Coronavirus: ‘Sick’ Pope cancels mass; Saudi Arabia halts pilgrimage, closes Mecca; Japan shuts schools & Disney resorts
Vatican reveals an illness has struck Pope Francis as the WHO warns ‘we’re at a decisive point’.
The coronavirus epidemic is at a “decisive point” globally, World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, urging affected countries to “move swiftly” to contain the disease.
As the disease continues to spread faster in countries outside China, Mr Tedros said in Geneva “we’re at a decisive point”. Pointing to a decline in new cases in China, Mr Tedros said: “It’s what’s happening in the rest of the world that’s now our greatest concern”.
Urging countries at the early stages of the outbreak of the COVID-19 disease to “move swiftly”, he added: “If you act aggressively now, you can contain this virus, you can prevent people getting sick, you can save lives.”
“No country should assume it won’t get cases, that would be a fatal mistake, quite literally.”
The coronavirus outbreak in South Korea is now spreading faster than the epidemic in China, where the virus first emerged, daily government data indicated, underscoring the difficulties in containing the spread of a disease that some observers already believe to be a pandemic.
South Korea, the country worst-hit by the coronavirus apart from China, reported 505 new infections over the 24-hour period ending today, raising the national total to 1766 cases. The tally exceeded the 433 new cases that China logged over the whole of Wednesday — the first time that South Korea has reported a larger daily increase than China.
One by one, more and more countries are reporting cases of the new coronavirus. Governments and doctors on the front lines are scrambling for solutions and everyday life around the globe is being disrupted in a manner that’s not been seen in recent times.
Pope Francis unwell
Pope Francis has cancelled a planned religious service in a Roman basilica due to a “slight ailment,” the Vatican says.
On Wednesday, Francis commented on the public health crisis, expressing his “closeness to those who are ill with coronavirus and to healthcare workers who are caring for them”.
“Due to a slight ailment, (the pope) preferred to stay in the vicinity of Santa Marta,” his residence within the Vatican, spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement.
Francis, 83, was supposed to lead a Lenten service with priests from the Rome diocese in the Basilica of St John’s in Lateran, roughly a 6km drive southeast of St Peter’s Square.
On Wednesday, as he held his weekly audience and later led an Ash Wednesday service, he displayed the symptoms of a cold, with a coarse voice and frequent coughing.
The announcement was made amid widespread anxiety in Italy about the spread of the pneumonia-like coronavirus, which is mostly affecting northern regions and not Rome.
Italy has emerged as the epicentre of Europe’s virus outbreak, with the number of confirmed cases surging to 650, a 25 per cent increase in just 24 hours. “Viruses don’t know borders and they don’t stop at them,” said Roberto Speranza, the Italian health minister, where northern towns were on army-guarded lockdowns and supermarket shelves were bare.
Saudi Arabia halts pilgrimage
Saudi Arabia has closed off the holiest sites in Islam to foreign pilgrims over the coronavirus, disrupting travel for thousands of Muslims already headed to the kingdom and potentially affecting plans later this year for millions more ahead of the fasting month of Ramadan and the annual hajj pilgrimage.
The unprecedented move, which wasn’t taken even during the 1918 flu epidemic that killed tens of millions worldwide, showed the growing worry about the virus across the Middle East, which has more than 360 confirmed cases.
Saudi Arabia barred pilgrims from Mecca, home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims pray toward five times a day, and also the holy city of Medina.
Authorities also suspended entry to travellers holding tourist visas from nations affected by the virus. “We expect that this will give Saudi Arabia a chance to really strengthen their own disease control measures for the moment,” said Rick Brennan, the WHO’s emergency director for the Eastern Mediterranean.
“We ask God almighty to spare all humanity from all harm,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement announcing the decision.
The news shocked the world’s Muslims, many of whom save their entire lives for a chance to see the Kaaba and walk along the path of the Prophet Muhammad and visit his tomb in Medina.
The decision showed the growing worry across the Mideast about the virus as Iran confirmed that infected cases in the country spiked by over 100, to 254 now. Those with the virus in the Islamic Republic now include Iranian vice president Masoumeh Ebtekar, better known as the English-language spokeswoman “Mary” for the 1979 hostage-takers who seized the US Embassy in Tehran and sparked the 444-day diplomatic crisis, state media reported.
Japan closes schools
Japan, too, is increasingly worried, and made a decision that’s sure to have its 12.8 million schoolchildren secretly celebrating. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he wants all elementary, middle and high schools nationwide to remain closed until spring holidays in late March. Japan now has more than 900 cases, including hundreds from a quarantined cruise ship.
The operator of Tokyo’s two Disney resorts, Disneyland and DisneySea, also said on Friday the parks would be closed for around two weeks on fears over the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
“Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea have decided to proceed with an extraordinary closure from Saturday February 29, 2020, through Sunday March 15” after the government urged measures to limit the spread, the operator said in a statement.
France, Germany, Monaco and other countries near Italy are telling parents to keep their kids home from school if they’ve been anywhere near the growing number of zones worldwide hit by virus outbreaks. One reason for the school warnings: growing concern about the rise in the number of untraceable cases of the virus.
Germany has a new way of trying to retroactively track down everyone who may have been exposed to an infected person. It’s introducing new landing cards for people arriving from countries most hit by the virus. That’s among measures around the world by authorities trying to keep the virus from spreading in their own countries.
Pakistan halted flights to and from neighbouring Iran. Prague suspended flights from South Korea. Cyprus is adding more police and health workers at crossing points between the internationally recognised state in the south and a self-declared Turkish Cypriot state in the north. But EU officials insisted that the virus doesn’t stop at borders, saying that if a case is identified at the border, it’s probably too late and the spread is likely anyway.
Sports cancellations accelerate
The three biggest soccer leagues in Asia have gone into recess, as the governments of China, South Korea and Japan try to contain the fallout of the rapidly spreading virus. The surge of postponements of sports events has spread from China, where the outbreak started, to South Korea and Japan. Japan’s professional baseball league says it will play its 72 remaining pre-season games in empty stadiums because of the threat of the spreading coronavirus. The regular season is to open on March 20.
“This was a bitter decision to make,” Commissioner Atsushi Saito was quoted as saying. “Because we can’t determine the situation, I won’t say anything right now about (opening day). “If possible, we all want to go ahead on March 20.” Outside of sport, worries over the ever-expanding economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis multiplied Thursday, with factories idled, trade routes frozen and tourism in trouble, while a growing list of nations braced for the illness to breach their borders.
Japan’s top soccer league, the J-League, has halted all play until March 15. That announcement came less than a week after South Korean authorities postponed the start of the K-League season, which came in the wake of the suspension of the lucrative Chinese Super League. The Korean domestic basketball season will finish with matches in empty stadiums.
Continental competition has been disrupted, with Chinese clubs excluded from the start of the competitions including the Asian Football Confederation’s Asian Champions League. Other countries in Asia have refused to allow Chinese teams to enter, or placed Chinese sports teams in quarantine.
On Thursday, the governing body for Super Rugby said a match between the Australia-based Brumbies and Japan’s Sunwolves set for Osaka on March 6 would likely be relocated. If that wasn’t possible, the teams would receive two competition points each, as they would if the match was drawn. Other matches involving the Sunwolves, who play some of their home matches in Singapore, were likely to be affected in the tournament that involves clubs from South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, Australia and Japan. The Hong Kong Sevens, the annual highlight of the Rugby Sevens global competition, has been pushed back to later in the year. Major events in China including the Formula One Grand Prix and the track and field world indoor championships were among the first to be postponed.
The staging of the Tokyo Olympics remain a serious threat because of the virus. On Thursday, five-time Olympic swimming gold medallist Ian Thorpe said Australia’s athletes should consider their long-term health before deciding to compete in Japan in July.
“I would most definitely be concerned,” said Thorpe, who still has a profile in Japan long after retiring from competitive swimming. “What we need … is to use some of the best expert disease specialists to find out what is the risk to the team. What is the risk to the other nations and how can we have an Olympic Games, one that is safe, that doesn’t put athletes at risk?” Thorpe’s comments come a day after International Olympic Committee veteran Dick Pound warned the Tokyo Games could be cancelled due to the coronavirus.
China breathes easier
Now that there are more cases being reported outside China than inside, Chinese authorities are eager to shed the virus stigma and questions about its early handling of the epidemic. President Xi Jinping said Thursday: “We have the confidence, the ability and the certainty to win this war against the epidemic.” And famed Chinese respiratory disease specialist Zhong Nanshan predicted China’s outbreak should be “basically under control” by the end of April. He credited strong measures taken by the government and the work of medical workers for helping curb the spread.
AP, AFP, The Wall Street Journal
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