A seventh person with coronavirus has died in the Seattle area of the US, but the infection wasn’t identified until after their death.
The New York Times has reported that the individual was were brought to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center on 24 Feb and died two days later, on Wednesday, before a crisis in the state began unfolding over the weekend.
Mike Baker
✔@ByMikeBaker
BREAKING: A 7th person with coronavirus has died in the Seattle area. This time, the infection wasn’t identified until well after the person's death.
Coronavirus Updates: Washington State Coronavirus Toll Rises as Earlier Death Is Tied to the Virus
With the virus spreading and epidemics in Iran, Italy and South Korea showing no signs of slowing, governments worked to devise plans to combat the pathogen without causing widespread social disrup...
Susan Gregg, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said on Tuesday that test samples have tested positive for the virus. “In coordination with Public Health, we have determined that some staff may have been exposed while working in an intensive care unit where the patient had been treated,” Gregg said.
In the last few hours there have been some new developments, which are summed up below.
A British woman in the coronavirus-hit Tenerife hotel has tested positive for Covid-19, officials have confirmed. The woman arrived at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace on 23 February, and was not part of the initial group of 10 Italians where the first case was identified.
Unite is warning that factories could shut down or cut working hours because of shortages of parts from China if the coronavirus crisis worsens. Steve Turner, Unite’s assistant general secretary, called for an urgent meeting with Alok Sharma, the business secretary, over the threat to livelihoods if work dries up in the manufacturing sector.
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a percentage point on Tuesday in an attempt to stem the economic fallout from the coronavirus. Analysts and investors are questioning whether the move will be enough in the long term if the virus continues to spread.
The death toll from coronavirus in Italy has risen by 27 over the past 24 hours to 79, the Civil Protection Agency said. The total number of cases in the country reached 2,502, up from 2,036 on Monday. The agency said that of those infected, 160 people had fully recovered.
Lebanon’s health minister said that hospitals were ready to deal with any further spread of the novel coronavirus in the country, where 13 cases have been recorded with no deaths.
Hamad Hassan said the cases had all either returned from an affected country or were transmitted through “close contact” with a family member or neighbour - not “local transmission”.
All 13 people suffering from the COVID-19 illness are being treated at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri state hospital, where 140 beds have been designated to isolate and monitor suspected cases, he added.
The Vatican said on Tuesday that Pope Francis was still suffering from a cold and not exhibiting other symptoms, after a report said he had tested negative for the novel coronavirus.
Italy’s Messaggero newspaper reported that the 83-year-old pontiff, who has been cancelling events since last Wednesday, had been tested for the virus as a precaution.
Without directly confirming the report, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement that “the cold diagnosed (in the pope) was running its course, without symptoms attributable to other pathologies”.
Here is a brief summary of the latest news and updates.
US central bank jumps in
The Fed cut interest rates by half a percentage point on Tuesday in an attempt to stem the economic fallout from the coronavirus epidemic. Analysts and investors are questioning if the Fed’s booster will be enough in the long run if the virus continues to spread.
The spread
The number of cases globally now exceeds 90,911 across 77 countries and territories with at least 3,123 deaths reported. Just 125 new cases were reported in China on Tuesday. There were more than 600 in South Korea, 542 in Iran and 523 in Italy.
In Iran, where the death toll has risen to 77, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged people to wash their hands in a state address, where he also described the outbreaks as “not something extraordinary.”
Containment still top priority
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the risk of the epidemic spreading was now very high at a global level, but there was evidence that surveillance was working in South Korea and containment was possible.
“We are in uncharted territory. We have never before seen a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission, but which can also be contained with the right measures,” he said. “Containment of COVID-19 is feasible and must remain the top priority for all countries.”
Retired nurses could provide support in the case of a major coronavirus outbreak with the right safety measures in place, nurses have said.
However, they warned that the health and care system is “challenged by the current high level of nursing vacancies”.
Susan Masters, Royal College of Nursing Director of Nursing Policy and Practice, said:
This is a challenging time for staff in health and care services – we welcome the fact that the government’s new plan is UK-wide, and builds on previous experience of the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic.
As the plan acknowledges, some nursing staff will inevitably be affected by the virus. With the right safety measures and regulation, retired nurses could provide important support for staff currently working in the NHS and social care services. But senior nurses already spend a great deal of time supervising and mentoring more junior colleagues and nursing students, so the issue will be whether they have the capacity to extend this to returning retired staff. Any legislation being considered will need to be carefully scrutinised to ensure that safety for patients and healthcare staff is the priority.
There are already well-rehearsed plans in the UK in place to deal with infectious diseases like coronavirus, but the health and care system is challenged by the current high level of nursing vacancies. The public can support nurses by checking on any vulnerable neighbours or relatives, particularly those living on their own, to ensure they have enough to eat and drink and don’t run out of medication.
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Private company ISS has promised full pay for all health workers self-isolating due to coronavirus, with a major health union calling for the government to offer similar reassurances.
ISS has been handed taxpayer funded contracts to the tune of £307m since 2015 for services including cleaning and catering in schools and hospitals.
GMB, the union for NHS staff, said it had pressured NHS outsourcing companies – and the government - to ensure all workers are given full pay from day one if forced to self-isolate.
Lola McEvoy, GMB Organiser said:
Full pay from day one for NHS contract workers is an urgent priority for public safety given the escalating Coronavirus crisis.
This announcement that ISS will give full pay to everyone required to self-isolate is the direct result of GMB members’ bravery in campaigning at Homerton Hospital and across the UK.
The U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates on Tuesday in a bid to shield the world’s largest economy from the impact of the coronavirus.
It comes despite Fed chair Jerome Powell suggested the threat to the economy would not soon abate.
“The virus and the measures that are being taken to contain it will surely weigh on economic activity, both here and abroad, for some time,” Powell said in a news conference shortly after the central bank said it was cutting rates by a half percentage point to a target range of 1.00% to 1.25%.
The move did little to deliver immediate comfort to financial markets roiled by fears of the virus’ impact on economic growth. Losses on Wall Street deepened.
The central bank’s action, Powell said, would provide “a meaningful boost to the economy” by loosening financial conditions and shoring up business and household confidence.
Vinitaly – the world’s largest fair for winemakers and sellers – will postpone its trade show to June 14 to 17 due to the Coronavirus and the outbreak in Italy, the organisers have confirmed..
The trade show was supposed to be held in Verona in April. Last year, Vinitaly hosted 4,600 exhibitors and almost 125,000 visitors from 145 countries
A French TV channel apologised on Tuesday for airing a mock advert for “corona pizza” that featured a chef coughing up green phlegm onto Italy’s national dish.
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio criticised the joke, which appeared on the satirical Groland programme on Canal+. It showed a chef coughing green mucus onto the red tomato base, white mozzarella. The colours together made up the national flag.
“Here’s the new Italian pizza, which is going to spread around the world,” the fake advert said.
Globally, more than 3,100 people have died of the coronavirus and over 90,000 have been infected. Italy is the worst-hit in Europe, with 79 deaths and more than 2,500 people infected.
The Swiss army said that all soldiers would be confined to base after a case of the new coronavirus was discovered in their ranks.
A man tested positive for COVID-19 Monday as he was preparing to carry out a required military refresher course, the Swiss armed forces said in a statement.
The death toll from Covid-19 in Italy has risen to 79 and confirmed case to 2.263, emergency commissioner and civil protection chief Angelo Borrelli said on Tuesday.
A newborn baby boy from the northern region of Lombardy has tested positive for the coronavirus and is currently hospitalized in Bergamo. According to the Higher Health Institute (ISS), he is not in serious conditions
“He came out positive to the swab, he is not intubated, he was already in a phase of post-natal assistance,” ISS President Silvio Brusaferro told Ansa.
“The clinical evolution is considered normal, as far as we know,’’he added.
The number of people who recovered from the virus rose to 160 people, 11 more than Monday.
The majority of cases – 1,520 – are in the northern Lombardy region, where 10 towns have been under lockdown for more than a week. The virus has spread to more than half of Italy’s 20 regions, including Tuscany, Puglia, Sicily and recently Sardinia.
Authorities say the majority of people who tested positive in other regions were travelling from Lombardy or had been in the north for a few weeks before the outbreak.
Of those infected, 1034 are in hospital – 229 in intensive care – and 1,229 are recovering at home.
Amazon is struggling to control sellers who are ramping up the price of products due to fear around the coronavirus outbreak.
On Monday hand sanitiser and respiratory masks were in some cases being sold at a more than 2,000% mark-up, compared to normal retail prices.
This comes despite Amazon saying it had removed “tens of thousands” of listings and was monitoring postsings.
The Financial Times reported that a pack of 20 masks made by manufacturer 3M was being sold by an unauthorised reseller at $387 (£301.95), compared to a normal retail price of around $14.99 (£11.70).
Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP“There is no place for price-gouging on Amazon,” the company said in a statement. “We are disappointed that bad actors are attempting to artificially raise prices on basic need products during a global health crisis and, in line with our longstanding policy, have recently blocked or removed tens of thousands of offers.”
It added: “We continue to actively monitor our store and remove offers that violate our policies.”
Argentina Ministry of Health is about to hold a press conference, and it is believed that the first case of Coronavirus in the country will be officialy confirmed @sloumarsh
The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that understanding how the new coronavirus spreads was rapidly increasing, but warned the protective gear needed to fight the disease was “rapidly depleting”.
The UN health agency voiced concern that the masks and other protective equipment used by health workers was running out amid panic buying and manipulation of markets.
“We are concerned that countries’ abilities to respond are being compromised by the severe and increasing disruption to the global supply of personal protective equipment ... caused by rising demand, hoarding and misuse,” the head of the World Health Organization , Tedros Adhanom, said.
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Italy is considering setting up a new quarantine red zone near the northern city of Bergamo given the high number of coronavirus cases in the area, the head of the national health institute said on Tuesday.
The Italian government set up two red zones on 22 February – one centred on 10 towns in the region of Lombardy, south-east of Milan, and another, smaller one in the neighbouring region of Veneto.
Since then, a growing number of cases have emerged near Bergamo, north-east of Milan. “We are considering the possibility of adopting a measure like this one,” health chief Silvio Brusaferro said after being asked if a new red zone might be created.
Unite is warning that factories could shut down or cut working hours because of shortages of parts from China if the coronavirus crisis worsens.
Steve Turner, Unite’s assistant general secretary, called for an urgent meeting with Alok Sharma, the business secretary, over the threat to livelihoods if work dries up in the manufacturing sector.
“We are of the view that if the situation in China was not to improve over the coming three to four weeks, UK automotive plants will be entering periods of short time working and or enforced production shutdown,” he said.
He called for the adoption of a UK scheme similar to Germany’s short time working support scheme (Kurzarbeit). Turner said: “The scheme, in place since 1910, has been adopted by many European countries, and has served to protect manufacturing industries from the pressures of short time working by providing for wage protection during agreed periods of down time.”
Unite – like the TUC, Unison and GMB – is also calling for full sick pay for all workers from day one if they have to take time off with suspected coronavirus. Currently, up to 2 million gig economy workers do not necessarily receive sick pay and may be forced to make a choice between losing pay and carrying on in work with symptoms.
Car plants could be forced to halt production in a matter of weeks because of the threat of a shortage of essential components from virus-hit China, a trade union has warned.
Unite said it wants an urgent meeting with the business secretary, Alok Sharma, to discuss the prospect of short-time working in the event of production shutdowns.
In a letter to Sharma, Unite’s assistant general secretary, Steve Turner, said:
We are of the view that if the situation in China does not improve over the coming three to four weeks, UK automotive plants will be entering periods of short-time working and/or enforced production shutdown.
Britain’s business secretary Alok Sharma. Photograph: Reuters
Routine hospital appointments and surgeries may be postponed if Covid-19 infects large numbers of people, health officials in Northern Ireland said.
An NHS statement said:
The health and social care system is also planning for the possibility of reduced staffing in hospitals and the community as a result of coronavirus in order to mitigate against these risks.
Depending on the pressures in the system in the months ahead, trusts (which provide health services) may have to consider postponing routine elective appointments and surgeries to focus on the immediate demands associated with coronavirus.
The aim is to “flatten” the main community transmission peak and delay it until summer when services are less stretched. Medical staff are in a phase of containment, Northern Ireland’s chief medical officer, Dr Michael McBride, said.
Major publishers Penguin Random House, Hachette Livre, Pan Macmillan and Curtis Brown parent company Original Talent have pulled out of London Book Fair, one of the largest publishing events in the world, despite the event remaining on schedule to go ahead next week, the Bookseller reports.
Pan Macmillan announced it was pulling out following concerns about the coronavirus. Its managing director, Antony Forbes Watson, said: “The duty of care that we have to everyone who works for us and the news that so many of our customers and partners will no longer be attending the book fair have combined to lead us to this conclusion.”
The developments come after Simon & Schuster’s US team and the Macmillan Trade US team also pulled out of the fair last week over “health and safety fears”.
The death toll from coronavirus in Italy has risen by 27 over the past 24 hours to 79, the Civil Protection Agency said.
The total number of cases in the country reached 2,502, up from 2,036 on Monday. The agency said that of those infected, 160 people had fully recovered.
The contagion came to light 12 days ago and is focused mainly on a handful of hotspots in the north of Italy. However, cases have now been confirmed in all but one of the country’s 20 regions.
About 3.4% of confirmed cases of Covid-19 have died, far above seasonal flu’s fatality rate of under 1%, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
But Tedros Adhanom said the novel coronavirus could be contained. Speaking at a Geneva news conference, he said: “To summarise, Covid-19 spreads less efficiently than flu, transmission does not appear to be driven by people who are not sick, it causes more severe illness than flu, there are not yet any vaccines or therapeutics, and it can be contained.”
Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty ImagesTedros said that he had spoken with Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to open in July. “I think deciding now would be too early, it would be good to monitor the situation,” he said.
A British guest is the latest person to be diagnosed with coronavirus at a Tenerife hotel. The H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel has been under lockdown due to an outbreak of the virus.
“The epidemiology team is studying the contacts this person had,” a spokeswoman for the local health services said.
Guests without symptoms have been allowed to circulate around the hotel, making use of facilities like pools and shared dining areas, as long as they wear a mask, wash their hands frequently and submit to regular temperature checks.
Other cases diagnosed over the past week at the hotel had been among a group of 10 Italian holidaymakers. In total, around 150 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus in Spain.
Authorities are monitoring two clusters in Torrejón de Ardoz, a suburban city close to Madrid with a population of around 130,000, and one in the Basque city of Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Around 100 health workers in the Basque country have been isolated in their homes after coming into contact with people infected with the virus, local health authorities said.
A total of 32 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Norway, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health said at a press briefing. Those attending heard about seven additional infections to the most recent update published on its website.
Pharmacy chains are limiting the sale of hand sanitiser amid concerns products could be sold for inflated prices online.
A spokeswoman for Boots, the UK’s largest chemist chain, said it had seen an increase in the sale of hand sanitisers, but it still had stock available in its warehouses for online sale and in stores.
She also confirmed that there is currently a limit of two hand sanitisers per customer to ensure as many people as possible have access to the products.
The PA news agency understands that Boots is concerned some of its products could be re-sold online.
The company has seen protective products of the kind it sells, for example face masks, appear on websites such as Amazon at prices far greater than those retailed by Boots.
A spokesman for LloydsPharmacy, which runs over 1,500 UK pharmacies, said it too was limiting the sale of hand gel products to two per person both online and in store.
Spain’s health minister, Salvador Illa, has recommended that sporting events with a high expected attendance from zones designated as high-risk for coronavirus, such as northern Italy, should be held behind closed doors.
Such events include the return leg of the Champions League fixture between Valencia and Italy’s Atalanta scheduled for 10 March and a Europa League match between Getafe and Inter Milan on 19 March.
Sarah Marsh
@pajaraz
Argentina Ministry of Health is about to hold a press conference, and it is believed that the first case of Coronavirus in the country will be officialy confirmed @sloumarsh
