Italy Declares Emergency, and Germany Confirms a Sixth Case/
The Italian government declared a six-month state of emergency on Friday after the first two cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Rome, according to a government official…
A government statement detailed that it had allocated the “necessary funds” to begin precautionary measures. Official sourced have said on Friday that five million euros (about $5.5 million) had been set aside.
Two Chinese nationals were held in isolation at Rome’s Spallanzani Hospital, which specializes in infectious diseases, after they tested positive for the virus.
The two cases were announced on Thursday, capping a tense day in Italy, after thousands of passengers had been blocked from leaving a cruise ship that docked at an Italian port for more than 12 hours over concerns that someone aboard might have had the virus. That episode was found to be a false alarm as the Chinese national with a fever tested negative for the coronavirus, and the Italian authorities said that passengers were allowed to disembark.
In Germany, the Bavarian state Health Ministry confirmed a sixth case of the virus on Friday: the first child to be infected in the country. The child is related to another coronavirus patient identified this week. All six known cases in Germany are linked to a company based Starnberg, Bavaria.
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The State Department tells Americans not to travel to China.
The State Department on Thursday night issued a travel advisory telling Americans not to travel to China because of the public health threat posed by the dangerous new coronavirus. The department set the new advisory at Level 4, or red — its highest alert, reserved for the most perilous situations.
State Department officials stated : “Travelers should be prepared for travel restrictions to be put into effect with little or no advance notice. Commercial carriers have reduced or suspended routes to and from China.”
The World Health Organization on Thursday declared the outbreak a global emergency after cases were discovered in more than a dozen countries.