VIDEO: Trump and Federal Coronavirus Task Force update nation on latest efforts to fight the pandemic

The Latest on the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 307,200 people and killed more than 13,000. The COVID-19 illness causes mild or moderate symptoms in most people, but severe symptoms are more likely in the elderly or those with existing health problems. More than 92,000 people have recovered so far, mostly in China.

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TOKYO >> Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Monday that Japan will require a 14-day quarantine to all visitors from the United States, including the Japanese and Americans, effective Thursday and until the end of April.

Abe made the announcement at a government task force on the coronavirus, citing the escalating COVID-19 infections around the world, especially in the U.S. and Europe in recent weeks.

Japan on Sunday raised a travel advisory for the U.S., urging the Japanese citizens not to make nonessential trips to the U.S.

He said the U.S. recently took similar measures and urged Americans not to make nonessential trips to Japan, requiring a 14-day quarantine for entrants.

Abe said Monday’s quarantine requirement is in line with measures taken by other countries, including the U.S. and shows Japan’s commitment to join international effort to stop the further spread of the coronavirus.

He said Japan will continue to launch “flexible border control measures without hesitation” and urged his ministers to keep their caution levels up high.

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MANILA >> The Philippine Congress is holding an emergency session to deliberate on a government request to declare a national emergency and allow the president to swiftly punish local officials who defy orders and grant him a standby power to take over private companies amid the coronavirus crisis.

Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea told the House of Representatives on Monday that the government also needed the authority to realign huge funds to fight the outbreak. Senators said the government may need at least 200 billion pesos ($4 billion) in the next two months to deal with the contagion.

“The power to take over is intended merely as a standby power in the event the crisis reaches its worst when our most critical institutions are nearing a total shutdown,” Medialdea told legislators, the majority of whom participated online as a health precaution.

Left-wing groups opposed extra powers for President Rodrigo Duterte, fearing abuse. The opposition said the government should focus on providing “safety nets” for the poor and workers who were ordered to stay home under a lockdown of the northern Philippines, which is home to more than 50 million people.

Philippine officials have reported 396 infections, including 33 deaths, but fear COVID-19 cases may spike soon after China donated 100,000 testing kits and other countries promised to help the Philippines strengthen its capability to test more people for the virus.

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Authorities in southern Pakistan on Monday began a two-week complete lockdown, as the number of positive coronavirus tests jumped to 799 across Pakistan. Health officials reported sixth deaths from infection.

Murad Ali Shah, the chief minister in the southern Sindh province, has imposed a ban on movement of people, saying the measure was aimed at saving lives.

However, Prime Minister Imran Khan has avoided a nationwide lockdown, but he urged people to stay at homes voluntarily.

So far six people have died because of the virus and among those was a young doctor who went home and suddenly died in the north.

Authorities say they are trying to import equipment for the safety of doctors who have expressed concern over lack of facilities in tackling infected patients.

In many areas of Pakistan, people stayed home on the national day Monday. Pakistan has already postponed a military parade and the country’s president Arif Alvi and Khan have asked people to show unity to fight coronavirus.

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NEW YORK >> New York City hospitals are just 10 days from running out of “really basic supplies,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said late Sunday.

“If we don’t get the equipment, we’re literally going to lose lives,” de Blasio told CNN.

De Blasio has called upon the federal government to boost the city’s quickly dwindling supply of protective equipment. The city also faces a potentially deadly dearth of ventilators to treat those infected by the coronavirus.

Health care workers also warned of the worsening shortages, saying they were being asked to reuse and ration disposable masks and gloves.

New York City hospitals scrambled Sunday to accommodate a new swell of patients, dedicating new COVID-19 wings in their facilities. It remained “extremely busy” at Northwell hospitals, a spokesman said, adding their intensive care units were filling up.

“A number of hospitals have reported that they are becoming overwhelmed,” said Jonah Allon, a spokeswoman for Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

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TORONTO >> Canada says it won’t attend the Olympics this summer, calling for a postponement for a year.

The Canadian Olympic Committee sent out a statement Sunday night saying it’s refusing to send a team to Tokyo unless the Games, which are scheduled to start on July 24, are pushed back by 12 months.

The COC’s statement comes amid criticism of the International Olympic Committee’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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SEOUL >> South Korean low-cost airline Eastar Jet says it will shut down all flights, becoming the first South Korean carrier to do so amid a sharp decline in travel over the global coronavirus crisis.

The company on Monday said it will temporarily suspend its domestic flights from Tuesday to April 25 because of decreased demand.

Eastar, which had flown to various places in Asia and Russia’s Vladivostok, halted its last international routes earlier this month when Japan began enforcing 14-day quarantines on passengers arriving from South Korea.

South Korean carriers have been cutting back or suspending flights amid the global spread of COVID-19. Other budget carriers such as Air Seoul, Air Busan and T’Way Air are currently operating only domestic flights after suspending their international services.

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BEIJING >> China’s National Health Commission on Monday reported 39 new cases of COVID-19, all of which it says are “imported” infections in recent arrivals from overseas.

For more than a week, the majority of mainland China’s reported cases have been found in people coming from other countries, while community transmission inside the country has dwindled, according to the National Health Commission.

Seeking to prevent a resurgence of the virus, which first emerged late last year in central China, the government is imposing a strict quarantine on individuals entering the country.

Beginning Monday, all flights into Beijing will be diverted to one of 12 airports in other cities. Passengers must pass a health inspection in one of those cities before flying onward to the Chinese capital. They must then quarantine themselves in a hotel for 14 days at their own expense.

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TOKYO >> Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that a postponement of the Olympics is unavoidable if it cannot be held in a complete way due to the coronavirus impact.

He was commenting on the International Olympic Committee plan to examine the situation over the next few weeks and make a decision, which could include a postponement option.

Abe, speaking at a parliamentary session, ruled out a possibility of a cancellation.

Whether Japan can hold the Tokyo Games as planned on July 24 has been a major international concern as the COVID-19 pandemic has spread globally, especially hitting hard Europe and the U.S.

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand >> New Zealand will go into a full lockdown for about four weeks, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Monday.

She said the lockdown will begin in 48 hours’ time. People must stay at home and all non-essential businesses and activities cease.

The decision came as health officials announced another 36 confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 102. Most of those cases have been traced to people returning from overseas but crucially two of the cases could not be traced and officials believe are evidence of a local outbreak.

Ardern said there would be an unprecedented level of economic and social disruption as a result of the lockdown.

“I do not underestimate what I’m asking New Zealanders to do,” she said. “It is huge, and I know it will feel daunting.” But she said it was important to act early to save tens of thousands of lives.

There have been no deaths due to the coronavirus in New Zealand, which has a population of 5 million.

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WASHINGTON >> The Senate has refused to advance the coronavirus rescue package in a procedural vote with Democrats rejecting a draft from Republicans and pushing for more aid for workers.

Negotiations are expected to continue into the evening Sunday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has urged senators to “signal to the public that we’re ready to get this job done.” He wants passage by Monday.

But Democrats have resisted, arguing the nearly $1.4 trillion measure needs to bolster aid and put limits on how businesses can use the emergency dollars.

More voting is possible.

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NEW YORK >> Futures for U.S. stocks fell sharply at the start of trading Sunday as investors watch to see if Congress can agree on a huge rescue package to try to stem the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

Futures for the S&P 500 fell by 5%, triggering a halt in futures trading.

Wall Street is coming off its worst week since 2008. The S&P 500 fell 15% as large swaths of the U.S. economy shut down and investors waited for Washington to deliver financial support for American workers and battered industries such as airlines and hotels. Democrats have argued the package was tilted toward corporations rather than workers and health care providers, so negotiations are ongoing.

Oil prices also tumbled as the broad global economic slowdown threatens demand for energy. The price of U.S. oil fell 6% to $21.26 a barrel, while the international benchmark dropped 7% to $25.10

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WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump says he’s ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to ship mobile hospital centers to the hard-hit states of Washington, California and New York amid the coronavirus pandemic. For New York, that would mean another 1,000 hospital beds.

Trump is also revealing for the first time the number of respirators and other personal protective equipment sent to the hard-hit states by the federal government. It comes as state and local leaders have appealed on the federal government to provide far more, and as Trump has held off on using his fully authorities under the Defense Production Act to marshal the private sector’s capabilities.

Trump says it’s up to states to try to get the materials first. He says: “We’re sort of a backup for states.”

Trump says he’s also giving governors in those three states in calling up their national guard, keeping it under local control but providing federal funding.

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The U.S. Ambassador to the west African nation of Burkina Faso has become the most senior American diplomat known to have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Ambassador Andrew Young announced his status on his Twitter account on Sunday, saying he had “received a positive test for COVID-19,” which was later confirmed by the State Department in Washington. Young said the embassy had taken steps to quarantine “affected community members.”

Officials and diplomats in Burkina Faso has been hard hit by the virus with several government ministers testing positive, including the minister of mining, the minister of interior and education. The Italian ambassador has also contracted the virus.

Several other U.S. diplomats and State Department employees have also tested positive for the virus, including at least one who works at an annex to the agency’s main headquarters in Washington and at least one in Kingston, Jamaica and Geneva, Switzerland. Numerous others in other locations have gone into self-isolation after being exposed to people who have tested positive.

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CAIRO >> Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el Sissi appealed to his people to help stem the spread of the coronavirus through staying at home and practicing social distancing, as the confirmed cases of the virus reached 327 and 15 deaths.

He warned that that numbers of the infected could be in thousands within days, if people did not take the virus seriously.

“Help us, Egyptians!” he appealed to his people. “We want more commitment and discipline for the next two weeks in order to stem the spread of the coronavirus in Egypt.”

He urged Egypt’s more than 100 million people to take the spread of virus “very seriously.”

He said his government have taken “simple measures” including the closure of schools and universities, a nightly curfew on shops, restaurants and other businesses in efforts to minimize interaction between people. He also thanked doctors and health workers as “heroes” who are fighting “a battle like a “war.”

Egypt’s health ministry added 33 more confirmed cases of the coronavirus and four new deaths, bringing the total number to 327 and 14 deaths. It said over 50 were discharged from the quarantine after their recovery. The military earlier Sunday reported the death of a major general while taking part in sterilization efforts.

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CAIRO >> Egypt’s military said a senior officer died Sunday following his infection from the coronavirus.

The military said in a statement that Major General Khaled Shaltout was infected while participating in sterilization which the military has been carrying out across the country.

The military said it has sterilized and disinfected public institutions and several squares in the capital, Cairo and other cities, to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

Military spokesman Tamer el-Refai Saturday posted footage on social media showing military personal in protective gear and equipment while disinfecting the Tahrir square, the epicenter of the 2011 uprising, and the metro station there.

Shaltout was the highest official infected by the virus to date in Egypt, which has around 300 cases and 10 deaths.

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BATON ROUGE, La. >> Gov. John Bel Edwards has issued a statewide “stay at home” directive, ordering all 4.6 million people in Louisiana to stay at home starting at 5 p.m. on Monday unless they’re performing an essential task like getting food or medicine.

Workers in grocery stores, pharmacies, doctors’ offices and other critical infrastructure are exempt from the governor’s directive.

“The bottom line is we are in a race against time when it comes to this coronavirus and it’s rapid spread in Louisiana,” Edwards said Sunday.

New York, California, Illinois and some cities have issued similar shelter in place or stay at home orders in the last few days. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell had issued a similar order for that city two days ago.

As of Sunday, coronavirus infections in Louisiana have climbed to more than 830. Twenty people in the state have died of COVID-19, state health officials said.

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BOUNTIFUL, Utah >> Utah has reported its first death related to COVID-19 — a man over the age of 60 who had underlying health problems.

State health and hospital officials said Sunday that the unidentified man from Davis County had been at Lakeview Hospital in Bountiful for two days before his death.

The man tested positive for the coronavirus on Saturday.

Health officials are working to identify and contact anyone who may have been in close contact with him. His family notified the hospital of the possibility of him having COVID-19 before his arrival.

The hospital’s CEO says workers met him in the parking lot in full protective gear, limiting possible exposure.

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ISTANBUL >> Nine more people have died in Turkey from the coronavirus, bringing the country’s death toll to 30.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter that 289 people tested positive for COVID-19 Sunday. The total number of confirmed cases in the country is now at least 1,236.

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PARIS >> France’s Parliament has adopted a bill allowing the government to declare a “state of health emergency” meant to better fight the coronavirus epidemic in the country.

The measure voted Sunday allows the government to issue decrees that curtail temporarily freedoms, including restrictions on movements, trade, entrepreneurship and gatherings. It also enables the government to requisition necessary goods and services to fight against a health disaster.

The state of heath emergency is yet to be formally declared by President Emmanuel Macron’s government during a Cabinet meeting.

The measure was needed to provide legal basis to ensure the continuity of current emergency measures in the country and the democratic functioning of the state.

The bill also includes the postponing of nationwide municipal elections initially due to take place on Sunday and a package of economic measures to support workers and businesses hardly hit by the crisis.

French health authorities have reported 16,018 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 674 people who have died.

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WASHINGTON >> Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is the first U.S. senator to test positive for COVID-19, the infection caused by the coronavirus.

That’s according to a tweet from the senator, who is a top ally of President Donald Trump.

The senator is “feeling fine,” the tweet said. He is “asymptomatic,” and in quarantine.

He was not aware “of any direct contact with any infected person,” the tweet said.

This comes shortly after the nation’s capital announced its second death to coronavirus.

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BERLIN >> German Chancellor Angela Merkel has gone into quarantine after being informed that a doctor who administered a vaccine to her has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Merkel’s spokesman said the German chancellor was informed about the doctor’s test shortly after holding a news conference Sunday announcing new measures to curb the spread of the virus.

Her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said Merkel had received a precautionary vaccine Friday against pneumococcal infection.

Seibert said in a statement that Merkel would undergo “regular tests” in the coming days and continue with her work from home for the time being.

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ROME >> The number of deaths of people with the coronavirus in Italy jumped 651 to 5,476 in the last 24 hours, while new infections rose by 10% to over 59,000. The head of Italy’s Civil Protection Agency, Angelo Borrelli, noted that the increases had narrowed from recent days, adding ”we hope that this trend can be confirmed in the coming days. We should not lower our guard.”

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BOGOTA, Colombia >> Authorities in Colombia say 23 prisoners died and another 83 were injured in a riot and attempted escape over poor conditions inmates argue will spread the coronavirus.

The violence happened overnight at the La Modelo jail in Bogota, where all of the deaths occurred, along with several other penitentiaries. Officials said seven workers were injured, two of them in critical condition.

Relatives gathered outside the jail Sunday wearing masks and clamoring for information.

Videos shared by inmates online showed fires inside several jails, prisoners outside their cells and inmates complaining of conditions.

Colombia has confirmed 231 coronavirus cases. Authorities say none are in jails.

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ISTANBUL >> Turkish Airlines will halt all international flights except for five destinations starting Friday.

The airline’s chief executive officer Bilal Eksi tweeted flights would continue to Hong Kong, Moscow, Addis Ababa, New York and Washington, D.C. All other international passenger flights would be suspended from March 27 to April 17.

Turkey already suspended flights to 68 countries as part of Ankara’s efforts to contain the coronavirus.

Eksi said domestic flights would continue but decrease in number. Cargo flights are also to continue.

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OKLAHOMA CITY >> A second person in Oklahoma has died of COVID-19 as the number of state residents with the illness caused by the coronavirus increased by more than a dozen.

The man who died was in his 50s and lived in Pawnee County, west of Tulsa. The Oklahoma State Department of Health did not provide further details on the circumstances of his illness and death.

The number of people in the state who have tested positive for the virus increased to 67 Sunday, from 53 the day before. The health department said 11 of those people are hospitalized.

Oklahoma County has the most cases, with 26, following by Cleveland County, with 13, and Tulsa County, with six.

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WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump is lashing out at governors and other lawmakers who have been critical about the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump tweeted on Sunday that they should not be “blaming the federal government for their own shortcomings.”

He added: “We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!”

Democratic lawmakers such as Illinois’ governor and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio were on various TV news shows Sunday saying they had to fight with states over medical resources and questioned why Trump hasn’t yet made military resources available despite triggering the Defense Production Act late last week.

Trump has said repeatedly his administration is not to blame for the growing pandemic including a lack of resources for medical teams.

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PARIS >> France’s health minister has said the country reached a grim milestone — the first hospital doctor to have died of the coronavirus.

Oliver Veran said Sunday he had learned of the death of the unnamed 68-year-old emergency doctor from Compiegne in Oise the day before and “shared the pain of the family.”

It is, he said, “to my knowledge… the first case that struck a hospital doctor.”

In the Le Parisien newspaper, the doctor’s son said his father’s illness hit suddenly, saying the family is “sad and angry.”

He added: “He came back very tired after being on duty. He quickly fell ill, no longer ate, had no taste in spite of being of a bon vivant. Despite everything — knowing he was sick, he wanted to go back to work.”

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ATHENS, Greece >> Greece has reported an additional two fatalities from the COVID-19 virus.

That brings the total to 15. Also, 94 new cases were confirmed on Sunday, bringing the total to 624. Of those, 124 are hospitalized and 34 people are in intensive care.

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WASHINGTON >> Immigrant advocates have filed a federal lawsuit demanding that family detention centers release immigrants because of an eminent risk of a coronavirus outbreak.

Lawyers filed the lawsuit in the District of Columbia on Saturday. They say the country’s three detention centers where families are held: Berks in Pennsylvania, Karnes and Dilley in Texas, have failed to take adequate measures to protect families from COVID-19.

They say there is no justification for risking their health and safety.

Immigration enforcement has a wide latitude on when to release people detained. Earlier this year, Homeland Security officials said they would detain families as long as possible in an effort to discourage migrants from crossing the border.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said officers are taking precautions to avoid an outbreak in detention facilities.

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ISLAMABAD >> A young doctor who was infected with the coronavirus in northern Pakistan while screening pilgrims returned from Iran into Gilgit Baltistan has died.

Rashid Arshad, spokesman for chief minister of Gilgit Baltistan, said Dr Osama Riaz dead was removed from a ventilator after two days with the consent of his family.

Riaz was admitted to Gilgit’s main hospital in critical condition after he passed out Friday. He was treating suspected COVID-19 cases with proper safety gear but they were short in supply in the far mountainous terrain.

Riaz joined the hospital as medical officer after passing first stage of fellowship in medicine. With Riaz’s death number of dead due to COVID-19 in Pakistan is now four.

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WASHINGTON >> The government’s top infectious disease expert insists he has no disagreement with President Donald Trump over whether a drug to treat COVID-19 is actually at hand.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tells CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Trump had heard anecdotal reports that a malaria drug could be used for the coronavirus and so was expressing the hope “that if they might work, let’s try and push their usage.”

Last week, Trump asserted that tests had provided evidence the drug is useful for COVID-19, a statement Fauci contradicted during televised White House briefings. Trump also falsely suggested that the FDA had just cleared the drug specifically for the viral pandemic, when it had not.

On Sunday, Fauci explained that Trump’s views reflected a layperson who was “trying to bring hope to the people” whereas his own job is to “prove definitively from a scientific job that they do work.”

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SKOPJE, North Macedonia >> North Macedonia has announced the first death from the COVID-19 virus.

Health minister Venko Filipce said Sunday the victim was a 57- year old woman from the town of Kumanovo. Her health deteriorated rapidly at the hospital, but cause of death was only determined after. Filipce did not specify when the woman died.

Filipce said 29 people have tested positive on virus over the past 24 hours, all but seven from the capital Skopje. This brings the number of confirmed cases to 114.

North Macedonia has imposed a 9 pm curfew that begins Sunday night. Two regions in the west of the country, near the border with Albania, have been sealed off for 30 days. More then 7,600 people are quarantined.

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ATHENS, Greece >> Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a lockdown, starting at 6 a.m. Monday.

All citizens and residents must stay at home or risk a fine.

There are specific exemptions to the lockdown such as going to work, visiting a doctor, shopping, exercise and walking the dog. Everyone must carry an ID or passport with them.

Also, people returning to their permanent place of residence are exempt from the measure as they travel.

Other government officials will specify the measures and their enforcement.

Mitsotakis thanked “the vast majority of citizens” who followed the quarantine instructions when it was first imposed more than a week ago, and blamed the “frivolous, flippant” few who “put everyone in danger” by defying the instructions.

Earlier Sunday, government spokesman Stelios Petsas had chastised those “who have interpreted the quarantine as a holiday season” by crowding public spaces or leaving the capital Athens en masse for the countryside, taking advantage of the mild weather.

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WASHINGTON >> The government’s top infectious disease expert says he remains hopeful the U.S. is not on the same trajectory as Italy in the coronavirus struggle.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says the stringent measures being put in place in the U.S. including travel restrictions, the closing of schools and many businesses and other social distancing will go “a long way” to prevent the U.S. from becoming like Italy.

Italy has seen over 50,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 5,000 deaths.

Fauci tells CBS’ “Face the Nation” that it’s hard to know exactly why Italy is “suffering so terribly” but that they did not appear to shut out as well the input of infections originating from China and other parts of the world.

He says the U.S. is “going to be hit, no doubt about it,” but it appears to be in a better position because “we have from the beginning put a kind of clamper” on the virus.

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WASHINGTON >> Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey says his state is desperate for more face masks and other personal protective equipment and is not getting nearly what it needs from the federal government.

Murphy said, “We’ve had a big ask into the strategic stockpile in the White House. They’ve given us a fraction of our ask.”

New Jersey is now fourth in the country in terms of the number of positive cases, which the governor says hit more than 1,300 on Saturday with 16 fatalities.

He also cited an urgent need for direct financial assistance from the federal government to help workers and small business. He said, “We think New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut alone, those four states, need $100 billion, direct cash assistance, to allow us to continue the fight.”

Murphy spoke Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates >> Long-haul carrier Emirates says it will suspend all passenger flights beginning Wednesday over the coronavirus outbreak.

The decision is a major one for the Dubai-based, government-owned airline built on linking the East to the West.

A statement from the carrier quoted Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, its chairman and CEO, as saying: “The world has literally gone into quarantine due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This is an unprecedented crisis situation in terms of breadth and scale: geographically, as well as from a health, social, and economic standpoint.”

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka >> Sri Lanka has indefinitely extended the closure of the arrival terminal at it’s main international airport to prevent imported cases of the coronavirus.

The Indian ocean island nation stepped up efforts to contain the spreading of virus as the number of positive cases has now risen to 82.

Early this week, the government suspended arrival flights until March 25. Today, the government announced that the restrictions of arrival flights “will continue until the country returns to normalcy.”

However, the airport’s departure terminal will continue to be operational and flights are allowed into the country to take departing passengers.

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LONDON >> British doctors and nurses are making urgent pleas for more protective equipment as the number of coronavirus patients in U.K. hospitals soars.

Almost 4,000 medical workers signed a letter to the Sunday Times saying front-line staff felt like “cannon fodder.” They warned that medics would die if they did not receive better equipment.

The letter said that intensive-care doctors and anaesthetists “have been carrying out the highest-risk procedure, putting a patient on a ventilator, with masks that expired in 2015.”

Britain’s coronavirus outbreak is not expected to peak for weeks, and already staff at some hospitals have complained about shortages of ventilators and protective equipment like face masks, safety glasses, gloves and protective suits.

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said that hospitals would receive new stocks of protective equipment by Sunday afternoon.

The government has also ordered thousands of ventilators and has struck a deal with private hospitals to use thousands of beds and 20,000 medical staff to treat coronavirus patients.

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ISLAMABAD >> Pakistan’s top health official has revised the country’s number of confirmed coronavirus cases to 646 cases. That’s down from the more than 700 confirmed cases reported a day earlier.

Zafar Mirza, the special assistant to prime minister Imran Khan, said the figures he was presenting came from all provincial health authorities. He said the total suspected cases are 5650.

Out of the confirmed cases, 292 tested positive in southern Sindh province, 152 in Punjab, 104 in Baluchistan, 31 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 55 in Gilgit Baltistan, 11 in Islamabad and one in Pakistan controled Kashmir.

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CRAIOVA, Romania >> Romania has reported its first death due to the coronavirus.

Authorities said Sunday the victim was a 67-year-old man with terminal cancer who returned March 6 from France, where he had been receiving treatment.

The man died while in the intensive care unit of a hospital for infectious diseases in the southwestern city of Craiova.

Romania has 367 confirmed cases of people infected with the coronavirus. The country will close its borders to foreigners Sunday night and curfews will be enforced.

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WARSAW, Poland >> A hospital in Poland has been sealed off and a quarantine ordered for all patients and employees after a 38-year-old patient tested positive for the coronavirus.

Nearly 70 people are now quarantined in Provincial Hospital of Lung Diseases and Tuberculosis in Wolica, near the central Polish city of Kalisz.

No one can leave the hospital until further notice and no one can enter.

The patient with COVID-19 has been transported to another hospital in severe condition.

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VATICAN CITY >> Pope Francis is seeking to unite Christianity across denomination in prayer against the new virus ”shaking humanity.”

The pope held his weekly Sunday blessing in his private library in the Apostolic Palace over virus concerns. He urged all Christians to join in reciting the ”Our Father” prayer next Wednesday at noon.

The pope said he would lead a global blessing to an empty St. Peter’s Square on Friday. The ”Urbi et Orbi,” blessing is normally reserved for Christmas Day and Easter and will be broadcast to the faithful.

The double prayer initiative of such a global and ecumenical nature is highly unusual and suggests the urgency with which the Vatican views the pandemic.

The pope began streaming his audiences earlier this month after the Vatican joined Italy in implementing drastic lockdown measures.

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PERTH, Australia >> Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has closed the country’s bars, clubs, cinemas and casinos to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

Morrison said the drastic measures nationwide would start Monday and also include sporting and religious venues. Restaurants and cafes will be restricted to takeout service only, but schools remain open.

Morrison said the rules were implemented because people disregarded social distancing requirements.

He said the restrictions would be in place for at least six months, but added that the time frame could be reconsidered if the health situation changes.

Earlier Sunday, Morrison unveiled a 66.4 billion Australian dollar ($38.50 billion) stimulus package that includes cash payments for eligible small businesses and welfare recipients.

Australia has confirmed more than 1,000 coronavirus cases, including seven deaths.

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MADRID >> Health authorities in Spain say confirmed coronavirus infections have risen by over 3,600 in one day.

The jump in cases from Saturday to Sunday is down from nearly 5,000 the day before.

Spain is Europe’s hardest hit country behind Italy and has 28,572 infections and 1,720 deaths.

Spain is completing its first week of lockdown measures to keep people at home. Non-essential stores have been closed.

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PAKISTAN >> Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan won’t implement a total lockdown because it will affect 25 percent of population living below the poverty line.

He asked citizens to self-quarantine if they suffer from any coronavirus symptoms. He said Pakistan will overcome the virus if people cooperate and avoid socializing.

Khan said Pakistan’s economy is not strong enough to subsidize meals for the poor on lockdown.

Minutes after Kahn’s address to the nation, the Chief Minister of Pakistan southern Sindh province announced a complete lock down of his province for next two weeks. Sindh is the most affected province where nearly 300 people have tested positive for COVID-19.

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DUBAI >> The long-haul carrier Emirates has halted flights to over 100 destinations, cutting some 70% of its routes over the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The Dubai-based, government-owned airline is a crucial link in East-West travel and had still been flying into Beijing despite the virus outbreak.

Beijing flights, however, will end Monday.

Some routes will be halted through the end of June. Before the crisis, Emirates flew to 145 destinations.

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TUNIS >> Tunisia said all citizens must stay at home in isolation for two weeks to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

COVID-19 is still relatively localized in the North African country and has killed one person.

Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh said Sunday all non-essential members of the workforce should stay at home through April 4 and it will require “a lot of wisdom, responsibility and discipline.”

Fakhfakh said the state will provide funding for vulnerable businesses, subsidies for laid off workers, and moratoriums on to bank loans. He also announced a two-month suspension of payment for electricity, water and telephone bills.

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PRISTINA, Kosovo >> Kosovo authorities have reported the first COVID-19 death in the country.

The Infectious Clinic said the fatality was an 82-year old man from the village of Dumnica, Podujeva, 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the capital, Pristina.

The patient went to the hospital a week ago with “mass pulmonary and pneumonia indications,” and also suffering from other cardiac and lung chronic diseases.

He had contacted the virus from his son and daughter.

Kosovo has 28 cases as of Sunday. It is in a total lockdown with all its air and land border crossing points shut. Authorities have closed schools, cafes and restaurants and all shops except those offering food and medical supplies.

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BERLIN >> German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to hold a video conference with the governors of Germany’s 16 states today to discuss whether further measures are needed to prevent people spreading the coronavirus.

Germany’s states have imposed varying levels of lockdown, causing a heated debate about which measures are appropriate to contain the virus.

Some officials have called for the rules to be the same nationwide.

While Bavaria has ordered people to stay indoors with few exceptions, Berlin still allows gatherings of up to 10 people.

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THE HAGUE, Netherlands >> The Dutch government sent an alert to mobile phones throughout the country Sunday urging people to keep 1.5 meters (five feet) apart after thousands of people flocked to beaches and parks a day earlier.

The Netherlands is a densely populated nation of 17 million but not in a total lockdown to battle the coronavirus. The government has banned gatherings of more than 100 people and told citizens not to get too close to one another.

“Follow government instructions: Stay 1.5 meters apart! Are you sick or have a cold? Stay at home. Protect yourself and people around you. Together against Corona,” the NL Alert said in Dutch before adding in English: “Keep your distance to others.”

Local authorities and police also warned people to keep their distance or urged them not to visit popular beaches along the Netherlands’ North Sea coast, while a natural park organization tweeted that parks were “swamped with thousands of visitors” and urged people to go home or stay at home.

The country’s public health institute said Saturday that 136 people have died in the Netherlands in the coronavirus outbreak. More than 3,600 people have tested positive for the virus.

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BOGOTA, Colombia >> Authorities in Colombia say 23 prisoners died and another 83 were injured in a riot and attempted escape over poor conditions inmates argue will spread the coronavirus.

The violence happened overnight at the La Modelo jail in Bogota, where all of the deaths occurred, along with several other penitentiaries. Officials said seven workers were injured, two of them in critical condition.

Relatives gathered outside the jail Sunday wearing masks and clamoring for information.

Videos shared by inmates online showed fires inside several jails, prisoners outside their cells and inmates complaining of conditions.

Colombia has confirmed 231 coronavirus cases. Authorities say none are in jails.

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ISTANBUL >> Turkish Airlines will halt all international flights except for five destinations starting Friday.

The airline’s chief executive officer Bilal Eksi tweeted flights would continue to Hong Kong, Moscow, Addis Ababa, New York and Washington, D.C. All other international passenger flights would be suspended from March 27 to April 17.

Turkey already suspended flights to 68 countries as part of Ankara’s efforts to contain the coronavirus.

Eksi said domestic flights would continue but decrease in number. Cargo flights are also to continue.

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OKLAHOMA CITY >> A second person in Oklahoma has died of COVID-19 as the number of state residents with the illness caused by the coronavirus increased by more than a dozen.

The man who died was in his 50s and lived in Pawnee County, west of Tulsa. The Oklahoma State Department of Health did not provide further details on the circumstances of his illness and death.

The number of people in the state who have tested positive for the virus increased to 67 Sunday, from 53 the day before. The health department said 11 of those people are hospitalized.

Oklahoma County has the most cases, with 26, following by Cleveland County, with 13, and Tulsa County, with six.

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WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump is lashing out at governors and other lawmakers who have been critical about the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump tweeted today that they should not be “blaming the federal government for their own shortcomings.”

He added: “We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!”

Democratic lawmakers such as Illinois’ governor and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio were on various TV news shows Sunday saying they had to fight with states over medical resources and questioned why Trump hasn’t yet made military resources available despite triggering the Defense Production Act late last week.

Trump has said repeatedly his administration is not to blame for the growing pandemic including a lack of resources for medical teams.

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PARIS >> France’s health minister has said the country reached a grim milestone — the first hospital doctor to have died of the coronavirus.

Oliver Veran said today he had learned of the death of the unnamed 68-year-old emergency doctor from Compiegne in Oise the day before and “shared the pain of the family.”

It is, he said, “to my knowledge… the first case that struck a hospital doctor.”

In the Le Parisien newspaper, the doctor’s son said his father’s illness hit suddenly, saying the family is “sad and angry.”

He added: “He came back very tired after being on duty. He quickly fell ill, no longer ate, had no taste in spite of being of a bon vivant. Despite everything — knowing he was sick, he wanted to go back to work.”

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ATHENS, Greece >> Greece has reported an additional two fatalities from the COVID-19 virus.

That brings the total to 15. Also, 94 new cases were confirmed today, bringing the total to 624. Of those, 124 are hospitalized and 34 people are in intensive care.

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WASHINGTON >> Immigrant advocates have filed a federal lawsuit demanding that family detention centers release immigrants because of an eminent risk of a coronavirus outbreak.

Lawyers filed the lawsuit in the District of Columbia on Saturday. They say the country’s three detention centers where families are held: Berks in Pennsylvania, Karnes and Dilley in Texas, have failed to take adequate measures to protect families from COVID-19.

They say there is no justification for risking their health and safety.

Immigration enforcement has a wide latitude on when to release people detained. Earlier this year, Homeland Security officials said they would detain families as long as possible in an effort to discourage migrants from crossing the border.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said officers are taking precautions to avoid an outbreak in detention facilities.

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ISLAMABAD >> A young doctor who was infected with the coronavirus in northern Pakistan while screening pilgrims returned from Iran into Gilgit Baltistan has died.

Rashid Arshad, spokesman for chief minister of Gilgit Baltistan, said Dr Osama Riaz was removed from a ventilator after two days with the consent of his family.

Riaz was admitted to Gilgit’s main hospital in critical condition after he passed out Friday. He was treating suspected COVID-19 cases with proper safety gear but they were short in supply in the far mountainous terrain.

Riaz joined the hospital as medical officer after passing first stage of fellowship in medicine. With Riaz’s death number of dead due to COVID-19 in Pakistan is now four.

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WASHINGTON >> The government’s top infectious disease expert insists he has no disagreement with President Donald Trump over whether a drug to treat COVID-19 is actually at hand.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tells CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Trump had heard anecdotal reports that a malaria drug could be used for the coronavirus and so was expressing the hope “that if they might work, let’s try and push their usage.”

Last week, Trump asserted that tests had provided evidence the drug is useful for COVID-19, a statement Fauci contradicted during televised White House briefings. Trump also falsely suggested that the FDA had just cleared the drug specifically for the viral pandemic, when it had not.

Today, Fauci explained that Trump’s views reflected a layperson who was “trying to bring hope to the people” whereas his own job is to “prove definitively from a scientific job that they do work.”

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SKOPJE, North Macedonia >> North Macedonia has announced the first death from the COVID-19 virus.

Health minister Venko Filipce said today the victim was a 57- year old woman from the town of Kumanovo. Her health deteriorated rapidly at the hospital, but cause of death was only determined after. Filipce did not specify when the woman died.

Filipce said 29 people have tested positive on virus over the past 24 hours, all but seven from the capital Skopje. This brings the number of confirmed cases to 114.

North Macedonia has imposed a 9 pm curfew that begins tonight. Two regions in the west of the country, near the border with Albania, have been sealed off for 30 days. More then 7,600 people are quarantined.

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ATHENS, Greece >> Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a lockdown, starting at 6 a.m. Monday.

All citizens and residents must stay at home or risk a fine.

There are specific exemptions to the lockdown such as going to work, visiting a doctor, shopping, exercise and walking the dog. Everyone must carry an ID or passport with them.

Also, people returning to their permanent place of residence are exempt from the measure as they travel.

Other government officials will specify the measures and their enforcement.

Mitsotakis thanked “the vast majority of citizens” who followed the quarantine instructions when it was first imposed more than a week ago, and blamed the “frivolous, flippant” few who “put everyone in danger” by defying the instructions.

Earlier today, government spokesman Stelios Petsas had chastised those “who have interpreted the quarantine as a holiday season” by crowding public spaces or leaving the capital Athens en masse for the countryside, taking advantage of the mild weather.

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WASHINGTON >> The government’s top infectious disease expert says he remains hopeful the U.S. is not on the same trajectory as Italy in the coronavirus struggle.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says the stringent measures being put in place in the U.S. including travel restrictions, the closing of schools and many businesses and other social distancing will go “a long way” to prevent the U.S. from becoming like Italy.

Italy has seen over 50,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 5,000 deaths.

Fauci tells CBS’ “Face the Nation” that it’s hard to know exactly why Italy is “suffering so terribly” but that they did not appear to shut out as well the input of infections originating from China and other parts of the world.

He says the U.S. is “going to be hit, no doubt about it,” but it appears to be in a better position because “we have from the beginning put a kind of clamper” on the virus.

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SAARLAND, Germany >> Germany’s small western state of Saarland became the third to offer medical help to neighboring France, which is struggling with a surge in coronavirus patients.

Gov. Tobias Hans said his state would use available hospital beds with ventilators to treat severely ill patients from France’s Grand-Est region.

Public broadcaster SR quoted Hans today saying that “we will only win the battle again the virus together.”

Saarland came under French control after World War II but was returned to West Germany in 1957 following a referendum.

Germany’s southwestern states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Wuerttemberg, which also border France, have already offered spare hospitals beds to treat French patients.

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WASHINGTON >> Illinois’ governor says his state is not receiving enough medical supplies.

Gov. Jay Pritzker tells CNN’s “State of The Union” that they got a recent supply but it was a fraction of what was requested. He says they’re buying supplies from the open market and competing with other states also in need of supplies.

He said it’s a bad system.

Pritzker is hopeful that now that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in charge of response he is hopefully it will improve. He says that FEMA is more prepared to manage the crisis than other federal agencies.

Pritzker ordered all 12.7 million people in Illinois to stay at home starting Saturday evening, and said he wished there would be stay-at-home orders nationwide.

He says unless leaders tell citizens to stay home, they just won’t.

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WASHINGTON >> Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf says illegal border crossings have dropped by 50% after restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Trump administration is turning back anyone crossing illegally, among other restrictions.

Wolf says because migrants often come without identification paperwork it’s unclear how to trace their medical history and to determine if they are arriving from an area hard-hit by the virus.

But the Trump administration has also made restriction immigration a top priority, regardless of the pandemic and had already been sending thousands of asylum seekers back to Mexico to wait out their cases. The nation’s immigration courts are still operating with limited closures and some hearings delayed.

Wolf said on Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures” that the borders between the U.S. and Mexico and U.S. and Canada are not shut down, but are only allowing for necessary trade and travel.

He says there’s more than $2 billion combined trade at both borders and it’s important to keep that going. But he says anyone coming for tourism should stay home.

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MADRID >> Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says he plans to extend the national state of emergency that includes strict measures to combat the coronavirus.

It means the countrywide lockdown will last at least one month.

Spain is finishing its first week of what was initially a 15-day state of emergency that imposes stay-at-home restrictions and store closings. But with infections and deaths continuing to rise, Sánchez has decided not to wait to extend the lockdown.

To do so, his government will ask the Parliament for its necessary approval on Tuesday.

Spain, the hardest hit country after China and Italy, has 28,572 infections and 1,720 deaths.

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STOCKHOLM >> The city of Stockholm says it has teamed up with the Swedish military to build a make-shift hospital inside a large fair and convention center south of the Swedish capital to accommodate a rapidly growing number of coronavirus patients.

Stockholm region officials said the building of the facility will start immediately in co-operation with the Swedish Armed Forces. It will include an intensive care unit.

Stockholm had 661 confirmed cases and seven deaths by today. Nationwide, Sweden has seen a large hike in coronavirus cases in the past week with 1,747 cases and 20 deaths confirmed in the country Sunday.

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WASHINGTON >> U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he expects Congress and the White House to reach full agreement later today on an economic stimulus package that could approach $2 trillion to address the coronavirus crisis.

The package would include $3,000 checks to families and other aid to last the next 10 weeks.

Mnuchin tells “Fox News Sunday” that there is a “fundamental understanding” reached with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders to provide significant aid.

He says the deal includes federal loans to small businesses so they can retain their workers; cash payments averaging $3,000 for a family of four as well as “enhanced” unemployment insurance.

The package also will allow the Federal Reserve to leverage up to $4 trillion of liquidity to support the nation’s economy, while hospitals will get “approximately” $110 billion to address a crush of people infected with the virus.

Mnuchin says President Donald Trump has “every expectation” the aid package will help workers and the economy improve “four or eight weeks from now,” but if the virus is still raging after 10 weeks, “we’ll go back to Congress again.”

Mnuchin says he expects a Senate vote on the deal on Monday morning.

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WASHINGTON >> Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says her state needs the federal government to provide not only more test kits and masks but also clear guidance on how best to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

Speaking today on ABC’s “This Week,” Whitmer said her state and others are doing the best they can, “but it would be nice to have a national strategy.” As it is, she said the states are “all building the airplane as we fly it.”

She criticized the federal government for not focusing on the threat much earlier. She also said she didn’t want to belabor the point because she needs to be able to work with the federal government.

She said she doesn’t want to fight with the White House, but says a point will come in which failures will need to be examined.

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LONDON >> Authorities in Britain’s remotest regions say an influx of people trying to get away from crowded urban areas is putting local lives at risk.

Scottish authorities told people heading to the sparsely populated Highlands to stay at holiday homes or in camper vans to go home.

The Road to The Isles group, which represents tourism businesses in part of the scenic region, said its area had an aging population and just one ambulance, with the nearest hospital 100 miles away.

Chairwoman Sine MacKellaig-Davis urged people “to stay home, care for loved ones and, as soon as it’s safe to do so, the Road to the Isles and its communities and businesses will welcome you.”

Judy Murray, mother of tennis star Andy Murrray, had a blunter message. She tweeted “Message for those relocating to the countryside” above a picture of a car and trailer with “Go home idiots” and “Covid-19” painted on the side.

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PRAGUE >> The Czech Foreign Ministry is sending a military plane to the Baltics and secured deals with commercial airlines to take home stranded Czech nationals in Egypt, Philippines and Vietnam.

Various restrictive measures on movement adopted by the governments around the globe due to the outbreak of the coronavirus have made it difficult for many to return.

Altogether some 600 Czechs should return by those flights, plus 100 people from other EU countries who were offered seats.

The government have already been sending buses for the Czechs stranded at the airports in Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin in Germany as well Vienna in Austria.

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WASHINGTON >> Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey says his state is desperate for more face masks and other personal protective equipment and is not getting nearly what it needs from the federal government.

Murphy said, “We’ve had a big ask into the strategic stockpile in the White House. They’ve given us a fraction of our ask.”

New Jersey is now fourth in the country in terms of the number of positive cases, which the governor says hit more than 1,300 on Saturday with 16 fatalities.

He also cited an urgent need for direct financial assistance from the federal government to help workers and small business. He said, “We think New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut alone, those four states, need $100 billion, direct cash assistance, to allow us to continue the fight.”

Murphy spoke Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates >> Long-haul carrier Emirates says it will suspend all passenger flights beginning Wednesday over the coronavirus outbreak.

The decision is a major one for the Dubai-based, government-owned airline built on linking the East to the West.

A statement from the carrier quoted Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, its chairman and CEO, as saying: “The world has literally gone into quarantine due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This is an unprecedented crisis situation in terms of breadth and scale: geographically, as well as from a health, social, and economic standpoint.”

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka >> Sri Lanka has indefinitely extend the closure of the arrival terminal at it’s main international airport to prevent imported cases of the coronavirus.

The Indian ocean island nation stepped up efforts to contain the spreading of virus as the number of positive cases has now risen to 82.

Early this week, the government suspended arrival flights until March 25. On Sunday, the government announced that the restrictions of arrival flights “will continue until the country returns to normalcy.”

However, the airport’s departure terminal will continue to be operational and flights are allowed into the country to take departing passengers.

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NEW YORK >> New York City’s mayor is telling New Yorkers at the epicenter of the U.S. pandemic that it’s only going to get worse.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that his city is in desperate need of ventilators and other medical supplies and staff. He also lambasted the White House response as non-responsive.

He says he’s asked “repeatedly” for the U.S. military to mobilize, and has heard nothing.

The Mayor said the actions taken by American citizens are “much farther ahead than anything we’ve seen out of the White House.”

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LONDON >> British doctors and nurses are making urgent pleas for more protective equipment as the number of coronavirus patients in U.K. hospitals soars.

Almost 4,000 medical workers signed a letter to the Sunday Times saying front-line staff felt like “cannon fodder.” They warned that medics would die if they did not receive better equipment.

The letter said that intensive-care doctors and anaesthetists “have been carrying out the highest-risk procedure, putting a patient on a ventilator, with masks that expired in 2015.”

Britain’s coronavirus outbreak is not expected to peak for weeks, and already staff at some hospitals have complained about shortages of ventilators and protective equipment like face masks, safety glasses, gloves and protective suits.

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said that hospitals would receive new stocks of protective equipment by Sunday afternoon.

The government has also ordered thousands of ventilators and has struck a deal with private hospitals to use thousands of beds and 20,000 medical staff to treat coronavirus patients.

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ISLAMABAD >> Pakistan’s top health official has revised the country’s number of confirmed coronavirus cases to 646 cases. That’s down from the more than 700 confirmed cases reported a day earlier.

Zafar Mirza, the special assistant to prime minister Imran Khan, said the figures he was presenting came from all provincial health authorities. He said the total suspected cases are 5650.

Out of the confirmed cases, 292 tested positive in southern Sindh province, 152 in Punjab, 104 in Baluchistan, 31 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 55 in Gilgit Baltistan, 11 in Islamabad and one in Pakistan controled Kashmir.

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PRAGUE >> The Czech government is sending to Italy about 100,000 face masks and respirators that were among hundreds of thousands seized in the country earlier this week.

Czech authorities used emergency powers to raid a warehouse and seize 680,000 masks and 28,000 respirators on Tuesday.

The state was negotiating to acquire those badly needed masks and respirators with a private company but before reaching a deal the price significantly increased, prompting the seizure.

Interior Minister Jan Hamacek later acknowledged it turned out that 101,600 of the protective gear were sent by China’s Red Cross to fellow Chinese nationals living in Italy and apologized for the Czech move.

Czech police are investigating how those masks from China ended up in a warehouse located in northwestern town of Lovosice.

Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek said today he would explain the situation to his Italian counterpart and the masks will be transported to Italy early next week.

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CRAIOVA, Romania >> Romania has reported its first death due to the coronavirus.

Authorities said Sunday the victim was a 67-year-old man with terminal cancer who returned March 6 from France, where he had been receiving treatment.

The man died while in the intensive care unit of a hospital for infectious diseases in the southwestern city of Craiova.

Romania has 367 confirmed cases of people infected with the coronavirus. The country will close its borders to foreigners today and curfews will be enforced.

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WARSAW, Poland >> A hospital in Poland has been sealed off and a quarantine ordered for all patients and employees after a 38-year-old patient tested positive for the coronavirus.

Nearly 70 people are now quarantined in Provincial Hospital of Lung Diseases and Tuberculosis in Wolica, near the central Polish city of Kalisz.

No one can leave the hospital until further notice and no one can enter.

The patient with COVID-19 has been transported to another hospital in severe condition.