Coronavirus news: US records first death as patient dies in Washington state

The first case of coronavirus in the Irish Republic - a male in the eastern part of the island - has been confirmed, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan has announced.

Dr John Cuddihy, director of Ireland's Health Protection Surveillance Centre, said: "The HSE (Health Service Executive) is now working rapidly to identify any contacts the patient may have had, to provide them with information and advice to prevent further spread. "It is important to note that the risk of transmission through casual contact is low."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “When the Foreign Secretary felt unwell this week, he followed NHS advice, was tested for Coronavirus and self-isolated. The test was negative and he was straight back to work."

Donald Trump said the US fatality was a woman in her late 50s who was "medically high risk".

She had not recently traveled and had no known link to other infected people. 

Mr Trump said the US had 43 million masks ready, and he would meet with the heads of pharmaceutical companies at the White House on Monday to discuss a possible vaccine.

He said: "Additional cases are likely but healthy individuals should be able to recover."

In case you're just joining us, here's a round up of today's events:

• Global case count hits 85,994 and 2,941 deaths
• The first death on US soil was reported in King County, Washington State
• A man from Surrey (the country's 20th case) became the first person in England to catch the illness in the UK, while three more patients tested positive, bringing the UK's total to 23
• Meanwhile NHS 111 is struggling to cope with volume of coronavirus calls
• France surpassed 100 cases as Paris half-marathon cancelled and mass events suspended
• Italy hits 1,128 mark with 29 dead
• South Korea reported its biggest surge in new coronavirus cases with nearly 3,000 infections
• Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman jailed in Tehran, believes she has contracted the new coronavirus
• A Google employee tested positive for coronavirus in Switzerland
• Ecuador, Qatar confirmed first case
• Two new cases detected in Pakistan
• Iran death toll reached 43 as the country prepares to test 'tens of thousands'
• And Pope Francis has cancelled official engagements for the third day in a row

For all the latest updates, be sure to keep following our live blog.

The governor of the northern Mexican state of Coahuila said on Saturday that a new case of coronavirus had been confirmed in the state, which borders the United States, according to local media.

Governor Miguel Angel Riquelme said the patient, a 20-year-old woman who had traveled to Italy, has been isolated, according to local television station Milenio.

Mexico's government said on Friday it had detected three cases of coronavirus infection in men who had all recently traveled to Italy, making the country the second in Latin America to be hit by the fast-spreading Covid-19 coronavirus.

The United States will expand travel restrictions from Iran over coronavirus fears, says Vice President Mike Pence, speaking after President Trump at Saturday's White House press briefing.

He also urged Americans to avoid areas of Italy and South Korea hardest hit by the virus.

At a White House press briefing President Donald Trump said 22 patients in United States have coronavirus and more are likely.

Official counts actually stand at 68 cases in the US.

He also added that his administration has taken “the most aggressive action in modern history to confront this disease."

“Our country is prepared for any circumstance, we hope it’s not going to be a major circumstance,” he said, asking the media and politicians not to do “anything to incite panic at all”.

Read our wrap on all the developments from the US to South Korea, Italy and elsewhere here.

Roughly 2 million tweets peddled conspiracy theories about coronavirus were posted over the three-week period when the Covid-19 outbreak began to spread outside China, according to an unreleased report seen by the Washington Post newspaper.

The findings came from an arm of the United States State Department and raise fresh fears about Silicon Valley’s preparedness to combat a surge of dangerous disinformation online.

Of the 29 million posts studied, some of those tweets posted between 20 January and 10 February floated a number of hoaxes — suggesting, for example, that coronavirus had been created by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or was the result of a bioweapon.

These and other identified falsehoods represented 7 percent of the total tweets the US government studied, and might have been “potentially impactful on the broader social media conversation," according to the report, which was obtained by The Washington Post on Saturday.

France has 100 confirmed cases of coronavirus, the head of the public health service, Jerome Salomon, said on Saturday, raising the tally from 73.

Of those cases, two people have died, 12 have recovered and 86 are in hospital, nine of them in a serious condition, Salomon told journalists in a daily news briefing about the outbreak.

After almost a month in on-off coronavirus isolation following their trip on the Westerdam cruise ship the Oliveira family are fed up of self-quarantine.

Read more about their first hand account on the reality of family life in a coronavirus quarantine here.

The Trump administration is considering imposing entry restrictions at the US-Mexico border to control the spread of the coronavirus in the United States, according to two US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials.

Mexico's government said on Friday it had detected three cases of coronavirus infection in three men who had all recently traveled to Italy, making the country the second in Latin America to register the fast-spreading virus.

The concern over containing the virus at the southern US border comes as the Trump administration also weighs possible restrictions on the entry of travellers from South Korea, Italy and Japan, Reuters reports.

The White House on Friday ordered the DHS to draft a range of options to respond to outbreaks in those countries, according to one of the officials and a third DHS official, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss the deliberations.

Trump, who is seeking re-election on 3 November, has been widely criticised by Democrats over his administration's response to the outbreak.

Trump threatened to close the border with Mexico last year over what he characterised at the time as a lack of effort by the Mexican government to stop the northward flow of migrants, but ultimately never took action.

Speaking at a rally in South Carolina on Friday, Trump said that "border security is also health security," but did not mention any planned actions. Earlier in the day, he said the United States will decide "very soon" about whether to bar entry to travellers from countries other than China where community transmission has emerged.

The United States has reported its first death, a patient in King County Washington State, officials confirm.

"Our hearts go out to their family and friends. We will continue to work toward a day where no one dies from this virus," a statement by Washington governor Jay Inslee said.

Late Friday, Washington state also announced that a high school student in Snohomish County, just north of Seattle, tested positive for the deadly virus and was in home isolation in a suspected community transmission case.

State health officials also said a woman in her 50s in King County tested positive after traveling to Daegu, South Korea, the site of a major coronavirus outbreak.

So far one person has now died and 67 have tested positive in the US.

Global case count stands at more than 85,000 while 2,933 are reported to have died. 

As the death toll for coronavirus climbs and stock markets flash red, it can be hard to gauge how worried to be about both your health and your finances.

But what will the outbreak really mean for your money?

Our economics reporter Lizzy Burden has the answers here.

Goyang, north of Seoul in South Korea have launched drive-thru coronavirus testing.

Coronavirus patients arrive by ambulance in Lodi, Italy.

People wearing protective suits are seen at the windows of a sports centre where Colombian citizens have been isolated after being repatriated by the Colombian government from the Chinese city of Wuhan, in Bogota.

Hello from Andrea Vogt, checking in from Italy with the daily Civil Protection agency bulletin of numbers.

The total number of positive cases registered so far in Italy are 1128, broken down as follows: 1049 infected, 29 deaths and 50 who have fully recovered.

More than 18,500 tests have been carried out in Italy. Of the 1049 who are infected, 52% are in self-isolation at home, and are supposedly showing no or light symptoms.

Authorities announced that schools will remain closed for another week in Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna. Liguria will be reopening, followed by Piedmont on Wednesday.

While government authorities are continuing to study decrees and aid package aimed at minimising the economic damage, estimated to be between 9 and 27 billion, according to ANSA news services.  

There’s nothing like a new, little understood virus that is spreading at a rate of knots to bring out the barely concealed hypochondriac in me, writes Telegraph columnist Bryony Gordon.

She might not have spent any time in Italy, Iran, South Korea or China but that hasn't stopped Bryony and her (loo-roll obsessed) husband from worrying.

Find out why Bryony Gordon thinks we could all be in need of 14-days in self-isolation – if only to calm down, here.

As coronavirus panic sweeps the UK, Joe Shute remembers a village in the Peak District where 260 villagers died during the bubonic plague.

Read more here.

President Donald Trump has announced that he will be holding a press conference about the coronavirus threat later today.

Trump tweeted that he'll discuss the latest development at a White House news conference at 1:30 pm (6:30pm GMT) on Saturday. 

Some might wonder whether he will revoke his earlier comments, where he appeared to lash out at Democrats who have questioned his handling of the coronavirus threat, calling it their new "hoax". 

Italy's death toll has climbed to 29, after eight more people appear to have died from the virus, Reuters reports.

The country has so far reported a total of 889 cases.

Tourism on the island is suffering from the coronavirus outbreak, despite a small number of confirmed cases, government and insiders say.

Taiwan recorded just one death and 39 confirmed cases of the virus on Saturday.

Despite this, tourism on the island has contracted sharply, say travel agents and Taiwan's government’s Tourism Bureau.

The effect on Taiwan's US$15 billion-per-year tourist sector could be a preview of things to come elsewhere, as the outbreak spreads from China around the globe, the South China Morning Post suggests.

This weekend there is a note of something like panic in the air, writes Sunday Telegraph business editor Christopher Williams.

The global financial system has not faced a test like the coronavirus. Production and consumption are vulnerable to disruption in ways that have not been observed in the modern era. 

With markets already in turmoil, in the next coming weeks the coronavirus could prove to be as deadly for weak companies as it is for people.

Read more from our business editor here.

An Italian national staying at a hotel in Tenerife which has been placed on lockdown after four cases of the coronavirus were detected has tested positive for the virus, regional health authorities confirmed on Saturday.

The Italian national, part of the same group as the four original cases at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace Hotel, has been in isolation in a hotel room since 24 February and will be taken to hospital, the Canary Islands' regional health authorities said, adding the Italian was "in good state of health".

It brings the total number of active cases in the Canary Islands to six - five in Tenerife and one in La Gomera.

On Saturday, the fourth day of the hotel's lockdown, some of the 130 guests who had been cleared to leave on Friday were seen exiting its grounds with suitcases.

More than 700 tourists remain inside waiting out a 14-day isolation period imposed on Wednesday.

Spain's total number of active coronavirus cases rose to 49 on Saturday. The bulk of those are linked to Italy, which has Europe's worst outbreak, with some 900 cases and 21 deaths.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman jailed in Tehran, believes she has contracted the new coronavirus as Iran struggles to contain a surge in new cases, her husband said on Saturday.

The 41-year-old detainee complained that prison authorities are refusing to test her for the COVID-19 virus, despite suffering from a worsening "strange cold", according to spouse Richard Ratcliffe.

"I am not good. I feel very bad in fact," Zaghari-Ratcliffe told her husband in a phone call Saturday from the prison, he revealed in a statement.

"For a long time this has not felt like a normal cold," she added, noting her symptoms included a sore throat, fever and difficulty breathing.

"I know I need to get medicine to get better. This does not go magically."

Ratcliffe urged British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ensure that his wife is tested immediately, and that British-Iranians "held hostage in Evin Prison are diplomatically protected".

Ecuador has confirmed the first case of coronavirus in the Andean country, its health minister said on Saturday.

The patient is an elderly female Ecuadorean residing in Spain, Catalina Andramuño, the health minister, told reporters. The patient arrived in Ecuador on 14 February on a direct flight from Madrid without showing any symptoms, but soon felt ill and went to a hospital where she was diagnosed with the coronavirus.

"The patient is currently in intensive care at one of the hospitals we had designated to attend to coronavirus," Andramuño said, adding that the government was monitoring people who may have come into contact with the patient.

Iraq has detected five new cases of coronavirus, four in Baghdad and one in Babel province, the health ministry said on Saturday, taking the total number of cases there to 13.

Reuters reports.

Confused about the government's complicated sounding 'contain, delay, research and mitigate' strategy? It's probably because some press officer thought it sounded good.

This chart helps explain it in a visual way.

Our global health security editor, Paul Nuki has more here.

Coronavirus concerns clearly weren't enough to put fans off from attending AFC Bournemouth vs. Chelsea Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium.

A street vendor wears a mask over his mouth as a precaution against the spread of the new coronavirus in Mexico City.

South Korean soldiers wearing protective gear spray disinfectant at Dongdaegu railway station in Daegu.

Although the images of mask-clad commuters and hotels in lockdown may feel far away, the effects of the coronavirus may be closer – and costlier – than you think. In fact they may be sitting inside your bank account right now.  

Here Telegraph Money nails down what the virus means for your money – from your holiday to your pension. 

The United States has postponed a meeting of leaders of southeast Asian nations that was set for Las Vegas in mid-March due to the spread of the coronavirus, a senior Trump administration official and the Philippine ambassador said.

President Donald Trump had invited the leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations to meet in the U.S. this year after he skipped their annual meeting last year, which was held in Thailand. Trump sent national security adviser Robert O'Brien to the meeting in his place.

A senior Trump administration official said Friday that the U.S. had consulted with its ASEAN partners before it made the "difficult decision" to postpone the Las Vegas meeting. Trump would have been expected to attend.

Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippine ambassador to Washington, said the White House notified the Philippines and other ASEAN member states' embassies about the postponement Friday, citing the global concerns on the viral outbreak:

"ASEAN ambassadors were informed by White House officials that the summit has been postponed because of the coronavirus," Romualdez told The Associated Press in Manila. 

"I think it's appropriate because, honestly, this has become far more serious than anything else."

ASEAN members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Together, they make up a fast-growing regional market of nearly 650 million people.

 Lebanon's health ministry said on Saturday that three new cases of coronavirus had been confirmed, state news agency NNA reported.

The ministry said the three new patients had been quarantined at a Beirut hospital and that their cases were the result of contact with those who were already infected in Lebanon.

This brings the total number of cases in the country to seven.

A total of 23 people have tested positive in the UK for the Covid-19 coronavirus since the virus first broke out in Wuhan, China. 

Of the 23 cases, 20 are thought to be in England, while Wales and Northern Ireland have each reported their first case. Only one British national has so far died from the virus; the unidentified man died on Friday in Japan after being quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

This timeline reveals the who, when and where of all the UK's confirmed cases so far:

January 31

University of York student and a relative test positive after travelling to the UK from China. Taken to Newcastle Royal Victoria Infirmary for treatment.

February 6

Businessman Steve Walsh diagnosed in Brighton and transferred to Guy’s and St Thomas’ in London after contracting the virus in Singapore.

February 9

A fourth person has been diagnosed in the UK, believed to be a contact of Mr Walsh.

February 10

Four more patients in England test positive, all contacts of Mr Walsh. Two are healthcare workers, with one named as Catriona Greenwood.

February 13

A woman becomes the first confirmed case in the capital and is moved to a specialist NHS centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ for treatment after contracting the virus in China

February 23

Four Britons rescued from the Diamond Princess cruise ship test positive in the UK.

February 27

A patient who had returned from northern Italy becomes the first case in Northern Ireland.

A parent at a Buxton primary school in Derbyshire tests positive after contracting the virus in Tenerife.

Another patient who also contracted the virus in Italy also tests positive.

February 28

A British man becomes the first UK national to die after having contracted the virus while on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

Wales reports its first case, an individual who had returned from Italy.

Two new cases identified in England. Both had recently travelled back from Iran.

The first case not to have been contracted abroad is confirmed to be a man who was recently treated at the Haslemere Health Centre.

February 29

Three more patients test positive, bringing the total number of UK cases to 23. 

The patients are from Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire and Berkshire. Two had just returned from Italy, and the third from Asia.

Total: 23

Pakistan has detected two new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of patients with the infection in the country to four, the Press Association reports.

Confirmation of the cases has set off alarm bells as authorities scramble to screen hundreds of people who recently arrived from Iran, a major new hotspot for the virus.

"One of the two patients has tested positive in the capital Islamabad and the other one in Karachi," the prime minister's advisor on health Zafar Mirza told a press conference.

The earlier two cases were also detected in the same cities. Mirza said they were "fast recovering" and one would be discharged from hospital soon.

A senior official at the health department for Sindh province said "the patient undergoing treatment in Karachi has a recent history of travel to Iran from where he acquired the virus".

But no information was immediately available about the patient being treated in Islamabad.

Our science editor Sarah Knapton poked fun at all the mask-wearing fans on Twitter, but she has a point.

If you're curious, here's the truth about face masks and how effective they are as protection against the coronavirus outbreak. Read up here.

Taiwan reported a jump in new cases of the coronavirus on Saturday, including four people who had contact with another infected patient in a hospital and one person returning from the Middle East.

The five new cases take the country's total to 39.

The government's Central Epidemic Command Centre said a cleaner and three nurses were the four staff who had been infected at the hospital, which was treating another coronavirus case.

The nurses had treated the patient before he had been confirmed to have been infected, the Strait Times reports.

The fifth new case is a woman in her 60s who went on a tour to Egypt and Dubai and who returned to Taiwan on 21 February. She began feeling unwell while in Egypt, the centre said.

The number of people tested for coronavirus in Scotland has risen by more than 100 in a day, with no confirmed cases, the Press Association reports.

A total of 630 tests had been carried out by Saturday in Scotland, up from 500 on Friday.

All have so far proved negative.

South of the border, a further three patients in England have tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the UK to 23.

British sport is facing a potential hit worth hundreds of millions of pounds after medical experts warned the Premier League and a host of domestic competitions were on the brink of coronavirus chaos.

Contingency planning has intensified throughout the week for organisers of the most high-profile events, including the London Marathon in April and even cricketing Test matches in June.

Even though UK infection numbers still stand at just 23, the Government is edging closer to considering the biggest suspension in the sporting calendar during peacetime British history.

Our award-winning Telegraph Sports team have more on the story here.

The screens are a sea of red. Equities are tumbling globally. Headlines flash up about the biggest points loss in Wall Street history. And pictures of stressed-out traders staring bleakly into the Bloomberg terminals are splashed on every newspaper front page.

Most of the population may well have remained fairly stoic in the face of the coronavirus but the markets are in a full-scale panic as investors try to work out its potential impact on the global economy.

But the sell-off is not just about the virus, argues Matthew Lynn.

Catch the rest of his column here.

Rangers’ meeting with Bayer Leverkusen in Germany in the last 16 of the Europa League could be played behind closed doors if cases of coronavirus continue to multiply in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, home of the Bundesliga club.

Our Scottish football correspondent Roddy Forsyth has more details here.

"There’s a huge appetite for facts about the coronavirus but not nearly enough to go around, and even the experts, who have a bird’s eye view of the crisis, cannot second guess what will happen next.

The goal instead is to reduce risk and try to control the fallout."

Read more on the Telegraph View here.

France said on Saturday it will cancel all public "gatherings of more than 5,000 people" in closed spaces, as it seeks to curb the spread of coronavirus amid a surge of cases in the country.

The decision followed a special meeting of ministers to discuss the virus, which has infected 73 people in the country, according to Health Minister Olivier Veran.

A half-marathon race scheduled for Sunday in Paris has also been cancelled, along with the final day of an agricultural symposium.

Azerbaijan said on Saturday it had closed its border with Iran for two weeks to prevent the spread of coronavirus, after the death toll in Iran rose to 43, the highest number outside of China.

Iran is at the epicentre of the outbreak in the Middle East, with several countries in the region reporting cases stemming from Iran.

Azerbaijan registered its first case of coronavirus on Thursday. There are currently three people infected with the virus in Azerbaijan.

It said the decision to close the border had been taken "in light of the World Health Organisation's recommendations and the experience of other countries related to the risk of the spread of coronavirus".

The government will start a process to bring back its citizens from Iran, as well as returning Iranian citizens living in Azerbaijan, the statement added.

Three more patients have tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of UK cases to 23, Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty has said.

Two of the latest diagnosed patients had just returned from Italy, and the third from Asia, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

A real estate exhibition due to take place in Cannes next month has been postponed due to concerns over coronavirus.

MIPIM, which bills itself as the world's leading property market, was due to open on March 10 but has been rescheduled for between June 2 and 5.

Paul Zilk, chief executive of Reed MIDEM, which organises the exhibition, said:

"The well-being of our clients and staff is our priority. Given the evolving context, the best course of action is to postpone MIPIM to June.

"This is not a decision we have taken lightly.

The Paris half-marathon, which was scheduled for Sunday with 44,000 registered runners, has been cancelled over coronavirus fears, officials said Saturday.

The announcement came after the French government ordered the cancellation of "gatherings of more than 5,000 people" in enclosed areas and some external events.

French Health Minister Olivier Veran said there were 16 new cases of coronavirus in France, taking to 73 the number of people affected since the end of January, AFP reports.

A French health minister has said that the number of confirmed coronavirus-infected patients in France has risen to 73, reports by Reuters suggest.

More as we get it.

Coronavirus fears have done little to quell Hong Kong's protests. 

This video posted to Twitter by journalist Jasmine Leung shows protesters setting fire to makeshift road blocks.

Locals have set up a flash mob outside the Duomo di Milano in Italy to protest against the widespread panic brought about by the country's coronavirus outbreak.

 Italy has so far reported 889 cases while 21 have reported to have died.

Japan's cherry blossoms are a huge tourist draw, but this year, at least two cherry blossom festivals won't be going ahead, CNN reports.

The Osaka Mint cherry blossom festival in Japan has been cancelled over coronavirus fears, according to a statement from the organisers. 

In Tokyo, the Nakameguro Cherry Blossom Festival also announced it would cancel its event this year, including its main attraction of lighting up trees along the river. 

An employee of energy group Chevron who had reportedly fallen ill with flu like symptoms on Wednesday has tested negative for the Covid-19 coronavirus.

As a precaution, the firm asked its 300 traders at its Canary Wharf, London offices to work from home earlier this week.

Bill Gates has described the disease behind the current Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak as a "once-in-a-century pathogen" and has called for world leaders to step up efforts to help slow the spread of the virus.

"We face an immediate crisis," Bill Gates wrote in New England Journal of Medicine on Friday. "In the past week, Covid-19 has started behaving a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about.

The Microsoft co-founder and global health advocate also said the world has "no time to waste" in dealing with the outbreak.

Since the devastating 1918 outbreak of Spanish Flu, Global health experts have been working tirelessly to find Disease X – a virus that is as yet undiscovered, but which could have the potential to ravage populations. Some have speculated that Covid-19 could be it.

"Experts have been saying for years that another pandemic was a matter not of if but of when," he added.

Gates and his wife, Melinda, founded The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 to help improve world health and combat extreme poverty. Earlier this month the Gates Foundation announced plans to commit up to $100 million (£78 million) for the global response to the 2019 novel coronavirus.

 An Iranian Health Ministry spokesman says the country is preparing for the possibility of "tens of thousands" coming to test for the new coronavirus, underscoring the concern over the outbreak there, Associated Press reports

Kianoush Jahanpour made the comment Saturday at a news conference where he said the virus had killed 43 people amid 593 confirmed cases.

Jahanpour denied reports by the BBC's Farsi service putting the death toll over four times as high, saying foreign media outlets had "political" biases and no access to Iran's laboratories.

However, his acknowledgment of the number of people potentially wanting testing shows how concerned Iran is over the virus, especially after days of officials downplaying it.

Iran has the highest death toll in the world outside of China, the epicentre of the virus.

A French couple traveling in Brazil suspected of being infected with coronavirus and hospitalised against their will were released after they tested negative, local authorities said.

The tourists in their 50s were hospitalised when they showed flu symptoms in the small coastal town of Paraty, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, on Thursday.

The Rio de Janeiro state court had ruled that the local authorities had the right to hold them.

The couple arrived in Rio de Janeiro from Barcelona on February 20, and then traveled Monday to Paraty, news site G1 reported, citing city officials.

Qatar's health ministry reported on Saturday the first case of coronavirus infection in the country, the state-run Qatar News Agency said.

The Qatari national who is the first confirmed case of the coronavirus in the Gulf state is a 36 year-old who returned recently from Iran and is in a stable condition, the country’s health ministry has said

Saudi Arabia is now the only Gulf country not to have signalled any cases of the coronavirus.

Worldwide count stands at more than 85,000 while 2,933 have died:

Large numbers of callers to NHS 111 are understood to be giving up after failing to get a reply, as the service struggles to cope with overwhelming demand from people worried they may have contracted the deadly virus.

There are also reports that even after getting through to trained call handlers some people are having to wait hours and even days for clinicians to call them back with instructions on what to do next. 

Read more here.

Handshakes could help spread coronavirus, not only through touching, but by encouraging people to come face-to-face and create a ‘tidal breath’ which passes on infection, experts have warned.

Although avoiding handshakes is not currently part of NHS or Public Health England (PHE) guidance on preventing coronavirus, experts said it would be helpful to call a temporary halt to the nicety, science editor Sarah Knapton reports.

 

Chinese factory activity nosedived last month, at a faster pace than during the financial crisis, underscoring the havoc wreaked by the coronavirus on the world’s second-biggest economy.

Analysts are warning the spread of the coronavirus to other countries will impact global supply chains and limit the recovery for Chinese manufacturers.

Read more from economics reporter Lizzy Burden here.

Pope Francis has cancelled official engagements for the third day in a row, the Associated Press reports.

He last appeared in public on Wednesday, when he was seen coughing and blowing his nose.

AP reports:

The 83-year-old pope, who lost part of a lung to a respiratory illness as a young man, has never canceled so many official audiences or events in his seven-year papacy.

Francis is, however, continuing to work from his residence at the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel and is receiving people in private, the Vatican press office said. On Saturday, those private meetings were with the head of the Vatican’s bishops’ office, Francis’ ambassadors to Lebanon and France and a Ukrainian archbishop.

Canceled were his two planned official audiences formal affairs in the Apostolic Palace where Francis would have delivered a speech and greeted a great number of people at the end. Those were to include an audience with an international bioethics organization and with members of the scandal-marred Legion of Christ religious order.

On Sunday, Francis is expected to leave the Vatican with top Holy See bureaucrats for a week of spiritual exercises in the Roman countryside, an annual retreat that the pope attends at the start of each Lent.

Should you stockpile food, stop going to work and cancel your social arrangements? Or will it all have blown over by spring?

We've got the answers to all your coronavirus-related questions here.

"As a journalist you expect to be spat at, shot at, even kidnapped, but the unexpected wholesale removal of 14 days of your normal life – that never appeared on the job spec."

After a visit to Iran, the NHS advised Jon Snow to stay at home alone for two weeks.

Here the broadcaster describes how he plans to spend his days in isolation.

The governor of Veneto, one of the regions worst hit by an outbreak in Italy of coronavirus, apologised on Saturday for criticising China over the outbreak, saying Chinese people "eat live mice".

Luca Zaia pinned the blame on China for the flare-up in Italy, which has led to at least 21 deaths, saying that unlike Italians, the Chinese did not have good standards of hygiene.

"The hygiene that our people, the Venetians and the Italian citizens have, the cultural training we have, is that of taking a shower, of washing, of washing one's hands often," Zaia said in a Antenna 3-Nord Est TV television interview on Friday.

"It is a cultural fact that China has paid a big price for this epidemic because we have seen them all eat mice live or things like that."

His words stung the Chinese embassy in Rome, which took to Facebook to say:

"At a crucial time like this, when China and Italy stand side-by-side to deal with the epidemic, an Italian politician has spared no slander about the Chinese people. This is a gratuitous attack that leaves us stunned."

President Emmanuel Macron held coronavirus crisis talks with ministers at the Elysée Palace on Saturday as health authorities in Paris prepared for the number of cases to climb.

Senior doctors warned that an “Italy-type scenario” was likely. So far France has had 57 cases of the virus, with 19 new infections diagnosed on Friday.

Two people have died of Covid-19 in France and 43 people have been treated in French hospitals – 12 of whom have been discharged after recovering.

Olivier Véran, the health minister, has advised people to avoid shaking hands or kissing on cheeks.

Some hospitals are under strain with medical staff self-isolating or quarantined, several schools are expected to be closed from Monday and public transport services may be reduced, officials warned.

The French, notoriously sloppy about personal hygiene, according to recent surveys, are being urged to wash their hands more often and more thoroughly.

David Chazan reports from Paris

An Iranian Health Ministry spokesman on Saturday said the new coronavirus has killed 43 people amid 593 confirmed cases in the country.

Kianoush Jahanpour urged people to stay away from mass gatherings and limit their travel, the Associated Press reports.

Iran has the world's highest death toll outside of China. The new figures from Iran pushes the total cases in the Middle East to over 720.

Since early January when the first cases of the virus appeared in Wuhan anxiety has been building across the world.

But the trick to surviving a pandemic (or at least improving your odds) is to get properly briefed on the facts, alter your behaviours accordingly and push on with your life.

Genuine experts from across the world - scientists, doctors, epidemiologists, to mention just a few -  have been planning for exactly this sort of outbreak for decades, writes Global Health editor Paul Nuki.

Read more here.

A Google employee in Switzerland has tested positive for the coronavirus, the first known case to affect any Silicon Valley worker outside of China.

A company spokesman confirmed on Friday that one worker in its Zurich headquarters had been diagnosed with Covid-19.

He added that the employee had not shown any symptoms before being isolated, suggesting that the risk of them having infected any of their colleagues while still at work was low. 

Our US technology reporter Laurence Dodds has more details here.

Mexico's health ministry said the country has confirmed three cases of the coronavirus, becoming the second Latin American nation reached by the global outbreak.

The three men - two in Mexico City and one in the northern state of Sinaloa - are all believed to have visited northern Italy, the epicentre of the virus in Europe.

"Probably all three were infected from the same source. All three are imported cases," Jose Luis Alomia, general director of epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, said at a press conference Friday.

Senior health ministry official Hugo Lopez-Gatell told a separate news conference that one of the men, a 35-year-old in the capital, "has a mild, mild illness" with symptoms "similar to that of a cold".

The patient and five members of his family have been isolated at the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases.

The second case, a 41-year-old man who returned from Bergamo in Italy, is in isolation at a hotel in Sinaloa after being tested by regional authorities, officials said.

A 59-year-old man in Mexico City who also visited northern Italy is the third case but authorities did not say whether he had been hospitalised.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for stronger anti-virus efforts to guard against Covid-19, saying there will be "serious consequences" if the illness spreads to the country.

Kim emphasised that all fields and units of the country should "unconditionally" obey quarantine instructions laid-out by the anti-epidemic headquarters.

He called for the strict enforcement of preventive measures against what he described as a tricky virus that spreads rapidly.

"In case the infectious disease spreading beyond control finds its way into our country, it will entail serious consequences," KCNA quoted Kim as saying during the politburo meeting of the Workers' Party.

The North has yet to report its first infection from the new coronavirus, but it has been pushing a tough campaign it has described as a matter of "national existence."

Experts say an epidemic in North Korea could be dire because of its chronic lack of medical supplies and poor health care infrastructure.

Tests on 167 people have proved negative for coronavirus after they were feared to have been exposed to two infected Italian participants of the UAE Tour, Abu Dhabi's health department (DoH-AD) has said.

The final two stages of the UAE Tour, which featured some of the world's leading riders, was cancelled because two Italian participants testing positive for coronavirus, the Abu Dhabi Sports Council said on Thursday.

"Two cases of coronavirus were suspected among two staff members of one of the participating teams," cycling's governing body, UCI, said on Friday.

The official race hotel in Abu Dhabi was sealed off late on Thursday and health authorities ordered precautionary quarantine and preventive measures for all participants of the UAE Tour.

"The health authorities are still monitoring the health condition of the contacts to ensure safety of the community," the DoH-AD said in a statement late on Friday.

The results of the remaining test findings will be available soon, it added.

The UAE Tour was just one of many international sports events hit by the coronavirus, with some postponed and others cancelled outright.

Thailand has reported a new case of coronavirus this morning, taking its total to 42. 

However, there is growing concern from health experts that, elsewhere in Southeast Asia, cases are going unreported, raising the prospect of a silent spread.

Officials are particularly worried about Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar which, despite close connections with China, have reported only one confirmed case between them.

Read more: Lack of cases in Southeast Asia sparks alarm over possible silent spread

AP is reporting two new cases in the state of Washington.

It follows one case in Oregon and two in California that were confirmed earlier this morning. All three of which were people who did not travel overseas or come in contact with anyone known to be ill, suggesting that there is an outbreak in the US.

The case would bring the number of people in the US with the coronavirus to 63.

South Korea has reported its biggest surge in new coronavirus cases.

The vast majority of coronavirus infections have been in China but more daily cases are now logged outside the country, including in South Korea, Italy and Iran.

South Korea has the most cases outside China, with nearly 3,000 infections as 594 more patients were reported on Saturday - the country's largest increase to date.

The British man who has died after being quarantined on the Diamond Princess in Japan has still not been identified.

The Japanese health minister said the man was the sixth passenger from the cruise ship to have died. He is the first Briton to have died from coronavirus. 

Four Britons are in Japan after testing positive for the virus. They include David and Sally Abel, who are recovering in hospital. Mr Abel said in a livestream on YouTube from his hospital bed in Tokyo that he does not know the British man who died.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Japan and are in contact with local authorities. Our sympathies and thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.”

The Government last night partially lifted its long-running boycott of BBC Radio 4's Today show, conceding that ministers needed to be able to update the public on the coronavirus.

Lee Cain, Boris Johnson's director of communications, is said to have told government aides that he has accepted it is in the "public interest" for ministers to appear to keep people informed.

It comes after opposition MPs accused the Prime Minister of imposing a "childish ban" at a time when the public needed updates on the outbreak.

Edward Argar, a health minister, will appear on the Today programme today.

US health officials have reported a third case of the new coronavirus transmitted to a person who did not travel overseas or come in contact with anyone known to be ill, indicating the disease was spreading in the country.

Authorities said the new case concerned a person living in the western state of Oregon. The adult patient, who has been hospitalised, was known to have had contact with people at an elementary school.

Two other similar cases have been reported in neighbouring California this week.

President Donald Trump has lashed out at Democrats who have questioned his handling of the coronavirus threat, calling it their new "hoax".

At a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump accused rivals of "politicising" the coronavirus and boasted about preventive steps he has taken to keep the virus from spreading. Democrats have accused the president of slashing spending on virus protection measures and public health.

"They have no clue," Trump said. "They tried the impeachment hoax ... this is their new hoax."

China's manufacturing activity fell to its lowest level on record in February as the deadly coronavirus epidemic hammered the world's second largest economy, official data shows.

The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), a key gauge of activity in the country's factories, was at 35.7 points in February, well below the 50-point mark that separates growth and contraction every month.

South Korea confirmed 594 more coronavirus cases on Saturday, the largest increase to date for the country and taking the national total to 2,931 infections with three additional deaths.

More than 90 per cent of the new cases were in Daegu, the centre of the country's outbreak, and its neighbouring North Gyeongsang province, the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.

Three women in the Daegu area died of the illness, taking the national toll to 16, the statement added.

Kim Jong-un threatened top party officials in North Korea with the "serious consequences" of failing to prevent an outbreak of the new coronavirus in the country, state media has reported.

The impoverished nation, with a weak and ill-equipped healthcare system, has closed its borders to prevent the spread of the disease into its territory.

Pyongyang has not reported a single case of Covid-19, which has killed more than 2,800 people in neighbouring China and global health experts are doubtful that the country has not yet been infected.

Kim told a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea that the fight against the virus was a "crucial state affair for the defence of the people" that required maximum discipline, according to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"In case the infectious disease spreading beyond control finds its way into our country, it will entail serious consequences," KCNA quoted Kim as saying. "No special cases must be allowed," he added, and ordered officials to "seal off all the channels and space through which the infectious disease may find its way".

A man from Surrey has been taken to an isolation unit in London after becoming the UK’s 20th case of coronavirus.

He is the first person in England to catch the illness in the UK.

Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, said it was unclear whether he had contracted it directly or indirectly from someone who had recently returned from abroad.

“This is being investigated and contact tracing has begun, Professor Whitty said. "The patient has been transferred to a specialist NHS infection centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ [hospital].”

The number of confirmed cases in the UK has jumped from 13 to 20 since Thursday.

California health officials on Friday confirmed the second case in the United States of the new coronavirus believed to have been transmitted to a person who did not travel overseas or come in contact with anyone known to be ill.

"This new case indicates that there is evidence of community transmission but the extent is still not clear," said Sara Cody, director of public health for Santa Clara County, near San Francisco.

"What we know now is that the virus is here, present at some level, but we still don't know to what degree," she added.

Meanwhile, the US has postponed the ASEAN regional summit due to coronavirus and the State Department raised its travel advice a notch for Italy to "reconsider travel," pointing to a "sustained community spread" of the virus there.

China has reported a slight rise in new cases this morning - up by 427 to 79,251. There has also been a slight increase in the death rate on the mainland: 47 people died yesterday, up from 44 on Thursday. The total number of people killed by the coronavirus in China is now more than 2,700.