A woman wears a mask in New York City’s Times Square on March 8. Several U.S. states announced their first cases of coronavirus this weekend.
Photo: kena betancur/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesGovernments and officials around the globe escalated efforts to halt the spread of coronavirus, as infections spread to new parts of the U.S. and officials urged citizens not to gather in large groups and blocked some cruise ships from docking or leaving.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases globally exceeded 105,000 on Sunday, and Italy quarantined about 17 million people in the northern part of the country. Infections spread to new parts of the U.S. over the weekend, as Connecticut, Missouri, Washington, D.C. and Vermont announced their first cases.
The virus is now in well over half of U.S. states, with 466 cases and a total of 19 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The majority of deaths have occurred in Washington state, where the outbreak has centered at an elder-care facility
Thousands of passengers aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship are scheduled to dock in the Port of Oakland on Monday, amid an outbreak on board. At least 21 people, including 19 crew members, tested positive for the disease. The roughly 3,500 passengers and crew remained off the coast of San Francisco for days.
“Nearly 1,000 passengers who are California residents will complete the mandatory quarantine at Travis Air Force Base and Miramar Naval Air Station, and residents of other states will complete the mandatory quarantine at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland in Texas or Dobbins Air Force Base in Georgia,” the Department of Health and Human Services said in a Sunday statement.
New York state officials said the number of people infected with coronavirus rose to 105. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the new tally was up from 89 Saturday.
Five states have declared states of emergencies, granting their governors additional powers to combat the virus spread: New York, California, Florida, Maryland and Washington.
Elbert Wang, Vivien Ngo, and Dylan Moriarty/The Wall Street Journal
China reported its first day without new locally transmitted coronavirus cases outside the city where the pathogen had emerged, just as Italy imposed a mass quarantine similar to the sweeping measures Beijing has used to contain the epidemic.
Chinese health authorities logged 44 new infections nationwide for Saturday, including 41 cases in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people where the epidemic began and which officials have sealed off since late January as part of an unprecedented quarantine effort locking down tens of millions of people.
The remaining three cases—two in Beijing and one in northwestern Gansu province—were “imported,” meaning the patients were infected abroad, China’s National Health Commission said Sunday.
Saturday’s tally was the lowest one-day case count China has reported since it started disclosing such figures in late January. It also marked the second straight day in which China reported new infections in double digits, down from hundreds of cases a day a month ago.
These figures “indicate that current prevention-and-control measures are scientific and effective,” health commission spokesman Mi Feng said at a Sunday news briefing. Since late January, Chinese authorities have implemented full or partial lockdowns in cities and communities across the country, curbing the movement of hundreds of millions of people.
Similar measures are now being imposed in Italy, the European country worst-hit by the coronavirus, where authorities early Sunday ordered a lockdown of more than a quarter of its population in the country’s economic heartland.
The mass quarantine across much of northern Italy—effective until April 3—marked the most sweeping step any European country has taken against the coronavirus, which has sickened 5,883 people in Italy as of Saturday evening, of which 233 have died and 589 have recovered.
The Italian lockdown came after the World Health Organization urged governments to take decisive action to halt the spread of an epidemic that has infected more than 100,000 people around the world, citing China’s containment measures as an example.
People stock up on basic goods at a supermarket in Milan, Italy, on Sunday.
Photo: carlo cozzoli/ShutterstockThe Maldives, an archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean, reported its first two cases on Saturday. The government responded by imposing stricter health screenings for travelers and quarantine arrangements, adding to an earlier decision to deny entry to travelers who arrive from or transit through Italy, according to statements from its presidential office.
The global spread of Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, has kept China on alert for more imported infections, according to Mr. Mi, the health commission spokesman. The commission has logged 63 such cases so far, out of about 80,700 cases in total.
Municipal authorities in Beijing and other major Chinese cities have imposed stricter health screenings and even quarantine measures against travelers arriving from countries badly hit by the coronavirus, including South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy.
In Iran, the number of deaths from coronavirus jumped sharply on Sunday to 194, a 33% spike since the day before, while the total number of coronavirus infections reached 6,566, up from 5,823 on Saturday, Iran’s health ministry said.
Iranian authorities have urged people to cease traveling inside the country in a bid to contain the virus. In a letter to the health minister, a group of doctors has demanded a closure of all pilgrimage and tourist places across the country.
The government on Sunday imposed a partial ban on flights and maritime travel to the popular holiday island of Kish for the Persian New Year later this month, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. The partial ban comes after the first death from the virus on the island was confirmed on Saturday.
Iran Air, the country’s flag carrier airline, on Sunday canceled all flights to Europe due to restrictions placed on the airline by European countries “for unclear reasons,” Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said in a statement carried by the IRNA state news agency.
Separately Sunday, Chinese authorities reported at least 10 deaths from the collapse Saturday of a hotel in the southeastern city of Quanzhou that was used for quarantining people who had close contact with Covid-19 patients.
Rescuers have pulled 48 people from the rubble, including the 10 dead, and more than 20 people remained missing as of Sunday afternoon, according to China’s Ministry of Emergency Management.
Write to Talal Ansari at Talal.Ansari@wsj.com and Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com
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2020-03-08 17:48:05Z
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