Here’s the latest news Tuesday from across Canada and around the world on the novel coronavirus:

10:30 p.m.: The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Sudbury by the city’s medical officer of health. Dr. Penny Sutcliffe said a man in his 50s presented himself to the emergency department at Health Sciences North on March 7.

On March 2 and 3, the man attended the PDAC (Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada) 2020 convention in Toronto.

“Our focus is on breaking the chain of transmission to limit the spread of infection and as a precautionary measure, we are asking those who attended PDAC 2020 to monitor for symptoms for 14 days,” said Dr. Sutcliffe.

7:39 p.m.: B.C.’s top doctor confirmed there are seven new cases of COVID-19 in the province on Tuesday.

There are now 39 cases of COVID-19 in British Columbia.

Two of the new COVID-19 cases announced Tuesday are healthcare workers who work at Lynn Valley Care Centre, the care home that has been dealing with a novel coronavirus outbreak. That makes four care workers from that home who have been diagnosed with the disease.

Those two workers are in isolation at home, said provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, who also confirmed there are two new cases of community transmission in the Vancouver area. One is in hospital and the other is in isolation at home.

6:25 p.m.: Alberta announced seven new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, for a total of 14 in the province.

All of the cases are travel related, the government said in a news release. Three of the new cases are from the Edmonton area and four are from Calgary.

The Edmonton cases involve a man in his 70s and a woman in her 60s who travelled together as well another woman in her 30s who had recently travelled outside of Canada.

The Calgary cases involve a man in his 50s, two women in their 30s and one in her 40s.

The travellers recently returned from visiting a “range” of countries, including France, the Netherlands, Egypt, Iran, Taiwan, Germany, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, the Philippines and the United States. In several of the confirmed cases, the individuals visited more than one country.

3:30 p.m.: President Donald Trump pitched his proposed payroll tax break Tuesday on Capitol Hill as pressure mounts on the administration and Congress to work more vigorously to contain the coronavirus outbreak and respond to the financial fallout.

Trump’s economic team joined in presenting the economic stimulus package privately to wary Senate Republicans, who have been cool to additional spending at this stage. Democrats are preparing their own package of low-cost virus testing, unemployment insurance and sick pay for workers struggling to keep paychecks coming as the outbreak disrupts workplaces.

“We’re taking this unbelievably seriously,” Trump said after his meeting at the Capitol. “It will go away, just stay calm.”

3 p.m.: The Manitoba government is preparing to spend about $35 million on personal protective equipment as part of a federal procurement plan to deal with the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The procurement through the Public Health Agency of Canada will include items such as gloves, face masks and shields, thermometer covers and hand sanitizer for patients and health-care workers.

Health Minister Cameron Friesen says Manitoba is the first province to sign on.

2:58 p.m.: Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault says the government plans to offer guidance to event planners about when they should consider shutting down large gatherings in light of a possible novel coronavirus outbreak.

Though there’s been only limited community transmission of the virus in Canada, concert promoters, major sports leagues and festivals say they are watching carefully to decide whether they should be bringing crowds of people together.

Guilbeault says the decision will ultimately be up to individual event planners, as well as provinces and territories.

He explained some jurisdictions may be better situated to handle mass gatherings than others, and it’s not up to the federal government to dictate which events should go ahead and which should be cancelled.

2:50 p.m.: Air Canada is suspending flights to and from Italy, saying Italian regulations and “ongoing health and safety concerns” prompted the decision.

The airline’s last flight to Rome is scheduled to take off from Toronto today, with the final return flight departing Rome for Montreal on Wednesday.

Air Canada hopes to restart service May 1. Meanwhile, it says affected customers will be notified and offered a full refund.

In January, Canada’s largest airline halted all direct flights to China — the epicentre of the virus — as it braced for a hit to revenues. Its shares have fallen about 40 per cent in the past seven weeks.

1:58 p.m.: New Brunswick’s education minister has ordered all preschoolers and students travelling abroad to refrain from returning to school for two weeks in a bid to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Dominic Cardy sent a letter to parents Monday saying the precautionary measure — among the most aggressive taken by any province — also applies to school and early learning centre staff, volunteers and family members of students.

Cardy says the new rule applies to those who have returned from international travel as of March 8.

The minister has also cancelled all international school-related travel for the remainder of the school year.

1:49 p.m.: Major insurers pledged to cover coronavirus tests at no cost to patients at the White House on Tuesday, but those assurances — while welcome — may not resolve public concerns about testing.

For one, insurers can’t control the availability of the tests themselves. While the capacity for labs to test more patients is growing daily, the U.S. still has nowhere near the capacity for millions of tests that public health officials say are needed.

What’s more, a test for the virus is only part of diagnosing and treating a patient. Other tests and scans may be needed, not just the coronavirus test. And if a patient requires treatment for viral illness, that would involve additional costs.

1:33 p.m.: The Manitoba government is preparing to spend just over $35 million on personal protective equipment as part of a federal procurement plan to deal with the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Health Minister Cameron Friesen says included will be items such as gloves, facial masks, face shields and hand sanitizer for patients and health-care workers.

1:28 p.m.: The Nova Scotia Health Authority has opened eight dedicated COVID-19 assessment centres across the province.

There are currently no confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the province, however the health authority says the centres will support efforts to identify and contain the illness if and when it arrives.

Officials say the dedicated centres are intended to help relieve current pressures in emergency departments, while also decreasing the possibility of transmission among the public.

12:21 p.m.: U.S. President Donald Trump says the Canadians who were on board the Grand Princess cruise ship that docked Monday in California were returned home “in a very dignified fashion.”

Trump made the comments during a meeting Tuesday at the White House with health officials, cruise industry executives and members of Vice-President Mike Pence’s coronavirus task force.

He thanked both Canada and the United Kingdom for their help in repatriating foreign nationals, including 228 Canadians who arrived early Tuesday at Canadian Forces Base Trenton to begin a 14-day quarantine.

Trump said the Canadians were taken “in a very dignified fashion back into Canada.”

It was not clear what Trump meant by “dignified,” although it may have been a response to complaints from some frustrated passengers that after weeks of being isolated in their cabins, many were in close contact with one another as they queued up to be screened.

By midday Tuesday, there were 687 active COVID-19 cases recorded in the U.S., plus 27 deaths.

12:13 p.m.: A Montreal hospital is asking its staff to limit travel to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The Sainte-Justine hospital told staff in an internal memo that they should travel only if absolutely necessary.

The hospital also asked staff to stay home from work for two weeks if they’ve visited certain regions, including China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Iran, India, Egypt, Japan and parts of Italy and France as well as the Seattle area.

11:38 a.m.: Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne says he is in regular contact with his counterpart in Italy to try to learn from that country’s experience with the novel coronavirus.

Italy has gone into total lockdown, as officials restrict travel to 60 million people to limit the spread of the virus.

The country has confirmed more than 9,000 cases of COVID-19, and has reported more than 460 deaths.

11 a.m.: Europe’s largest coronavirus outbreak is putting unprecedented strain on the Italian health-care system, with hospitals in the worst-affected areas close to the breaking point.

Italy went from having a handful of cases to the second-largest death toll after China in less than three weeks, flooding intensive-care units with hundreds of patients. If the government’s efforts to contain the spread are unsuccessful — and the lax enforcement of a travel ban bodes ill — experts warn that a new influx would be nearly impossible to manage.

Lombardy, the region around Milan that accounts for more than a fifth of Italy’s economic output, is by far the worst-affected part of the country. It had 5,469 cases, including 440 in intensive care, as of Monday afternoon.

Finding more acute care beds is a “race against time,” Lombardy’s top health official, Giulio Gallera, told Bloomberg News in a phone interview. “As of now the region’s health-care system is holding up well, but if the increase in the number of infected people in need of intensive care doesn’t slow down we could have issues.”

More than 80 per cent of the region’s 1,123 acute-care beds are dedicated to coronavirus, after many other patients have been moved elsewhere and 223 extra places have been opened to cope with the emergency. About half of those are occupied, Gallera said.

10:36 a.m.: Ontario Premier Doug Ford says government travel will continue despite concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Ford says he does not currently plan to cancel any of his government’s upcoming trade missions abroad, though he remains concerned about COVID-19 and its impact on the economy.

Ford also says he does not intend to delay his spring budget, scheduled for release later this month, because of the virus.

10:30 a.m.: Ontario health officials announced one new COVID-19 case Tuesday, bringing the total in the province to 36.

The patient is in his 40s who recently travelled to Switzerland, officials say. He was treated at St. Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto, and is now self-isolated.

The Ministry of Health says COVID-19 is not circulating locally, but officials are actively working to prepare for potential local spread of the illness.

10:30 a.m.: Canada’s main stock index was up 400 points in early trading Tuesday, a day after the Toronto Stock Exchange posted its biggest one-day loss since 1987, triggered by a collapse in oil prices.

9:52 a.m.: Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said there were 228 Canadians on board a plane that landed at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Ont., carrying passengers from the Grand Princess cruise ship.

The ship is now docked in Oakland after idling for several days off the coast of California.

Champagne says a handful of Canadian crew members on the ship have tested positive for the novel coronavirus and will have to stay on board.

Some Canadian passengers also stayed behind for medical reasons unrelated to the virus, and are being cared for by the California health system.

There were 237 Canadians among the 3,500 passengers and crew on board the Grand Princess.

9:38 a.m.: Chinese leader Xi Jinping went on a carefully choreographed victory lap around Wuhan on Tuesday, lauding the dedication and tenacity of the Communist Party, health care workers and ordinary people in defeating a coronavirus he had labelled a “devil.”

His first visit to Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, comes as the number of new infections in China has plummeted and was designed to show the success of China’s response — and contrast them favourably against international efforts, analysts said.

Only 19 new cases were reported Tuesday, all but two of them in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital. Vast swaths of the province have been locked down since Jan. 23 as authorities tried to contain the virus.

But the draconian restrictions worked only after the virus had infected more than 80,000 people and killed 3,140 in China, and had spread to dozens of other countries.

Italy, South Korea and Iran have been especially hard hit, with Italy enforcing a nationwide lockdown. Global markets have tumbled to their lowest levels in a more than a decade, and economists are predicting a global recession.

8:10 a.m.: Spanish soccer games will be played in empty stadiums for at least two weeks because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Spanish league said Tuesday that matches in the first and second divisions will be played without fans. The announcement came after the league was told by the government that a series of preventive measures were being implemented to help contain the spread of the virus.

Spain’s health minister on Monday announced a sharp spike in coronavirus cases in and around Madrid, and said all schools in the region will close for two weeks from Wednesday. There were more than 1,200 confirmed cases in Spain on Monday, with 28 deaths and 74 people in intensive care.

7:58 a.m.: Italy entered its first day under a nationwide lockdown after a decree signed late Monday by Premier Giuseppe Conte extended restrictions on movement from hard-hit northern regions to the rest of the country. Panic buying erupted, prompting the government to assure citizens that supermarkets will remain open and stocked. Conte’s office said runs on supermarkets went counter to the intent of the new decree, which aims to prevent Italians from congregating. The ban on travel is being enforced by soldiers and police.

Meanwhile, Italian doctors celebrated one small victory in their battle against the coronavirus after a 38-year-old man was moved out of intensive care for the first time since he tested positive Feb. 21. He is considered to be the first Italian to have contracted the coronavirus — Patient No. 1. But in the rest of northern Italy, the virus’ spread was growing so exponentially that doctors were having to make the most difficult decisions of who gets priority in care and access to intensive care unit beds.

Midnight: Pearl Jam is postponing several Canadian dates on its Gigaton world tour because of concerns over the new coronavirus.

The band says the North American leg of its tour, which was set to kick off in Toronto on March 18, has been indefinitely postponed.

Upcoming performances in Ottawa, Quebec City and Hamilton are also set to be rescheduled, according to the band’s website.