUST In:#China's Caixin #manufacturing #PMI fell to 40.3 in Feb, vs previous 51.1, expected 46.
— YUAN TALKS (@YuanTalks) March 2, 2020
Official PMI mainly tracks large companies, mostly SOEs. Caixin PMI tracks smaller companies. https://t.co/2m5A6TYOR8
Just breaking, Caixin / Markit PMI survey of China's manufacturing sector shows a record low in February, 40.3 - way, way below the forecasts (again).
— Finbarr Bermingham (@fbermingham) March 2, 2020
The number was much worse than expected by forecasters and even worse than the depths of the financial crisis in 2008-09.
The online giant Amazon has confirmed that two of its employees in Milan have tested positive for coronavirus.
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New York state governor confirms first case of Covid-19
New York state has confirmed its first coronavirus case, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Twitter Sunday evening, calling on residents to remain calm and not have any “undue anxiety.”
Cuomo said the patient is a woman in her 30s who contracted the virus while traveling abroad in Iran. He said the woman is in quarantine in her home.
“The patient has respiratory symptoms, but is not in a serious condition and has been in a controlled situation since arriving in New York,” a Cuomo statement said.
“There is no cause for surprise – this was expected. As I said from the beginning, it was a matter of when, not if there would be a positive case of novel coronavirus in New York.”
Cuomo added that the “general risk remains low in New York”.
We have learned of the 1st positive case of COVID-19 in NY. The patient contracted the virus while in Iran & is isolated
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) March 2, 2020
There is no reason for undue anxiety—the general risk remains low in NY. We are diligently managing this situation &will provide info as it becomes available. pic.twitter.com/rLnObvrg3R
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We’re seeing a news conference from the Australian city of Melbourne, where more cases of Covid-19 have been detected.
Four new virus cases were confirmed on the weekend in people returning from Iran before the ban on entry from Iran was imposed in Australia.
New South Wales health authorities confirmed the state’s fifth and six cases as a man in his 40s and a woman in her 50s who both returned to Sydney from Iran. The two cases are not connected, and they arrived on different days.
New cases in Victoria and Queensland also came from Iran.
A Victorian woman was confirmed as testing positive on Sunday after landing in Melbourne on Friday.
In Queensland, a 63-year-old Gold Coast beautician was confirmed as having the virus on Saturday after arriving on Monday.
Brett Sutton, the chief health officer for the state of Victoria said people who are asked to isolate themselves need to think about how they can organise access to necessities:
People don’t need to rush out and purchase goods in a rush, currently. We are telling people to go about their normal lives. But they do need to think about what it would mean, should they become a case, should they be infected with Covid-19, and therefore need to isolate at home for two or three weeks, or indeed to look after a carer for two or three weeks at home.
So what are the things that they need to think about in order to manage the situation? Pet food? Food for themselves. Understand how to care for themselves. Understand how others could care for them should they require it, or if they have emergencies.
That doesn’t require rushing out to a supermarket today or this week, but it does require you to think about it, make some plans and understand what your needs are. If that’s medicines, food, other consumables, then that’s reasonable to plan for, and to maybe bring that into your purchasing over the next couple of weeks.
South Korean sect leader tested for virus
South Korea is the worst affected countries outside of China in terms of coronavirus cases. We are waiting today’s update, but as of Sunday, 3,736 people were infected, with 17 deaths.
A large proportion of the cases are connected to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu. The leader of the group, Lee Man-hee, was tested on Staruday and is awaiting results, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Earlier, the group said he has been talks with a local public health centre over scheduling his test but corrected this to say that he had already taken the test, Yonhap said.
Lee has been in self-quarantine at his home in Gyeonggi Province, near Seoul.
Nearly 95% of the church’s 239,000 followers had been tested for Covid-19 as of Saturday, Yonhap says. Of them, 8,563 members and 393 “trainees” have shown symptoms, according to the authorities.
Here’s an excerpt of Yonhap’s report:
Some 4,000 Shincheonji followers across the country have not been reached, so local governments have been working together with police to trace them, they group added.
In a statement addressed to South Korea’s political leaders Sunday, Shincheonji asked them to stop portraying the sect as a criminal organisation.
“We’re working with regional authorities the best we can to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” the statement said. “We’d like to ask for your help so that we’ll continue to remain cooperative in these efforts.”
The Seoul metropolitan government, however, referred the case to the prosecution, demanding an investigation into Lee and 12 heads of the sect’s branches for alleged homicide, infliction of injury and violating regulations on preventing infections.
“They have refused to undergo tests for the virus, and they have not taken any measures to have its believers cooperate with the authorities to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” the city said, explaining reasons for the move.
The group is also suspected of providing inaccurate lists of its followers, which would constitute the obstruction of business of authorities, according to the city.
As for the group’s claim that leader Lee underwent the virus test, city officials said it is yet to be officially confirmed.
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China reports 202 new confirmed cases, 42 new deaths
The Chinese health commission’s daily national briefing has reported 202 new confirmed cases of coronavirus and 42 new deaths.
The total confirmed cases has passed 80,000 for the first time. Of the 80,026 confirmed cases, 44,462 (56%) have recovered and 2,912 (or 3.6%) have died.
Hubei province, where the outbreak has been concentrated, recorded 196 of the 202 new cases and all of the new deaths.
One more post on Australian interest rates. The doyen of economic forecasters, Bill Evans of Westpac bank, says developments over the weekend over the coronavirus impact have prompted him to change his prediction froman April cut to tomorrow.
He sees the RBA cutting the cash rate by 25 basis points tomorrow to 0.5%, and then again in April to take the rate to 0.25%.
Bill Evans now looking for RBA rate cut tomorrow, another in April then QE #ausbiz
— Sean Callow (@seandcallow) March 2, 2020
https://t.co/p7C4Tp7aNF
WHO warns of spread to countries with weaker health systems
The WHO chief has said the spread of the coronavirus to countries with weaker health systems is “one of our biggest concerns”.
On Sunday the organisation released US$15 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund to help fund global efforts to contain the COVID-19 virus. The same day the WHO upgraded the global risk assessment for Covid-19 as “very high” – its highest level.
The potential spread of the #coronavirus to countries with weaker health systems is one of our biggest concerns. @WHO thanks @UNCERF for releasing $15 million to help these countries battle the spread of the virus. https://t.co/4VlGKHhfNd
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) March 1, 2020
Updated
Interest rate cuts in Australia and US a 'virtual certainty'
We’ve seen the stock markets crashing for a week now. While that’s bad if you hold shares and have a lot of your pension funds invested in equities, other movements on the financial markets are arguably more significant, especially the continued fall in US government bond yields.
The implied yield on US 10-Year Treasury futures traded below 1% for the first time on Monday morning. This is because investors are dumping risky assets like shares and buying government securities. But more demand pushes up the price of bonds, forcing down the yield, or interest paid on them.
The result is that interest rate cuts in Australia – where the Reserve Bank meets on Tuesday – and the US are a near-certainty.
After Jay #Powell's remarks Friday, a #FederalReserve rate cut in March seems a done deal. Markets give a 50% chance to a 50 bps cut. pic.twitter.com/nBwDpKKG76
— jeroen blokland (@jsblokland) March 1, 2020
Here’s Michael McCarthy again from CMC Markets:
The surge in bond yields comes ahead of tomorrow’s Reserve Bank of Australia board meeting. Short-term markets indicate traders think an interest rate cut tomorrow is a virtual certainty. The combination of lower interest rate expectations and tumbling commodity prices propelled AUD/USD to a new eleven-year low this morning.
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China's factory activity contracts at fastest recorded pace
Factory activity in China contracted at the fastest pace ever in February, even worse than during the global financial crisis, highlighting the colossal damage from the coronavirus outbreak on the world’s second-largest economy, Reuters reports.
China’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to a record low of 35.7 in February from 50.0 in January, the National Bureau of Statistics said, well below the 50-point mark that separates monthly growth from contraction.
The data foreshadows that the economic disruption from the virus will likely extend to the whole first quarter of 2020 since the disease outbreak has caused widespread transport curbs and required tough public health measures that have paralysed economic activity.
“We expect year-on-year growth in all activity data to be negative in January-February as China’s economy has been severely constrained since 23 January,” said analysts at Nomura in a note, citing the extended lunar new year holiday and the slow resumption of businesses.
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Japanese stock market opens down 1.3%
Trading has started in Tokyo where the Nikkei is down 1.3% in the first few minutes.
It’s not all bad though – the Kospi index in Seoul is up 0.5%.
Japanese markets just opened, and the Nikkei is down 1.3% amid further global spread of the Coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/cIvqBzGLTf
— Jake Webster (@JakeDaveWebster) March 2, 2020
Egypt records second case of virus
Egypt’s has recorded its second case of Covid-19. A statement on Facebook from the health ministry said it was a foreign citizen, who was taken to an isolation unit in hospital and was receiving the necessary medical care.
Egypt’s first case was also a foreign national, who was the first confirmed case of Covid-19 on the African continent. Cases in Algeria and Nigeria were announced last week.
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Australian stock market drops 2.7%
We’re now seeing the Australian market has dropped 2.7%. The Japanese markets are about to open and we’ll bring you news on that shortly.
Australian dollar drops nearly 1%
The Australian dollar is in freefall this morning as investors expect the economic impact of the coronavirus to worsen and weaken demand for the country’s industrial commodities.
The Aussie has fallen 0.84% in the current trading session, taking it to US65.18c.
Is the worst over for the $AUDUSD? Can the battler recover from its lows? Lots of questions in traders' minds as the $AUD traded lower to 0.6506 level last week - an 11-year low against the $USD. What can pull the $AUD up in the ST?#Forex #Trading #FX
— AxiTrader (@AxiTrader) March 1, 2020
Losses may exceed deposits pic.twitter.com/FFaJtt6hjn
Other commodity currencies such as the canadian dollar and the Brazilian real have seen similar falls.
Michael McCarthy of CMC Markets in Sydney explains that the weekend’s poor economic data from China will lead to lowered expectations of growth in the world’s second-biggest economy, subduing demand all over the world:
China data over the weekend offered hard evidence of the negative impact of the COVID-19 virus, and growth fears are likely to dominate trading today. The official PMI reads in China released on Saturday showed both manufacturing and non-manufacturing activity contracted during February. The manufacturing index plummeted to 35.7, from a neutral 50.5 previously, and non-manufacturing activity fell from an expansionary 54.1 to a shrinking 29.6.
This macro evidence of the economic impact of the coronavirus could see economists dropping their estimates of GDP growth in China, with potential knock-on effects. Today’s read on the Caixin manufacturing PMI, due mid-session, is forecast at 46.0. A big miss on this read could keep pressure on regional currencies, shares and industrial commodities.
Read more about those very bad Chinese figures here with this report from our economics writer Phillip Inman:
Australian markets fall
In Australian the stock market opened down 2.2% on Monday morning, marking the seventh straight trading day of losses as the coronavirus spreads.
The S&P/ASX200 index was down 144.2 points at the start of trade on Monday.
The decline means the ASX has now gone down over 10% in the last seven trading days.
Among the biggest drops at the opening of trade were Bega down 10%, and Fortescue down 9.92%.
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Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus outbreak. Before we kick off, here’s a summary of the top points so far.
- Italy has confirmed 34 deaths from the virus.
- Iran raised its death toll from 43 to 54 with confirmed infections rising by more than half to 978.
- The number of people in Germany infected rose to 129 on Sunday, up from 66 on Saturday.
- Non-essential British embassy staff in Tehran are being withdrawn with immediate effect due to the virus
- France’s confirmed cases has risen to 130, from 100.
- The Trump administration has accused the public of overreacting to the impact of the coronavirus on the economy, and insisted that stocks would bounce back.
- Oman has suspended Italian tourist flights from Salala airport for a month, in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus.
You can get up to date with all our stories using the links below.
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