UK prepares evacuation flight for cruise ship passengers. This blog is closed
Russia will suspend entry of Chinese citizens to its territory starting from 20 February, Russian authorities in charge of coronavirus prevention have said.
The suspension will be for Chinese citizens entering Russia for employment, private, educational and tourist purposes.
The suspension will be temporary, the statement said.
If you’re just catching up, here is a quick rundown of the latest global coronavirus developments over the past few hours:
Officials in Hubei province, the centre of the coronavirus outbreak, will adopt more thorough and forceful measures to find patients with fever, state media reported today.
Records of all fever patients who have visited a doctor since 20 January will be checked, as well as the records of those who have bought over-the-counter cough and fever medications in shops and online, Xinhua reported.
People will get health check-ups and, if necessary, be placed in quarantine or taken to hospital, the report added, citing a notice from the province’s epidemic control headquarters.
China reported on Tuesday the smallest number of new coronavirus infections since January and its lowest daily death toll for a week, but the World Health Organization said the data should still be viewed with caution.
Dozens more countries across Africa and the Americas will be able to test citizens for coronavirus by the end of the week, the World Health Organization said today.
Over the coming days, 40 countries in Africa and 29 in the Americas are expected to have the ability to detect the Covid-19 virus.
Previously, many countries sent samples to other nations for testing in a process which can take days. Now they will be able to generate results in 24-48 hours.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO chief, said personal protective equipment has been sent to 21 countries and more will be sent to another 106 in the coming weeks.
Chinese medical workers who die fighting the coronavirus outbreak will be designated as martyrs, CNN reports.
Over 1,700 healthcare workers have become infected during the battle to contain the virus and several have died, with Chinese authorities coming under criticism for the pressure it is putting on staff.
The deaths have included Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor who tried to warn of the virus in December, and Liu Zhiming, director of Wuchang hospital in Wuhan, the city at the centre of the outbreak.
Kristie Lu Stout, a CNN correspondent in Hong Kong, reported:
China says it will designate all of them — the frontline doctors, nurses and medics who died while fighting the virus — as martyrs of the epicenter of the outbreak.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has flown Chinese parts in suitcases to Britain to maintain production and could run out after two weeks, as the impact of the coronavirus outbreak hits firms across countries and industries.
Britain’s biggest carmaker joined major global companies such as Apple in warning of the impact of the virus on supply chains, Reuters reports.
Fiat Chrysler said last week it had temporarily halted output at its Serbian plant, the first such suspension by an automaker in Europe in response to the coronavirus crisis.
Components made in China are used in millions of vehicles assembled around the world and Hubei province – the centre of the virus outbreak – is a major hub for vehicle parts production and shipments.
The JLR chief executive, Ralf Speth, said:
We are safe for this week and we are safe for next week and in the third week we have ... parts missing.
We have flown parts in suitcases from China to the UK.
Production at the firm’s Chinese factory would recommence on 24 February and was “safe for the very first week”, he added.
The new coronavirus has killed over 1,900 people in China and infected around 72,000, confining millions to their homes, disrupting businesses and delaying reopening of factories after the extended Lunar New Year holiday break.
Speth said sales in China, the world’s biggest auto market, had been hit. The knockback comes after JLR had enjoyed a recovery in sales there, helping it to return to profitability in recent quarters.
“That’s completely stopped. It’s zero,” he said. “You don’t know whether the economy will catch up or whether this kind of loss is just a loss.”
A British man who was diagnosed with coronavirus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan will be discharged from hospital tomorrow.
Alan Steele, who announced the news on Facebook, said he will wait in the country until he can be reunited with his wife, Wendy, and they can travel home together.
The couple, who were celebrating their honeymoon on the ship, were separated on 7 February when Alan was diagnosed with the virus and taken to a nearby hospital.
Although the ship’s quarantine officially ends on Wednesday, new guidelines mean anyone who shared a cabin with a person who has tested negative for the virus will face another two weeks on board.
Alan has now tested negative for the virus, and says he is looking forward to eating at the McDonald’s near the cruise terminal.
The are 92 cases in 12 countries outside China of human-to-human spread of the coronavirus, the World Health Organization chief has said.
“But we don’t have data to make a meaningful comparison to China cases,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus clarified.
Speaking at a press conference, he added:
We have not seen sustained local transmission of coronavirus except in specific circumstances like the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
Dr Mike Ryan, director of the WHO health emergencies programme, said “clearly there has been more transmission than expected” on the cruise ship.
He said Japanese authorities are adjusting to reality and taking necessary public health measures to evacuate people and deal with their follow-up care.
Two Irish citizens have tested positive for coronavirus onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, Independent.ie has reported.
More than 100 people have been tested in Ireland for the disease, but none have tested positive.
There are six Irish nationals on the coronavirus-hit cruise ship. The two who have tested positive share dual citizenship with another EU member state and are not normally resident in Ireland. They are being treated at a hospital in Japan.
The Irish deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney, said:
We are also in close contact with those who remain in quarantine on the ship.
We are working with our EU partners and other like-minded countries regarding options for their return.
A British family who contracted coronavirus at a French ski resort have been discharged from hospital, the French health minister, Olivier Véran, has said.
The British nationals, including a nine-year-old child, caught the virus from Steve Walsh, a British man who traveled to the Contamines-Montjoie resort from a conference in Singapore, where he got the coronavirus.
The family were hospitalised in Grenoble, and CNN reports Véran as saying:
All of the patients that were hospitalised in Grenoble were able to leave the hospital. Thus the family that were infected, an English family, the father and his son were able to leave the hospital in Grenoble. They are no longer considered to be sick or carriers of the virus.
The health minister also said a third French national had tested positive for coronavirus onboard the Diamond Princess cruise liner in Japan.
French fashion company Chanel has postponed a show in Beijing, following on from Prada’s decision to delay a show due to be held in Japan in May.
Chanel said in a statement that following the guidance of Chinese authorities it had decided to postpone its Beijing replica of a catwalk display held in Paris last December “to a later and more appropriate moment”.
The company is monitoring the situation closely, the statement said, adding: “At the foremost are the health and wellbeing of its teams and clients.”
No new date was given for the event.
As the UK government makes plans to bring home the British nationals trapped on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, here’s a quick summary of some the other countries which have taken similar measure, compiled by Reuters.
The Italian luxury fashion house Prada has postponed a fashion show due to take place in Japan in May.
In a statement, the company said:
Due to the current uncertainty related to the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Prada Resort fashion show originally scheduled for 21 May in Japan will be postponed.
Prada added the decision was a precautionary measure as well as “an act of responsibility and respect” for all those working on and planning to attend the show.
The statement continued: “Japan remains one of Prada’s strategic markets and relevant events will be scheduled in the country at a more appropriate moment.”
Both Japan and South Korea have reported entering a “new phase” of the coronavirus outbreak, with the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, saying the situation is changing “minute-by-minute” in the country.
The number of cases in Japan now stands at 607, with 542 on the stranded Princess Diamond cruise ship and 65 elsewhere in the country. There has been one reported death.
Most worryingly, there has been an increase in the number of cases where the Japanese health ministry has been unable to figure out the origin of the transmission.
The Mainichi newspaper reports that a spate of new cases is being linked to a New Year’s party for taxi drivers held on a river tour boat in the capital.
It reports that as of 16 February, 11 attendees and boat employees were infected with coronavirus.
Repatriating passengers from the coronavirus-stricken cruise ship in Japan is not without risks, a medical expert has said.
Paul Hunter, professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia, said:
Considerable care needs to be made to ensure that the passengers do not transmit infection between themselves or to cabin crew during the flight home and once back on home soil they do not act as a focus for the spread of the disease into their home countries – any returning passengers may be put in quarantine on their return.
He noted that while the quarantine seems to have been effective at stopping the spread of infection around the world as passengers return home or continue their travels, it hasn’t stopped the coronavirus passing between passengers and crew.
It is well known that certain infections such as influenza and norovirus can spread rapidly on board cruise ships. Cruise ships take passengers and crew from all over the world, often passengers are relatively elderly, they spend most of their time on board indoors mixing with others.
The most likely [infection] route is direct person-to-person transmission when people are close to an infected person, but with currently publicly available information it is not possible to rule out other issues at this stage.
Many countries, including the US, Canada and Australia have either evacuated their citizens or are in the process of doing so.
The UK government has said it is in the process of organising a flight to bring back British nationals as soon as possible.
Boris Johnson has spoken with the president of China about the coronavirus outbreak.
A Downing Street spokesman said:
The prime minister spoke to President Xi of China this morning.
He offered his sympathies for those affected by the outbreak of coronavirus in China. President Xi thanked the UK for its support and in particular welcomed the donation of vital medical equipment to China.
The prime minister and president agreed on the importance of the UK-China relationship and resolved to work together across a range of issues including strengthening the economic partnership, to benefit the people of both China and the UK.
The spokesman added that ahead of COP26 in Glasgow and the Convention on Biological Diversity Summit in China, the two leaders pledged to would work closely together on the issue of climate change.
They agreed that biodiversity and climate change are two sides of the same coin and must be addressed in tandem if we’re to protect the planet for future generations.