People wear face masks to protect against the spread of the new coronavirus as they visit the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. (AP Photo/File)
Coronavirus outbreak LIVE updates:India on Friday pulled out of shooting World Cup scheduled next month in Cyprus, Middleast, citing the novel coronavirus threat there as the epidemic continued to hinder on sporting events across the world. The shotgun world cup, recognised by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), will be held in the country’s capital Nicosia from March 4 to 13.
Thirty-four people have died in Iran so far because of coronavirus infections, a health ministry spokesperson of the country said on Friday. The total number of people diagnosed with the disease is 388, he said in an announcement on state TV. The Swiss government announced an immediate ban Friday on all events — public and private — in the country involving more than 1,000 people as a measure to halt the spread of COVID-19. This will go on until at least March 15, officials said.
Meanwhile, the global markets were headed for the worst week since the depths of the 2008 financial crisis as investors ditched risky assets on fears the coronavirus would become a pandemic and trigger a global recession. The benchmark equity indices on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE) crashed over 2.5 per cent each in opening trade Friday amid the global market selloff.
People wearing masks to prevent contracting the coronavirus wait in line to buy masks at a department store in Seoul, South Korea (Reuters)
Highlights
India on Friday pulled out of next month's shooting World Cup in Cyprus, citing the novel coronavirus threat there as the epidemic continued to wreak havoc on sporting calendars across the world. The shotgun world cup, recognised by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), is scheduled to be held in Nicosia from March 4 to 13. The Indian team withdrew from the tournament on the advice of the government, a National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) source told PTI. "The coronavirus threat is the only reason we are pulling out and it has been done on the advice of central agencies," he said.
Two South Koreans workers working in the construction work of Obra-C power project here, have been asked to work from home following coronavirus scare. HR Manager Lal Babu Jha of South Korea Doosan company told PTI, "Two workers, who came back from South Korea respectively on February 25 and 26, have been told to work from home and not move out of their houses." "South Koreans workers Don Kim and Denam Kim reached Obra after spending their holidays in South Korea. Both were screened at the New Delhi airport and at Varanasi airport. They were not found infected by coronavirus," he said. "However, as a precaution, both workers have been asked to stay in their houses for 15 days," Jha added.
After facing sanctions and the risk of war amid tensions with the United States, Iran's Shiite theocracy now has an enemy in the new coronavirus that infiltrated its leadership in plain view of state-controlled media and despite repeated denials of any looming threat. The outbreak of the new virus in Iran has been dramatic _ the head of Iran's task force to stop the illness, known as COVID-19, was seen coughing, sweating and wheezing across televised interviews before acknowledging he was infected. (Reuters)
Nigeria's first confirmed coronovirus case entered the country on a Turkish Airlines flight that travelled via Istanbul, the Lagos State Commissioner for Health told a news conference on Friday.
The man, who travelled from Milan, Italy, and landed on the evening of Feb. 24, spent the night in a hotel near the airport, and continued to his place of work in neighbouring Ogun state, Commissioner Akin Abayomi said. He was treated on the evening of Feb. 26 at his company's medical facility before health practitioners there called government biosecurity officers, who transferred him on Feb. 27 to a containment facility in Yaba, Lagos.
The man is the first confirmed case in sub-Saharan Africa. (Reuters)
Thirty-four people have died so far in Iran because of coronavirus infections, a health ministry spokesman said on Friday. The total number of people diagnosed with the disease is 388, he said in an announcement on state TV. (Reuters)
The Swiss government announced an immediate ban Friday on all ``public and private`` events in the country involving more than 1,000 people as a measure to halt the spread of COVID-19.
The measure will last until at least March 15, officials said. Among the events that will be affected are the annual Geneva International Motor Show, which was due to take place from March 5-15 and draws tens of thousands of visitors every year. Organizers of the auto show did not provide immediate comment on the Swiss government announcement.
``We aware that this measure will have a significant impact on public life,'' said Switzerland's interior minister, Alain Berset. (AP)
The United Kingdom now has 19 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus after Wales identified its first case and two new cases were found in England, health authorities said on Friday. "The total number of UK cases is 19," news agency Reuters quoted health ministry as saying.
Mongolia's President Battulga Khaltmaa and other government officials have submitted to a 14-day quarantine after returning home from their visit to China, the state news agency Montsame reported on Friday. Battulga is the first head of state to visit China since the country began implementing special measure to curb the coronavirus outbreak in January. He arrived in Beijing with Foreign Minister Tsogtbaatar Damdin and other senior government officials on Thursday, and held a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. They were taken into quarantine as soon as they arrived in Mongolia as a precautionary measure, Montsame said. (Reuters)
Forty four more people have died of the novel coronavirus in China, taking the death toll in the outbreak to 2,788, Chinese health officials said on Friday, amid growing criticism from experts and the public that the epidemic would have been less severe if the authorities acted when the first confirmed case was reported in December. Among the deaths reported on Thursday, 41 were from the epicentre Hubei province and its capital Wuhan, two in Beijing and one in Xinjiang, the National Health Commission said in its daily report. A total of 44 new deaths and 327 confirmed cases were reported on Thursday from all over China, far lower than the earlier days, it said. The overall confirmed cases in the mainland have reached 78,824 by the end of Thursday. In all, 2,788 people have died of the disease so far, it said. As virulence of the disease slowed, criticism of Chinese officials' attempts to hide the outbreak in its early stage was highlighted by the official media on Thursday in a rare public criticism of the system of secrecy in governance. (PTI)
A Kyrgyz citizen staying in Japan has tested positive for coronavirus and will be hospitalised there until full recovery, Kyrgyz deputy foreign minister Nurlan Abdrakhmanov said on Friday. The man was one of the crew of the Diamond Princess cruise ship berthed in Japan's port of Yokohama. Kyrgyzstan has reported no coronavuris cases on its own territory. (Reuters)
Hong Kong authorities said on Friday they quarantined a pet dog of a coronavirus patient after its nasal and oral samples tested “weak positive” for the virus, though they added they did not yet have evidence that it can be transmitted to pets. The dog did not have any symptoms. The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) said it will conduct further tests to confirm if the dog had been infected with the virus or if the samples were only the result of environmental contamination. “At present, the AFCD does not have evidence that pet animals can be infected … or can be a source of infection to people,” it said in a statement. Read more
US intelligence agencies are monitoring the global spread of coronavirus and the ability of governments to respond, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday, warning that there were concerns about how India would cope with a widespread outbreak. While there are only a few known cases in India, one source said the country's available countermeasures and the potential for the virus to spread given India's dense population was a focus of serious concern. US intelligence agencies are also focusing on Iran, where the country's deputy health minister has fallen ill during a worsening outbreak. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday the United States was "deeply concerned" Tehran may have covered up details about the spread of coronavirus. (Reuters)
The UN Security Council on Thursday declared that it would adopt humanitarian exemptions to the heavy economic sanctions imposed on North Korea to help the impoverished country fight the novel coronavirus, news agency AFP reported quoting Germany's ambassador to the UN. "The coronavirus issue was discussed and the committee immediately had given permission to export the equipment" used to fight the illness, said Christoph Heusgen, who heads the United Nations body that applies the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang in an effort to force it to give up its ballistic and nuclear programmes.
A senior figure in Iran’s government, who sits just a few seats away from President Hassan Rouhani at Cabinet meetings, has fallen ill with coronavirus, making her Iran’s seventh official to test positive, including one prominent cleric who has died. Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, Rouhani’s deputy for women’s affairs and the highest-ranking woman in the government, has a confirmed coronavirus infection and is quarantined at home, her deputy said Thursday. Read more
Nigeria's health ministry said on Friday it has confirmed a coronavirus case in Lagos state. "The case which was confirmed on 27/02/2020 is the first case to be reported in Nigeria since the beginning of the outbreak in China in January 2020," the health ministry said http://bit.ly/2HZQrO0 in a post on Twitter. (Reuters)
Consul General of People’s Republic of China, Tang Guocai, on Thursday said that in battling coronavirus, China was setting an example for the world on how to face a challenge.
Addressing a gathering on the first day of the two-day national seminar on ‘Gandhi’s Writings On Indian Culture’, organised at SIES college, Sion, he said: “China is following scientific measures in fighting the problem and other countries have also been fighting the change in this global village by helping each other. We are confident that experts from various area will prove successful in revitalising the economies.” Read more
As many as 124 people, including 119 Indian citizens and five nationals from Sri Lanka, Nepal, South Africa and Peru, have been evacuated from Japan by an Air India flight. All of them were quarantined onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship at Yokohama after a person who disembarked in Hong Kong in January was diagnosed with a coronavirus infection.
Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said, “Of the 138 Indian nationals on board of cruise ship Diamond Princess, 119 out of 122 who were tested and found negative as per latest PCR test have been brought back. Three Indian nationals opted not to come back,” he said, adding that the 16 others who tested positive are being treated at hospitals in Japan. Read more
With India on Thursday suspending all flights from Iran, where the coronavirus outbreak has claimed 26 lives so far, many Indian students — including several medical students from Kashmir — and pilgrims are stranded there. There are roughly 250 Indian students across Iran, including in Tehran, Shiraz and Kish Island. “We want to leave the country because our parents are really worried. Since flights are getting cancelled, the only way out is with the help of the Ministry of External Affairs,” said a 22-year-old third-year student from Kashmir studying at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). Read more
Russia will suspend the train service from Moscow to the southern French city of Nice from March 4, the TASS news agency reported on Thursday citing the Ministry of Transport. The ministry said the train link would be suspended until further notice as part of wider measures aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus in Russia. The train runs through Belarus, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy and Monaco.
In Anyang, China, five members of a family came down with the coronavirus after hosting a guest from Wuhan in early January. But the visitor, a 20-year-old woman, never got sick herself.
Some individuals who are infected with the coronavirus can spread it even though they have no symptoms, studies have shown. Asymptomatic carriers are a well-known phenomenon. But the coronavirus is a new pathogen, and these cases may complicate scientific efforts to detect cases and to curb transmission.
“I don’t think there’s any question that someone who is without symptoms and carrying the virus can transmit the virus to somebody else,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. READ MORE
The outlook for India’s aviation industry remains “negative” in the wake of coronavirus outbreak, which has resulted in many international passengers cancelling their travel to South East Asian countries, according to rating agency Icra.
More than 81,000 people have been infected and over 2,700 people have died due to coronavirus. China is the epicentre of the virus outbreak. READ MORE
Germany is considering measures to cushion the effect of the coronavirus on its economy in case the epidemic worsens, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said on Thursday, adding that the impact so far on Europe's largest economy was rather limited. "It's not about fiscal stimulus programmes in the classic sense, which would only would be a flash in the pan," Altmaier told reporters.
"It's about pulling forward already agreed measures, if needed, and we're looking at stimulating the economy by changing the conditions for corporate taxation," he added.
The new coronavirus epidemic is at a "decisive point" globally, World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was quoted as saying by news agency AFP. He urged affected countries to "move swiftly" to contain the disease.
"We're at a decisive point," Tedros told reporters in Geneva.
Pointing to a decline in new cases in China, Tedros said: "It's what's happening in the rest of the world that's now our greatest concern."
Urging countries at the early stages of the outbreak of the COVID-19 disease to "move swiftly", he said: "If you act aggressively now, you can contain this virus, you can prevent people getting sick, you can save lives." "There does not appear to be widespread community transmission," he added.
A state-owned newspaper in Iran says Masoumeh Ebtekar, a vice president in the Islamic Republic and a spokeswoman for the 1979 hostage-takers, has the new coronavirus. The report came from the English-language IRAN daily newspaper via its Twitter account. Ebtekar was known during the hostage crisis as "Mary". The report comes as other top officials in Iran's Shiite theocracy have caught the virus. (AP)
Greece will tighten its border controls to prevent the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday, adding that it would pay particular attention to a key migrant route. His comments came as the country reported two new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Greece to three -- two in the northern city of Thessaloniki and one in the capital Athens.Greece is a primary gateway for refugees and asylum seekers fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond, with more than one million having passed through the country in 2015 and 2016. Thousands of migrants are stuck in overcrowded refugee camps in conditions aid organisations say are appalling and which the government itself has described as a "ticking health bomb".
Disruption in supplies due to the coronavirus outbreak in China has hit domestic forging industry along with automobile and auto component manufacturing sectors, the Association of Indian Forging Industry (AIFI) said on Thursday. The domestic automobile industry, which has been riding through the worst slump in two decades, is likely to be negatively impacted and its supply chain disrupted if the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in China and South-East Asia persists longer, rating agency Icra had said last week.
"The disruption caused by coronavirus has hit the automotive industry and thus also affected the automotive component and forging industries," AIFI said in a statement. China is one of the leading suppliers of auto components in India, accounting for 27 per cent of the total exports, and the slowing supply of components manufactured there would result in shortage of stocks here, it said. (PTI)
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated Thursday that raw material supplies to industries likely to be hit due to coronavirus crisis if the situation doesn't improve in two months
Pakistan on Thursday announced to suspend all flights to Iran, the new hotbed of coronavirus epidemic, as authorities scrambled to screen hundreds of people who recently arrived from Tehran after two persons returning from the country tested positive for the deadly virus. The land and rail links with Iran, where the coronavirus epidemic has claimed 26 lives and has infected 245 people, the highest outside China where COVID-19 originated, have already been snapped due to the scare of infection.
"Aviation Division has decided to cease all direct flights between Pakistan and Iran with effect from midnight between February 27 and 28 till further notice," Joint Secretary of Aviation Abdul Sattar Khokhar said. (PTI)