Health

BEIJING, March 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — China has announced a temporary ban on all foreign visitors, even if they have visas or residence permits.

The country is also limiting Chinese and foreign airlines to one flight per week, and flights must not be more than 75% full.

Although China reported its first locally-transmitted coronavirus case for three days on Friday, almost all its new cases now come from abroad.

There were 55 new cases across China on Thursday – 54 of them from overseas.

RIYADH, March 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — World leaders promised US$5 trillion to stave off global economic collapse from the coronavirus pandemic that has killed 21,000 people and shut down huge swathes of the globe.

From New York to Paris to New Delhi life has ground to standstill with some three billion people confined to their homes as governments scramble to halt the disease’s deadly march across the world.

BAGHDAD, March 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Iraqi government said that it will extend a countrywide lockdown it imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic until April 11.

Schools, universities, shopping centres and other large gathering places will remain closed, as will the country’s international airports.

Authorities have confirmed that at least 29 Iraqis have died from COVID-19 and nearly 350 others have contracted the disease.

But there are fears the real number is much higher, as only around 2,000 of Iraq’s 40 million people have been tested.

ANKARA, March 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Turkey confirmed 16 more deaths from the novel coronavirus late on Thursday, bringing the total number of fatalities to 75.

A total of 7,286 coronavirus tests have been conducted on Thursday on people suspected of contracting the virus, and 1,196 tested positive, bringing the tally of infections to 3,629, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter.

The minister said that the patients and their contact circles have been isolated.

NAIROBI/JOHANNESBURG, March 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Each morning at a crowded bus station east of Nairobi, Kenyans load their bags on to minibuses emblazoned with the faces of pop stars and Jesus, heading to their villages in the hope of escaping the coronavirus.

“I am going back home because of corona,” said Amina Barasa, her yellow headscarf standing out in the dark bus. The electronics shop where she worked had shut, she said, and she was going to stay with her family away from the city crowds.

BRUSSELS, March 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The European Union marked the 25th anniversary of its open-border Schengen agreement on Thursday with all its land borders shut or subject to heavy checks imposed in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The Schengen agreement, underpinning an increasingly integrated and united Europe, came into force on March 26, 1995.

MANILA, March 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Nine doctors have died in the Philippines from the coronavirus, the country’s top medical association said, as hospitals were overwhelmed and medics complained about a lack of protection on the frontlines.

The announcement of the doctors’ deaths heightened fears that the scale of the health crisis in the Philippines is much worse than is being officially reported, with the confirmed virus death toll at just 38.

WASHINGTON/ACCRA, March 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revealed that the Ghana government, has sent a special request for money to help the country address the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

MADRID, March 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Spain’s coronavirus death toll surged above 4,000 on Thursday but the increase in both fatalities and new infections slowed, leaving officials hopeful a nationwide lockdown is starting to curb the spread of the disease.

A total of 655 deaths were recorded in the country in the last 24 hours, bringing the toll to 4,089, the health ministry said.

That however was a 19 percent increase compared with Wednesday when deaths jumped 738 or 27 percent.

NEW YORK, March 26 (Xinhua) -- The United States has overtaken China to become the country with the most COVID-19 cases worldwide by Thursday afternoon local time, according to Johns Hopkins University.

As of 11:30 p.m. (0330 GMT on Friday), a total of 85,653 cases were reported in the country, with 1,290 deaths, data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at the university showed.

The nationwide tally has been growing by around 10,000 cases every day since last Saturday, and climbed from 70,000 to 80,000 in less than five hours on Thursday.