Coronavirus: California declares state of emergency as China deaths pass 3,000 – latest updates | World news

Funerals of coronavirus victims in Britain could be transmitted to mourners over the internet to prevent the spread of the disease if it becomes a pandemic, the Daily Telegraph reports.

The paper says that bereaved relatives who have come into close contact with victims would be at greater risk of contracting the illness themselves, resulting in the government seeking to discourage them from holding large funerals.

It also cites official government pandemic planning documents which raise the prospect of crematoria being opened 24 hours a day, and all week, to cope with up to 50,000 extra deaths per week in the worst case scenario.

Coronavirus continues to dominate the morning newspapers across Europe, including in the UK, where news of the collapse of Flybe, Europe’s largest regional airline made it into later editions.

The Guardian leads with our story on the UK government being accused of withholding information about the spread of coronavirus after a 70% increase in confirmed cases prompted health officials to stop providing daily updates on the location of new infections.

In other titles, the Times leads with concerns that Britain’s parliament could be suspended for months to prevents MPs spreading the virus.

Others, including the Telegraph, and the Daily Mail lead on yesterday’s news about the trebling of new cases of coronavirus, while the announcement that the new James Bond will will be postponed makes the front page of others such as the Mirror.

Facebook has confirmed that a contractor at a Seattle office has been diagnosed with the coronavirus and the social media giant said it would close that location until March 9.

“A contractor based in our Stadium East office has been diagnosed with the COVID-19,” a spokeswoman said.

Facebook said it has notified employees, adding that workers in all Seattle locations were being encouraged to work from home until the end of the month.

Seattle in Washington state has the largest concentration of coronavirus cases confirmed to date in the United States.

This is Ben Quinn picking up the liveblog now from London, from where we will be covering all of the latest developments in the UK and around the world.

You can flag up news tips by emailing me at ben.quinn@theguardian.com or tweet me at @BenQuinn75

The Vietnamese government has released an educational coronavirus pop song – and it’s a hit.

In Australia, the ABC’s Angelique Lu tweeted that the song had gone “minor viral”in several countries.

New infections, panic buying and schools closing continued worldwide, but Japan says the Olympics will go ahead in July.

• The death toll in mainland China passed 3,000, with a further 31 deaths on Wednesday taking the total toll to 3,012. All of the deaths were in Hubei province, the centre of the outbreak. Confirmed cases in China rose by 139 to reach 80,409, and reversing two days of decreasing counts.
• South Korea’s number of confirmed cases neared 6,000 on Thursday. So far 36 countries and regions have imposed a blanket entry ban on people who have recently been in the country’s South, according to the foreign ministry in Seoul.
• California’s governor has declared a state of emergency after the announcement of the first virus-related death there. The state now has 53 confirmed cases.
• Italy closed all schools and universities until 15 March and ordered that all major sporting events be played behind closed doors. The virus has killed 107 people there, and spread to all but one of Italy’s 20 regions.
• Japan’s Olympics minister said the Games would go ahead in July as planned, saying that cancelling “would be unacceptable for the athletes”. The country has 1,036 cases and 12 people have died, its health ministry has said.
• Australia introduced a travel ban for South Korea and brought in enhanced screening for those arriving from Italy. Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, has said the government is “looking at scenarios from the most benign through to some millions of people being infected over a period of several weeks”.
• Germany’s health minister has labelled the outbreak a pandemic, something the World Health Organization has so far stopped short of declaring. “What’s clear is that we have not yet reached the peak of the outbreak,” Spahn told German politicians.
• Panic buying continued around the world. Masks and toilet paper, in particular, remain in demand.

And here’s today’s Coronavirus Latest – At a Glance, by Graham Russell:

Italy’s government is likely to increase the value of measures to help the economy withstand the coronavirus outbreak to to 5 billion euros (US$5.57 billion). Deputy Economy Minister Laura Castelli said on Thursday.

“It is likely that the government will reach (5 billion euros)“ Castelli said in an interview with daily Il Messaggero, adding that she thought it was “necessary to raise the bar as much as possible”.

Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri has promised tax breaks and other measures for the affected sectors worth 3.6 billion euros. A government source told Reuters on Wednesday this may be raised to 4.5 billion, or 0.25% of GDP.

Apple Inc and Netflix Inc say they are pulling out of the South by Southwest music and tech festival to be held later this month, amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The U.S. death toll from coronavirus infections rose to 11 on Wednesday and California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency amid the nation’s largest outbreak.

Facebook Inc had said earlier this week it would not participate in the festival.

Organisers of the South by Southwest music and tech festival, set to be held in Austin, Texas, had said last month the event would proceed as planned despite “a handful” of cancellations related to the virus.

Shelves are being stripped bare of toilet rolls, hand sanitiser and surgical masks everywhere from Japan to France to the United States as panic buying criss-crosses the globe with the coronavirus, defying repeated calls for calm and disrupting supply chains, the AFP reports.

Australia’s biggest supermarket this week began rationing sales of toilet paper after police had to be called to a shop in Sydney when a knife was drawn in a scuffle over the scarce commodity.

On Saturday Japan’s prime minister took to Twitter to calm fears of a national shortage, while social media photos from the US show toilet paper shelves lying bare.

Last month ten thousand people queued outside a Hong Kong shop that had secured a shipment of single-use surgical masks, and days later masks were voted the most desireable gifts to receive for Valentine’s Day.

In London, masks are now going for more than 100 times their normal retail price, while French authorities said they will requisition all face mask stocks and production.

This is despite the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saying it did not “recommend the use of facemasks” to help combat the outbreak.

Thailand has reported four new coronavirus cases.

The latest cases bring the total to 47 since January, Suwanchai Wattanayingcharoen, director-general of the Department of Disease Control said in a news conference on Thursday.

The new cases include travellers who had been to Italy, Iran and China.

Thailand has recorded one coronavirus fatality, 31 patients have recovered and returned home, while 15 are still being treated in hospitals.

A Turkish Airlines aircraft was flown back to Istanbul without any passengers on Thursday on orders from authorities in Singapore after a passenger who had arrived on the same plane on Tuesday tested positive for coronavirus.

Singapore’s aviation regulator said that the three pilots and 11 other crew of flight TK54 that had arrived on Tuesday were on the return flight to Istanbul, where they would be placed in quarantine.

“The crew had come into close contact with a passenger on flight TK54 who subsequently tested positive for COVID-19,” the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said in a statement on Thursday.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in contact with the Turkish Embassy, which has confirmed that the crew will be quarantined upon arrival at Istanbul,” CAAS said.

Singapore’s transport ministry said in a statement on its website that authorities had begun tracing passengers on flight TK54 that may have had contact with the infected person.

Here’s a wrap on the latest coronavirus news from Helen Davidson and Justin McCurry.

China’s death toll passed 3,000, as Germany’s health minister labelled the outbreak a pandemic and modelling in Australia predicted a worst-case scenario where millions could be infected with Covid-19.

The developments came as the coronavirus continues to spread around the world. South Korea’s number of confirmed cases neared 6,000 on Thursday and Italy ordered the closure of all schools after the virus spread to all but one of its 20 regions, killing 107 people. The UK has been warned an epidemic is likely.

A further 31 virus deaths in China took the number of fatalities beyond 3,000 on Wednesday. All of the deaths were in Hubei province, the centre of the outbreak, and authorities confirmed 139 new cases – a rise on the previous day’s total.

In the US, California declared a state of emergency over its 53 confirmed cases, and a cruise ship linked to the state’s first virus death was being held off the coast of San Francisco.

Just an update on what Australia’s new travel restrictions involves.

• The government on Thursday banned the arrival of foreigners from South Korea
• It extended existing bans on foreigners arriving from mainland China and Iran and said there would be tougher screening processes for people arriving from Italy.
• New travel restrictions mean that any foreign traveller who has been in China, Iran and South Korea within two weeks of arriving in Australia will be turned away.
• The bans, which include anyone who has transited through those countries, will be reviewed on a weekly basis.
• Australian nationals and residents are exempt from the bans, but are required to self-isolate for two weeks on their return to Australia.
• Travellers from Italy will be given temperature checks and required to completed a detailed health questionnaire before they are cleared for entry.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt has told the ABC that a “remote Indigenous community in the [Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara ] has chosen to self-quarantine to prevent anyone coming in with coronavirus,” ABC journalist Anna Henderson has said on Twitter.

Australian officials have not been able to visit a citizen locked up in China because of coronavirus, and there are concerns for another person jailed in Iran, AAP reports.

The global outbreak of coronavirus has prevented Australian consular officials from visiting a citizen locked up in a Chinese prison. There are also concerns for another Australian detained in Iran, where the virus has spread among prisoners.

Australian writer and pro-democracy advocate Yang Hengjun has been detained in China since January last year. Dr Yang is granted one half-hour consular visit each month.

However, Foreign Affairs official Andrew Todd said his February visit was cancelled by Chinese authorities due to COVID-19 control measures in place.

“These same measures apply across all prisons in China,” he told a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday.

“We are seeking through our embassy in Beijing with Chinese authorities alternative ways of making contact with Dr Yang, either through a telephone call or through written correspondence.”

South Australian senator Rex Patrick asked whether the coronavirus posed any risk to Dr Yang.

“Not that we’re aware of at this stage,” Mr Todd said.

“It’s an issue that we’re monitoring very closely with all Australian citizens detained across the world, but particularly in countries where there are current outbreaks of COVID-19.”

The Guardian’s extra edition of the Science Weekly podcast looks at where exactly in the body Covid-19 infects us.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be releasing extra episodes of the podcast exploring some of those questions with experts on the frontline. In today’s episode, Ian Sample investigates where the virus infects us when it enters our bodies, and what difference this makes to disease severity and transmissibility.