Dozens of countries tackling Covid-19 as coronavirus spreads

South Korea’s viral outbreak has surged and millions of children in Japan have stayed home from school as officials wrestled with the coronavirus epidemic in more than 60 countries.

As new battlefronts against Covid-19 opened with surprising speed around the globe, recovered patients left China’s hastily built hospitals and isolation wards, freeing up patient beds in the city where the virus has hit hardest.

China, where the epidemic began in December, reported 202 new cases over the previous 24 hours, with another 42 deaths.

That brings the country’s total number of cases to 80,026, with 2,912 deaths recorded in all.

Monday’s increase was China’s lowest since January 21.

China still has about three-quarters of the world’s nearly 89,000 cases worldwide, but outbreaks were surging in other countries, with South Korea, Italy and Iran seeing sharp increases.

Iranian state radio said a member of a council that advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died after falling ill from the coronavirus.

The US total includes evacuees from a virus-stricken cruise ship and from Wuhan, but new cases among California health workers, in New York, Rhode Island and Washington raised concerns on both US coasts.

The second US fatality was a man in his seventies from a nursing facility near Seattle where dozens of sick people were tested for the virus, Washington state health officials said.

Indonesia confirmed its first cases on Monday, in two people who contracted the illness from a foreign traveller.

The surging outbreak in South Korea’s fourth-largest city has overwhelmed its health system despite the national government sending assistance.

The problem in Daegu has been highlighted by at least four deaths of infected elderly people who were waiting to be admitted to hospital.

Kim Gang-lip, South Korea’s vice health minister, said hospitals’ capacities from now on will be reserved for patients with serious symptoms or pre-existing medical conditions, while mild cases will be isolated at designated facilities outside hospitals.

“If we continue to hospitalise mild patients amid the continued surge in infections, we would be risking overworking medical professionals and putting them at greater risk of infections.”

South Korea on Monday had 476 new cases for a total of 4,212. Twenty-two people have died.

A sense of burgeoning crisis around the globe has sent financial markets plummeting, emptied major streets and tourist attractions and forced millions of people to adjust their daily lives.

In Japan, many schools began following through on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plan to close them for more than a month until the end of the Japanese academic year.

But attempts to contain the spread of the virus have been far-reaching.

The Louvre Museum in Paris was closed after France curbed large gatherings, and the US issued an advisory against travel to the region of northern Italy where its outbreak is concentrated.

The outbreaks and rising travel concern could deal a heavy blow to those countries’ tourism industries.

Spring, and especially Easter, is a hugely popular time for schoolchildren to visit France and Italy.