From Japan to Iraq, Spain to Peru, it has sent medical assistance and donated money. Leaders like Serbia’s president are looking to China, and sometimes not their own neighbors, for guidance and help.

It’s a remarkable turn for a country that just weeks ago was accepting donations of masks and supplies, and is still facing online criticism for its initial response. But now, China has stepped into a role once dominated by the U.S., showcasing its model after failures in European and American responses.

“China is now trying to repair its severely damaged international image due to its mishandling of the outbreak in Wuhan in early January,” a government professor in California said.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the outbreak.

In other developments:

President Trump announced that the border between Canada and the U.S., the world’s longest, was closing to all but essential traffic, and that hospital ships would head to New York and the West Coast.

Doctors in Britain fear hospitals are ill-equipped to cope with an imminent surge in coronavirus cases. The limited supply of ventilators (a problem the U.S. faces as well) puts doctors in the position of deciding which patients to treat and which ones to let die.

Belgium began a lockdown at noon Wednesday, and a 30-day European Union ban on all nonessential travel to its territory went into effect, causing chaos.

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan is stopping most U.S. and allied troops from entering and leaving the country for the next month to protect them from the coronavirus, which has spread there in recent days.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is invoking the coronavirus crisis to shut down courts and to order the government to monitor cellphones, leading some to question whether he’s endangering the country’s democracy.

Markets: Global markets fell sharply on Wednesday, and U.S. stocks plunged so much that they set off an automatic halt in trading — the fourth in two weeks. Here’s the latest.

What to know: If you’re quarantined, here are some ways to help your furry, four-legged roommates.

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