Caixin’s coverage of the new coronavirus
Saturday, March 14, 12:30 p.m.
The global death toll from Covid-19, the respiratory disease that first made itself known in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, has passed a grim threshold. It has now killed more than 5,000 people around the world.
An outbreak in Italy has rocketed past others in Japan and South Korea, with more than 17,600 cases now diagnosed — the most of any nation outside China. It also has the most deaths by f, at more than 1,200.
Meanwhile in China, official figures suggest the outbreak is more-or-less under control. The country reported just 11 new cases on Friday, including seven imported from overseas, and 13 deaths, according to (link in Chinese) the National Health Commission.
Provincial disease control authorities in the outbreak epicenter of Hubei, which has been under lockdown for seven weeks, declared Friday (link in Chinese) that all cities except Wuhan are now classified as places with a medium-to-low-risk of coronavirus outbreak. Wuhan is still identified being high risk, with the threshold being more than 50 total cases and at least one infection cluster over the prior 14 days.
Hong Kong extended mandatory quarantine measures Friday night to inbound travelers who had been in some regions of Italy, France, Germany, Japan and Spain, over the past two weeks, requiring them to self-isolate at home for 14 days. The region’s government has issued a travel alert for European countries in the Schengen Area, which has reported more than 36,000 cases and over 1,500 deaths.
Local elections delayed in the U.S. and the U.K.
Downing Street said Friday that local and mayoral elections in England will be postponed for a year to May 2021 due to the pandemic, the BBC reported. The elections were to be held when some believe coronavirus infections will peak in the country. The delay came after the Electoral Commission suggested on Thursday that elections should be suspended until the autumn to “mitigate” the impact of the virus.
The last time Britain postponed elections was in 2001, when they were moved back one month due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
In the U.S, the state of Louisiana pushed back its Democratic and Republican presidential primaries on Friday, CNBC reported citing a spokesman for Louisiana’s secretary of state. It is the first state in America to delay presidential primaries in response to the Covid-19. The primaries, which were to be held on April 4, will be postponed to June 20 and July 25.
In other coronavirus news
• Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has tested negative for Covid-19, according to a Philippine senator and ally of the president, Christopher Lawrence Go, who was also cleared of the virus after they both met officials who had been in contact with infected people, AP reported. The country activated its highest emergency response level on Friday, and imposed 30-day social distancing measures in Metropolitan Manila on advice from health officials.
• The 2020 London Marathon, which was scheduled to take place on April 26, has been postponed to October 4, its website announced Friday.
• In France, tourist hotspots including the Eiffel Tower, Louvre Museum and Moulin Rouge have shut, after the French government banned gatherings of more than 100 people, the Straits Times reported.
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a video published on social media that all schools in the country will be closed from Monday.
Compiled by Lu Yutong
