Japan closes schools as Saudi Arabia halts pilgrimages due to outbreak fears - as it happened

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Here’s a recap of what has happened so far today:

• Coronavirus could trigger economic damage on the scale of the 2008 financial crisis, analysts have warned, amid growing concerns over the fallout from the deadly disease.
  
• The death toll in Iran has risen to 26, with almost 250 people diagnosed with the virus.
• Two more people have died from coronavirus in Italy, bringing the death toll to 14. The number of confirmed cases has risen to more than 520.
• Two further patients in England have tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of UK cases to 15. The virus was passed on in Italy and Tenerife, and the patients have been transferred to specialists at the Royal Liverpool hospital and the Royal Free hospital, London.
• Saudi Arabia has taken the unprecedented step of banning foreign pilgrims from entering the country in an effort to halt the spread of coronavirus. The country has yet to report a case of the virus.
• A woman working as a tour bus guide in Japan has tested positive for coronavirus for a second time. The Japanese government has ordered the closure of all schools and museum for a month.
• The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has warned an epidemic that is on the way”. There are now 18 confirmed cases of coronavirus in France and two people have died.
• The official death toll from covid-19 cases in Iran has increased to 22 people. Officials also said that 141 people have tested positive for the virus, but experts fear Iran is under reporting the true scale of the outbreak.
• More cases have been reported all over the world including in Switzerland, Kuwait, Spain, South Korea and Austria. Estonia, Denmark, Pakistan, Georgia, Norway, North Macedonia, Greece and Romania are among countries to report their first case of coronavirus in the last day.
• China’s health authority has reported another drop in the number of new infections, with 433 new confirmed cases and 29 deaths in mainland China on Wednesday.
• Donald Trump has sought to play down the threat from coronavirus despite mounting concerns about unchecked worldwide contagion. In a press conference in Washington, the US president said the danger to Americans “remains very low” and predicted that the number of cases diagnosed in the country, currently on 15, could fall to zero in a “few days”.
• But Anne Schuchat, deputy director of the US CDC, said “the trajectory of what we are looking at over the weeks and months ahead is very uncertain”, and authorities should “dust off” their pandemic preparedness plans.
• Australia has extended its travel ban on China and enacted its emergency response plan, because “there is every indication the world will soon enter the pandemic phase of the virus”, said the prime minister, Scott Morrison.

Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO health emergencies programme, said that no decision is impending on the fate of the Tokyo Olympics. He said:

My understanding is no decision will be taken in the near-term regarding the future of the Olympics ...

Everyone is working together to try to preserve what is a fantastic global event.

Tedros said the WHO is now more concerned about new cases outside China, especially the “epidemics” in Iran, Italy and South Korea.

He said:

It is what’s happening in the rest of the world – that’s now our greatest concern. Outside China, there are now 3,474 cases in 44 countries and 54 deaths. We’re at a decisive point. For the past two days, the number of new cases reported in the rest of the world has exceeded the number of new cases reported in China.

To countries that have reported their first cases in the last 24 hours, including Greece, North Macedonia, Norway, Pakistan, and Romania, Tedros said:

My message to each of these countries is, this is your window of opportunity. If you act aggressively now, you can contain this virus, you can prevent people getting sick, you can save lives.

The World Health Organization has urged people to keep calm, saying that ministers across the world need to be able to answer questions on how they are preparing to halt the spread of the virus.

The WHO’s message continues to be that the virus “has pandemic potential” and it is helping every country to prepare.

The director-general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom, said countries needed to be ready to detect cases early and isolate patients. They needed the right measures at airports and border crossings.

He said countries needed to be ready to fight rumours and misinformation. “This is not a time for fear but a time for taking action now to prevent infection and save lives now,” Adhanom said.

“Fear and panic does not help,” he added.

The New York Times has some alarming detail about the first person-to-person transmission of Covid-19 within the United States (see earlier).

A California coronavirus patient had to wait days to be tested because of restrictive federal criteria, despite doctors’ suggestions.

Doctors at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center considered the novel pathogen a possible diagnosis when the person was first admitted last week.

But the federal agency that conducts the testing did not administer the test until days later because the case did not fit the agency’s narrow testing criteria, university officials said in a letter to the campus community.

The consumer healthcare giant Reckitt Benckiser (RB) says the coronavirus outbreak has helped to drive greater demand for its Dettol and Lysol hygiene products.

The company said it was working alongside public health authorities across the world in an attempt to provide people in areas affected by the virus with more information about the necessary hygiene measures.

It added that the outbreak had resulted in “increased online activity” for its consumers in China, but that the firm was “seeing some disruption to offline retailers, distribution channels and the supply chain connected to China”.

A man from Derbyshire who travelled to the H10 hotel in Tenerife for four nights has confirmed that British guests are desperate to return to the UK to avoid contracting the disease.

“None of the Brits staying here feel safe”, he told PA.

The 60-year-old said:

“We have been told to stay in our rooms but the hotel has no way of enforcing it. We have a WhatsApp group for all of the Brits and we don’t feel safe. We think this is going to end up worse than that ship [the Diamond Princess].

“I don’t think confusion would be the right word to describe it – they are just not able to enforce quarantine conditions. People are able to walk around the buildings and some are even going in the pool. People are walking about and interacting with each other and not wearing masks. They served a buffet-style dinner last night, and people were milling about without masks, touching utensils – the virus is bound to spread.

“It’s totally crazy. We feel we are just being quarantined until we eventually get it [Covid-19]. No one seems to be helping, and the consulate aren’t helping us – why can’t they bring us home? We are in a quarantine that is not being followed and it is not safe.

“I ran out of medication and visited the front desk as I was told more would be brought in. But they were unable to find my medication. Eventually, I was given some but I’ve been told now they won’t give out more than one day’s worth at a time, so I have already run out again and will need to go back. They couldn’t give me any information about why this was.”

Streets and shops in Codogno in northern Italy have been left eerily empty after the town was placed under lockdown due to the new coronavirus outbreak. The virus has so far killed 14 people in Italy, and cases across the country had reached 528.

Italian churches are stepping up measures to contain the spread of coronavirus, calling on priests not to distribute holy communion wafers directly on to worshippers’ tongues and urging congregations to avoid exchanging handshakes during mass.

The Catholic archdiocese of Messina in Sicily made the recommendations in response to the rapid rise in infections in Italy.

In an official statement, the religious authorities of the Sicilian province wrote: “In the face of the spread of the coronavirus, it is considered appropriate to comply with some provisions and hygiene measures. As a precaution we are advising to distribute the Eucharist preferably into the hands of the faithful, and to avoid the physical contact from a peaceful handshake.”

The number of patients infected with coronavirus in Iran has risen to 245, with 26 deaths, according to Kianoush Jahanpour, a spokesman of the Iranian Health Ministry.

He added that 106 new cases of coronavirus-positive patients had been diagnosed since Wednesday noon, voicing regret that seven of them had passed away.

Insurers and travel companies should not be asking people for GP letters to get holiday refunds for trips they cannot go on due to the coronavirus.

The Royal College of GPs said it had heard reports of businesses asking for GP letters in order for people to cancel holidays due to Covid-19.

Prof Martin Marshall, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, said:

Insurers and travel companies should be basing their decisions to offer refunds on advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Public Health England, not letters from GPs. It is not a good use of GPs’ time to be writing letters for patients who are not ill but have plans to travel – and GPs will always base their decisions on official advice.

Patients will undoubtedly have good and sensible reasons for not wanting to travel to certain places because of Covid-19, but this is not the same as being unable to travel due to existing illness, and it should not become the GP’s responsibility to give patients advice about where not to travel.”

Hammersmith Surgery in west London was closed this morning after a suspected coronavirus case, but those who work there said that they would be reopening at 1pm. Patients received a message saying that the surgery had to close “immediately” due to an “incident” and that any appointments booked would have to be frozen.

I am covering the live blog while my colleague takes a break. If you have any news tips, images, or information to share then please email me on sarah.marsh@theguardian.com, tweet @sloumarsh or send a direct message on Instagram (sarah_marsh_journalist). Thanks