March 6 coronavirus news

Slack, the workplace chat app, is encouraging employees to work remotely today after learning that one of its San Francisco-based employees could potentially have been exposed to coronavirus.

According to a statement from Slack’s SVP of People, Robby Kwok, the employee was notified by the CDC they had been in an area with potential exposure while traveling overseas.

“This employee has not been confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 and has not reported any symptoms,” said Kwok, who noted that because the employee was the office after returning from the trip, the company is closing both of its San Francisco offices this afternoon and deep cleaning this weekend.

“The health and safety of our employees is our number one priority. Again, we are taking these actions out of an abundance of caution,” added Kwok.

A scheduled meeting of EU Ambassadors did not take place Friday morning because a second member of Council staff became infected by COVID-19, an EU official confirmed to CNN. The staff member had been in close contact with "at least" one of the EU Ambassadors.

The regular Friday meeting was “postponed” to give officials time to identify who the infected person had been in contact with, according to the official.

As a precaution, parts of the European Council where the staff member had been are now being sealed off. At the moment all other meetings are going ahead.

Two British Airways staff have tested positive for coronavirus, the airline's press office told CNN.

The staff members "have been isolated and are recovering at home," the airline said.

There are now more than 100,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, according to a count from Johns Hopkins University in the US.

The university's dashboard reported a total of 100,329 cases across the world this morning.

Remember: This number is slightly different than the latest count from World Health Organization, which is reporting 98,202 cases around the world. Johns Hopkins and WHO report tallies at different times of the day, so the counts often differ.

Egypt has detected 12 new coronavirus cases on “a Nile cruise ship coming from Aswan to Luxor,” according to a joint statement by the health ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO), Egypt state-run Ahram Online reported.

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said the detection came after information from the WHO that a Taiwanese-American tourist, who was on board the cruise, had tested positive after returning home, Ahram Online added.

The 12 cases -- all Egyptian workers on the ship -- tested positive after a “test was carried out following the conclusion of the 14-day incubation period.”

All new cases have been referred to an isolation hospital, and others believed to be in contact with them placed in quarantine for 14 days, to follow up on their health conditions.

The total number of cases recorded in Egypt now is 15.

And if you're told to self-quarantine, here's what you need to know.

South Korea’s government has suspended all visas as well as the visa waiver program for Japanese visitors, in a direct response to quarantine measures imposed by Japan on travelers from South Korea.

Cho Sei-young, a vice minister in Seoul's foreign ministry, said in an announcement on Friday that new visas will require a health survey and could require documentation depending on how the situation develops.

South Korea said these measures were being made to “control infectious diseases from Japan with an efficient quarantine system based on our advanced and excellent quarantine systems.”

The notice added that a special immigration process would be implemented from Monday for other foreign nationals arriving from Japan, though it did not specify what that would mean.

The number of coronavirus cases in Belgium has more than doubled in the last 24 hours, according to a government statement released on Friday.

The confirmed cases in the country have risen from 50 to 109.

Belgian authorities said that they expect the numbers to continue to rise, adding that most of the patients have recently travelled in Italy but there have also been contaminations within the country.

In neighboring Germany, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases has risen to 534, according to the German Center for Disease Control Robert-Koch-Institute

Rationing supplies. Overwhelmed delivery workers. Toilet paper protected by security guards.

This is the new reality for some retailers, who are having to take drastic action to limit the number of toilet paper rolls, face masks and hand sanitizer bottles each person can buy as customers stockpile goods over fears of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The epidemic has infected more than 97,000 people and killed 3,300 globally, leading to growing alarm that has resulted in mass bulk buying around the world.

Australian supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles both began limiting toilet paper purchases to four packs per person this week. Costco Australia is also restricting how much toilet tissue, disinfectant, milk, eggs and rice each customer can buy.

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