Live updates: Coronavirus cases surge globally as Italy confirms fifth death; China delays National People’s Congress
Coronavirus cases spike in Italy, China says most new infections limited to Hubei, South Korea declares ‘red alert’
(32 minutes later)
The World Health Organization declined to declare the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on Monday, saying the rapidly spreading disease has “pandemic potential” but does not yet require that designation.
The latest figures from China suggest that the novel coronavirus outbreak remains worst in locked-down Hubei province, where 398 new cases and 149 more deaths were reported early Monday.
China’s leaders also postponed the biggest event on their political calendar, the National People’s Congress, as the country’s battle against the virus disrupts the ruling Communist Party’s agenda and hammers the domestic economy.
Outside China, the outbreak continued to spread. South Korea said Sunday that it was raising its national threat level to “red alert,” the highest, as 169 new cases were confirmed Sunday and an additional 161 on Monday — making the country the most infected entity outside mainland China. In Italy, the number of cases spiked to 152, the largest number outside Asia.
In a speech to party officials Sunday, President Xi Jinping warned that the outbreak was a “crisis” that would inevitably jolt the country’s economic development, but he pledged that the disruption would be temporary and manageable.
●The Italian government said it has 152 confirmed cases, up from three in a matter of days. Three people have died. Authorities have locked down about a dozen small towns and canceled events across the north, including Venice’s Carnival.
Beijing also abruptly backtracked on an earlier announcement that it would relax travel restrictions on the coronavirus-hit city of Wuhan, amplifying concerns about the government response to the outbreak.
● South Korea raised its national threat level to “red alert,” the first time the country has used the highest setting since the H1N1 swine flu outbreak in 2009. The total number of confirmed cases in the country reached 763.
Meanwhile, the epidemic is surging around the world. Just four days ago, Italy had only confirmed three cases. As of Monday, it has the largest known outbreak outside Asia.
● Iran has confirmed eight deaths related to the coronavirus, the most outside of China, media reported Sunday. South Korea confirmed its seventh death.
Here are the latest developments:
●The Chinese government reported 409 new cases across the country on Monday and 150 deaths, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 77,150, with 2,592 deaths.
● Official figures released Monday showed there had been 409 new cases of the novel coronavirus and 150 new deaths from the outbreak in China by the end of Sunday, bringing the total confirmed cases to 77,150, with a cumulative death toll of 2,592. The majority of the new cases — 398 — were in Hubei province, as were all but one death.
●Three cruise ships have docked in Wuhan, Hubei’s capital, to house medical workers to help the city’s overburdened health-care system. On Sunday, Wuhan’s Union Jiangbei Hospital announced that a 29-year-old doctor had died of coronavirus, the second death of a young doctor in Hubei in recent days.
● WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said officials are preparing for a potential pandemic.
HONG KONG — Coronavirus outbreaks in South Korea and Italy continued to expand rapidly on Sunday as both countries reported a slew of new cases and Italian authorities raced to seal off hot spot towns.
● Six Chinese provinces lowered their emergency ratings, with businesses reopening and workers leaving quarantine.
Although the latest Chinese figures showed new cases largely concentrated in Hubei province, concern was growing about the virus in other parts of the world, including in Europe, which had yet to experience a large-scale outbreak until now, and where containment efforts could test the continent's open-border ideals.
● U.S. and global markets are reeling amid intensifying worries over devastating and potentially lasting consequences for the world’s economy.
South Korea reported a significant rise in cases on Monday, with 161 new cases, bringing the total to 763, and one more death, for a total of seven. Italy said the number of confirmed cases had reached 152, up from three in a matter of days.
● The outbreak widened in other countries; South Korea announced Monday that it now has 833 confirmed cases, seven of which have resulted in deaths. Afghanistan reported its first case. Kuwait, Iraq and Bahrain reported new cases, as well.
The sudden outbreak in Italy caught authorities there off guard, while causing severe interruptions of the sort that have upended life in China. Universities across northern Italy, where the outbreak is concentrated, are shuttered; major soccer matches have been canceled. Venice's famed Carnival, which can draw more than 100,000 people daily, was suspended two days before its scheduled end.
● The coronavirus has arrived with force in Italy, with case numbers spiking almost hourly and the virus jumping from one region to the next across the country’s north.
In the mostly smaller towns where the virus has been detected, checkpoints have been set up designed to prevent most people from entering or leaving. Video from the closed-off hot spot towns showed abandoned piazzas, boarded-up mini-markets and closure signs even on churches. Residents who went outside were largely wearing masks, and in one of the few supermarkets in the area that remained open, the line stretched out the door.
WHO officials are holding off on declaring the global spread of the coronavirus a pandemic, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference Monday.
"Since we're dealing with the risk of an epidemic, we cannot say we're certain that we can contain it," Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in an interview with Sky TG24, an Italian news channel. "But these are absolutely measures we deem effective — very rigorous — to contain the spread of the coronavirus, to limit the risk of contagion."
“Does it have pandemic potential? Absolutely,” Tedros said. “Are we there yet? Not yet.”
But authorities acknowledged that they were seeing cases, including two in Venice, that had no apparent connection to Chinese travelers or the closed-off Italian hot spots, which are mostly concentrated toward the south of Milan.
Tedros said that WHO officials are seeing epidemics in different parts of the world. They are monitoring those epidemics while preparing for a “potential pandemic.”
A broader outbreak would be particularly complicated in Europe, where countries maintain open borders. Conte said changing that policy would be "draconian" and could be devastating for the Italian economy, which is among the weakest on the continent.
“Our decision about whether to use the word pandemic is based on ongoing assessment of the virus,” Tedros said, including the impact on society, whether officials are seeing an uncontained spread and large-scale deaths.
The Chinese government on Monday announced 409 more confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the total in mainland China to 77,150, with 150 more deaths from the outbreak bringing the total up to 2,592 across the nation.
The rate of new cases has continued to decline in China, where the virus originated in December.
Within China, the outbreak remains worst in Hubei and its capital, Wuhan, where the outbreak first emerged in December. The updated official figures showed that the vast majority of new cases confirmed across China — 398 — were in the province, as were all but one of the new deaths.
Officials have found that the epidemic in China peaked between Jan. 23 and Feb. 2 and “has been declining steadily since then,” Tedros said, adding that there has been no significant change in it characteristics. Recovery time has varied in patients, depending on the severity of their case. More serious cases have taken 3-6 weeks; less severe patients have recovered in 2 weeks or less.
Hubei has been under lockdown since Jan. 23, an unprecedented organizational response to a health crisis. As of Sunday, three cruise ships had arrived in Wuhan to house medical workers for the city’s stretched health-care system, drawing mixed reactions from Chinese Internet users.
Tedros said that the rapid growth of new cases in Italy, South Korea and Iran are “deeply concerning.”
Japan’s NHK reported the same day that cases had risen to 135 — not including the cases linked to the Diamond Princess, where at least 650 people who traveled aboard the ship are now confirmed cases and three passengers have died.
He said all nations battling the epidemics must prioritize three areas: the safety of their health workers; the communities most at risk, including the elderly and those with underlying health conditions; and the countries most suspectible to the disease.
The Diamond Princess outbreak alone has had a global impact. At least 18 Americans, seven Australians, four Britons and two Israeli nationals have tested positive for the virus after returning to their home countries. Medical authorities in the United States and Australia say they expect to find more cases as more tests are done.
“This is a shared threat,” Tedros said. “We can only face it together, and we can only overcome it together.”
Twelve Indian crew members have been confirmed as cases aboard the ship, India’s NDTV reported on Sunday.
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in China, acting shortly before it postponed its annual legislative session due to the coronavirus, approved a crackdown Monday on the illegal wildlife trade and the consumption of wild animals.
With some new indications that the coronavirus may have an incubation period longer than 14 days and a variety of cases with no clear link to Hubei, as well as lingering worries about China’s counting methods, health officials remain concerned about the risk of a global pandemic.
The crackdown comes about a month after China temporarily banned the trade of wild animals until the coronavirus is eliminated across the country, Chinese media reported.
Wuhan’s Union Jiangbei Hospital on Sunday announced that Xia Sisi, 29, a front-line doctor from the department of gastroenterology, had died of coronavirus on Sunday morning. Xia had been hospitalized since Jan. 19, the hospital said.
This new restriction will go further and strictly forbid all trade and consumption of wild animals, a practice that may be linked to the outbreak. Evidence has led experts to believe that the disease was transmitted to humans through game meat at a market in the city of Wuhan, where the epidemic originated.
The toll on health workers in Hubei has been heavy. China Daily reports that Peng Yinhua, another 29-year-old doctor in Wuhan, died Thursday after postponing his wedding to help treat the outbreak.
China issued a similar temporary ban after the SARS outbreak almost two decades ago but lifted it once the disease was contained. Conservationists have been calling for a permanent ban on the game trade in China and previously told The Washington Post that such a measure was a critical move to a prevent global pandemic.
China is bringing in seven cruise ships to help house medical workers for the coronavirus response, with the first, named Blue Whale, arriving on Friday evening followed by Changjiang Fu Tai and Changjiang Fu Tai No. 2 on Saturday.
The White House is preparing to request an emergency spending package from Congress as soon as this week to finance its response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, three people briefed on the planning said Monday.
In total, the ships will provide 1,267 beds for health workers, according to local media reports, and China has taken extensive efforts to provide a safe environment, including having a dedicated ship to dispose of waste. But on Chinese social media, opinions were split about the idea, with some comparing it to the situation aboard the Diamond Princess.
Details remained in flux as the Trump administration continues to assess needs. The request could be sent to Capitol Hill in the next few days and could seek close to $1 billion in funds, according to two of the people briefed on the planning.
Just days ago, Italy had only three cases, including two Chinese tourists. But its experience shows the difficulty that countries might face in containing the virus, which can be carried by people who don’t immediately show symptoms.
Efforts to contain the virus have failed in multiple countries, and financial markets are becoming increasingly spooked about the snowballing economic impact.
At the beginning of the weekend, Italy had cases in two of its largest northern provinces, Lombardy and Veneto, mostly spread around smaller towns. But authorities said Sunday that there were also cases in Piemonte and Emilia-Romagna, also in the north.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal the deliberations.
Neighboring countries expressed concern about their proximity to a high volume of infected patients. Austria on Sunday halted its train traffic to and from Italy for several hours, while a member of France’s parliament asked for reinforced border control during this time of year, when thousands of Italians typically flock to French festivals.
Read more here: White House preparing to ask Congress for more money to finance coronavirus response
South Korea’s case total has risen more than twentyfold in a week, from 30 last Monday to 763.
BEIJING — Countries struggling to contain coronavirus outbreaks should follow China’s example and learn from its experiences, the leader of a World Health Organization team of experts said Monday. He castigated other countries for imposing travel and trade restrictions on China.
The country’s military has reported 11 cases as of Monday. Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo instructed soldiers not to leave the barracks other than for exceptional situations, placing the military under a near-lockdown.
Canadian epidemiologist Bruce Aylward, chief of the WHO’s mission to China, made the remarks after his Chinese counterpart, Liang Wannian of the National Health Commission, confirmed that more than 3,000 health-care workers here have been infected during the response.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in told an emergency meeting that the country was now at a “crucial moment” that called for all-out efforts from the government and public alike in the face of the virus. Moon raised the national alert level to red, the highest, a first for South Korea since the 2009 epidemic of H1N1 swine flu.
“The world needs the experience and materials of China to be successful in battling this coronavirus disease,” Aylward told reporters in Beijing on Monday night, speaking at a news conference just two days after returning from Wuhan. He said the virus “may be around for months.”
The majority of South Korea’s coronavirus cases have been linked to two clusters at a church in the southern city of Daegu and a nearby hospital in Cheongdo County in North Gyeongsang province.
“China has the most experience in the world with this disease, and it’s the only country to have turned around serious large-scale outbreaks,” he said. “But if countries create barriers between themselves and China in terms of travel and trade, it’s only going to compromise the ability to get this done.”
More than half of South Korea’s cases are traced to the Daegu church, which is a branch of Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony. Shincheonji, a fringe religious sect, is often described as a cult by critics.
Countries including the United States, Australia and New Zealand have closed their borders to travelers from China, while dozens of airlines have stopped flying to China in an effort to contain the virus.
The South Korean government temporarily shut down Shincheonji’s 1,100 churches and annex buildings nationwide in an attempt to control the spread of the virus among members and their surrounding communities. President Moon Jae-in called the shutdown “a fair and inevitable step” to ensure community-wide safety and said there was “no intention to limit religious freedom.”
China has seized on the WHO’s previous guidance that such travel bans were not necessary, accusing the United States of “overreaction” and of sparking global panic.
South Korea also confirmed its seventh coronavirus death: a 62-year-old man linked to a hospital in North Gyeongsang province, where four people have died from the virus. The confined environment of the hospital’s locked psychiatric ward possibly helped the virus spread there, according to the KCDC.
Aylward said that other countries should reassess their approach because the risk from China was dropping while China’s contribution to the global response was rising.
State officials in Afghanistan and Armenia have closed their borders to neighboring Iran as a preventive measure after Iran’s Health Ministry confirmed 43 cases and eight deaths in the country on state television Sunday.
BEIJING — Canadian epidemiologist Bruce Aylward, chief of the WHO’s mission to China, lavishly praised the country Monday for its response to the coronavirus, despite widespread evidence that the ruling Communist Party sought to cover up and censor reports about the outbreak when it first emerged.
Afghanistan reported its first suspected cases of the coronavirus in the western city of Herat on Sunday, according to the health chief of the province, also called Herat. Three people, all elderly men, had recently returned to the city from Iran, Abdul Hakim Tamana told The Washington Post by phone.
Aylward and Liang Wannian of China’s National Health Commission led a team of 25 experts who have visited Sichuan and Guangdong provinces, as well as the epidemic’s epicenter, Hubei province, and its capital, Wuhan. All people who have been to Wuhan are supposed to go into quarantine for 14 days before going out in public.
“We do not know at this stage whether they are suffering from cold, pneumonia or possibly coronavirus,” Tamana said.
“China is the first line of defense to try to prevent the international spread of this virus, [and] they felt the responsibility to protect the world from this virus,” Aylward said. “They locked down cities of 15 million people for weeks at a time to try to prevent the spread,” he said, adding that this “without a doubt” slowed the spread of the virus.
Thousands of people travel back and forth every day between Afghanistan and Iran because of trade, employment and family ties. Afghan officials were testing all people crossing the border for coronavirus symptoms. But many who travel between the two countries also use informal routes, where screening doesn’t take place.
“It’s important that other countries think about this” and apply a similarly rigorous approach, although not necessarily full lockdowns, he said. “They are the second line of defense stopping this virus going to weaker countries that have weaker capacity to deal with something like this.”
The outbreak has increased tension between Iran, already isolated by sanctions, and its neighbors. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Sunday that the threat of coronavirus had been exaggerated by the country’s enemies who hoped to cast doubt upon Friday’s parliamentary election.
Liang, the Chinese health official, earlier said that more than 3,000 medical staff in China have been infected during the coronavirus response, a much higher number than the 1,700 officially announced 10 days ago.
On Saturday, however, Iran itself ordered the closure of schools and universities in a bid to prevent the outbreak from spreading further.
Announcing the mission’s findings, he said that the average age of infected patients in China was 51.
In Israel, reports that a group of South Koreans who tested positive for the infection had visited some of the country’s most popular religious and tourist spots prompted concern across the country.
About 80 percent of infections were mild, while about 14 percent were severe and 6.1 percent were critical. The mortality rate inside Hubei was 3.4 percent, but it was only 0.7 percent outside the province, Liang said.
Dozens of students who may have been in proximity to the South Korean tourists were directed to stay in home-based quarantine for two weeks, as were hotel housekeepers and employees of Masada, Tel Ber Sheeva and other national parks.
Research was continuing to ascertain the source of the virus, but Liang said initial findings suggest that it could have started in bats and then been transmitted through pangolins.
Non-Israeli travelers from South Korea and Japan have been barred from entering the country, according to local media reports, and Israelis arriving from multiple Asian countries face two weeks of mandatory quarantine. South Korean tourists began to return home on Sunday after initially being stranded in Israel because of the country’s ban on travel to South Korea, Reuters reported.
Global markets went deep in the red Monday, and Dow futures plunged 800 points, as coronavirus cases spiked outside China, intensifying fears that the outbreak was barreling toward pandemic status, with devastating consequences for the world’s economy.
More than 800 people in Japan have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, though the bulk of those cases come from the passengers and crew of the Diamond Princess cruise ship — which has reported an additional 57 cases, bringing the total up to 691. Most of the new Diamond Princess cases were among crew members still aboard the ship, officials said.
Standard & Poor’s 500 futures plunged roughly 2.5 percent, and Nasdaq futures tumbled 3 percent.
An additional 147 cases that are not connected to the ship also have been reported, the Japanese Health Ministry said.
There was a major sell-off in European stocks, led by slumps in travel and luxury sectors. Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 3.5 percent, and Germany’s DAX dropped 3.6 percent. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was nearly 1.8 percent in the red, and the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.4 percent.
The Health Ministry said Sunday that a third passenger had died after leaving the ship. The cause of death was pneumonia, Japan’s health minister said, but the ministry did not disclose whether the man, who was in his 80s, had coronavirus.
“This has all the makings of a great big disaster where stock investors shoot first and think later,” wrote Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank. “It looks like panic selling for now unless the central bank sheriffs ride into town. It used to be if America sneezed the rest of the world caught cold. That’s been changed literally overnight from Friday’s close where now it’s if China sneezes the world economy should be bracing for a big fall.”
In light of the death, Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said officials will closely monitor the health of passengers who disembarked from the ship after the quarantine ended, including through daily phone calls.
Now, economists and supply chain experts worry that the world’s economies will feel coronavirus’s sting for months, even if the spread is brought under control. Auto plants are running low on parts. Chinese tourists aren’t traveling the world, and American companies, already bruised from President Trump’s nearly two-year trade war with China, face additional uncertainty. International airlines have suspended flights in and out of China, and many factories have yet to reopen since they shut down operations leading up to the Lunar New Year holiday.
The United States and other countries have imposed an additional 14-day quarantine on passengers returning from the ship, out of concern the virus was still spreading around the vessel during the initial period, but Japan has insisted its arrangements to isolate passengers and prevent the virus spreading were sound.
Read more here: Global stocks plunge as coronavirus cases spike outside China
Japanese Emperor Naruhito, in his first news conference since ascending the throne, said on Sunday that he was looking forward to the Tokyo Olympics in the summer but that he was concerned about the spread of the new coronavirus, Reuters reported.
BAGHDAD — Iraq reported its first case of coronavirus Monday as authorities said they would comb the southern city of Najaf for recent arrivals from neighboring Iran.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered a government task force to prepare for a potential surge in the number of people infected with the new coronavirus, NHK reported.
The victim was identified as an Iranian student, 22, who had entered Iraq two weeks earlier, shortly before the illness was detected in his home country. Reports from the seminary where he studied suggested that fellow students were now in quarantine, too.
Abe said the outbreak has entered a “crucial phase” with cases emerging around the country where the infection route or a link to China could not be traced. He said authorities need to prepare for a possible jump in patient numbers, by focusing efforts on preventing infected people from becoming seriously ill.
Millions of Iranians visit Iraq every year, often for business or religious tourism. Iraq said over the weekend that it would be banning all travel from Iran, and that returning Iraqis would need to be quarantined for two weeks. Iraq’s Health Ministry said that the student had entered the country before the new measures were put in place.
The State Department on Friday raised its travel advisory for Japan and South Korea to Level 2 on its four-level scale, urging older travelers and people with chronic medical conditions to consider delaying unnecessary travel.
Government teams were expected to search Najaf’s hotels and seminaries for recent visitors, and phone numbers were publicized for citizens to report their own symptoms.
Harlan reported from Rome, Kim from Seoul, and Mettler and Iati from Washington. Stefano Pitrelli in Rome, Simon Denyer in Tokyo, Steve Hendrix in Jerusalem and Liu Yang in Beijing contributed to this report.
Iraq’s faltering health system would likely struggle to contain any outbreak of coronavirus, doctors said. Pharmacies across Baghdad said Monday that they were running low on face masks or were already out of stock.
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
“There was a whole line of people outside here on Friday, and they all had the same question,” said Rasha Saad, a pharmacist, gesturing to the street outside. “They all wanted filtered face masks, so we’re totally out of stock now.”
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As she spoke, several customers were seen poking their heads through the doorways of pharmacies down the road — the street housed at least a dozen — to ask whether they had any masks left.
“Sold out,” another chemist, Shahed Haithem, told one of the men.
The would-be customer rolled his eyes and carried on down the road.
ROME — Italy confirmed its fifth death linked to the coronavirus Monday, as case numbers surged and businesses feared a sustained fallout.
On Monday morning, Italy’s stock index opened down 3.5 percent, as traders worried about interruptions in the country’s economic and industrial heartland, which has also been at the center of some Italian clusters of the virus. As people prepared to hunker down, grocery stores were picked clean in Milan, and people raced to scoop up masks and hand sanitizer.
In recent days, Italy has scrambled to close off a cluster of small towns south of Milan, some of the primary hot spots. Police have set up checkpoints outside those areas, and only people with special permission can enter or exit. Video from inside those towns showed largely deserted town centers, except for the occasional person walking a dog or searching for a mini market to buy groceries.
“All the things you used to see in films that are far from us, now you see them here,” said Carlo Benuzzi, a 56-year-old shopowner in the sealed-off hot spot town Codogna who is friends with one of the first Italians to contract the virus.
At a closed church in Codogno, priests have been holding Mass by themselves. The diocese has ordered the closure to continue for at least two weeks, so Fabrizio Senneca, a church caretaker, dumped the holy water into a flower bed.
“The atmosphere is pretty eerie,” Senneca said. “We are trying not to let psychosis take hold. I have very little to do.”
Elsewhere across the north, most major gatherings have been called off, from soccer matches to school, and it is unclear for how long the closures will last. Milan’s landmark cathedral and opera house both shut down, and the Carnival of Venice was suspended two days before its planned conclusion.
Read more here: Coronavirus explodes in Italy; cases surge from 3 to more than 200 in a few days
KABUL — Afghanistan confirmed its first case of coronavirus on Monday and announced a state of emergency in the western city where the virus was detected, according to the Afghan Health Ministry.
On Sunday, Afghanistan closed its border with Iran and halted flights between the two countries after three men who recently came from Iran were suspected of being infected.
The three elderly Afghan men had crossed into the western province of Herat from neighboring Iran and were hospitalized Sunday after they showed signs of being infected with the virus.
Following blood tests in Kabul, Ferozuddin Feroz, the minister of public health, told a news conference in Kabul that one man was diagnosed with coronavirus.
Feroz said the man is in quarantine, under the care of doctors in Herat, where he announced a state of emergency after consultation with international health institutions and local authorities.
He said people living in Herat should avoid visiting other parts of the country and that those wishing to travel to Herat should refrain from doing so.
Herat’s public health chief, Abdul Hakim Taman, said he was concerned about the virus’s spread in Afghanistan on Sunday.
Thousands of people travel back and forth every day between Afghanistan and Iran for trade and employment and due to family ties. Afghan officials were testing all people crossing the border for coronavirus symptoms. But many use informal routes to travel between the two countries where screening does not take place.
JERUSALEM — Israeli officials disinvited almost 3,000 international runners who had signed up for the upcoming Tel Aviv Marathon, one of several restrictive measures the country has taken in response to growing fears that the virus could gain a foothold in the country on the eve of national elections on March 2, according to local media reports.
The Health Ministry allowed the annual race — with an expected field of 40,000 — to go ahead as planned Friday, but without the hefty contingent of racers planning to travel from outside Israel, the daily Maariv newspaper reported.
Officials also barred non-Israelis from reentering the country if their travels had taken them to South Korea or Japan in the two weeks before returning, the paper said. And Health Minister Yaakov Litman told Army Radio on Monday that his agency was weighing mandatory quarantine measures for anyone arriving from Italy or Australia.
The moves follow a spike in coronavirus anxiety after members of a group of South Korean tourists tested positive for the infection after completing a nine-day tour of popular religious and natural sites across Israel. More than 200 Israelis who might have overlapped with the group — including schoolchildren, hotel workers and tour guides — have begun to quarantine themselves at home.
Israeli voters are a week away from heading to the polls for their third national election in a year. Election officials said they were readying special voting places for citizens under isolation orders and preparing other steps to reassure the electorate.
Correction: Due to a translation error, an earlier version of this update said officials had barred Israelis from reentering the country if their travels had taken them to South Korea or Japan in the two weeks prior to returning. However, only non-Israelis are affected.
ROME — In an unnerving four-day span, the coronavirus has arrived with force in Italy, with case numbers spiking almost hourly and the virus jumping from one region to the next across the country’s north.
Four days ago, Italy had only three confirmed cases of the virus. Now, it has the largest known outbreak outside Asia, pushing the world closer to a pandemic, in which epidemics spread across multiple countries and continents at the same time.
Italy’s experience — with more than 200 confirmed cases as of Monday and four deaths — shows how the virus can slip into a new continent undetected, only to then erupt as a sudden crisis, while bringing with it the interruptions and fears that once felt far away. Some infectious disease experts have speculated that the virus was already in Italy for weeks, carried by one or more people with negligible symptoms, before it was detected.
And for a nation racing to piece together how it happened and how to contain further spread, even the most basic questions give a sense of the challenge: Officials still are not sure how the virus even arrived in the country.
“Looking for [patient zero] makes less sense by the day,” said Giulio Gallera, health chief of the Lombardy region, which has seen the majority of Italy’s cases.
Containing the virus in northern Italy is no given: Milan, the city closest to the outbreak, has Italy’s second-busiest airport and rail connections in all directions, including dozens of daily high-speed trains to Rome.
If the virus expands across Italy, neighboring European countries will face pressure to back away from this continent’s open-border ideals in the name of security. Or the coronavirus will pop up elsewhere across the continent as it did in Italy: without much warning.
Read more here: Coronavirus explodes in Italy; cases surge from 3 to more than 200 in a few days
SEOUL — The family member of a U.S. soldier in South Korea has been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, the U.S. military command in the country said Monday.
The patient is the first U.S. forces-related individual to have tested positive for the virus. The risk level for the military community has been raised to high “as a prudent measure to protect the force,” the command, known as U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), said in a statement.
The new case involves a 61-year-old woman who had been living in Daegu, the city of 2.5 million where health officials say more than half of South Korea’s 833 cases have been traced. The country’s semiofficial Yonhap News Agency reported that the patient was a U.S. citizen.
The USFK has yet to report any coronavirus infection in its service members, and it is working with the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine if any others have been exposed.
The Daegu Garrison hosts more than 9,000 U.S. soldiers, including family members and other personnel, according to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.
Col. Michael Tremblay, garrison commander of the U.S. Army’s Camp Humphreys 55 miles south of Seoul, told the newspaper Monday that a number of service members and dependents have been tested but that all of the tests were negative.
TOKYO — Japanese government officials and members of an official expert panel defended a “tough decision” to quarantine more than 3,700 people on board the Diamond Princess, admitting Monday that the quarantine was not perfect but pushing back against continued criticism of their handling of the situation.
The United States and other countries have effectively judged the quarantine a failure by making their evacuees from the ship undergo an additional 14-day period of isolation on their return home.
Japan, insisting that the quarantine was largely effective, has allowed its nationals off the ship to go home without an additional quarantine period, while some Americans who chose not to take evacuation flights are now staying in hotels in Japan.
Officials said the U.S. government initially agreed with its decision to keep passengers on board the ship, and they argued that it would have been very difficult to find facilities on land to evacuate everyone even if they had wanted to.
“My view is that although the isolation was somewhat effective to a large extent, it was not perfect,” said Shigeru Omi, head of the Japan Community Health-Care Organization. “The ship was not designed as a hospital.”
But with more than 700 people from the ship having caught the virus, it’s clear the quarantine was far from a success. Eight support staff, including six government officials, a medical worker and an ambulance driver, also caught the virus, while three passengers in their 80s have died.
When the quarantine was imposed, not a single crew member had symptoms of covid-19. Now, at least 129 are known to have contracted the virus. Several had pleaded to be let off the ship, fearing that the lack of infection controls had put their lives at risk, and some critics said the crew, including many Filipinos and Indians, were treated like second-class citizens.
Omi said Japanese officials were “of course” sympathetic to the human rights of the crew, but he said the crew members had to remain on board to serve the passengers. “This is the dilemma,” he said, adding that it was a very difficult situation. “All of Japan, we are very grateful to crew members who worked very hard.”
Officials apologized for the fact that 23 Japanese passengers were allowed to disembark even though they had undergone only a virus test before the quarantine was imposed on Feb. 5. Yosuke Kita, a senior Health Ministry official, said all have since been contacted and would be tested again in the next day or two.
HONG KONG — China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a notice on Monday that urged Chinese tourists not to travel to the United States, suggesting that visitors from China were being unfairly targeted amid the global response to the coronavirus outbreak.
The announcement drew a number of supportive comments on Chinese social media, where videos that appeared to show abuse of Chinese travelers due to the outbreak had been widely shared recently.
“Is there anybody who wants to go traveling now? Better stay at home than go out in this critical moment!” one user commented on Weibo.
HONG KONG — Worries over the economic fallout from the coronavirus epidemic hammered global markets on Monday, with futures pointing to sharp losses for U.S. stocks.
European markets were the hardest hit, led by declines in travel and luxury sectors, as Britain’s FTSE 100 index dropped more than 3 percent and Germany’s DAX fell almost 4 percent.
Oil prices slumped, with the Brent global benchmark down 4.6 percent and Nymex crude down 3.6 percent, while gold prices hit their highest in seven years as investors flocked to safe-haven assets.
In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Sang index was down by almost 2 percent and South Korea’s KOSPI fell 4 percent. U.S. markets appeared set to slump at the opening, with S&P 500 futures down 2.8 percent.
The sell-off comes as the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread far beyond China, with countries such as South Korea, Italy and Iran among those now facing large number of cases.
ISTANBUL — A spokesman for Iran’s health ministry said that the death toll from the new coronavirus has risen to 12 after four more people died, state media reported Monday, adding to concerns about the government’s ability to contain the outbreak.
Iran reported its first cases of the virus on Wednesday in the holy city of Qom. The disease has since spread to multiple cities in Iran, including the capital, Tehran.
A lawmaker from Qom said Monday that the death toll in that city, in central Iran, was as high as 50 and that the area should be quarantined. Ahmad Amirabadi spoke to reporters in Tehran following a closed-door session of parliament in which Iran’s health minister briefed lawmakers.
The outbreak has prompted neighboring countries to close their borders with Iran or step up screening at border crossings, including airports. On Monday, state media in Kuwait and Bahrain reported new cases of the coronavirus linked to Iran, including travelers who visited the shrine city of Mashhad.
A spokesman for Iran’s parliament, Asadollah Abbasi, said Monday that people who had traveled to Iran illegally from Afghanistan, Pakistan and China, where the virus originated, were the “source” of the infection. On Sunday, however, the health minister said that one of the first coronavirus patients was a businessman who had transited through airports in China during his travels.
Iranian authorities have closed schools and universities in 10 provinces and barred people from attending soccer matches and movie theaters.
BEIJING — China’s ruling Communist Party has postponed the biggest event in China’s political calendar, the National People’s Congress, as it concentrates on fighting the coronavirus.
But the decision could further complicate President Xi Jinping’s ability to fulfill his ambitious agenda for the year, which includes doubling economic output compared with 2010 levels. The showcase legislature rubber-stamps the leader’s proposals for the year ahead.
The annual legislative session, held together with a meeting of the party’s top political-advisory body, was due to begin on March 5. But the NPC’s Standing Committee decided at a meeting in Beijing on Monday that they would be delayed.
It did not set a date for the meetings, known collectively as the “Two Sessions.” “The specific time of the meeting will be further decided by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress,” state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Big decisions are often made at the meetings. In 2018, the legislature approved a plan to abolish presidential term limits, making it possible for Xi to stay in power indefinitely. The move cemented a dramatic shift in Chinese politics, taking China back to the era of one-man rule not seen since Mao Zedong.
Monday’s decision was expected, since officials announced last week that they would discuss postponing the meeting, which attracts thousands of delegates from around the country to Beijing’s majestic Great Hall of the People.
Zang Tiewei, spokesman for Legislative Affairs Commission, had previously said that coronavirus epidemic prevention and control had become the party’s most important work.
“It is now a crucial moment to curb the spread and win the battle, so no effort should be spared,” Zang told Xinhua news agency after last week’s announcement. “Many of the nearly 3,000 NPC deputies, including leading officials at the municipal, provincial levels and other fields, are fighting at the front lines of the epidemic battle.”
Furthermore, analysts said, it would be bad optics for the party to go ahead with a huge meeting at a time when public gatherings are banned, and even worse to show thousands of cadres in masks.
China’s top economic planner said earlier on Monday that the government would still achieve its 2020 economic and social development goals.
“The novel coronavirus outbreak has some impact on China’s economic operation, but there are still many favorable conditions for completing the various tasks set by the Central Economic Work Conference,” said Cong Liang, secretary general of the National Development and Reform Commission.
The epidemic will not change the fundamentals of China’s long-term economic growth, Cong said, according to state media reports.
Wang Yong, a professor of International Studies at Peking University, said the decision was necessary at this “special time.”“We are still in the process of studying the virus, the virus spreads relatively quickly, and it’s quite dangerous,” he said. “I think the country should focus on epidemic prevention and control and solving problems, this is the top priority at the moment.”
SEOUL — South Korea reported 70 additional cases of the novel coronavirus late Monday, bringing its tally to 833 — the highest national case load outside China.
Schools have delayed the start of the new semester, events have been canceled and workers are advised to stay home if they show symptoms related to the virus. The virus has also disrupted parliamentary and judiciary operations in the country.
Seoul’s National Assembly announced on Monday that its main buildings will be shut down for disinfection until Wednesday, leading to cancellations of scheduled parliamentary sessions. South Korea’s Supreme Court advised that all trials except for urgent ones would be postponed.
Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo called for “drastic adjustment” to military operations after 13 soldiers contracted the virus. Some 7,000 soldiers have been placed under quarantine to prevent the spread of the virus, according to the Defense Ministry.
More than half of the latest cases are in South Korea’s fourth-largest city, Daegu. Some 2.5 million residents of the southeastern metropolis have been ordered to refrain from outdoor activities as the number of cases there soared to 483, accounting for more than half of the national tally.
Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip said on Monday that about 28,000 Daegu citizens who showed flu symptoms will be tested for the virus.
MANILA — A total of 59 Filipinos on the Diamond Princess have tested positive for the coronavirus, health officials announced Monday, as the Philippine government postponed repatriation for its citizens on board.
Over 400 Filipinos were initially set to return to the country on Sunday. The government has not indicated when the rescheduled repatriation will take place.
Health officials said the delay was to allow their counterparts in Japan “to complete laboratory testing” and “comply with the established Japanese quarantine protocols.”
Only those who are asymptomatic will be allowed to return to the Philippines. The evacuees are set to spend two weeks in quarantine at a facility north of Manila.
There were a total of 538 Filipinos on the Diamond Princess, only seven of whom were passengers, with the others working as crew members.
The rapid spread of the virus among crew members of the ship illustrated the importance of overseas workers to the Philippine economy. Some 2.4 million Filipinos work abroad, and the $33.5 billion they contributed in remittances last year is a key source of income for the Philippine government.
Filipino citizens have also tested positive for the virus in Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and Singapore.
TOKYO — Two more government officials who worked on board the Diamond Princess cruise liner have tested positive for the new coronavirus, Japan’s Health Ministry said Monday, reinforcing widespread concerns about infection control procedures on board the ship.
The latest cases, an official from the Health Ministry and a quarantine officer, bring to eight the number of people working on the ship or with its passengers who have now contracted the virus.
An infectious disease expert last week called conditions on board the ship chaotic and scary, describing inadequate infection controls.
Rejecting the criticism, the government initially allowed scores of officials and medical workers to resume their normal duties after having worked on board the ship, not even testing them for the virus or imposing any quarantine on them.
After Japanese media pointed out the risks that these officials could carry the virus around the country, and especially into hospitals and medical vulnerable populations, the Health Ministry relented and announced it would test its government officials who had worked on board the ship.
But Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said over the weekend there was no need to test medical workers, arguing they understood infection control procedures.
Yosuke Kita, a senior health ministry official, told reporters on Monday that in his opinion medical workers should be among a “second batch” of people who should get tests.
Defending the failure to impose a quarantine on them, he said anyone who worked on the ship who is now suffering from a fever or other symptoms is now working remotely through telework.
“We need to set up some criteria for working after duty on the ship,” he acknowledged.
SEOUL — The recent surge in coronavirus cases in South Korea is disrupting international and domestic air travel.
Korean Air and Asiana Airlines said Monday their flights to the southern city of Daegu will be temporarily suspended. Nearly two-thirds of South Korea’s coronavirus cases are traced to Daegu city, according to Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Korean Air said it would suspend flights to Israel from Monday until next month after some 130 South Koreans aboard one of its aircraft were denied entry to Israel when the jet landed there on Saturday.
The flight landed in Tel Aviv shortly after Israel had banned entry of visitors from South Korea due to the coronavirus cases there.
Seoul’s Foreign Ministry lodged a complaint against Israel for placing the ban without giving a prior notice.
Israel and Bahrain have restricted entry of visitors from South Korea, while nearly a dozen countries, including Britain, have imposed quarantine restrictions of varying degrees to those arriving from South Korea.
Over the past week, major Asian airlines including Philippine Airlines and Thai Airways have suspended or reduced flights to South Korea.
Philippine Airlines has canceled its flights to Incheon from Manila, Cebu and Clark through next month. The airline has also reduced flights from Manila to the South Korean city of Busan, according to the company website.
Thai Airways has reduced flights from Bangkok to Incheon and Busan for the month of March, due to the “decreased number of passengers” following the coronavirus outbreak, according to the company website
Other airlines that reduced flights to South Korea include Air Macao and Japan Airlines.
Just hours after Wuhan’s epidemic prevention and control headquarters announced it would be easing some of the strictest travel restrictions in place on the coronavirus-hit city, a post on the city’s social media account said that the announcement was not authorized and that travel restrictions would not be lifted.
In a post on Weibo, the Wuhan city government said that officials had made the “invalid” announcement on Monday morning without the appropriate permission. The city would “strictly control the vehicles and personnel going through Wuhan” in line with Xi’s orders to present the outbreak from spreading, the message said.
The apparent reversal of a high-profile decision drew confusion within China, with the independent news outlet Caixin using an unflattering idiom in a headline about the backtrack. The idiom, which roughly translates as “issue an order in the morning and rescind it in the evening,” is a well-known reference to government dysfunction.
Under the Chinese system, level one is the highest grade of response, used in the case of “extremely severe” public health incidents. Guangdong had been enforcing the highest level of response measures since Jan. 23, when Wuhan announced a total lockdown.
Five other Chinese provinces also adjusted their emergency responses: Shanxi revised down to level three, indicating intermediate or lower risk, while Gansu, Guizhou, Liaoning, Yunnan lowered the emergency response to level two from level one.
Currently, 25 out of China’s 31 provinces, regions, and municipalities remain on alevel one response.
HONG KONG — A preprinted research paper by Chinese scientists claims to provide further evidence to indicate that Wuhan Seafood Market may not be the source of the current outbreak of coronavirus.
Co-authored by researchers from three Chinese institutions including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and published on the academy’s website last Thursday, the study attempts to trace how the virus emerged and evolved. The authors analyzed the genomic data from 93 samples of the novel coronavirus and concluded that it was likely to have spread to the market from somewhere else.
“The crowded market then boosted SARS-CoV-2 circulation and spread it to the whole city in early December 2019,” according to the research. It also pointed out that human-to-human transmission of the virus might have existed in Wuhan as early as late November. The market was closed on Jan. 1.
Chinese health authorities announced Jan. 22 that they believe the novel coronavirus had originated from the Wuhan seafood market. The peer-reviewed study is the latest to challenge this, however, following another study which analyzed the first 41 patients in Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan published in The Lancet on Jan. 27.
BEIJING — Wuhan’s epidemic prevention and control headquarters announced Monday that it would be easing some of the restrictions on movement in the coronavirus-struck city.
The announcement said that vehicles that need to enter the city for epidemic prevention and control, the functioning of the city, transportation of epidemic prevention materials, as well as Wuhan residents and vehicles stranded outside the city will be allowed to enter the city following necessary procedures.
Additionally, the announcement said that people stuck in the city due to the lockdown would be able to leave if they were involved in similar procedures and if they do not have any of the symptoms related to the coronavirus outbreak.
Wuhan was placed under a strict lockdown on Jan. 23 with restrictions placed on movement throughout the city, home to almost 11 million people.
HONG KONG — The Chinese government announced 409 new cases of novel coronavirus on Monday, along with 150 new deaths.
The vast majority of the new cases of the coronavirus in China continued to be in Hubei province, the epicenter of the current outbreak. The Chinese government imposed an unprecedented lockdown on the province and its capital city Wuhan in January.
Some 398 of the new cases were in Hubei, with 24 of China’s 31 provinces, regions and municipalities reporting no new cases. Of the 150 new deaths, all but one were in Hubei.
HONG KONG — Chinese leader Xi Jinping said Sunday that the novel coronavirus is a crisis for China and that the country should not announce victory until the outbreak is contained.
Xi’s remarks, made during a speech to Communist Party members in Beijing on Sunday and widely reported in Chinese state media on Monday, were among his starkest yet about the challenge the coronavirus presents for his leadership.
“This is both a crisis and a big test for us,” Xi said, according to state news agency Xinhua, before pointing to some of the positive trends seen in containing the outbreak so far.
“No victory should be lightly announced until there is a complete win,” he said, according to Xinhua, adding that the situation remained grim and complex.
The comments came amid growing concern about the effect that a prolonged outbreak could have on both the Chinese and the global economy. The Chinese leader said Sunday that the outbreak would inevitably deal a relatively big blow to China’s economic and social development, but it would ultimately be temporary and manageable, Xinhua reported.
