Building off of @thumper1 information about the USA being the source of infected travelers:
…“Guyanese, it is my sad duty to announce Guyana confirmed its first imported case of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Georgetown on Wednesday 11th March 2020. The patient has been identified as a 52-year-old Guyanese female who had travelled from the United States of America, which has reported cases of COVID-19…
Boston Marathon postponed until September
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh just announced that the Boston Marathon will be postponed.
The new date for the marathon is September 14.
Masters golf tournament postponed
Fred Ridley, chairman of Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, has announced that the 2020 Masters tournament has been postponed.
Ridley said in a statement:
“Ultimately, the health and well-being of everyone associated with these events and the citizens of the Augusta community led us to this decision. We hope this postponement puts us in the best position to safely host the Masters Tournament and our amateur events at some later date.”
The Jack Ma Foundation, the charitable foundation set up by the founder of Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, has announced plans to donate 500,000 testing kits and a million masks to the United States.
Ma said in a tweet:
Drawing from my own country’s experience, speedy and accurate testing and adequate personal protective equipment for medical professionals are most effective in preventing the spread of the virus. We hope that our donation can help Americans fight against the pandemic”
The foundation has already helped sourcing and delivering materials to combat Covid-19 to other countries suffering outbreaks, including South Korea, Italy and Iran. Ma’s donation follows the purchase of 31 tons of medical supplies from China by the Italian government, which arrived in Rome early this morning.
Jack Ma Foundation
@foundation_ma
Through a donation of 500,000 testing kits and 1 million masks, we join hands with Americans in these difficult times.
The University of Oxford has announced that it has six students who have tested positive for Covid-19, and that it may switch to “more extensive use of technology for teaching and assessment” next term.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro ‘tests positive for coronavirus’
The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, has tested positive for coronavirus, according to local media.
The positive test comes after Bolsonaro’s press secretary was found to have the disease following a trip to the US. His son Eduardo Bolsonaro, a congressman who was also on the trip, tweeted that his father “is not exhibiting any signs of the disease”
Bolsonaro dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night and videos and photos, including some on Wajngarten’s own Instagram account, showed the press secretary, Bolsonaro and Trump all in close proximity. “I’m not concerned,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.
Bolsonaro has downplayed the crisis. On Wednesday, he said “Other flus kill more than this” and has also called concern over coronavirus “oversized”. (Guardian)
The University of Oxford has announced that it has six students who have tested positive for Covid-19, and that it may switch to “more extensive use of technology for teaching and assessment” next term.
Romanian prime minister self-quarantines
Kit Gillet
Romania’s interim prime minister, Ludovic Orban, announced on Friday that he and other senior party leaders were going into a 14-day self-imposed quarantine after a party colleague tested positive for coronavirus, Kit Gillet reports.
The senator, Vergil Chitac, had attended a recent party leadership meeting.
Orban also announced that all ministers in his cabinet would be tested for the virus, and would remain isolated in their offices in order to avoid direct contact with others. He recommended that journalists be tested, too.
As of Friday afternoon, Romania had 73 confirmed cases of the virus, with no fatalities.
Schools have already been cancelled across the country, with events of over 100 people banned and museums shut. (Guardian)
France limits public gatherings to 100 people
Authorities in France are tightening controls on mass gatherings, limiting numbers to no more than 100, after previously saying no more than a 1,000 would be allowed.
The prime minister, Edouard Philippe, told TF1 television that the new limit would come into force immediately.
100 people - that means that there will inevitably be signficant consequences for the theatres and the cinemas.
The coronavirus has killed 61 people in France and infected 2,876, according to figures released by the health ministry late on Thursday.
Austria has just announced it is following Italy in closing almost all shops except for supermarkets and chemists.
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that the communities of Paznautal and St Anton would be placed under quarantine.
Spain declares state of emergency
The Spanish government is to declare a state of emergency in response to the coronavirus epidemic, paving the way for drastic containment measures after the number of confirmed cases in the country passed 4,200 and the death toll rose to 120.
In an urgent appearance on Friday afternoon, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the cabinet would convene on Saturday to declare an emergency by activating article 116 of the constitution.
Its provisions allow the government to limit the movement of people and vehicles in specified places, to temporarily requisition goods, to take over factories and businesses, to ration the consumption of basic items, and to issue the necessary orders to ensure the provision of services.
The article has not been used since 2010, when it was enacted in response to an air traffic controllers’ strike. The state of emergency will initially apply for two weeks, but can be extended with parliamentary approval.
Spain is the European country most affected by the outbreak after Italy, which has confirmed 15,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths.
The decision came after the government of neighbouring Portugal also enacted a state of alert as the number of cases in the country reached 78, explaining the situation was now “a fight for our survival and for the protection of Portuguese lives”.
As well as ordering the closure of schools and universities, it said the number of customers allowed in bars and restaurants would be reduced.
The Madrid authorities have not ruled out a lockdown of the capital, the mayor said on Friday morning, as the number of cases in the region reached 2,000.
José Luia Martínez-Almeida told Antena 3 TV that he had not discarded the idea of locking down the city, saying it would be “irresponsible” not to look at every possible scenario.
He added: “We can’t say that it’s going to happen immediately, nor can we say we’ve ruled it out.”
The mayor also suspended licenses for terraces and seating areas outside bars and cafés in the capital, urging owners to shut them down before it became mandatory.
The mayor said “stricter measures would be needed” to halt the spread of the virus, adding that children’s play areas in parks would be closed from Friday.
Hours earlier, authorities in the Basque country had activated a civil protection plan, which allows the regional government to order the confinement of people to stop the spread of the disease.
“We need to use all containment and prevention measures as the situation is serious. We’re not over the worst yet,” the Basque president, Iñigo Urkullu, said on Friday morning.
The Basque country has confirmed 346 cases of the coronavirus, and here have been 11 deaths.
On Thursday night, the regional government of Catalonia ordered around 70,000 people in four municipalities in the Barcelona region to remain in their homes for a fortnight after a steep increase in Coronavirus cases in the area.
Igualada, Vilanova del Camí, Santa Margarida de Montbui and Òdena have been placed in lockdown after the number of cases linked to a hospital in Igualada rose to 58 on Thursday.
“No one is allowed out of these affected areas,” the regional government said on Thursday evening.
“Only emergency personnel and vehicles bringing fuel and food supplies will be allowed to move around the area.”
The move comes almost a week after neighbourhoods in a small town in the northern region of La Rioja were placed in lockdown after a cluster of cases was traced to a funeral in the nearby Basque Country.
Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is now warning against all but essential travel to the regions that the Spanish Ministry of Health have designated as areas of community transmission of coronavirus.
They are Madrid and La Rioja, and the municipalities of La Bastida and Vitoria (both in the Basque Country) and Miranda de Ebro (in Castilla y León).
All Guardian
Add Oregon to the list of states closing all schools.
Anyone from anywhere in the world arriving in Malta will have to undergo two weeks of mandatory self-quarantine, the country’s prime minister, Robert Abela, announced on Friday.
Anyone breaking the order will face a €1,000 fine for each breach, the Times of Malta reports. Police will carry out spot checks to ensure that the quarantine is observed. The paper quoted Abela as saying:
If someone breaches it every day of the quarantine, then they will have to pay €14,000. We will not tolerate people not abiding by quarantine terms.
Malta closed all schools, universities and childcare centres earlier this week.
Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, believes more needs to be done to coordinate international action on tackling the coronavirus, his official spokesman has said, Heather Stewart, the Guardian’s political editor, reports.
In a briefing to reporters on Friday, his spokesman said:
The prime minister believes that this is a crisis which affects countries around the globe, and does require a global response.
He added that Johnson has discussed the handling of the outbreak with presidents Macron and Trudeau in the past few days, and will hold more talks with leaders today.
Former chancellor Alistair Darling told the BBC’s Today on Friday that he was concerned about the lack of coordination. He said:
One of the reasons that the global economy recovered 10 years ago was because of international cooperation. We all did the same thing, from communist China to republican-led United States, international cooperation at the moment is in something of short supply.
From Monday, almost no-one will be allowed to enter or leave the Czech Republic, as it effectively closes its borders in response to the coronavirus outbreak sweeping the world.
According to a report on expats.cz, all foreign nationals without residence will be barred from entering, while all Czech citizens and holders of residence permits will be barred from leaving.
The only exceptions to the ban will be Czech nationals and holders of residence permits returning to the country - although they may face quarantine - and those who live within 50km of the borders with Austria and Germany and work in those countries.
This morning at a regular press conference which the head of the Robert Koch Institute, the leading public health and safety body in Germany has been holding for the past two and a half weeks, its director, Lothar Wieler said public health bodies had three aims in their attempts to tackle the virus.
To try to ‘level off’ the epidemic curve, to ensure the most seriously ill don’t end up having to be hospitalised at the same time.
To try to speed up the adaptation of hospitals to cope with an increase in intensive care beds and patients who will need respiratory assistance. He said the virus was a “stress test” for Germany’s health care system.
To slow down the spread of the illness by cancelling large events. Every citizen should be prepared to reduce their social contacts, he said. “Each and every one of us needs to simply consider what he absolutely has to do”, and cancel everything else, he said.
Wieler said Bavaria’s decision to stop visitors to care homes was “a very sensible measure” and that school and kindergarten closures were “a good measure in helping the slowing down” of the virus.
“But then you have to ask who looks after the children,” he said. “The medical staff is mainly made up of females. So a concept needs to be created as to who will look after the children to allow these people to still be able to work”.
Wieler said that between 60-70% of the population would get the virus, due to the fact that it is new, there is no immunity against it, no vaccination against it and no treatment for it” and that “many many people” will have had it already without knowing it, and will have already recovered. Those numbers are unquantifiable, but the more people who get it, long term, the better, as that will increase the immunity levels.
Four-fifths of people will get it very mildly with many not even realising they have it, he added.
One fifth will suffer serious symptoms. That could still amount to millions of people being severely ill at once, hence the repeated stress by health officials on slowing down its stress.
All Guardian
"Repetition is the mother of learning. 
A reminder does not hurt, and a humorous reminder sinks in even better. "
I agree - I suggest we all commit to watching the Gloria Gaynor handwashing video five times a day. Or there’s this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwD1-FNUf3M
CDC: To prevent coronavirus stay home, avoid physical contact and don’t go into large crowds.
All schools in Croatia are to shut from Monday
From Monday, all schools in the German state of Bavaria will be shut until the end of the Easter holidays on 19 April, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports.
The five week holiday means almost no child in Bavaria will be able to go to school or kindergarten, with emergency care organised in only a few cases, according to the paper.
Bavarian prime minister Markus Söder also announced that he would ban visits to retirement homes and hospitals and that events with more than 100 visitors would be banned unless they were absolutely necessary.
Mount Everest climbing season called off
Pete Pattisson Pete Pattisson
The climbing season on Mount Everest has been called off amid fears over the coronavirus pandemic, Pete Pattisson reports.
The Nepal government suspended all mountaineering permits on Thursday and, as we reported earlier, will stop issuing on-arrival tourist visas, dealing a devastating blow to the country’s tourism industry.
Nepal’s tourism minister Yogesh Bhattarai told the Guardian, “We will review the decision if the situation improves, but for now everything has been cancelled. Those who have paid for climbing permits will be refunded.”
The Chinese government has also cancelled all expeditions from the north side of Everest.
The announcement comes as Nepal enters its peak tourist season when tens of thousands of trekkers and mountaineers were expected to test themselves among the highest mountains in the world.
Trekking and climbing are a lucrative and vital source of revenue for Nepal. Last year the government earned over £3.5 million from issuing climbing permits on peaks above 6000 metres, including Everest.
Despite its impact, the decision appears to have the support of the tourism industry.
Mingma Sherpa, the director of Seven Summit Treks, Nepal’s biggest and arguably most successful expedition company, supported the move. “No doubt our business will suffer but who will be responsible if the virus spreads on the mountain,” he said. “The mountain is here, it’s not moving anywhere. People can come and climb next year.”
Nuru Janbu Sherpa, the CEO of International Sherpa Adventure, a trekking and expedition company said, “It’s a positive decision as it will help to contain the spread of the virus. If waiting six months helps to protect people, we have no problem with suspending our business.”
However, Sherpa warned that the decision will hit many low wage labourers who depend on climbing for their livelihood.
Nepal has had just one confirmed case of the coronavirus, said Basu Dev Pandey, the director of the Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease hospital in Kathmandu, but he warned the country was at risk due its location between China and India.
In a further blow to the economy, last week Qatar barred entry to travellers from 14 countries, including Nepal, leaving tens of thousands of migrant labourers unable to start work in the emirate. Almost 30% of Nepal’s GDP comes from remittances sent by its migrant workers, who are largely based in the Gulf and Malaysia.
Guardian
White House is planning to have a coronavirus briefing today
From CNN’s Jim Acosta
A White House official tells CNN they are planning for a coronavirus briefing today.
Vice President Mike Pence’s current public schedule says he will attend a meeting with industry executives at 1:30 p.m. ET and will then lead a coronavirus task force meeting in the situation room at 3:30 p.m. ET.
New York governor says he’s pushing Trump administration to let states handle testing
CNN
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today he spoke to Vice President Mike Pence yesterday and told him, “I think the federal government should decentralize testing,” rather than trying to control it all through Washington, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration.
The “volume is just too high,” Cuomo said.
“We do have a crisis in testing, we’re not up to scale,” Cuomo said speaking at the drive through testing site in New Rochelle, New York.
He suggested 500 to 1,000 labs could open overnight if the responsibility is returned back to state. There are dozens of labs in NY that could start testing tomorrow, Cuomo said
He hopes the federal government takes the recommendation seriously.
Cuomo has been pushing in recent days that automated tests be approved by the FDA which would significantly increase testing capacity.
The government of the Czech Republic has also declared a state of emergency, restricting the opening hours of restaurants and cafes, closing gyms and sports facilities, and requiring people returning from high risk countries to quarantine themselvs.
According to a report in Prague Morning, the rules will permit restaurants and cafes to open only between 6am and 8pm, while refreshments at shopping centres will be banned altogether.
Those organising weddings have been asked to keep their guest lists to a maximum of 30 people, while funerals may be attended to 100 people. According to prime minister Andrej Babis:
“We are also banning theatre, music, film and other performances, sports, cultural, religious, community, dancing, traditional events and other meetings.”
The Czech government will also require people returning from all high-risk countries to quarantine themselves, widening a requirement so far only applied to those returning from Italy, foreign minister Tomas Petricek said on Twitter on Friday.
The list includes Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and the US, Prague Morning reported. (Guardian)
[ note USA made the list]
Our SoCal school district is closing for only 1 week, which seems not nearly enough. All public Park and recreation buildings are closed. Gatherings of over 250 are forbidden. We have 3 cases in the county.
Could the US president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, be infected with coronavirus? She was pictured last week standing next to Australian home affairs minister Peter Dutton, whose diagnosis was revealed today.
First coronavirus case confirmed in east Africa
All major public events have been banned in Kenya after it confirmed the first case of coronavirus in east Africa.
The patient is a woman who had returned to the country from the United States via the UK.
Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe told reporters on Friday morning
I want to inform you that the Ministry of Health has confirmed the first coronavirus case in Kenya.
The case is a Kenyan citizen who travelled back to Nairobi, returning from the United States of America via London, United Kingdom, on March 5, 2020.
Kagwe told a news conference the government had suspended all public gatherings, sporting events, open-air religious meetings and “all events that are of a huge public nature”, Reuters reported. He also warned traders that “This is not the time to make abnormal profits by charging abnormal prices”.
Guardian
Announced for 3pm
I’m in Philadelphia area - our school district is closed 2 weeks. Libraries, movie theatres, event venues closed. As soon as the news dropped, the grocery stores exploded. my SIL was in our local store buying French fries for dinner and said it was like a pack of rabid wolves charging in. Idiotic.
Other businesses are “strongly “ encouraged to close. However, I drove by the LA Fitness and the parking lot was full.
A nurse on the frontline of Italy’s coronavirus outbreak has described the experience as “war-like”.
A nurse walks next to a banner of solidarity and thanksgiving for the doctors and nurses was placed by four Chinese boys, at the Santa Maria Nuova hospital during the coronavirus emergency, in Florence, Italy, 12 March 2020.
Doctors and nurses are working around the clock as the country tries to halt the spread of a virus that has so far claimed over 1000 Italian lives.
Among the dead was a 59-year-old doctor and close friend of Roberta Re, a nurse at Piacenza hospital in Emilia-Romagna, the region with the second highest number of cases.
“It’s an experience I would compare to a world war,” Re told the Guardian. “But it’s a war that isn’t fightable with traditional arms – as we don’t yet know who the enemy is and so it’s difficult to fight. The only weapon we do have to avoid things getting even worse is to stay at home and to respect the rules, to do what they did in China, as this is paying off.” (Guardian)
Flatten the Curve - Ohio is deploying mitigation strategies…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/11/coronavirus-flattening-curve-quarantine-stop-spread/5021564002/
SATX got its first case off Lackland. We will know later today if that cancels Fiesta and school.