February 22 coronavirus news

The Japanese Ministry of Health has discovered that 23 passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship were released after their quarantine without being retested, a condition of their release.

“I (feel deep) remorse that an operational mistake invited such a situation and we would like to make sure that such a situation will never occur again,” health minister Katsunobu Kato said during a press conference Saturday.

The ministry also confirmed that one of the ship’s passengers, a woman in her 60s from Tochigi Prefecture in Japan, tested positive for coronavirus after disembarking the Diamond Princess on February 19.

She was among the 443 passengers cleared to leave the ship on the first day of disembarkation after a 14-day quarantine.

She is the first known case of infection after the end of the passenger quarantine period.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN he thinks "we are clearly at the brink" of a coronavirus pandemic.

In an interview with CNN's Michael Smerconish on Saturday, the nation's top infectious disease doctor said: "Our fate is going to be determined by the ability of countries outside of China that have travel-related cases. And now they're starting to develop sustained transmission from person to person to person."

"And if you have multiple countries like that, then the horse is out the barn. And it's going to be very difficult to prevent more cases from coming here to our own country."

Fauci said, however, that the risk to the US is still "very low," but warned that could "change rapidly." He also said evacuating Americans off the Diamond Princess cruise ship was a "difficult decision," but he believed it was "without a doubt the correct decision."

In a strong statement, Israel's health ministry warned that nine South Korean tourists who visited the country recently have tested positive for coronavirus upon returning home.

The ministry called on anyone who may have come into close contact with the tour group for an extended period of time to self-quarantine. 

The tourists visited some of the most popular sites in Israel and the West Bank from February 8 to 16, increasing the chance of a large-scale exposure in the region, the ministry said Saturday.

Providing a list of dates and locations, the ministry warned that anyone who came within two meters of the group for more than 15 minutes should self-quarantine for 14 days.

The group visited Masada in southern Israel, the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The potential for a large-scale exposure appears to be high given the number of tourists who regularly visit these sites and others.

The release of the statement on a Saturday is an indication of how seriously authorities are taking the threat of coronavirus spreading in Israel. Government statements are rarely released on Saturday in Israel since it is the Sabbath.

This comes after Israel announced its first case of the coronavirus on Friday. The victim is an Israeli woman who returned from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

She was one of 11 passengers flown back from the Diamond Princess. The other 10 tested negative for the virus. All of the passengers remain quarantined in hospital.

There are 77,809 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus and 2,372 deaths worldwide, according to the latest figures. The vast majority of these infections are in mainland China but outside its borders there are 1,521 cases in 31 different places. Here's the tally:

Japan: 738 cases, 3 deaths

South Korea: 433 cases, 2 deaths

Singapore: 86 cases   

Hong Kong: 68 cases, 2 deaths   

Thailand and United States: 35 cases each

Iran: 28 cases, 5 deaths 

Taiwan: 26 cases, 1 death   

Malaysia: 22 cases

Australia: 21 cases

Italy: 17 cases, 2 deaths   

Vietnam and Germany: 16 cases each  

France: 12 cases, 1 death  

Macao: 10 cases  

Canada, UAE and UK: 9 cases each     

Philippines: 3 cases, 1 death   

India: 3 cases   

Russia and Spain: 2 cases each

Belgium, Cambodia, Finland, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel: 1 case each

A joint mission working on the novel coronavirus arrived in Wuhan -- the city at the epicenter of the outbreak -- on Saturday, World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris told CNN. 

The WHO-led team has previously worked in Beijing, Sichuan and Guangdong, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a Friday press briefing. 

Ghebreyesus said the team on the ground in China includes experts from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US National Institutes of Health, as well as experts from Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Nigeria, Germany and Russia.

The team includes experts in epidemiology, virology, clinical management, outbreak control and public health.

The US dollar index reached a three-year high as investors worried about the global coronavirus outbreak are moving their money into the safe-haven greenback.

Investments considered safe in times of market turmoil have been rallying since the outbreak became Wall Street's number one worry in January. Cases continue to rise globally. The full financial and economic cost of the outbreak is incalculable.

But the United States, as well as dollar-denominated assets, are considered to be somewhat shielded from the outbreak's impact.

America's economy is less reliant on trade and exports than its peers, for example. That means the expected slowing of China's economic growth in the first quarter will hurt the United States less than it will other countries.

And the US economy has been going strong and is in its longest expansion in history.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDPNow model forecasts US growth will accelerate to 2.6% in the first quarter. With a tight labor market and modestly rising wages, the American consumer, who is the backbone of the US economy, is in a good place.

Amid all this, the dollar has been rallying. No other currency stands a chance against the greenback's attractiveness, said Francesco Pesole, FX strategist at ING.

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South Korea's coronavirus outbreak is entering a “grave situation," the country's Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said during a press briefing, adding the government is "doing its best to prevent the spread."

He urged people to refrain from attending events where many people gather, such as religious events, or to consider other ways such as online meetings.

Chung also said that the government will “sternly deal” with acts that interfere with the country’s quarantine efforts, such as illegal hoarding of hygiene products and mass rallies.

More than half of South Korea's novel coronavirus cases are linked to a branch of a controversial religious group in the southern city of Daegu.

At least 231 of the country's 433 confirmed cases are associated with the Shincheonji religious group, according to South Korea's Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (KCDC).

The total number of cases reported in South Korea in the past 24 hours stands at 229, after 142 new cases were confirmed overnight.

Around 9,300 Shincheonji members are being put into self-isolation and will be tested, the country's Ministry of Health and Welfare said Saturday.

The Shincheonji is centered around the personality of its founder and chairman, Lee Man-hee. On a website believed to be the group's official homepage, the group heavily suggests that Lee is the "Promised Pastor" mentioned in the Bible. The passage it highlights suggests that the Promised Pastor is the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Members of the group congregate in a way that puts them in close contact with one another for long periods of time.

KCDC Director Jung Eun-Kyeong said at a press briefing on Friday: "(We are) seeing that there is a possibility that the characteristics of many people sitting close together in a very confined space and holding service for more than an hour ... (could have led to) a few who were exposed infecting many (other) infectees."

The group said it "deeply regrets" the outbreak which occurred in their Daegu branch, in a statement released online Friday.

It said its "services, gatherings, and mission activity" have been stopped and all its buildings are being sanitized.

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A plane carrying 32 British and European passengers, as well as government and medical staff, landed in the UK on Saturday morning.

It landed at Boscombe Down Ministry of Defence base near Salisbury in southwest England.

On Friday, 253 people who tested negative for novel coronavirus onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship disembarked the vessel after 14 days of quarantine in Yokohama port.

There are 31 passengers left onboard the ship.