Welcome to COVID-19 daily briefing which is your place to discover daily news and numbers, backed by links to reputable and official sources.

BREAKING: Italy

Italy plans locking down Milan and the Lombardy region, dramatically restricting movement of 16 million people, a quarter of country population. The measures will last at least 4 weeks, until April 3. (Bloomberg and The Guardian report on a draft decree).

No entering or leaving Lombardy will be allowed, exceptions might be made for serious reasons. Movement inside will be allowed only for “non-deferrable” business or health reasons.

All public events will be banned, cinemas, theatres, gyms, discos are to be closed. Religious ceremonies such as funerals and weddings will also be banned. Bars and restaurants will be required to enforce at least a meter apart between people or they’ll be shut.

Schools will remain closed.

Major sporting events, such as Serie A football matches, will be played behind closed doors.

Failing to respect the measures will be a criminal offence, and might lead to imprisonment. Police and the army will be responsible for ensuring that containment measures are respected.

Worldwide

Number of cases approaches 106,000. WHO reported 3,735 new cases in the last 24 hours. More WHO numbers at the bottom.

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United States & Canada

Number of US cases exceeds 300. 21 passengers, nearly half of those who were tested, of the Grand Princess cruise ship anchored off the California coast have been confirmed.

"Cruise ships are posing probably one of the biggest challenges that we are seeing in this outbreak," Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, infectious diseases director at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told CNN. "We know these cruise ships are essentially … we've been calling them incubators, they are incredibly very healthy environments for the pathogens that we're talking about."

Canadian government recommends citizens to avoid cruise ships.

"Think twice about going on cruise ships," said Dr. Theresa Tam on Friday, noting they "present environments where COVID-19 can spread easily given close contacts between passengers and crew for significant periods of time."

SCMP columnist, Yonden Lhatoo, contrasts what China has done to contain the Covid-19 epidemic with how little the US is doing, warning that American complacency may turn out to be the real threat to the world.

After locking down entire cities and placing tens of millions of citizens under quarantine, China’s authoritarian government has managed to put a lid on the proliferation of Covid-19 to quite an extent. The US has reported fewer than 300 infections so far because diagnostic testing for Covid-19 is being conducted at a fraction of the scale it should be. Not even 2,000 have been tested so far, compared with more than 140,000 in South Korea, which has set up fast food-style, drive-through testing stations – a novel concept Americans would probably embrace if their government could get its act together.

CDC now advises that older people and those with severe chronic medical condition should stay at home as much possible and make sure they have access to several weeks of medications and supplies.

Governor of Utah declares state of emergency before any confirmed cases to prep the state to be ready for the outbreak.

Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is an event attracting 3 million people during 3 weeks and is currently taking place. Organisers say there are no plans to wrap it up early.

Europe

Italy (besides virtually quarantining 16 million people, see at the top): Head of co-governing Democratic Party tests positive for coronavirus. In a responsible move, Pope Francis cancels main public appearances to stop crowds gathering.

France now has 949 cases and 16 deaths.

Germany has 795 cases and no deaths yet.

A very huge infection cluster related to a funeral in Spain. Over 60 people has been infected.

After number of cases rose to over 200, Switzerland decided to don’t test people with mild cases [German] to not overwhelm hospitals. They should remain at home. This decision seems like they gave up on containment already.

Over 140,000 people in the UK signed a petition to close schools and colleges. Parliament will consider this for a debate as it considers all petitions that get more than 100,000 signatures.

Russia imposes mandatory 14 day quarantines on arrivals [Russian] from US, UK, France, South Korea, Italy, Iran, Spain, and several other countries.

Asia & Pacific

Iran’s infectious disease specialist and member of Iran’s national influenza committee predicts an unprecedented scale of outbreak in just two weeks in country’s capital:

“Coronavirus is rapidly spreading … we estimate that 30 to 40 percent of Tehran’s population will be infected by the end of this (Persian) month.” [which is March 20]

Teheran has 8.7 million population so it would mean 2.6 to 3.5 million people infected and probably 500,000 to 700,000 requiring hospitalisation in just two weeks. No city on earth could handle it.

Number of cases in Korea exceeded 7,000. WHO reported 483 cases and 2 deaths in the last 24 hours.

China is slowly returning to work, at least in less affected areas far away from Wuhan.

21 of the 31 mainland regions have lowered emergency response levels. Around 80 per cent of restaurants and shopping centres have reopened in major cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou. Over 90 per cent of businesses in the large southern province of Guangdong had resumed work as of Tuesday, state media said.

Africa

Denial is the first stage of dealing with COVID-19 crisis, as could be seen in numerous countries online. Tweets like this are trending in Africa and remind me of claims that the new coronavirus doesn’t infect Caucasians, only Asians, which were popular a month ago. These claims didn’t aged well in the face of what is currently going on in Europe.

Science

New data suggests that children aren’t immune to the new coronavirus. They Just Don't Get That Sick. That could have huge implications for efforts to contain local outbreaks.

German team identified [German] a cellular enzyme that is essential for the virus to enter lung cells: the protease TMPRSS2. An existing drug that inhibits this protease could therefore be a promising treatment option. Their research was done in-vitro and they recommend a clinical study. This could be a breakthrough if it is confirmed.

Chinese study (non-peer reviewed yet) says that global infections could increase tenfold every 19 days. It’s slightly faster than mentioned earlier doubling every 6-7 days (which would mean eightfold increase every 19 days).

Nation’s leading geneticist Jin Li calls on the world to ‘take strong actions on public health, using experiences learned from China and Singapore’

Another long-term study on SARS survivors of the 2003 epidemics (15-year follow-up) shows long-term bone and lung consequences, what might also be the case with SARS-CoV-2.

Thanks to a petition, several major publishers opened free access to scientific articles and papers about COVID-19. This is important, because gatekeeping scientists and restricting free flow of scientific information about this virus could significantly slow down important research.

Containment

People are told to be responsible and don’t go to work (or work remotely) if they’re sick - and this is really important to slow the virus spread. One could think that doctors should be especially aware of this, but this Melbourne doctor who felt sick on a plane from US and got flu-like symptoms, still got to work the next day. After treating more than 70 patients, including 2 on a visit to a nursing home, he was confirmed to have COVID-19.

Economic Impact

Axios predicts how the world will change because of COVID-19: a lot more remote work and videoconferencing, “the big decoupling” for economies and companies to become less dependent on China, even more populist politics, faster science.

Airlines are burning thousands of gallons of fuel flying empty 'ghost' planes so they can keep their flight slots. European rules are forcing operators to run their allocated flights or risk losing their slots.

WHO Numbers, 07 March, 10am CET / 4am EST

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