Al Jazeera News :
Governments around the world are scrambling to contain the spread of COVID-19, which is growing globally even as transmission in China, where the virus originated at the end of last year, continues to show signs of slowing. There are more than 93,000 cases around the world – the overwhelming majority in China – but as deaths are reported in Italy, Iran and the United States, authorities are considering new quarantine zones and travel restrictions.
As the number of deaths rose in Iran and Italy, Poland, Morocco, Andorra, Armenia and Argentina have all confirmed their first cases of the virus in the past 24 hours. Iran’s health ministry said the coronavirus has killed 92 people, up from 77 the day before, while the number of infections rose to 2,922.
Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour announced the new figures at a news conference in the capital, Tehran.
The virus has sickened top leaders within the Islamic Republic’s government. Iran stands alone in how the virus has affected its government, even compared to hard-hit China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
Malaysian authorities announced 14 new cases of the coronavirus, adding that the spike was the result of a second wave of infections that began late last month.
“After 11 days of no reported cases, a second wave (of infections) began on the 27th February 2020,” Noor Hisham Abdullah, director-general of Malaysia’s health ministry, told a news conference in Putrajaya.
“This makes the total cases of COVID-19, so far, 50 cases, while 22 of them have been discharged,” he said.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said the outbreak of novel virus has affected almost all of Iran’s provinces.
“This disease is a widespread disease,” he said, according to the official presidency website.
“It has reached almost all our provinces and in one sense it’s a global disease.”
COVID-19 has killed 3.4 percent of cases globally, a figure far above the seasonal flu’s fatality rate of below 1 percent, according to the WHO.
But the global spread of the new virus can still be controlled.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased to 240, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said.
According to RKI, fifteen of Germany’s 16 states have now reported cases of the virus, with North Rhine-Westphalia being most affected.
A 70-year-old man has died in northern Iraq after contracting the coronavirus, according to the official Iraqi News Agency.
The death in Sulaimaniyah, in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, is Iraq’s first coronavirus death.
The man was diagnosed after his health deteriorated, the report quoted the Sulaimaniyah health directorate as saying.
The Chinese Medical Association has said the median incubation period of the new coronavirus is five to seven days and the maximum 14 days.
Speaking at a press event in Beijing, Du Bin, chairman of the Critical Care Medical Branch of the Association, also said that while in Hubei province some individuals tested positive for the virus even after being discharged from hospital after treatment, there is no data tracking such cases.
