Coronavirus live updates: Australia traces patients treated by sick doctor as US cruise ship cases rise | World news

All migrant workers in China are expected to return to work in early April, Chinese government officials say, Se Young Lee, a breaking news editor at Reuters reports. 78 million rural workers who had travelled home for Chinese New Year have already returned to work, he says.

Children are just as likely to contract coronavirus as adults, according to a new Chinese study, countering the theory that kids are less susceptible to Covid-19.

Research on community transmission of the virus showed a “sharply increasing proportion of infected children” as the outbreak has progressed.

Scientists analysed 365 patients in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen – including 74 clusters comprising 183 cases. Children aged under 15 made up just 2% of the cases before 24 January. But from 25 January to 5 February, the proportion of children went up to 13%.

According to the researchers, the findings implied that children’s risk of becoming infected could substantially rise with more exposure to the virus. Transmission of the virus within families was also a major factor, they said.

A Briton stuck on the Grand Princess cruise ship off the coast of California has told of her plight as 140 other British passengers brace for potential weeks of isolation.

So far 21 people on the ship, with 3,500 people on board, have tested positive for coronavirus – just under half of all those who have been tested. The Grand Princess is being directed to a non-commercial port, the US vice-president, Mike Pence, said on Friday.

Jackie Bissell, from Dartford, in Kent, told the Today programme that she had booked the cruise with a friend as part of her 70th birthday celebrations. She said that passengers had only been told on Thursday that there might be something wrong, as the ship’s management implemented rigid procedures in the hope of limiting the outbreak.

“We had a note popped through the door saying that this virus might be on the ship – they removed the salt, the pepper,” she said.

“We could touch absolutely nothing, if you wanted sugar in your tea or coffee they would come along and do it for you rather than you touching any of these items,” she added.

“You can just go out in the hall if someone taps the door. They put the food outside, drop your menus inside and that’s about it.”

Bissell said she was “very comfortable” and life on board “has not been too bad” so far. “It was a bit mishmash yesterday but today they’ve got things a lot more organised,” she said.

Passengers relied on information from the news, she added.

“We are waiting for the ship’s captain – but I think he’s as much in the dark as we are and he’s said he’s only giving us information as and when he gets it.”

Boris Johnson is due to chair a meeting of the government’s Cobra civil contingencies committee on Monday morning. It was now “highly likely” the infection will spread in a “significant way”, a No 10 spokesman has said, according to PA Media.

“Officials will therefore accelerate work on the delay phase of the government’s plan,” the spokesman added.

Meanwhile, sports governing bodies and broadcasters have been called to a government meeting to discuss how to deal with the outbreak’s possible impact on the sporting calendar.

The meeting will cover various scenarios, such as holding events behind closed doors, should the virus continue to spread and gatherings of large numbers of people are banned.

An Iranian MP has died from coronavirus, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday, in an another sign the disease is spreading within state institutions.
Iran is one of the countries outside China most affected by the epidemic. As of Friday, the country had reported 4,747 infections.
The MP who died on Friday is Fatemeh Rahbar, a conservative lawmaker from Tehran, according to Tasnim. It did not say if she was included in the country’s official toll of 124 deaths from the virus, given on Friday.
On 2 March, Tasnim reported the death of Mohammad Mirmohammadi, a member of the Expediency Council, intended to resolve disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council, a governmental body that vets electoral candidates, among other duties.
Iran’s deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, and another member of parliament, Mahmoud Sadeghi, have also said they have contracted the virus.

Government ministers are expected to advise elderly people in the UK next week to visit relatives now before “social distancing” policies are introduced.
British pensioners could be warned to stay at home and will likely be told to avoid crowded areas, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Bruce Aylward, the senior advisor to the head of the World Health Organization, has said the world should be encouraged by the decline in coronavirus cases in China’s Hubei province, where the virus is believed to have originated. Countries hadn’t yet learned the lesson that an effective response depends largely on speedily finding, isolating and testing suspected cases, however, he told the Today show.

“You’ve got to find the cases very very quickly, get them isolated, find their close contacts, because those people are where the virus is, and if you get those isolated, quarantined, you’re going to take the heat out of this outbreak,” he said.

Despite weeks of China making “heroic” efforts to contain the virus, countries were “still surprised when it hits their borders here and they still don’t know how to isolate or find cases”, Aylward said.

As a church in Devon has been closed for a deep clean after a parishioner there became infected with coronavirus, Gina Radford, a vicar from south Devon and deputy chief medical officer for England until last year, told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that churches across the country were trying to go about their normal business as much as possible, because of their “very important role” in communities.

Radford said during service, advice had been given about how to maintain appropriate hygiene as an individual, which also applied to priests administering communion.

It was up to priests to decide whether they it would be necessary to “withdraw the common cup” during communion, she said, so that everyone would not be drinking from the same chalice. Congregations had been reminded that they could decide to just take the wafer, “that is full communion”, she added.

“We do have to remember that churches are places of meeting and welcome and comfort, and at the moment […] we are wanting to encourage people to have a balanced approach [to the outbreak] and to go about life as normal as they can for as long as they can.”

As millions of people wonder whether their travel plans and holidays will be affected by coronavirus over the coming weeks and months, my colleague Patrick Collinson has put together a useful advice guide about all things travel insurance, holiday deposits, flight bookings and more.

My colleagues Peter Beaumont, Lorenzo Tondo and Kim Willsher have written an analysis on how human error helped spread the virus across the globe, and how avoiding small mistakes can mitigate the crisis.

Here’s what has happened in coronavirus news so far today:

• Twenty-one people tested positive for coronavirus onboard the Grand Princess cruise ship stranded off the California coast. Of these, 19 were crew members.
• The US confirmed its first East Coast deaths, as two people died in Florida.
• The number of cases worldwide has passed 100,000, as the World Health Organization called on countries to make “containment their highest priority”.
• Europe’s infections doubled in the last three days, to 7,300 on Friday.
• China’s exports have fallen sharply. China’s exports plummeted in the first two months of this year on the back of a coronavirus epidemic that forced businesses to suspend operations, disrupting the world’s supply chains.
• In Victoria, Australia a doctor has been confirmed as the eleventh case of the virus for the state. He treated 70 patients despite displaying flu-like symptoms shortly after travelling from America.
• The number of cases worldwide has passed 100,000, as the World Health Organization called on countries to make “containment their highest priority”.
• South Korea’s diplomatic spat with Japan escalated, as the country suspended visas and visa waivers for Japan.
• South by South West was cancelled. The annual technology and culture festival said its March events would not go ahead amid fears it could help to spread the virus in Austin, in Texas.

Two South Korean apartment buildings heavily occupied by members of a sect linked to most of the country’s coronavirus cases have been quarantined after dozens of residents tested positive for the disease, an official said on Saturday.

The country, which has the highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases outside China, reported 174 new infections, taking its total to 6,767.

Another two deaths were reported by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, bringing the toll to 44.

The apartment complex in Daegu – the country’s fourth-largest city and epicentre of its outbreak – was placed under lockdown after 46 residents were confirmed to have the virus, mayor Kwon Young-jin said.

More than 140 people live in the two buildings, including 94 members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, which is often accused of being a cult and is linked to most of South Korea’s infections.