With the Trump press conference over, we’ll wrap up this blog for the day.

In summary, in terms of coronavirus news in the US:

• The first US coronavirus death has been reported in Washington state. There has been some confusion over the gender of the person who died.
• Donald Trump has rejected criticism for his remarks at a rally in South Carolina on Friday night, in which he referred to the coronavirus outbreak as a hoax. In the White House briefing room, the president told reporters he had been referring to Democratic criticism of his administration’s response, not to the virus itself.
• Mike Pence has rejected, or at least skirted, criticism of his appointment to oversee the federal response to the outbreak given his record in office as governor of Indiana, where there was a major HIV outbreak in 2015 which critics said was affected by the conservative Christian’s ideological approach to science-based policy and events.

Also, Pence has detailed new US moves:

• Additional travel restrictions on Iran
  
• An increase to the highest level for the advisory that Americans should not travel to specific regions in Italy and South Korea
• State department co-ordinated screening in those countries of individuals coming to America
• 30m face masks a week being added to US stocks.

We’ll report more as the day goes on, of course. In the meantime, here’s a selection of further Guardian reading:

…and with questions from a Russian-sounding reporter about possible arms control talks to come and another on the Afghanistan deal, Trump says “we’ll be doing this quite often” – meaning answering questions in the White House briefing room which no longer hosts White House press briefings – “to keep you abreast of the facts”.

The markets are “not a good situation”, Trump says, but “the markets will take care of themselves” in a strong economy.

He skips a question about reports he might consider tax cuts to ease the coronavirus-related pain but says there will be a “very major middle income tax cut” proposal soon.

Trump is now asked about the economic impact on the US by the coronavirus outbreak and what the Federal Reserve might do as the markets plunge.

The Fed has an important psychological role to play, Trump says, and says it should have acted more strongly sooner. He wants lower interest rates. And the Fed should be a “leader not a follower”.

“Our Fed has not been a leader at all,” he repeats.

Now on to the mentioned meeting with pharmaceutical companies on Monday to discuss a vaccine, although the meeting was set up previously to discuss drug prices. An aide says the development of said medicines can be expedited.

Here’s a question about Mike Pence and the 2015 HIV outbreak in Indiana, and how that pertains to the VP’s role in running the coronavirus response.

“When it came to healthcare Indiana has been a leader,” Trump says, claiming it was started “with others” by Pence.

Pence says Indiana had two experiences with the spread of infectious diseases. He mentions MERS in 2014 and says he then learned of the extraordinary capabilities of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and dealt with the issue effectively.

In 2015, he says, the outbreak of HIV was in a “very small town” and he “immediately deployed health resources”. The state of Indiana did not allow for needle exchanges, he says, but he declared an emergency and made a needle exchange avaialable, treating the patients and ending the outbreak.

Here’s some Guardian coverage of that outbreak, for further reading:

Trump says he has been in very close contact with China and President Xi Jinping over the outbreak and again cites US companies re-opening there as proof of Chinese progress: Starbucks and Apple.

A health official says there is no evidence of link to travel or contact in the woman who died in Washington state.

A question about why Trump would consider closing the border with Mexico, which seems to have little to do with the coronavirus outbreak. Trump says he is not considering closing ports of entry, but is thinking about “all borders” in general.

“This too will end,” says Trump about the outbreak.

Is the White House taking precautions regarding the president’s travels? Trump thinks so, referring to his “tremendous rally” in South Carolina and all the other travel he does.

Dr Fauci now answers a question about the dangers or not to people who get coronavirus, and repeats that the elderly and those with chronic health conditions are most likely to die. Every once in a while there will be a one-off, he says, when a healthy 25-year-old will get ill.

“That’s gonna happen, that happens with influenza,” he says.

It also seems that being infected and recovering means one cannot get the virus again.

Now a question about the Afghanistan deal and the nomination of John Ratcliffe for director of national intelligence, which is controversial.

Now to questions:

Trump is asked about his remarks in Charleston about the outbreak being a hoax.

“Hoax referred to the action they [Democrats] tried to take to try to pin this on somebody,” he says, “certainly not” to the coronavirus.

Was Dr Anthony Fauci – standing next to president – ever muzzled?

“That’s a very dishonest question,” says Trump, adding: “He was never muzzled.”

Fauci doesn’t seem keen to speak but he clarifies that “has never been muzzled ever”. He says he merely stood down on some media appearances to clarify what he should be doing and when.

Will the southern border be closed?

Trump says it’s being looked at – the new cases overnight were reported at the other end of the country, in the north west.

Should Americans change their daily routine?

Trump and officials say no.

A South Korean question about US troops there: “We care very much for the troops,” Trump says. It’s all working out fine, he says.

Back to the word “hoax”. Could it make people think he is saying the virus was a hoax even if he wasn’t?

He says no, then spins to talking about how well his administration has performed on coronavirus so far.

Alex Azar is also expressing sympathy for the family of the Washington state patient who died, referring to her as a woman. He repeats official guidance about the risks from coronavirus and says the government wants to follow a “basic containment strategy” in terms of travel.

Next, Dr Anthony Fauci who does not refer to the gender of the person who died. And in fact, Governor Inslee’s statement has been changed to remove reference to the gender of the person who died too.

Pence is up now. He expresses condolences to the family of the “woman in Washington state who has lost her life to the coronavirus”.

Here’s Governor Inslee’s statement saying the person who died was a man:

Pence commends Trump for his guidance of course and then announces:

• Additional travel restrictions on Iran
  
• An increase to the highest level for the advisory that Americans should not travel to specific regions in Italy and South Korea
• The state department will co-ordinate screening in those countries of individuals coming to America

Pence then commends the members of his task force for their work and says he has spoken to congressional leaders about a supplementary funding bill for federal agencies and for state and local authorities.

“The average American does not need to go out and buy a mask,” Pence says. But 3M will produce 30m more masks a month nonetheless and availability will be increased.

Risks remain low, Pence says, but Trump’s actions “give evidence to the fact that at his direction we’re going to continue to lead in this effort”.

Trump says his administration has taken “the most aggressive action in modern history to confront this disease” and says moving quickly has put the US ahead of the game. China seems to be making tremendous progress, he says, and “their numbers are way down”.

Trump is repeating his “most aggressive” claim for the US response, in comparison to all other countries. On Monday, he says, he’ll be meeting pharmaceutical companies to discuss a developing a vaccine “very rapidly”.

“Tremendous amounts of supplies are already on hand,” he says – there have been problems with federal testing kits.

Pence led a task force meeting this morning, Trump says, and they came up with some “pretty strict edicts”.

“Our country is prepared for any circumstance, we hope it’s not going to be a major circumstance,” he says, asking the media and politicians not to do “anything to incite panic at all”.

Here’s what Trump said at a rally last night:

Trump is addressing the press flanked by Mike Pence, the vice-president he put in charge of coronavirus response efforts to not-universal acclaim, and federal health officials. It’s a long preamble on Afghanistan, in which Trump said he would personally meet Taliban leaders soon and said the US could yet go back in “with a force like nobody’s ever seen”. So much for that.

The coronavirus outbreak is very important to many people, Trump says, paying tribute to the officials with him and others in a more than usually husky voice. A lot of progress has been made, he says, and he will update us here. Remember, the first US death was confirmed just before he came out.

There are 22 patients in the US – the president says one person died overnight and it was a woman in her late 50s. Washington state governor Jay Inslee just announced it was a man.

Trump begins by congratulating the “incredible people” who have worked so long on “our longest war” in Afghanistan for what he says is 20 years. It’s actually a little more than 18 since the invasion in 2001 but regardless an agreement was signed in Doha this morning with the Taliban, committing the US to troop withdrawals if the Taliban keeps the peace.

We’ll concentrate on the coronavirus news here of course, so here’s our report on the Afghanistan deal:

Here in the US the first coronavirus death has been confirmed, in Washington state out on the west coast. I’m in New York City but the president is at the White House in Washington DC and he is about to give a news conference. We’ll blog it live. Here he comes.

This is from the Associated Press.

Its been a tough journey for the first-division soccer club from Wuhan, the city at the epicentre of the virus outbreak in China.The team came to Spain for preseason training and doesn’t know when it will be able to return home.

Players haven’t seen their relatives in more than two months. One of them lost a family member because of the virus. Their arrival prompted fears among local residents in the midst of the rapidly spreading outbreak. They had to be repeatedly tested before concerns about their condition abated.

It hasn’t been easy for the nearly 50 members of the Wuhan Zall team, but on Sunday they will get some reprieve from their ordeal by attending the Spanish league clásico between Real Madrid and Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. The team will also tour the famed venue in Madrid on Monday.

Its really a well-deserved reward for them, José González, the team’s Spanish coach, told the Associated Press in a telephone interview. It will be an experience that without a doubt they will never forget. They have been training and training day after day, distracted by the situation back home, so it will be a nice break for them to watch a game like this between Real Madrid and Barcelona.

The team will be at the Bernabéu on an invitation from Real Madrid and La Liga, which has a partnership with the Chinese Super League, the country’s main soccer competition. The league has been suspended because of the coronavirus and is not expected to resume until mid-April. Wuhan Zall was originally scheduled to stay in its preseason base in southern Spain until mid-February, just before the leagues planned start. Now it is expected to remain in the country at least until the end of March.

Other Chinese clubs are in a similar situation in countries like Thailand, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, though Wuhan Zall is actually based in the city at the centre of the outbreak that has killed more than 2,800 people worldwide, most of them in China.

Wuhan Zall arrived in Spain at the end of January but previously practiced in the Chinese city of Guanghzou, nearly 1,000 621 miles away from Wuhan. Although the team was far from the initial outbreak, Spanish health authorities had to come out publicly to say there was no reason for local citizens to be concerned about the squads arrival. Three players arrived from China later and had to stay in quarantine and be tested for the virus before joining the rest of the group.

The fear of the unknown obviously always exists, González said. I understood those who were reticent about the team coming to Spain. But with time it became clear that there was no problem with the team being here.

González, a former striker who had played in China, said his focus has been to take the players minds away from the situation at home. Going to the clásico was one way of doing that, as was the decision to give them 10 days of vacation while in Spain.

I honestly try to talk about the subject (virus) as little as possible, he said. Because they are already talking about it all the time, in their rooms, with their relatives back home. I dont want to talk about it as well every time I see them. I try to make training as fun as possible so I can see them smiling a bit.

Iraq has detected five new cases of the coronavirus, four in Baghdad and one in the central Babel province, the country’s health ministry has announced, taking the total number of cases in the country to 13.

The patients were placed in quarantine, days after Iraq banned public gatherings and barred entry by travellers from Kuwait and Bahrain. It has now prohibited travel to or from a total of nine countries.

Iraq has cultural and religious ties with Iran and annually receives millions of Iranian pilgrims. An Iraqi family of four, the first known Iraqis to have caught the disease, who returned from Iran tested positive for the coronavirus in Kirkuk province on Tuesday.

However, it was not immediately clear if the five new cases announced on Saturday were people who had recently been in Iran.

Ruth Hutchinson, interim director of public health for Surrey County Council, said the council remains in “continuous contact” with Public Health England (PHE) after a confirmed case in the county on Friday.

Hutchinson said in a statement:

PHE updated me on their work and steps they have taken since the case was confirmed. They are already urgently contacting anyone that has been in close contact with the individual to provide them with advice about what to do if they start feel unwell and how to manage if they are told to self-isolate.

I appreciate that news like this can be a cause for concern, so I would reassure everyone that Surrey County Council, together with the NHS and PHE, is taking every necessary measure to help reduce the risk of the virus spreading.

In the few minutes since I last posted, I have already had a number of emails from readers about the essentials they are stocking up their cupboards with in the event that the coronavirus outbreak leads to a major public health crisis in the UK.

Many of those who have written have said they are getting in provisions because they live alone and so if they have to self-isolate they will not be able to send anyone else out to the shops in their behalf. Others have pre-existing health issues and so they are preparing for the potential of extended periods away from human contact, in order to avoid contracting Covid-19.

One reader writes:

As someone who works in local govt, the emergency preparedness plans being put in place and resilience forum talk terrify me, as well as having friends in the NHS that know full well they wouldn’t cope ...

So my purchasing is for -

Disinfectants and alcohol gels/isopropyl alcohol, as well as bleaches etc. This is to quickly apply to hands or pieces of clothing or masks to disinfect. Most pharmacy shops are sold out and have notices up so I went to a DIY shop.

Medications as I have [an autoimmune disease], and most of the precursors for my drugs are made in China. I’ve been told there was a long delay for some of the drugs I need, especially liquid nutrition drinks which replace my solid food intake.

Some food that is non perishable and doesn’t need gas/water/electricity to be eaten as, if the documents I’ve seen (similar to the leaked ones on the news a few days ago) are true, infrastructure will be patchy. This is more for neighbours and family as nobody is brave enough to say “OK, this is serious” and act on it.

The same correspondent, who preferred to go unidentified, does later admit to having been “a quasi prepper for some years.

“Feels like my stuff may be put to use, unfortunately.”

Other readers are simply bolstering existing stockpiles that they had already built up amid fears of chaos caused by a hard Brexit. Writes one:

I don’t think you could call it panic buying. I did augment my hard Brexit stocks in January when the first reports came from China. Now it’s just a case of stock control and eating according to expiry date if shops run out. I thought we should do this ahead of time, so that we wouldn’t add to the problem by competing for items at the last minute.

We also had seasonal flu jabs - not because we thought it would protect us from Covid-19, but because a) we didn’t want to have to contend with two viruses, either together or consecutively b) in the event of a bad case of flu, we didn’t want to inflict a preventable burden on an over-stretched NHS.

And Stu Goulden tweeted to me:

With the number of confirmed coronavirus infections rising in the UK, and quarantine zones springing up across Europe, are people in Britain beginning to panic buy groceries?

This customer circular email from Ocado, the online retailer, suggests they are. Ocado says it is “experiencing exceptionally high demand” from customers who “seem to be placing particularly large orders.” Here is the email:

Dear xxx

We want to let you know that we’re experiencing exceptionally high demand at the moment. More people than usual seem to be placing particularly large orders. As a result, delivery slots are selling out quicker than expected.

We suggest following these useful tips to avoid any disappointment:

• Place your order a little further in advance than you might normally. Ideally, try two or three days before.
• If you can be flexible, book yourself a weekday delivery (Monday–Thursday) instead of a weekend one. We’re unusually busy Friday to Saturday at the moment.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Ocado Customer Service team

Are you panic buying in anticipation of the possibility of quarantine rules being imposed in your area? If you are send me a message telling me why, and what kinds of things you are buying in. Remember, you can reach me at damien.gayle@theguardian.com or via my Twitter profile, @damiengayle.

The Paris half-marathon, which was scheduled for Sunday with 44,000 registered runners, has been cancelled over fears of coronavirus, French news agency AFP reports.

The announcement came after the French government ordered the cancellation of “gatherings of more than 5,000 people” in enclosed areas as well as some external events.

French Health Minister Olivier Veran said the cancellations of external events would affect gatherings in open areas where there would be “intermingling with populations from areas affected by the virus”.

The weekend programme of French Ligue 1 football matches is unaffected and will go ahead as planned, he said.

The weekend games are not taking place in areas of France most affected by the virus, the Oise region north of Paris and La Balme-de-Sillingy village in the southeastern Haute-Savoie region.

Veran said there were 16 new cases of coronavirus in France, taking to 73 the number of people affected since the end of January. Two people have died, a 60-year-old French teacher and an 80-year-old Chinese tourist.

The number of people tested for coronavirus in Scotland has risen by more than 100 in a day, with no confirmed cases, PA reports.

A total of 630 tests had been carried out by Saturday in Scotland, up from 500 on Friday. All have so far proved negative.

On Friday, NHS Lothian announced it has introduced a “drive-through” testing centre for the virus.

Some patients with an appointment are being tested for coronavirus in their cars at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh.

NHS Lothian medical director Dr Tracey Gillies said: “This service is for patients who have been assessed by the specialist team, so it is an appointment-only service.

“It is not a drop-in clinic and it is important to stress that patients cannot be seen without an appointment.

“The drive-through facility and the community testing teams allow us to test patients without them coming into healthcare facilities.

“Patients will be referred on by their GP or NHS 24 if they are at risk of the virus and meet the clinical criteria.

“They will then be referred on to our teams, who will decide whether they need to be tested in their own homes or if they are well enough and can use their own transport to drive to the Western General Hospital.”

Health officials are tracing anyone who has been in contact with a coronavirus patient who became the first to catch the illness within the UK, PA News Agency reports.

Chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said it was not clear if the patient had contracted the virus “directly or indirectly” from somebody who had recently travelled abroad.

The new diagnosis brought the total number of UK cases to 20 on Friday, while a man who had been on a quarantined cruise ship became the first Briton to die from the virus.

Public Health England (PHE) said that one of the latest coronavirus cases was a resident in Surrey and it was working with the county council to manage the situation.

Haslemere Health Centre in the county has reopened after it was temporarily closed for cleaning as a “precautionary measure” on Friday.

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt, MP for South West Surrey, said on Twitter he was thinking of “clinicians, staff and patients” at the surgery during this “worrying time”.

He added: “Thoughts today with new Covid19 patient and local GP with symptoms alongside their families.”

Reuters is reporting that the French health minister has said the number of confirmed coronavirus-infected patients in the country has risen to 73.

Chevron Corp said on Saturday that an employee in its Canary Wharf office in London who reported a flu-like illness, prompting the oil firm to send its staff home, has tested negative for the coronavirus, Reuters reports.

On Tuesday Chevron asked about 300 British employees to work temporarily from home after an employee in its Canary Wharf office in London developed flu symptoms after returning from Northern Italy.

It said it was proceeding with plans to have its staff return to the office.

Switzerland is up to 17 cases of coronavirus infection - 12 confirmed and five awaiting confirmation - according to local media.

Several areas, including the canton of Bern, have tightened preventive measures first announced on Friday, including a ban on public assemblies of more than 1,000 people, RTS reports.

Event cancellations include Moutier carnival, which had been expected to go ahead because less than a thousand visitors were expected.

A major real estate exhibition in Cannes has delayed for three months due to growing concern over the spread of the coronavirus.

MIPIM, which describes itself as the world’s leading property market, was expected to take place between March 10-13 dates, but it has been pushed back to early June in the hope the threat posed by the coronavirus will have reduced.

Paul Zilk, chief executive of Reed MIDEM which organises the event, said:

The well-being of our clients and staff is our priority. Given the evolving context, the best course of action is to postpone MIPIM to June.

This is not a decision we have taken lightly. We believe these new dates will provide the international MIPIM community with the opportunity to achieve their business objectives.

We are grateful to our clients for their support and constructive input during this challenging period, and we look forward to talking with them in the coming days about MIPIM in June.

Italy’s tourism industry has been dealt its final blow, the head of its hotel federation has lamented, after the US advised its citizens to reconsider travelling to the country.

Hotel reservation cancellations have already reached about 90% in Rome, while Venice has seen bookings plummet after regional officials cancelled the final two days of carnival celebrations this week in an unprecedented move in modern times.

On Friday, the US government issued a level three advisory, the second-highest level of warning for the whole of Italy, and announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recommended avoiding non-essential travel to the Mediterranean country.

We had already registered a slowdown of Americans coming to Italy in recent days, Federalberghi president Bernabo Bocca said in a statement on Saturday, adding that the final blow had now arrived.

Bocca criticised measures to help the tourism industry, including delaying deadlines for tax payments and pausing mortgage repayments, as insufficient. He urged further help to guarantee cash flow to tourism operators to “avoid the collapse” of an industry which operates 300,000 businesses and employs 1.5m people.

More than 5.6 million Americans visit Italy every year, the second-largest national group behind Germans, representing 9% of foreign tourists in Italy.

Americans are among the biggest spenders at an average of €140 euros a day for a collective total of €5bn euros a year, the hotel federation Federalberghi said.

Other major countries have only issued warnings about defined areas of northern Italy where most cases of the coronavirus have been recorded. Italy has currently confirmed almost 900 cases, by far the highest figure outside Asia. There have been 21 deaths among people with the virus.

The Qatari national who is the first confirmed case of the coronavirus in the Gulf state is a 36 year-old who returned recently from Iran and is in a stable condition, the country’s health ministry has said.

The UAE education ministry also announced the suspension of nursery school classes, as the regional business hub and major transit point for air travellers stepped up its contingency plans. Saudi Arabia is now the only Gulf country not to have signalled any cases of the coronavirus.

Iran is preparing for the possibility of testing tens of thousands of people for the coronavirus as the number of confirmed cases in the country spiked once again, according to an official quoted by the Associated Press.

The virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes have killed 43 people out of 593 confirmed cases in Iran, health ministry spokesperson Kianoush Jahanpour said, disputing reports that four times as many people have died.

The death rate from the virus in Iran, about 7%, has caused global consternation and fuelled speculation that the country could be underreporting the number of cases affecting it.

However, Jahanpour attempted to put the public health crisis into perspective. He said that more than 480 people in Iran had been killed in traffic accidents, but no one noticed them.

Saturday’s new toll of 593 confirmed cases represents a jump of 205 cases, a 52% increase from the 388 reported the day before.

Jahanpour has warned that large increases in the number of confirmed cases would happen as Iran now has 15 laboratories testing for the virus, as spray trucks and fumigators into the streets are sent into streets.

He went on to suggest tens of thousands could seek testing for the coronavirus, while encouraging people to continue to avoid mass gatherings, even funerals for those who died of the virus. The safest place is our homes and our cities, he said.

Qatar’s health ministry reported on Saturday the first case of coronavirus infection in the country, Reuters reports the state-run Qatar News Agency as saying.

More than 85,000 people around the world have been confirmed to have been infected with coronavirus according to the latest figures, based on World Health Organisation and national counts:

• Mainland China: 2,835 deaths among 79,251 cases, mostly in the central province of Hubei
• Hong Kong: 94 cases, 2 deaths
• Macao: 10 cases
• South Korea: 3,150 cases, 17 deaths
• Japan: 941 cases, including 705 from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, 11 deaths
• Italy: 888 cases, 18 deaths
• Iran: 593 cases, 43 deaths
• Singapore: 98 cases
• United States: 62
• France: 57 cases, 2 deaths
• Germany: 57 cases
• Spain: 46
• Kuwait: 45
• Thailand: 42
• Taiwan: 39 cases, 1 death
• Bahrain: 38 cases
• Malaysia: 24
• Australia: 23
• United Kingdom: 20 cases, 1 death
• United Arab Emirates: 19 cases
• Vietnam: 16
• Canada: 14
• Sweden: 12
• Switzerland: 10
• Iraq: 8
• Norway: 6
• Oman: 6
• Austria: 5
• Russia: 5
• Croatia: 5
• Israel: 5
• Philippines: 3 cases, 1 death
• Finland: 3 cases
• Greece: 3
• India: 3
• Lebanon: 3
• Romania: 3
• Norway: 2
• Pakistan: 2
• Denmark: 2
• Netherlands: 2
• Georgia: 2
• Mexico: 2
• Egypt: 1
• Algeria: 1
• Afghanistan: 1
• North Macedonia: 1
• Estonia: 1
• Lithuania: 1
• Belgium: 1
• Belarus: 1
• Nepal: 1
• Sri Lanka: 1
• Cambodia: 1
• Brazil: 1
• New Zealand: 1
• Nigeria: 1
• Azerbaijan: 1
• Monaco: 1

(Data collated by the Associated Press)

The latest patient to be diagnosed with the virus and the GP who is feared to have it were both detected because the surgery where the doctor works is one of 100 practices where patients with breathing problems are now being routinely screened for Covid-19, the Guardian has been told.

They were identified as a result of mouth and nasal swabs that were being taken from every patient attending the surgery with flu-like symptoms by staff from Surrey University who specialise in the spread and epidemiology of influenza.

The northern Japanese island of Hokkaido has declared a three-week state of emergency, urging residents to stay home as much as possible until 19 March, NHK News reports.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, [Hokkaido governor] Naomichi Suzuki said the situation is getting more serious.

He urged residents to refrain from going out until March 19, and especially over this weekend.

Suzuki said many people go out on weekends, and he wants people to refrain from going out this weekend to reduce the possibility of a surge in infections.

He also said he wants children not to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary, adding that nothing is more important than life and wellbeing.

Pope Francis has cancelled official engagements for a third day in a row, the Associated Press reports. He last appeared in public on Wednesday, when he was seen coughing and blowing his nose. According to AP:

The 83-year-old pope, who lost part of a lung to a respiratory illness as a young man, has never cancelled so many official audiences or events in his seven-year papacy.

Francis is, however, continuing to work from his residence at the Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel and is receiving people in private, the Vatican press office said. On Saturday, those private meetings were with the head of the Vatican’s bishops’ office, Francis’ ambassadors to Lebanon and France and a Ukrainian archbishop.

Cancelled were his two planned official audiences formal affairs in the Apostolic Palace where Francis would have delivered a speech and greeted a great number of people at the end. Those were to include an audience with an international bioethics organisation and with members of the scandal-marred Legion of Christ religious order.

On Sunday, Francis is expected to leave the Vatican with top Holy See bureaucrats for a week of spiritual exercises in the Roman countryside, an annual retreat that the pope attends at the start of each Lent.

The official death toll from coronavirus in Iran has reached 43, Reuters reports. There have been unofficial claims that the true figure is much higher. Reuters quoted a health official, Kianush Jahanpur, as telling state TV:

Unfortunately nine people died of the virus in the last 24 hours. The death toll is 43 now. The new confirmed infected cases since yesterday is 205 that makes the total number of confirmed infected people 593.

The Reuters report continues:

Iran, which has the highest death toll outside China, has ordered the shutting of schools until Tuesday and the government has extended the closure of universities and a ban on concerts and sports events for a week.

Several high-ranking officials, including a vice-minister, deputy health minister and five lawmakers, have tested positive for the coronavirus as the rapid spread of the outbreak forced the government to call on people to stay at home.

Iranian media reported on Saturday that one lawmaker, elected in Iran’s 21 Februaru polls, had died of the coronavirus.

Iran’s government spokesman will hold his weekly news conference online due to the outbreak, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

The Chinese laboratory that first sequenced and shared the coronavirus genome publicly has been closed down by the authorities for “rectification”, the South China Morning Post reports.

On 12 January, a day after the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre’s laboratory shared the information online – a move that helped companies to devise new diagnostic kits for the virulent respiratory illness – officials from the Shanghai Health Commission ordered it to close.

The PHCC lab is a level-three biosafety facility that had only last month passed its annual inspections. It had obtained the necessary credentials and permissions to research the coronavirus, SCMP reported.

It seems that scientists at the laboratory acted unilaterally in releasing the virus because they thought authorities were taking too long to act. The SCMP said the team at the lab, led by Prof Zhang Yongzhen, had isolated and finished the genome sequence of the then-unknown virus on 5 January and reported its findings to the China’s national health commission the same day.

SCMP cited an unnamed source linked to the centre as saying:

The centre was not given any specific reasons why the laboratory was closed for rectification. [We have submitted] four reports [asking for permission] to reopen but we have not received any replies.

The closure has greatly affected the scientists and their research when they should be racing against the clock to find the means to help put the novel coronavirus outbreak under control.

An entire Italian Serie C football team is in quarantine after three players and an official tested positive for coronavirus.

Players from Pianese, a side based in Tuscany, began to exhibit symptoms last Saturday, while the team played away against Allesandria. The Siena-based club said in a statement:

At the moment those infected are four – three players and a team official.

The first is a young player who had started to experience a slight rise in temperature and headache last Saturday, when the team was away to Alessandria to play a championship game.

The second player is in self-isolation at his home, while not showing any symptoms, as well as the third player who is slightly feverish.

The fourth person tested positive for the swab is a club official who this morning, after spending the night in a feverish state, was transported by ambulance to the hospital in Siena.

Currently all the players, the technical staff and the managers present during the trip last weekend are in a 15-day quarantine.

Vietnam has announced that all 16 infected coronavirus patients detected in the country have been discharged from hospital and declared cured, Al Jazeera reports.

According to the broadcaster, the Vietnamese government has detected no new cases of coronavirus for the past 15 days.

For the past 15 days, including on Friday, the government also detected no new cases of infections, the last one having been reported on 13 February.

“If fighting Covid-19 has been a war, then we have won the first round but not the entire war because the situation can be very unpredictable,” the deputy prime minister, Vu Duc Dam, was quoted as saying.

Vietnam has taken strict measures to halt the spread of the virus, including shutting down schools across the country. A village north of Hanoi remains under lockdown.

An expat teacher in Vietnam tells the Guardian:

Ho Chi Minh officials in Vietnam have announced they are closing the schools for another two weeks, after already being closed for the month of February. Kindergartens and younger levels will not return until the 15th [of March] whilst secondary students can return on the 8th.

Hanoi have also announced another week off school for all levels until the 8th.

Many expat teachers have been out of work now for a month with many returning to their home country whilst the others stick it out.

The health minister Edward Argar has said the UK continues to be in a “containment phase” of coronavirus spread, and said cancelling events would not be considered unless the outbreak worsened. He told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4:

We’re still in the containment phase of this disease. We have been pretty good at containing it thus far. And the chief medical officer has been very clear that there is no reason to think that we shouldn’t be able to continue containing it, so that’s what our focus is on.

England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, has spoken publicly about the possibility of ramping up measures to protect the public. But Agar said there was no reason to curtail mass events.

[Whitty] said decisions on large events and whether they should go ahead will be taken at the time on the basis of the evidence. He’s not saying there is a need for that now.

Similarly, with school closures. He’s been clear there is no reason or need for schools en masse to close. If there are particular incidents, Public Health England and local teams will give advice.

So what Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, has been saying is, these are all things that, in responsible contingency planning for the future, we will be looking at.

But we are clear that these are not needed at the moment and that we believe, as he said, that we will not need to move to that phase on the base of where we are at the moment.

Argar refused to comment on reports that the first person to contract coronavirus in the UK also passed it on to their doctor. The Guardian has been told there are fears that a doctor from the patient’s surgery may also have been infected with the virus. If confirmed, this would prompt particular concern as the GP would routinely have seen scores of patients over the course of the last week.

I’m aware of the Guardian report, but I’m going on the basis of what I’ve been told.

I haven’t had any details of that and I think it would be wrong to comment on speculation in the press without that detailed advice from the chief medical officer.

I have not been briefed on anything beyond the detail that the chief medical officer and others have given me about this individual case.

It is a new development but the chief medical officer has also said we are still doing the contact tracing around that and we are still looking into the details of that case, so it is probably a bit premature to say more than that at the moment.

Health officials in the US have identified four “presumptive” coronavirus cases believed to have been infected within the country, in a turning point in efforts to contain Covid-19 there, Reuters is reporting.

Three new cases of apparent community transmission, plus the one identified earlier this week in California, are a sign the virus is now spreading within at least four separate locations up and down the US west coast.

They span nearly 900 miles, from California’s Silicon Valley region to the Puget Sound near Seattle.

The agency reported a U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statement on Friday citing three new diagnoses – one each in California, Oregon and Washington state.

If confirmed by the CDC, together with a previous case of unknown origin announced on Wednesday in California, that would bring to four the number of diagnosed individuals in the United States with no history of travel to a country where the virus is circulating and no close contact with a person known to be infected.

The three latest patients were diagnosed based on results obtained in their respective states from CDC-supplied test kits and are considered “presumptive positive” cases pending CDC confirmatory testing, the U.S. agency said.

A fourth presumptive positive was also announced in Washington state on Friday, but that one is “likely travel-related,” the CDC said.

Hello, this is Damien Gayle in London, taking the reins of the live blog. As usual, as well as contributions from the Guardian’s network of correspondents, the news wires and social media, I will be relying on your input to help report the global developments in the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak. If you have any information, ideas or questions, then contact me at damien.gayle@theguardian.com or via my Twitter profile @damiengayle.

‘It just seems sensible’

Some Australians have begun stockpiling food and medication in anticipation of a coronavirus outbreak.

Gary Nunn reports that the threat of a pandemic, coming so soon after a horrific summer of bushfires that left many communities cut off for weeks, has made preppers out of people who would previously have laughed at the idea.

One Sydney couple have already gathered three months worth of supplies.

But experts say it is not necessary. Professor Nigel McMillan, the director of infectious diseases and immunology at the Menzies Health Institute at Griffith University in Queensland, says:

There’s no need to stockpile food, medicine, petrol or anything at this stage.

We don’t wish to induce panic buying when, for 95 to 99% of the population, this’ll be a mild cold, nothing more. Plus, once we’ve had this strain, we’ll become immune to it.

You can read the full piece here.

Theme parks and sports stadiums in Japan have been closed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The Australian government has issued a statement on the travel ban to Iran, saying it is “part of our ongoing strategy of containment and minimising risk to the Australian community as detailed in our pandemic preparedness plan.”

As of 1 March 2020:

• The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will raise the level of the travel advisory for Iran from level 3 to level 4 – do not travel;
• Foreign nationals (excluding permanent residents of Australia) who are in Iran on or after 1 March 2020, will not be allowed to enter Australia for 14 days, from the time they have left or transited through Iran;
• Australian citizens and permanent residents will still be able to enter, as will their immediate family members (spouses, legal guardians or dependants only). They will be required to self-isolate at home for 14 days from the day they left Iran.

In a joint statement, prime minister Scott Morrison, health minister Greg Hunt and foreign minister Marine Payne said the travel advice was lifted on the advice of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee.

Guardian Australia’s Melbourne bureau chief, Melissa Davey, explained those reasons here.

The United States has updated its travel advice for Iran and Italy, warning people to “avoid nonessential travel” due to the increased spread of coronavirus.

It comes as Australia placed a travel ban on Iran, putting it on the same restrictions as China.

“Avoid nonessential travel” is a level three warning. China and South Korea were already under the same warning.

The ratings for Italy and Iran were updated by the CDC on Friday. The upgraded travel advice for Italy in particular is expected to have implications for businesses that have policies against allowing staff to travel to countries with a level three warning in place.

There is no additional travel warning for Hong Kong, and Japan currently sits at a level two, which means travellers are advised to practice “enhanced precautions.”

Coronavirus cases from ‘unknown’ sources concern health officials

Health officials in the US are reportedly worried that the novel coronavirus is spreading through communities on the west coast, after three patients — one in Oregon, one in California and one in Washington — were infected through unknown means.

This report from Associated Press.

The patients are:

• An older woman in northern California with chronic health conditions
• A high school student in Everett, Washington
• An employee at an elementary school in Portland, Oregon

None of the patients had recently travelled overseas or had any known close contact with a traveller or an infected person, authorities said.

Santa Clara County in the San Francisco Bay Area also reported two cases where the source of infection wasn’t known, AP reported.

The new coronavirus cases of unknown origin marks an escalation of the worldwide outbreak in the U.S. because it means the virus could spread beyond the reach of preventative measures like quarantines, though state health officials said that was inevitable and that the risk of widespread transmission remains low.

California public health officials on Friday said more than 9,380 people are self-monitoring after arriving on commercial flights from China through Los Angeles and San Francisco. That’s up from the 8,400 that Gov. Gavin Newsom cited on Thursday, though officials said the number increases daily as more flights arrive.

Officials are not too worried, for now, about casual contact, because federal officials think the coronavirus is spread only through “close contact, being within six feet of somebody for what they’re calling a prolonged period of time,” said Dr. James Watt, interim state epidemiologist at the California Department of Public Health.

The virus can cause fever, coughing, wheezing and pneumonia. Health officials think it spreads mainly from droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes, similar to how the flu spreads.

Cherry blossom festivals in Japan have been cancelled due to fears around the coronavirus.

From AFP:

The traditional spring celebrations in Tokyo and Osaka, which attract millions of people wanting to seeing the white and pink flowers, will not go ahead as planned in April.

“We are sincerely sorry for those who were looking forward to the viewing ... but please give us your understanding,” the Japan Mint in Osaka said Friday.

Other cherry blossom events - feverishly anticipated by locals and tourists - are likely to follow suit, according to local media.

Organisers of Tokyo’s Nakameguro Cherry Blossom Festival said people could still enjoy the blooming trees that grow along public roads.

Trees in Tokyo will soon be in full bloom, with friends, families and colleagues typically flocking to parks for sometimes raucous, alcohol-fuelled celebrations.

The cancellations come as authorities step up efforts to tackle the outbreak in Japan, which has reported more than 230 infections and five deaths.

Schools are closed and the government is urging people to work from home or commute during off-peak hours and avoid large gatherings.

The operator of Tokyo’s two Disney resorts - Disneyland and DisneySea - said Friday the parks would be closed for around two weeks due to the virus.

Universal Studios Japan in Osaka has also shuttered for a fortnight.

Tiger Ye, a 21-year-old student in Wuhan, contracted the novel coronavirus. He wrote about the experience in The Guardian.

By 26 January getting up had become extremely difficult and I was shivering with cold. I felt I was having a high fever, and I was: 39C. Reports later said that the situation could develop extremely fast in the middle stage, but before I knew it, by that evening the fever was gone. It felt like having been to hell and back. That period from 21 January to the 26th was the worst time. I coughed so bad my stomach was hurting and my back ached. Those were some of the worst days in my life.

You can read the full story here:

Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Brendan Murphy, says people should not stockpile face masks.

We know that people stockpiling masks has caused an issue with mask supply around Australia, and we don’t support that.

Thailand has reported one new case of coronavirus, bringing its total to 42, Reuters reports.

South Korean authorities have asked residents to stay at home this weekend to help contain the spread of the coronavirus, and it seems that advice has been heeded. This shopping area in Seoul is usually busy. Today it was empty.

Quarantine operations are underway in Daegu, the city at the centre of the outbreak in South Korea.

Current advice for Australia

Just to recap on the situation as it currently stands in Australia: the total number of cases confirmed in Australia is 25. Fifteen of these people are reported to have recovered and the remaining are in a stable condition.

Nine are passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

People who become ill after travelling to China or a region with reported coronavirus cases are advised to isolate themselves and call their doctor. There is no need for people to buy and wear face masks — and authorities ask that you don’t buy up supplies — but extra careful hand washing is advised.

The current travel advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is for Australians to not travel to mainland China. They also advise that Australians “reconsider” travel to Iran and “exercise a high degree of caution” in regions of northern Italy, South Korea, Japan, and Mongolia.

The Australian government’s official up-to-date advice is here.

Speaking of airports — Guardian Australian news editor Mike Ticher reports that about 50% of all passengers and staff at Singapore airport are wearing masks, despite the Singapore government’s instruction that there is no need to do so unless people are feeling unwell.

He writes:

There are few outward signs of unease about coronavirus at Singapore airport, although the waiting areas seem sparsely populated on Saturday morning. Traffic at the airport was reported to be 25% down in the first two weeks of February.

Singapore is one of the countries identified by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee where the coronavirus situation is of particular concern.

In LAX, the flight crews are wearing masks.

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recommended that ministers and diplomats skip travelling to a meeting in New York of the Commission on the Status of Women due to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reports.

More than 7,000 people usually attend the annual meeting, officials said, which is dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. It is due to be held from March 9 to 20.

However, in a letter to UN member states from the chair of the commission, Armenia’s UN Ambassador Mher Margaryan said Guterres had recommended that member states “shorten and scale down the session” and cancel dozens of side events.

“He also strongly recommended that capital-based representatives refrain from traveling to headquarters for the session,” Margaryan wrote.

The bureau of the Commission on the Status of Women proposed that member states agree to Guterres’ recommendations at a meeting on Monday.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres made the recommendations given the “fast-evolving situation” with the coronavirus and the need to “balance the UN’s critical work and public health concerns.”

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, held a meeting of party officials on Friday calling for stronger efforts to control the novel coronavirus, saying there would be serious consequences if it spread into his country.

South Korea has the second highest number of infections outside mainland China, but North Korea is yet to report a confirmed case. This image was released by Korea’s Central News Agency, showing Kim Jong Un observing a Korean People’s Army joint strike drill at an undisclosed location.

Workers in North Korea were disinfecting checkout counters on Friday.

Only one of the 61 (or 62, the numbers are unclear) confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States represents a patient who is still in hospital, vice president Mike Pence said on Friday.

There have been 15 confirmed cases in the US and 46 — or 47, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention — cases among people who returned to the country from overseas and were quarantined. Reuters says a CDC spokeswoman was not able to explain the difference in the numbers.

Pence said in a news conference with Florida governor Ron DeSantis on Friday that: “In every case, people are being treated and by all accounts are doing well.”

Meanwhile, Orange County officials say federal authorities have dropped a plan to transfer passengers returning from the Diamond Princess cruise ship to the Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa.

Officials were looking at using the centre to house passengers from the cruise ship who were evacuated from the ship to Travis Air Force Base in Northern California, had tested positive for the virus, but did not need hospital care.

Third case of unknown origin in the US

There has been another case of unknown origin reported in the United States, bringing the total number of cases of unknown origin to three.

The Oregon health authority declared its first presumptive case of novel coronavirus on Friday. More from Reuters:

According to the statement, the infected individual identified as a resident of Washington County neither had history of travel to a country where the virus was circulating, nor is believed to have had a close contact with another confirmed case.

Public health officials are considering it a likely community-transmitted case, which means that the origin of the infection is unknown, the statement added.

Two other cases of unknown origin have been reported in California.

Queensland Health has just sent through a press statement with a few more details on that Gold Coast case.

The beauty salon was Hair Plus at the Australia Fair shopping centre. But the woman in question did facials and other beauty treatments — not haircuts. That’s significant because beauty treatments, in this salon, were much shorter appointments.

The biggest concern is people who had a beauty appointment lasting more than 15 minutes, or who may have been in the room for two or more hours.

Anyone who attended Hair Plus from 11am onwards on Thursday, 27 February, has been asked to go to the Gold Coast University Hospital.

People who were at the Australia Fair shopping centre, but not the beauty salon, on Thursday have been told there is “no need for concern” but they can call 13HEALTH for advice.

Health minister Steven Miles said the risk of the virus spreading in Queensland remained very low.

There are nine confirmed cases in Queensland. This latest case brings the number of confirmed cases in Australia to 25.

Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said that with the novel coronavirus spreading to an increasing number of countries, anyone who feels unwell shortly after arriving in Australia from overseas should contact their doctor for advice.

The number of affected countries has spread to 49, and the World Health Organisation has elevated the risk of spread of the virus to “very high”. A pandemic has not been declared, but Young said it would happen.

We know we will be seeing an epidemic here in Queensland eventually. We would like to contain that as much as possible, as we have been.

Young said that more than 80% of all recorded cases of the Covid-19 virus were mild, and the mortality rate had fallen from 2-3% when the virus was first reported, as more mild cases are detected. It’s now estimated to be about 1%.

Said Young:

I am very very confident here in Queensland, because of the. warning that we have been given.... that we will see [mortality] rates even lower than that.

Young said the demographic at the highest risk from the virus were the elderly and those with co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension, or cardiovascular conditions.

She said children had a “minimal risk” — not an elevated risk, as they have with other respiratory conditions like the flu — and the risk to pregnant women is understood to be the same as the general population.

Miles said Queensland had asked the federal government to declare the coronavirus a disaster, because of its broader economic impacts.

We are doing everything we can from a health perspective to contain the virus but it is impacting on business, it is impacting on the economy.... in the same way that a disaster does.

If you are unsure about the seriousness of the coronavirus — and there has been some fairly confused information about this — science correspondent Hannah Devlin has busted some of the most common myths.

For one, she writes that while we do not know a precise fatality rate for Covid-19, current estimates are a fatality rate of about 1%.

Hannah writes:

This would make Covid-19 about 10 times more deadly than seasonal flu, which is estimated to kill between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year globally.

So: worse than flu. You can read the full fact-check here.

Postponing the ASEAN summit a ‘difficult decision’: US officials

Here is a bit more on that announcement from the United States to delay a regional ASEAN summit scheduled to take place in Las Vegas in two weeks time.

From AFP:

The United States has delayed a regional ASEAN summit scheduled to take place in Las Vegas next month due to fears of the coronavirus, a senior administration official said Friday.

“As the international community works together to defeat the novel coronavirus, the United States, in consultation with ASEAN partners, has made the difficult decision to postpone the ASEAN leaders meeting,” said the official on condition of not being named.

Leaders from the Association of South East Asian Nations had been due to be hosted by President Donald Trump on March 14.

The official said the United States “values our relationships with the nations of this critical region, and looks forward to future meetings.”

The announcement came as health officials in California confirmed the United States’ second case believed to have been transmitted to a person who did not travel overseas or come in contact with anyone known to be ill.

The Las Vegas meeting was scheduled after US president Donald Trump skipped the ASEAN summit in Thailand in November.

More from AFP:

Trump had skipped an ASEAN summit and parallel East Asia Summit last year in Bangkok.

He instead sent his national security advisor Robert O’Brien, in the lowest-level participation ever by the United States in the East Asia Summit.

The move came after years of US efforts to show that the United States is committed to Asia in the face of a rising China.

Hello and welcome to our continued live coverage of the coronavirus outbreak.

This is where the situation stands:

• The World Health Organisation says that the coronavirus could reach most “if not all countries.” It has already spread to 49 countries. You can check our map of the outbreak here.
• The latest figures from mainland China report 427 new cases, all but four of which were in Hubei province. There have been about 80,000 confirmed cases in mainland China. The death toll rose by 47, bringing the total number of deaths to 2,835.
• South Korea reported 594 new cases on Saturday, the biggest increase to date for the country, taking the national total to 2,931 infections. 90% of the cases are in the outbreak centre of Daegu. Three women are confirmed to have died, taking the national death toll to 16.
• The US government will reportedly suspend a planned meeting of Asean leaders in Las Vegas on 14 March over coronavirus fears.
• The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK has risen to 20, with the first death of a UK citizen — a 70-year-old passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, who lived abroad — confirmed on Friday.
• Australian authorities have reported two new confirmed cases, including a 63-year-old woman now in hospital on the Gold Coast who travelled to Queensland from Iran, where infection rates are suspected to be much higher than reported.
• The US has confirmed its second case of the virus in a patient who had not travelled to affected areas or come into known contact with an infected person. The US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has promised it will have working test kits in every state by the end of next week after the first test was found to be faulty.

You can read all our in-depth coronavirus coverage here.

My name is Calla Wahlquist. You can reach me on twitter @callapilla or via email at calla.wahlquist@theguardian.com