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Coronavirus live news: Trump says UK may be included in travel ban as WHO calls Europe 'centre of pandemic' Coronavirus live news: Trump says UK may be included in travel ban as WHO calls Europe 'centre of pandemic'
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Mount Everest calls off climbing season; Canadian prime minister self-isolates; London Underground driver tests positiveMount Everest calls off climbing season; Canadian prime minister self-isolates; London Underground driver tests positive
Mauritania has confirmed its first case, according to AFP. The agency reported that the country’s health minister, Mohamed Nedhirou Ould Hamed, said the case involved a recently returned foreigner who tested positive on Friday. In a televised address, he said:
A statement from the health ministry, also released on Friday, said the man was an “expatriate” who had flown into Mauritania from Europe on Monday. He isolated himself after a friend in Europe tested positive for the virus. Health officials discovered he was feverish on Friday morning and he was confirmed positive for coronavirus later in the evening.
The health minister also promised, in his televised address, that the government would stop charter flights coming to Mauritania from France.
The West African state of Guinea registered its first coronavirus case on Friday too. And Senegal, which shares a border with Mauritania, registered 11 new coronavirus infections on Friday, bringing its total number to 19. Ivory Coast, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Nigeria have all also recently registered coronavirus cases.
Eswatini, the land-locked southern African country formerly known as Swaziland, has reported its first confirmed case, its minister of health has said.
A 33-year-old woman, who returned from the United States at the end of February and then travelled to Lesotho before returning home to eSwatini, is currently in isolation, Lizzie Nkosi added.
The French health minister has announced an increase of 800 cases in the last 24 hours. Olivier Véran said the evolution of the spread of the virus was “rapid and real”:
Véran added that 98% of those who have tested positive have since recovered.
France has banned gatherings of more than 100 people across the country as schools began closing on Friday for an indefinite period. The previous maximum was more than 1,000 people.
The Eiffel Tower, Château de Versailles, Louvre, Musée d’Orsay and Centre Pompidou have closed. The Archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, said there would be no Sunday masses held in churches on the Paris region.
Thousands of jobs are set to go at the Dutch national airline, KLM, as it deals with the impact of the outbreak, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Its chief executive, Pieter Elbers, said KLM will shed as many as 2,000 jobs and ask personnel to work shortened hours, while grounding its fleet of six Boeing 747s from 1 April.
The airline’s top official said the job cuts mainly included part-time workers, those destined for retirement and natural attrition.
A cruise ship has been docked in isolation in northeastern Brazil after two passengers were found to have symptoms resembling that of the new coronavirus, local authorities say.
According to the Associated Press, the Brazilian state of Pernambuco’s health secretariat decided to keep the ship – with its 318 passengers and 291 crew members – in isolation in the capital of Recife on Thursday. Officials have not released the name of the ship.
Some passengers had disembarked before officials decided to isolate the ship and Brazil’s health authority asked tourist agencies to facilitate the return of those people. Authorities took action to prevent additional passengers from leaving.
The first passenger suspected of having the virus was described as a 78-year-old man who displayed respiratory problems. Officials said the man was taken from the ship to a private clinic for treatment and testing for the coronavirus.
Authorities reported a second possible case on Friday. That passenger had a fever and difficulty breathing, so was moved to a private health unit onshore to undergo the coronavirus test.
The result of the tests will dictate whether the ship’s passengers are placed into quarantine, the state’s health secretary, André Longo, said in an interview with the Globo television network.
The former Nato secretary general, Javier Solana, has been admitted to hospital after testing positive for coronavirus, a source has told Reuters, adding that his health was evolving positively and that he had been put under observation as a precaution.
Solana, 77, served in the role from 1995 to 1999, as European Union high representative for foreign affairs from 1999 to 2009 and was Spain’s foreign minister under prime minister Felipe González from 1992 to 1995. He attended an event with the current Spanish foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, on Monday.
The US death toll has risen to 47 after six more deaths were reported in Washington state and a further one was reported in Colorado – the first in that state. Local authorities said a woman in her 80s who had underlying health issues has died.
Ukraine is closing its borders to foreigners for at least two weeks and will stop all flights, as it reported its first Covid-19 fatality on Friday.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of the country’s Security and Defence Council, said the measure will take effect in 48 hours. Minutes later, Ukraine announced the news that a woman in her 70s, who lived in north-west Zhytomyr region and was suffering from double pneumonia after a trip to Poland, had died.
The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, asked elderly people to remain at home and asked employers to let workers work from home, wherever possible. He alsoasked Ukrainians who were on holiday or who work abroad to return home by the time the travel ban comes into effect.
Danilov said all Ukrainians would be allowed to return to the country, and those coming back from the nations most affected by the pandemic will have to be quarantined. The ban on foreigners would only be waived for diplomatic workers, he said.
Norway has introduced travel restrictions designed to combat the spread of the virus. Ullensaker municipality has said on its website:
Norwegians arriving at Gardermoen airport, located outside Oslo, will immediately be sent home into quarantine.
Ireland is advising its citizens to exercise a high degree of caution before deciding to travel to other EU member states due to action over the spread of the coronavirus, the country’s foreign minister says.
Ireland has previously only urged against all travel to Italy and advised avoiding non-essential travel to China, Iran and Spain.
The Associated Press is reporting that a second person who was at Mar-a-Lago with Trump last weekend has tested positive for coronavirus. The agency is citing a Republican party official who it says spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss private health matters.
The person attended a Trump fundraising at the president’s Florida resort on Sunday.Trump also spent time last weekend with a Brazilian official who tested positive just days later.
A deal has been reached for an aid package and Democrats in the House of Representatives will soon pass it, the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said.
Pelosi and the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, have been negotiating since Thursday on a multi-billion US dollar package that aims to limit the economic fallout from the pandemic, which has infected 138,000 people worldwide, killed more than 5,000 and closed down schools, sports arenas, theatres and offices across America.
The bill would provide for free coronavirus testing and two weeks of paid sick and family leave for those affected by the virus, Pelosi said earlier in the day. It also would expand safety-net programs that help people weather economic downturns.
Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress have waited to hear from the president before weighing in on the measure. Pelosi does not need their support to pass legislation out of the House but it is unlikely to get far in the Republican-controlled Senate without bipartisan support.
The International Monetary Fund has advised all staff at its Washington, DC headquarters to work from home until further notice after an employee was diagnosed with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, a spokesman has said.The International Monetary Fund has advised all staff at its Washington, DC headquarters to work from home until further notice after an employee was diagnosed with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, a spokesman has said.
The fund said it also has suspended all mission travel to European countries designated as Level 3 community spread areas by the Centers for Disease Control, but it “remains fully operational and stands ready to serve its members.”The fund said it also has suspended all mission travel to European countries designated as Level 3 community spread areas by the Centers for Disease Control, but it “remains fully operational and stands ready to serve its members.”
In the UK, mass gatherings are set to be banned as part of the battle against coronavirus in a significant shift in the government’s position, the Press Association reports. A Whitehall source has told the news agency:
Other countries to introduce stringent measures include Cyprus, Bosnia and Uzbekistan.
Cyprus is banning entry to non-residents for 15 days, its president Nicos Anastasiades has announced. From Sunday, only Cypriots, legal residents, diplomats, registered students and specific authorised people will be admitted.
Anastasiades asked Cypriots abroad not to travel back to Cyprus unnecessarily and said all private and public educational institutions will remain closed until 10 April.
Anastasiades said restrictions at crossing points on the divided island’s ceasefire line would remain in place, asking Cypriots to cross only for “necessary trips”.
Bosnia’s authorities have agreed to require two weeks of isolation starting Monday for all its nationals arriving in the country from abroad. The move is likely to discourage members of the large Bosnian diaspora from visiting during forthcoming Easter holidays.
And Uzbekistan has suspended all flights to and from France, Spain, and Britain, as well as barring citizens of six countries –including Iran and Italy – from entering the country.
In addition to Italian and Iranian nationals, Uzbekistan has barred French, Spanish, South Korean and Chinese citizens from entering. The Central Asian country, which had already suspended flights to China, South Korea and Iran, has yet to report any cases of the virus.
Canada has unveiled aggressive new measures to contain the outbreak; shutting down parliament and advising against foreign travel, even as Justin Trudeau urged citizens to remain calm in a national address delivered from self-imposed quarantine. He told the nation:
Trudeau, whose wife has been confirmed as having contracted the virus, said he remained symptom free.
Officials announced a raft of new measures including closing parliament for five weeks and redirecting incoming international flights to a small number of airports as part of enhanced screening measures.
The government also announced it will ban cruise ships with 500 people from docking in the country’s ports until 1 July – but stopped short of closing the borders. Canada’s health minister, Patty Hajdu, said:
Instead, the government has asked Canadians to avoid non-essential travel outside the country and to limit contact with crowds. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said:
Officials in Toronto, the country’s largest city, announced the closure of all child care facilities, public libraries and community centres. They also announced the surprise cancellation of all spring break camps and urged residents to reconsider taking public transit.
Experts cautioned that no clear blueprints yet exist on now to stem the spread of the virus— but that certain measures have shown degrees of success. Dr Susy Hota, an infectious disease specialist and the medical director of prevention and control at Toronto’s university health network, said:
Egypt has reported 13 new cases, bringing the total of cases detected in the country to 93, Reuters quotes its health ministry as saying. The new cases reported include five Egyptians and eight foreigners.
The country has recorded two deaths because of coronavirus – one of a German tourist and another of a 60-year-old woman, the ministry added.
Another to reported its first coronavirus cases was Kosovo, which said a 20-year-old Italian woman and a 77-year-old Kosovar man were confirmed sufferers. The health minister, Arben Vitia, has said:
Local media said the 20-year-old Italian woman was working for a humanitarian organisation, while the man had also arrived from Italy in the past few days.
The also government said it would isolate two regions where the first patients were discovered, as well as closing all restaurants and shopping centres. Schools were closed on Wednesday.
Uruguay has also confirmed its first four recorded cases, its ministry of health announced in a tweet. All four cases were people who had arrived to Uruguay from Milan, Italy between 3 and 6 March, the ministry said, adding that the patients are stable and at their homes.
Suriname has identified its first case, the country’s vice president told the national assembly. Michael Ashwin Adhin said the patient had traveled to the South American country last week from the Netherlands and that borders and airports will close at midnight for all persons and flights.
Plans to close off Catalonia have been announced by the northeastern Spanish region’s president, Quim Torra, who called on the central government to help by authorising the closure of ports, airports and railways.
While Catalonia is one of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions, major transport hubs come under the mandate of the central government.
His call, which would affect Catalonia’s 7.5 million residents, came hours after the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said that a national state of emergency would be declared on Saturday. And, in Madrid, the regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso recommended that residents not leave their homes.
In Europe, Hungary is closing all schools and will continue education as best as it can via digital channels, its prime minister Viktor Orbán has said.
In a Facebook video, he said he expected the Hungarian economy to stall soon and it will have to be restarted; an effort the government will participate in.
Multiple times during this press conference, Trump has been asked about the Brazilian official whom he met and who subsequently tested positive. He was asked if he was offering different advice to Americans than he’s practising himself.
In response to a followup question Trump said he would be tested “fairly soon.”