Coronavirus latest updates: Meanwhile, two people who were on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship off Japan’s coast have died.Coronavirus Latest Updates: The death toll from the new coronavirus outbreak has crossed 2,100-mark in China and the overall number of confirmed cases has climbed to 74,576. Meanwhile, scientists in the US have announced a major breakthrough which can be critical in creating a treatment regime for COVID-19. According to a PTI report, American scientists announced that they have created the first 3D atomic-scale map of the part of the nCOV which attaches to and infects cells in humans. This is a critical step toward developing nCoV vaccine and treatments.
Meanwhile, two people who were on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship off Japan’s coast have died. The passengers were a man and a woman in their 80s, Reuters reported citing an unidentified government source. 542 people, including 6 Indian passenger and crew members, had tested positive for the novel coronavirus onboard the cruise ship that had been kept off the Japanese coastline for fear of an even bigger outbreak.
In Shimla, six Chinese nationals have been put under surveillance in the view of Coronavirus outbreak. They arrived in Himachal Pradesh in the past few days in two batches from Kolkata and were diagnosed as ‘asymptomatic’. They have been put under surveillance and advised to report to the health officials in case of symptoms of cough and fever, PTI reported.
In the meanwhile, India will be sending a C-17 Globemaster military aircraft to deliver medical supplies to the virus-hit Wuhan city on Thursday. On the return leg of the journey, the aircraft is expected to evacuate approximately 100 Indian citizens who are still lodged in the central China city.
Financial Express will keep you updated with the latest on coronavirus outbreak. Stay tuned.
Highlights
Al Jazeera reports first death in South Korea from Covid 19. The government has issued an alert for 2.5 million people in the city of Daegu to stay indoors to avoid contagion. Almost 50% of the cases in South Korea are linked to a single infected woman.
Study finds that Coronavirus infections cause organ damage similar to the damage inflicted by SARS.
Total death cases from Covid 19 in Iran reaches 8. Iran's Health Ministry had previously announced that the number was 2.
AFP reports 13 new cases of COVID 19 among the passengers quarantined on the Diamond Princess ship.
One more Indian aboard a quarantined cruise ship off Japan was tested positive for the novel coronavirus and shifted to hospital, taking the number of Indian nationals infected with the virus on the vessel to eight, the Indian embassy said on Thursday. (PTI)
China's efforts to control the deadly outbreak of a new coronavirus "are working", Beijing's top diplomat said Thursday, attributing an easing in new cases to his country's "forceful action" against the illness. (AFP)
Three patients have tested positive for the coronavirus in Iran, a health ministry spokesman said on Thursday. "Two people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Qom and one person in Arak, bringing the total of confirmed cases to five in Iran," Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said in a tweet. (Reuters)
The Indo-Tibetan Border Police, on Thursday, honoured its doctors, paramedics, cooks and sanitation officials who served in a special quarantine centre set up here housing 406 people suspected to have been exposed to coronavirus, a spokesperson of the force said. "Thank you for what you did. The country and the force is proud of you," ITBP Director General (DG) S S Deswal told the personnel after he held a special 'sainik sammelan' at the Chhawla camp of the force. (PTI)
Yonhap news agency says South Korea has reported its first death from a new coronavirus. The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not immediately provide details. The report came as South Korea is struggling to cope with the outbreak and its economic fallout. Earlier Thursday, South Korea said it has confirmed a total of 82 cases of the virus. (AP)
Egyptair said in a statement on Thursday that it will resume some flights to and from China starting next week. The national airline suspended all flights to China in early February over the coronavirus outbreak. (Reuters)
More than 150 Australians arrived home on Thursday to begin two weeks of quarantine after finally leaving a cruise ship docked in Japan on which more than 600 people had contracted a new coronavirus. Since February 3, the Diamond Princess, owned by Carnival Corp, has been quarantined at Yokohama, south of the capital, Tokyo, with 220 Australian holidaymakers among the 3,700 aboard initially. (Reuters)
British passengers will be evacuated from a cruise ship that had been quarantined for two weeks off the coast of Japan after hundreds of people on board fell ill with the coronavirus. The repatriated passengers face another 14-day quarantine upon arrival in the UK after being stranded on the ship at a port near Tokyo. (Reuters)
South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix said on Thursday that 800 of its workers had quarantined themselves as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but its production in the city of Icheon has not been affected. The move came after one trainee had close contact with a virus patient in the southeastern city of Daegu, the epicentre of an outbreak in South Korea. (Reuters)
A woman medico, who was India's first novel coronavirus patient being treated at the Government Medical College hospital here was discharged on Thursday, official sources said. The decision to discharge her from the hospital was taken by the Medical Board, which met and examined the results of the woman's samples that had tested negative for the second time, they said. (PTI)
Australia will extend a ban on arrivals from mainland China into a fourth week to contain the risk of exposure to the coronavirus, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday. (Reuters)
London would be ready to host the 2020 Olympics if the outbreak of the coronavirus forced the Games to be moved from Tokyo, Shaun Bailey, the Conservative candidate for mayor of the British capital, has said. (Reuters)
The mayor of the South Korean city of Daegu urged its 2.5 million people on Thursday to refrain from going outside as cases of a new virus spiked and he pleaded for help from the central government. (AP)
U.S. President Donald Trump is confident that China is "trying very hard" in its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, he said in a television interview late on Wednesday. (Reuters)
A boccia competition which was to double as a test event for this year’s Tokyo Paralympic Games has been postponed due to concerns over the coronavirus outbreak, organizers said on Thursday. (Reuters)
Two students from Gujarat, who have returned to India from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan, on Wednesday said initially they did not take reports about the outbreak seriously. Shreya Jaiman (18) and Vrund Patel (19), both classmates, were among the hundreds of Indians who were airlifted from Wuhan last month after the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in China. Talking to PTI, Jaiman and Patel described their experience in the coronavirus-hit Wuhan city in days leading to their departure. The two students said initially they took lightly reports about surfacing of the deadly virus in the Chinese city.
A cluster of novel coronavirus infections centred on a cult church in the South Korean city of Daegu leaped to 39 cases Thursday, as the country's total spiked for the second successive day. Almost half the country's patients are linked to a 61-year-old woman who is a member of the Daegu branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, an entity often accused of being a cult. (AFP)
Health Ministry: This request has been responded to favorably. Chinese Embassy has written that China's State Council has decided to postpone new semester of Universities for which Secretary had represented. Students will be notified by their respective Universities accordingly. (ANI)
Health Ministry: In a meeting of Secretary (Health) Preeti Sudan with Chinese Ambassador, she had requested that students who had returned from China were representing that their respective universities were asking them to join back or they would lose their admission status. (ANI)
In Qibao, an old river town on the outskirts of Shanghai, officials have deployed more than 2,700 staff and volunteers to check temperatures and monitor traffic as they work to contain the coronavirus that has now killed more than 2,000 in China. With large parts of the town sealed off and its teashops and boutiques shuttered, the crackdown in Qibao has been far tougher than elsewhere in Shanghai, reflecting the variety of sometimes heavy-handed approaches taken by jurisdictions across the country. (Reuters)
China's foreign minister is set to meet his Southeast Asian peers in Laos on Thursday for crisis talks over the coronavirus which has seeded panic and constricted economies dependent on the flow of goods and tourists. Wang Yi will hold talks with counterparts from the 10 Southeast Asian (ASEAN) countries in Vientiane in a hastily-convened meeting over the health scare. China's foreign ministry has described the summit as part of a "tradition of supporting each other through thick and thin". (AFP)
More than 100 Hong Kong residents who were quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise in Japan for over two weeks landed on Thursday morning in the Asian financial hub, where they will face a further 14 days of quarantine. Arriving on a chartered Cathay Pacific aircraft, the 106 passengers were part of a first batch of at least two government arranged flights to bring back hundreds of remaining citizens. Authorities said 55 of the 364 Hong Kong residents on the ship were infected with the coronavirus. They will remain in Japan along with 33 other citizens who have been in close contact with them. (Reuters)
The coronavirus epidemic that has paralysed the Chinese economy may have a silver lining for the environment. China's carbon emissions have dropped by least 100 million metric tonnes over the past two weeks, according to a study published on Wednesday by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) in Finland. That is nearly six percent of global emissions during the same period last year. (AFP)
China reported the lowest number of new daily cases from the coronavirus outbreak in nearly a month on Thursday. The National Health Commission reported 628 new cases in central Hubei province and 45 cases elsewhere in the country. (AFP)
Two elderly coronavirus patients from a quarantined cruise ship off Japan have died, media reports said on Thursday, citing a government source. A man and a woman in their 80s who had been infected have died, public broadcaster NHK and other media said. No immediate confirmation was available from the health ministry. They would be the first fatal cases among more than 600 confirmed on the ship. (AFP)
Six Chinese nationals, who arrived in Himachal Pradesh in the past few days, were put under surveillance here on Wednesday in view of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, an official said. The Chinese nationals, who arrived here in two batches on February 13 and February 16 via Kolkata, were "asymptomatic".The state health department got to know about their presence here on Tuesday night. They have been put under surveillance and advised to report to the health officials in case of symptoms of cough and fever, the official said. (PTI)
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One Indian crew member aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship who tested positive for COVID-19 virus has been shifted to hospital, the Indian Embassy in Japan tweeted. The rest of the Indians receiving treatment are responding well to treatment, it added.
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Two Chinese crew members of a ship that arrived in Chennai have been quarantined at the Chennai Port Trust, PTI reported. The ship that has 19 Chinese crew members in total, had visited ports in China. The two people kept under observation reported mild fever.
Mainland China has now registered a drop in the number of coronavirus cases for 15 straight days. This figure by Chinese authorities excludes Hubei province, reported Reuters.
In what was reported as the youngest known confirmed case of coronavirus in the province, a two-month-old baby infected with COVID-19 was discharged from a hospital in China's Guangdong. Xinhua reported that the girl and her family had arrived in the Chaozhou cty from Wuhan on January 25 when she alongwith her elder brother and grandmother tested positive to the virus.
Taiwan has said it will be sending a chartered flight to evacuate its citizens on the Diamond Princess cruise ship this week. Reuters reported that over 20 Taiwanese citizens are onboard the ship that is quarantined off Japanese coast near Yokohama.
Health Ministry has tweeted that 5.67 lakh people have been screened at 82 border check posts set up for screening for coronavirus patients. In the states of West Bengal, Bihar, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, 2954 gram sabhas in 7216 villages of 21 border districts took part in this exercise.
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Health Ministry informs that out of 2,654 samples tested, only 3 have been found positive in Kerala. Of these 3 patients, two have already been discharged.
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China is wrapping up its door-to-door coronavirus screening campaign in Wuhan, reports AP. This was being done to ensure that anyone showing symptoms of the COVID-19 virus wasn't missed.