Beijing, Jun 15: China is locking now ten more neighbourhoods in Beijing to try and contain the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a food market, authorities announced Monday.
City official Li Junjie said at a press conference that fresh cases had been found in a second wholesale market in northwestern Haidian district, and as a result, the market and nearby schools would be closed, and people living in ten communities around it placed under lockdown.
Panic gripped big tech firms like Facebook and Twitter which decided to close their offices from Seattle to London as more employees tested positive for the new coronavirus.
Facebook shut its three London offices till Monday after an employee was diagnosed with COVID-19.
The social networking giant told nearly 3,000 employees in London to work from home after an employee, who is based in Singapore but visited the London offices between February 24-26, was diagnosed with the new coronavirus, Sky News reported on Friday.
"An employee based in our Singapore office who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 visited our London offices on February 24-26.
"We are therefore closing our London offices until Monday for deep cleaning and employees are working from home until then," the company said in a statement.
There have been 163 cases of coronavirus so far in the UK.
Earlier, Facebook recommended all its Bay Area employees in the US to work from home. The latest precautions come after San Francisco announced its first two coronavirus cases on Thursday.
Facebook has also shut its Seattle office until Monday after one of its contractors was confirmed to be infected with the virus. The infected contractor last visited the Facebook office on February 21. King County health officials said all Facebook sites should work from home until March 31.
Twitter shut its Seattle office for a 'deep clean' after an employee developed COVID-19 like symptoms though final result was still awaited.
"A Seattle-based employee has been advised by doctor about likely COVID-19, though still awaiting the final testing," Twitter said in a tweet on Friday.
"While the employee has not been at a Twitter office for several weeks and hasn't been in contact w/others, we're closing our Seattle office to deep clean," the company added.
According to The Seattle Times, at least 14 people have died due to COVID-19 in Washington State till date.
Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Facebook have advised their employees in Washington State to work from home.
Apple has reportedly suggested its employees at California campuses to work from home as an "extra precaution" while new coronavirus cases spread on the west coast in the US, especially Seattle area.
Apple's flagship developers' conference WWDC 2020 in June is also at the risk of getting cancelled as the Santa Clara public health department has warned against large public gatherings. The event draws nearly 5,000 developers from across the world.
The US death toll from the new coronavirus has climbed to 14, according to Johns Hopkins' tracker, with 329 cases reported across the country.
Islamabad, Jun 25: The coronavirus cases in Pakistan crossed the 192,000-mark after 4,044 new Covid-19 infections were detected in the last 24 hours, the health ministry said on Thursday.
According to the Ministry of National Health Services, 148 more people died due to the deadly virus in the country, taking the death toll to 3,903.
With the detection of 4,044 new cases in the last 24 hours, the coronavirus tally in the country now stands at 192,970, it said.
Sindh reported a maximum number of 74,070 infections, followed by 71,191 in Punjab, 23,887 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 11,710 in Islamabad, 9,817 in Balochistan, 1,365 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 930 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
A total of 81,307 patients have recovered so far from the disease.
Health authorities have so far conducted 1,171,976 coronavirus tests, including 21,835 in the last 24 hours.
Feb 11: China reported 108 new coronavirus deaths on February 10, the highest daily toll since the outbreak began in Wuhan late last year, as two senior officials in the hard-hit province of Hubei were removed from their jobs.
The total number of deaths on the mainland reached 1,016 in the 24 hours until midnight, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday.
Some 2,478 new cases were confirmed, bringing the total to 42,638.
Of the new deaths, 103 were in the province of Hubei, including 67 in the provincial capital of Wuhan. The virus is thought to have originated there in a market that sold seafood as well as wild animals.
Two senior health officials in the province - Zhang Jin who was Party Secretary of the health commission for Hubei and Ling Yingzi who was director of the Hubei Provincial Health Commission - were both removed from their posts, state media reported on Tuesday, a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited health facilities in Beijing.
In his first public appearance since the outbreak began, Xi donned a face mask and had his temperature checked while visiting medical workers and patients in the capital.
"We have seen very little of Xi Jinping since the outbreak began but he was out and about in Beijing on Monday," Al Jazeera's Katrina Yu said from Beijing. "He has been trying to rally the troops saying: 'We can win this battle.' But it's also a sign that the battle is far from over."
The other fatalities on Monday were in the provinces of Heilongjiang, Anhui and Henan and the cities of Tianjin and Beijing, the National Health Commission said.
During a meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Monday, a group of leaders tasked with beating the virus said it would work to solve raw material and labour shortages and boost supplies of masks and protective clothing.
They said nearly 20,000 medical personnel from around the country had already been sent to Wuhan, and more medical teams were also on the way.
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