DENMARK HAS REPORTED its first coronavirus case, a man who had returned from a skiing holiday in northern Italy which has become a hotspot for the disease.

“The man who came back from a skiing trip with his wife and son on 24 February has been suffering since then from a cough and a temperature,” Denmark’s public health agency said in a statement.

“The man tested positive, but the results of his wife and son are negative,” it said.

The man is relatively well and has returned to his home, where he remains in isolation with his family, it added.

According to public TV station TV2, the man is one of its employees.

Italy has reported 400 coronavirus cases, mostly in the north, and 12 deaths.

Meanwhile, England has reported two further cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of UK cases to 15.

The two patients had just returned from Italy and Tenerife, according to the UK’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty.

The virus was passed on in Italy and Tenerife and the patients have been transferred to specialist NHS infection centres in Royal Liverpool Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital, London.

Source: Department of Health and Social Care/Twitter

Elsewhere, Kuwait has reported a large spike in cases, confirming that 43 people now have the virus.

More than 2,700 people have died in China and some 78,000 have been infected but the WHO reported yesterday that the rest of the world is now outpacing China in the number of new Covid-19 cases being confirmed.

Meanwhile, crew members from a coronavirus-stricken cruise ship off Japan have begun leaving the vessel for a new quarantine on-shore after passengers left the boat, the government said.

“Today, 240 crew members are leaving the ship and this disembarking operation will continue for a couple of days,” a health ministry official told AFP.

Those leaving the boat will be placed in medical observation for 14 days at government-designated dormitories before being allowed to leave Japan, they said.

Hundreds of crew members of the Diamond Princess remained on the vessels to continue operations while Japanese officials placed thousands of passengers in a quarantine after the ship arrived at a port near Tokyo on 3 February.

But the quarantine has been heavily criticised after more than 700 people on board tested positive for the virus.

Hundreds of passengers who tested negative were allowed to depart the vessel after the 14-day quarantine on-board, but several have since been diagnosed with the virus.

The health ministry has also admitted that it allowed some travellers to go home without testing them during the quarantine period.

The ship carried about 3,700 passengers and crew members when it reached the port of Yokohama.

Several nations, including the US, Australia and the Philippines, have used chartered flights to repatriate hundreds of their citizens.

Passengers and crew members who tested positive for the virus have been sent to hospitals in Japan.

A total of four people who were hospitalised after being taken off the ship have died.

© – AFP 2020

- Additional reporting by Adam Daly