US, Australia and Thailand also report first deaths from coronavirus while bans are put in place around the world on large gatherings. Follow live news
Boris Johnson views a map of the spread of coronavirus in Italy on a visit to Public Health England. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK leapt to 35 after 12 new patients were identified in England Photograph: Henry Nicholls/PA
The first person in Scotland has tested positive for Coronavirus.
The announcement brings the number of cases confirmed in the UK today alone to 13, and the total number of cases up to 36.
The patient, who is a resident of the Tayside area and had recently travelled from Italy, has now been admitted to hospital and is receiving treatment in isolation.
Clinicians have also started to gather details of the places they have visited and the people they have been in contact with since they returned to the UK.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Committee this evening and will be taking part in the UK Government’s resilience meeting, chaired by the prime minister, tomorrow morning.
Sturgeon said: “First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “Our first thoughts must be with the patient diagnosed with coronavirus, I wish them a speedy recovery.
“Scotland is well-prepared for a significant outbreak of coronavirus but there is currently no treatment or vaccine. Early detection measures will continue to be vital in helping to prevent the spread of the virus.
“People have a vital role to play in helping us contain any outbreak by following the latest health and travel advice, and following basic hygiene precautions, such as washing hands frequently, not touching their face and covering their nose and mouth with a tissue when coughing or sneezing.”
There have been a total of 698 negative test results in Scotland since the outbreak began.
Sky News is reporting that Scotland has just reported its first confirmed case of coronavirus, bringing the total in the UK up to 36.
The total new cases reported in the UK today is now 13 – the biggest single-day jump the UK has seen.
The director general of France’s health service, Jérôme Salomon, has given the latest figures and there’s another leap on Sunday. The number of confirmed cases has risen to 130, from 100. Of that, 116 people are in hospital – nine of them in a serious condition – and 12 people recovered. There have been two deaths
New cases include two children, a one-year-old and a five-year-old, who have been hospitalised in Strasbourg in eastern France along with their 27-year-old mother who also tested positive. Their condition has been described as not worrying.
Salomon says French travellers should avoid journeys abroad outside the European Union “unless strictly necessary”. Nevertheless, he pointed out the death rate worldwide is 3.4% of confirmed cases.
The Manga and Sci-Fi Show salon planned for next week in Paris, which was to have featured giant karaoke and K Pop concerts, has been cancelled.
Nine of Germany’s 16 states now have cases of COVID-19, with Frankfurt, Hamburg and Bremen among the cities reporting their first infections, DW has reported.
Germany’s centre for disease control and prevention, the Robert Koch Institute, said the number of people infected rose to 129 on Sunday, up from 66 on Saturday.
Almost half of the cases, 74 in total, have been confirmed in North Rhine-Westphalia, which is Germany’s most populous state. Bavaria has the next highest number of confirmed cases, with 23, followed by Baden-Württemberg with 15.
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said people should “still go about their business”, but that the government was “considering all options”.
In an interview with Sky News a few minutes ago, he insisted the government’s plan was “very clear”. What are the government’s steps?
Firstly, the government are trying to contain the virus, he said. This meant that “every single case found here gets immediate treatment”, with their contacts tracked down and given medical advice or checks.
Hancock said that the government were trying to delay the onset of the virus, having determined that the UK would be better able to cope with a mass spread of coronavirus in the summer.
He also said that the government had invested £40 million into finding a vaccine and treatments for disease. He warned that a vaccine was “still many months off” even with an accelerated process, but treatments for those who have virus already were “more optimistic”. What should the public do?
When asked if people should follow World Health Organisation advice to other parts of the world that over 60s should avoid shared spaces, he said no, as the cases were still “relatively low”.
“If we get to a position where this is endemic around the world and large scale here, we will change advice,” he added.
He also said that stopping flights from China was not the answer, comparing it to Italy, who did stop flights and have much higher numbers of cases than the UK.
He echoed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s earlier statement that the best thing the public can do is wash their hands for 20 seconds.
As Johnson referenced earlier, albeit slightly less clearly, the government are telling children to sing ‘happy birthday’ whilst washing their hands to ensure they wash for long enough.
The Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, said there needed to be “more direction from the Prime Minister” and accused him of being slow to organise COBRA meetings - the government’s emergency response committee.
He said that the NHS were “really doing their best” and said that clinicians would “always rise to the challenge”. However, he alleged that 80% of the beds needed for coronavirus are already taken up, saying that years of austerity meant resources to tackle the spread of the virus would be stretched.
Non-essential British embassy staff in Tehran are being withdrawn with immediate effect due to the virus, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has confirmed. The FCO also warned that the embassy’s help to British nationals in Iran would be limited.
A statement said: “As of 1 March, dependants and some staff from the British Embassy are being withdrawn from Iran due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Essential staff needed to continue critical work will remain.
“In the event that the situation deteriorates further, the ability of the British Embassy to provide assistance to British nationals from within Iran may be limited.”
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The Trump administration has accused the public of overreacting to the impact of the coronavirus on the economy, and insisted that stocks would bounce back.
The S&P 500 index dropped 11.5% last week as coronavirus spread - the worst weekly drop since the 2008 global financial crisis.
“The stock market that saw some downturns this week, it will come back,” Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the government’s response to the virus, told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The fundamentals of this economy are strong.” he added.
Pence also said the government was doing “everything possible” to prevent the virus from spreading and that he was “confident” the United States was prepared.
U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar told Fox News Sunday that the public was over-reacting to the current threat. The situation in the US
A Washington man in his 50s with underlying health conditions was the first American to die from the virus, officials confirmed on Saturday. How the man contracted the virus is still not known.
Over the weekend, new cases were confirmed in Chicago and Rhode Island.
Morocco is set to postpone sports and cultural events over coronavirus fears, the government health committee has announced. It’s currently unclear how widespread this measure will be.
Morocco says it has tested 25 people suspected of having the coronavirus but all have been negative, and the country does not have any confirmed cases.
Oman has suspended Italian tourist flights from Salala airport for a month, in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus.
Qatar has also announced a temporary ban on visitors from Egypt via intermediate points, the state news agency reported on Sunday.
Two new cases were confirmed in Qatar on Sunday, bringing its total to 3.
A school in Dublin is set to close for two weeks after a student tested positive for coronavirus, according to the Irish Times.
The teenager is the first person in the Republic of Ireland to test positive for the virus, and the case was announced on Saturday evening. The individual became ill in recent days after returning from Italy and is currently in isolation in a Dublin hospital.
Students at the school are being told to self-isolate at home if they start presenting symptoms.
Andrew Tatem, professor within geography and environmental science at the University of Southampton, has warned that the recent imported cases of coronavirus into China are indicative of a “move towards a global pandemic”.
“We’ve reached a stage now where China’s major efforts to stop the outbreak within its borders have meant that it likely has stronger coronavirus surveillance and detection capabilities than anywhere else in the world,” he said.
“The fact that China is now detecting and reporting imported cases that are coming from Iran and the UK is an indication of how the geographical balance of this outbreak is shifting as we seemingly move towards a global pandemic.”
The Dominican Republic has confirmed its first case of coronavirus – a tourist visiting the country from Italy.
The patient is a 62-year-old man, who is in a stable condition. He has been taken to an isolation room in a military hospital near the capital, the country’s health minister, Rafael Sanchez, said at a press conference.
Another tourist, a 56-year-old man from France, is under observation at hospital and awaiting test results for coronavirus.
On Friday, the Dominican Republic cancelled all flights from Milan for 30 days. The government also said that all travellers retuning from Italy would have to undergo epidemiological reviews at airports.
Speaking at a laboratory at the Public Health England national infection service in Colindale, north London, Boris Johnson praised the work of PHE.
He said there were likely to be more cases of coronavirus but said: “We’ve got a great plan to tackle the spread of coronavirus and I’m confident that in the NHS we’ve got professionals who are able to cope with it.”
He also gave tips for stopping the spread of coronavirus:
“The best way we can help the NHS and help ourselves to stop the spread of the illness is to wash our hands. It’s 20 seconds, it’s two times happy birthday. With hot water and soap.”
Boris Johnson spoke after the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK leapt to 35. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/PAThe prime minister will be chairing another Cobra meeting on coronavirus on Monday. “We will be setting out the various measures in the way public should be responding, and public bodies should be responding.”
He wouldn’t be drawn on the details of what these measures might look like. “I don’t want to go now into the kind of things that might be necessary,” he said. “There’ll be questions we might need to consider about very big public events.”
Johnson also said the government may need to consider closing schools, but expressed that he wanted them to remain open and did not want children to be sent home “unnecessarily”.
“Coronavirus is of concern, but we amply have the resources to deal with it. Believe me, we are going to beat this,” he said.
The number of confirmed cases in Italy has risen to almost 1,700, and the death toll has increased by five to 34, Reuters reports.
There were 1,128 cases and 29 death as of last night.
This is the largest jump the spread of the virus in one day, Sky News says.
Good evening, I’m Molly Blackall, taking over the live coverage of coronavirus for the next few hours.
If you spot something I miss, do drop me a tweet: @mollyblackall.
Boris Johnson has been on a visit to laboratory at the Public Health England National Infection Service in Colindale, north London.
Johnson’s visit came as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK leapt to 35 after 12 new patients were identified in England Photograph: Henry Nicholls/PA
Boris Johnson views a map of the spread of coronavirus in Italy on a visit to Public Health England. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK leapt to 35 after 12 new patients were identified in England Photograph: Henry Nicholls/PA
