Here is a look at the latest developments from India and around the world —

WHO chief says COVID-19 'enemy against humanity'

Railways cancels over 100 trains as precautionary measure, non-occupancy

Two women test positive for Covid-19 in Maharashtra, count 43 now

Bangladesh reports first coronavirus death, total cases rise to 14

Number of positive cases in India rises to 151

Global death toll from coronavirus tops 8,000

Iran says 147 new virus deaths bring total to 1,135

Health minister directs teams to visit quarantine facilities

276 Indians, including 255 in Iran, infected with coronavirus abroad: MEA

UK asks nationals in India with coronavirus symptoms to self isolate for 7 days

More on Covid-19





Vaishno Devi yatra closed

Non-emergency leave of paramilitary men to be cancelled, govt says

Colleagues of Ladakh jawan who tested positive for COVID-19 quarantined

Classes 1-8 students in Uttar Pradesh to get promoted without exams

COVID-19 turns Bengaluru tech hub into ghost town

More than 179,000 cases across the world: WHO

Imported coronavirus cases in China outpace local infections for 5th day

Cyber cops step up vigil against rumour-mongers

Covid-19 remains stable on surfaces for hours

Pune woman tests positive; Maha count climbs to 42

Tom Hanks says he has the 'blahs' but no fever in isolation

Quarantined gamers boost China's Tencent profits

Facebook bug wrongly deleted authentic coronavirus news

Jaishankar meets officials at Delhi Airport

Over 1.85 lakh passengers screened at Delhi airport

Pilgrimage at Malaysian mosque became hotspot

Trump calls for national unity against coronavirus

Asian business confidence slumps

24x7 helpline for visa, travel queries for foreigners in India

Avoid self-medication with ibuprofen against Covid-19 symptoms: WHO

France locks down as global virus panic spreads

More on Covid-19

India enters critical phase in fight against Covid-19

Why 6ft of separation is our best weapon

Vaccine test opens as US volunteer gets first shot

NEW DELHI: The number of novel coronavirus cases in India rose to 151 on Wednesday after 14 fresh cases were reported from various parts of the country, according to the health ministry. The figure also includes three deaths reported from Delhi, Karnataka and Maharashtra.The head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday said the new coronavirus was an "enemy against humanity", as the number of people infected in the pandemic soared past 200,000."This coronavirus is presenting us with an unprecedented threat," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists in a virtual news conference, stressing that it was "an unprecedented opportunity to come together as one against a common enemy: an enemy against humanity."The Indian railways on Wednesday cancelled more than 100 trains due to low occupancy and as a precautionary measure against the coronavirus spread, according to official data.Eleven trains were cancelled each from west central railway and northern railway, 20 each from south central railway and northeast frontier railway, 32 from southern railway, five from east central railway.Railways had on Tuesday cancelled 85 trains. Central railways cancelled 23 trains, south central railways 29 trains, western railways 10 trains, south eastern railways nine trains, east coast and northern railways five trains each and north western railways cancelled four trains.Two women, one each from Pune and Mumbai, tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday, taking the number of such cases in the state to 43, officials said.A 28-year-old woman, who had returned to Pune from the Netherlands via Dubai, tested positive for coronavirus and has been admitted to a local hospital, a government release said.In Mumbai, a 68-year-old woman, who is a close contact of an infected US-returned person, tested positive, an official of the BMC said.With the addition of these two cases on Wednesday, the number of infected persons in the state went up to 43.Bangladesh on Wednesday reported its first death due to the novel coronavirus pandemic while four new infections were detected, taking the number of cases in the country to 14, a senior health official said.The 70-year-old man was suffering from diabetes, kidney ailments and hypertension and had contracted the virus after meeting an overseas returnee.The health official also confirmed the detection of four more COVID-19 cases, taking the total tally in the country to 14.The number of positive cases of coronavirus in India mounted to 151 on Wednesday, the health officials said. The confirmed cases include 24 foreign nationals and three persons who died in Delhi, Karnataka and Maharashtra.The Indian Army reported its first case of coronavirus after a 34-year-old soldier of Ladakh Scout regiment tested positive for the COVID-19. There were 14 fresh cases of coronavirus cases reported in India since Tuesday.According to the health ministry's data, 14 people have been discharged or recovered.The global death toll from the new coronavirus pandemic topped 8,000 on Wednesday, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.As of 1200 GMT, 8,092 deaths have been recorded, most of them in Europe (3,422) and in Asia (3,384), where the outbreak originated.With 684 new deaths in the past 24 hours out of a total 78,766 cases, Europe is the continent where the pandemic is spreading the most rapidly.Iran said Wednesday that the novel coronavirus has killed 147 more people, a new single-day record in the virus-stricken country that raised the overall toll to 1,135."Now everyone knows about this disease, and what is very strange is that some don't take it seriously," Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi said in a televised news conference."If people help, we can control it, and if not, then expect it to last more than two months." Raisi said 1,192 new infections were confirmed in the past 24 hours, raising the total to 17,161.Tehran province had the highest number of new cases with 213. Isfahan in central Iran was second with 162, followed by East Azerbaijan in the northwest with 84.Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday held a review meeting on containment and management of the coronavirus, directing that teams be deputed to regularly inspect and monitor quarantine facilities for ensuring necessary amenities are being provided.Vardhan reviewed the preparedness of hospitals in terms of availability of testing kits, personnel protective equipment, medicines and isolation wards.He directed hospitals to ensure adequate availability of protective gear for all healthcare workers.As many as 276 Indians have been infected with coronavirus abroad, including 255 in Iran, 12 in UAE and five in Italy, the government informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, minister of state for external affairs V Muraleedharan said the total number of Indians infected by coronavirus is 276 -- 255 in Iran, 12 in UAE, five in Italy, and one each in Hong Kong, Kuwait, Rwanda and Sri Lanka.The UK has advised British nationals in India that if they have symptoms of coronavirus they should self-isolate for seven days and contact the Government of India's helpline in case their condition worsens.UK's Acting High Commissioner to India Jan Thompson also said the situation remains "fluid" and it is recommended that all British nationals should continue to monitor any advice on state-level restrictions and follow the instructions of local authorities in India.Thompson said the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has advised against all but essential travel to India.The Jammu and Kashmir administration announced on Wednesday closure of the Vaishno Devi yatra and banning of all interstate buses as part of the precautionary measures to arrest the spread of coronavirus."Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Yatra has been closed from today. Operations of all interstate buses -- incoming and outgoing from Jammu and Kashmir, banned from today," the Jammu and Kashmir director of information and public relations (DIPR) said in a tweet.The district administration in Udhampur suspended all modes of public transport, while two major parks including Bagh-e-Bahu in Jammu and all public parks in Poonch district have been closed till further orders, officials said.All non-emergency leaves of paramilitary personnel should be "cancelled" in order to minimise the risk of contracting coronavirus during travel and they should get into "battle mode" to combat the pandemic by ensuring personal and public safety, according to a government order.A four-page directive was issued by the medical wing of the Union home ministry on Tuesday stating that the next three weeks are crucial in checking the spread of the virus and lack of caution can affect the forces, around 10 lakh personnel-strong, deployed for ensuring the country's internal security and border protection.The Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) or the paramilitary forces include the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Sashatra Seema Bal (SSB) apart from the counter-terrorist force National Security Guard (NSG) and the Assam Rifles."All non-emergency leave of any kind may be cancelled forthwith. This will cut down travel risk as well," the guidelines, accessed by PTI, said."Avoid international or domestic air, bus or train travel for at least a month except when it is essentially required. Long distance travel is biggest cause for spread (of the virus)," it said.It has also asked these forces to postpone all meetings and regular departmental reviews related to promotions, medical review, sports tournaments and recruitments.The Indian Army reported its first case of the coronavirus after a 34-year-old soldier from the Ladakh Scout regiment tested positive for the infection in Leh, Army sources said on Wednesday.The Army has quarantined all soldiers and colleagues of the jawan who has tested positive for COVID-19 in Ladakh, according to Army sources.The jawan was attached to the Ladakh Scouts Regimental Centre in Leh. According to senior Army sources, the Lance Naik tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday.The father of the 34-year-old jawan had returned to India on February 27 after pilgrimage to Iran and was quarantined and kept in isolation in hospital in Ladakh after testing positive for the novel coronavirus.According to sources, the soldier who was also quarantined on March 7 was detected positive on March 16 and was kept in isolation at hospital. The jawan's sister, wife and two children are also under quarantine.Students of classes one to eight of all government primary schools in Uttar Pradesh will get promoted without having to appear in examinations in view of the coronavirus outbreak, an official said on Wednesday. Examinations in primary schools were scheduled between March 23 and 28. All schools have been closed till April 2. Competitive and other examinations too have been postponed till April 2.The Karnataka government's "work from home" advisory to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has turned India's tech hub into a ghost town, with the bustling campuses of IT majors like Infosys and Wipro deserted as thousands of their techies are missing in action since Monday."We have advised our employees to work from home while ensuring client confidentiality and security. We will continue work with local governments the world over in following their advisories," said Infosys chief executive Salil Parekh on Tuesday.The $11-billion IT behemoth has an 81-acre green campus in the Electronic City, with over a dozen glistening glass buildings housing its software development centres where a whopping 30,000 techies work 5-days a week during normal times."The partial lockdown has forced many of our engineers to work from home, leaving empty offices, sparsely utilized corridors, lobbies and other facilities across the green campus," admitted a company official.Infosys' rival Wipro also enforced work from home option for its code writers."Given the evolving situation, we have advised our employees to work from home wherever feasible and if their role allows them to do so," a Wipro spokesperson told IANS.More than 11,500 people were infected with the novel coronavirus globally on Tuesday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases above 179,000, the World Health Organisation said in its latest coronavirus situation report for Tuesday. A total of 475 people died of the infection on Tuesday, raising the global death toll to 7426, the report stated. Eight more countries -- three in Africa, one in the Mediterranean Region, three in the Americas, and one in the Western Pacific Region - reported cases of the virus over the past day.Mainland China had 13 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infections on Tuesday, the country's National Health Commission said, down from 21 cases a day earlier. Of the new cases, 12 involved infected travellers arriving from abroad. Imported coronavirus cases in China outnumbered cases of location transmission for the fifth straight day as infected travellers passed through major Chinese transportation hubs in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Wuhan had only one case of locally transmitted infection on Tuesday. The overall number of imported cases of the virus in mainland China reached 155 as of Tuesday, up 12 from a day earlier. That brings the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China so far to 80,894, the health authority said in a statement on Wednesday.Maharashtra Cyber Police has warned of strict action against rumour-mongers who spread misleading and unverified information on social media regarding COVID-19, an official said on Wednesday. Police have stepped up online surveillance to identify senders of such fake news and other content. The official said many instances of spreading of false and unverified news regarding coronavirus on various social media platforms have come to the fore. These kind of posts can potentially lead to panic and terror among the common people, officials said.As per a study conducted by the researchers of National Institutes of Health, CDC, UCLA and Princeton University, the novel coronavirus infectious particles can remain stable in air and linger on solid surfaces for spans ranging from several hours to days. The scientists found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel. The results provide key information about the stability of SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 or novel coronavirus infection.A 28-year-old woman from Pune with a travel history to France and the Netherlands tested positive for COVID-19. With this, the number of COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra has gone up to 42. Confirming the case, District Collector, Naval Kishore Ram said that the woman returned India on March 15 and was hospitalized on March 17.Hollywood actor and filmmaker Tom Hanks says he feels the "blahs" but has no fever as he and wife Rita Wilson remain in isolation in an Australian residence after being discharged from a hospital following their coronavirus diagnosis. "Hey folks. Good news: One week after testing positive, in self-isolation, the symptoms are much the same. No fever but the blahs. Folding the laundry and doing the dishes leads to a nap on the couch. Bad news: my wife has won 6 straight hands of Gin Rummy and now leads by 201 points," he posted on social media Tuesday evening.Millions forced to stay at home amidst the outbreak have driven up the demand for online games and streaming services. Chinese technology major, Tencent Holdings Ltd, is likely to provide its first estimate on the impact of the epidemic on Wednesday when it reports October-December earnings, with analysts saying that Tencent will be one of the biggest corporate winners. Tencent's businesses are mainly online-only, positioning it uniquely against other tech giants such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd that focus on e-commerce and whose supply chains have been severely disrupted by the outbreak. Overall, downloads of all Tencent apps for this February grew 32.3% month-on-month and 42.9% year-on-year, said analyst Nan Lu at researcher Sensor Tower.Facebook said a bug in its anti-spam system temporarily blocked the publication of links to news stories about the coronavirus. Guy Rosen, Facebook's vice president of integrity, said on Twitter Tuesday that the company was working on a fix for the problem. Users complained that links to news stories about school closings and other information related to the virus outbreak were blocked by the company's automated system. Later on Tuesday, Rosen tweeted that Facebook had restored all the incorrectly deleted posts, which also covered topics beyond the coronavirus.External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar met immigration, health, security and airport officials at Delhi Airport late Tuesday night and lauded their efforts. In a tweet, he thanked the officials and workers "for their exceptional effort in these difficult times. That too, with great courtesy and a warm smile." The EAM also wrote in his tweet,"India works because countless Indians do".Over 1.86 lakh passengers who have returned from the coronavirus-affected countries have been screened at the Delhi airport till date and placed under surveillance, Delhi Health Department authorities said on Tuesday. The total coronavirus cases in Delhi now stands at eight. As many as 4,458 passengers from the coronavirus-hit countries were screened on Tuesday, according to a statement released by the Delhi Health Department. India had reported its second casualty due to coronavirus on Friday with the death of a 68-year-old woman in Delhi.The Muslim gathering held at the end of last month at a sprawling mosque complex on the outskirts of Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur has emerged as a source of hundreds of new coronavirus infections spanning Southeast Asia. The four-day Muslim gathering was attended by 16,000 people, including 1,500 foreigners. Malaysia has now shut down its borders to contain the outbreak. The hosts, the Islamic missionary movement Tablighi Jama'at, which traces its roots back to India a century ago, on Monday suspended missionary activities but did not comment directly on the Malaysian event.US President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for a unified national response to the coronavirus threat, after coming under fire for downplaying the pandemic and allowing states to go their own way. Trump's call came as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the White House was presenting a massive economic stimulus plan to Congress and was looking at sending direct payments to all Americans, as well as aid to embattled airlines.Confidence among Asian companies slumped to near 11-year lows in the first quarter as the coronavirus pandemic sent countries into lock down, battering economic activity and consumer sentiment, a Thomson Reuters/INSEAD survey showed. Representing the six-month outlook of 100 companies, the Thomson Reuters/INSEAD Asian Business Sentiment Index fell 18 points to 53 for the first quarter. Also, the survey, conducted in 11 Asia-Pacific countries across a range of sectors from Feb. 28 to March. 13, does not reflect the gloom that has pervaded markets this week.The government has launched a helpline and an email id to answer queries regarding visa and travel restrictions as well as to facilitate foreigners in India in availing consular services amid coronavirus breakout. The services have been issued by the Bureau of Immigration, under the Union home ministry, and will be available round the clock. The phone number is 011-24300666 and the email id is support.covid19-boi@gov.in, a home ministry spokesperson tweeted.The World Health Organisation on Tuesday recommended that people suffering from Covid-19-like symptoms should avoid self-medicating with ibuprofen, after French authorities warned anti-inflammatory drugs could worsen the effects of the virus. The warnings over the weekend by French health minister Olivier Veran followed a recent study in The Lancet weekly medical journal that hypothesized that an enzyme that is boosted when taking anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen could facilitate and worsen Covid-19 infections.France moved into a near-total lockdown on Tuesday over the coronavirus, the latest country to impose draconian restrictions affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. European leaders also plan to ban all non-essential travel into the continent on Tuesday in a bid to stem a pandemic that has killed thousands, upended society and battered economies. With French President Emmanuel Macron describing the battle against COVID-19 as a "war", governments around the world are scrambling to keep the public safe with measures rarely seen in peacetime, slamming borders shut and forcing citizens to stay home.With confirmed cases of Covid-2019 crossing 100 in India, we seem to have entered the most crucial phase in the spread of the virus. Analysis of week-wise data of confirmed cases in other countries that are struggling to contain this outbreak shows that confirmed cases spike after the number crosses 100. In France, for instance, the first case was reported on January 25; five weeks later, the number rose to 57, but in the sixth week, there were 613 cases, which went up to 3,640 and 4,469 in the next two weeks. Similarly, in Italy, till the third week after the first confirmed case, the number was only 3. The cases then shot up to 650, 3,858, 15,113 in the subsequent weeks.As health officials everywhere race to bolster capacities and identify patients and at-risk persons, social distancing has emerged as the watchword for fighting the pandemic. Social distancing is a means of preventing anybody who may have picked up the coronavirus germ from coming in close contact with healthy people in order to reduce opportunities for disease transmission.US researchers gave the first shot to the first person in a test of an experimental coronavirus vaccine on Monday — leading off a worldwide hunt for protection even as the pandemic surges. With a careful jab in a healthy volunteer’s arm, scientists at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle begin an anxiously awaited first-stage study of a potential Covid-19 vaccine developed in record time after the new virus exploded from China and fanned across the globe. Even if the research goes well, a vaccine wouldn’t be available for widespread use for 12 to 18 months.