March 12 coronavirus news

Panic buying has been rife amid the global spread of the coronavirus, with shoppers stockpiling goods like toilet paper, hand sanitizer and canned food. 

In Japan, those who couldn’t buy toilet paper have resorted to pilfering supplies from public restrooms. 

But one Japanese store has cursed its toilet rolls to prevent thefts. 

Mink Itachibe, who works at a convenience store in Niigata prefecture, noticed people stealing between three to five rolls of toilet paper each day. She sketched an image that shows three eyes and several kanji characters and stuck it up in front of the toilet rolls.

Some store owners use images of eyes to give the impression that they are watching out for potential thieves, Itachibe told CNN. The kanji below imply that if someone takes the toilet paper from the store, a hungry monster will hunt them down and gobble them up. 

Itachibe has reported no thefts of toilet paper from her store since she put up the sketches. 

Prisons in California are suspending visiting due to the coronavirus, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) announced on its website today.

“Normal visiting will be canceled statewide until further notice,” the department said. This includes non-contact visits, which occur with a glass partition between the inmate and their visitors.

“Family visits will be held as scheduled,” they added. These visits occur in private, apartment-like facilities on prison grounds, according to the CDCR.

The annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City has officially been canceled, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office. 

The statement said the governor had discussed the issue with the parade organizers, as coronavirus cases and anxieties ramp up in the city and state.

The parade was originally set to take place on March 17.

New York now has 216 cases -- the second highest number of any state. Washington is the hardest-hit US state, with 373 cases and 30 deaths, and California follows New York, with 133 cases and four deaths, according to CNN's tally.

South Korea confirmed six new deaths and 114 more cases of the novel coronavirus yesterday, according to the South Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). 

That raises the national death toll to 66 and the total confirmed cases to 7,869.

The number represents a drop again in new daily cases -- on Monday, the country had recorded 131 new cases, the lowest single-day increase in weeks, sparking cautious hope that the worst of the outbreak may have passed.

Then, a new cluster was identified in Seoul -- and the number of new cases shot up to 242 on Tuesday.

The drop back down to 114 new cases on Wednesday appears to fall more in line with the previous downward trend.

73 cases were from Daegu: The southern city is at the heart of the national outbreak, and this is the lowest daily increase in Daegu since February 26.

8 cases were from North Gyeongsang province: This province surrounds Daegu -- about 89% of cases nationwide are from Daegu and North Gyeongsang combined.

19 cases were from Seoul: The capital has seen a recent rise, after a cluster was identified at a call center -- 102 cases had links to the office. The building where the call center is located has been closed and disinfected, and Seoul has designated the area an "infectious disease special zone."

A lot is happening right now in the US as organizations around the country prepare to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

If you're just tuning in, here's where things stand right now:

There are at least 1,267 cases of the coronavirus in the United States, according to state and local health agencies and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

70 cases are repatriated from overseas, like citizens evacuated from China or the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

1,197 cases were detected and confirmed on US soil, spread out across 43 states and Washington, DC.

These figures include presumptive positive cases -- meaning the patient tested positive in a public health lab and is pending confirmation from the CDC.

The US death toll is now at 38, after another patient died in Washington state.

Officials learned a player from Utah Jazz had tested positive coronavirus right before the tip-off of their game with Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, the Jazz said in a statement.

The player's symptoms had "diminished over the course" of the day so a test for COVID-19 was performed, the team said.

Because of the positive result, the game was postponed with the NBA later announcing that they were suspending the season.  

The Jazz added that they are “working closely with the CDC, Oklahoma and Utah state officials and the NBA to determine how to best move forward as we gather more information. The individual is currently in the care of health officials in Oklahoma City. In coordination with the NBA and state officials, we will provide updates at the appropriate time.”

Europe appears to have been largely blindsided by President Trump’s announcement earlier today that the US was suspending travel from 26 European countries.

Several European ambassadors in Washington tell CNN they didn’t know this was coming, despite having been in contact with the administration over the past few days.

One ambassador in DC said there was “no indication” Trump would go to the lengths he did, while another spokesperson said German officials had no advanced warning this was coming.

The Trump administration notified ambassadors after the announcement: Several European ambassadors expressed a need for clarity as they worked to digest what these new measures mean. They had received calls from the State Department after the announcement -- but they "have not yet answers to our questions,” said one ambassador.

State Department officials say they didn’t know precisely what Trump was going to roll out, given the fact that multiple options were on the table. 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the Australian Foreign Minister less than five hours before Trump’s address -- and gave no indication of the announcement coming tonight, according to a source familiar with the meeting.

Pompeo did acknowledge that things were going to continue to be painful, and increasingly so, for the next six weeks or so.

Mainland China reported 15 new coronavirus cases yesterday -- continuing the week-long trend of dramatically falling numbers, according to China's National Health Commission.

Six of those cases were imported from overseas -- meaning they weren't locally transmitted in China.

Hubei province, where the coronavirus pandemic began back in December, reported eight new cases -- the lowest to be reported from Hubei since the outbreak began.

The drop in new daily cases is especially striking given that just a month or two ago, the country was reporting around 2,000 new cases per day.

China has now reported 80,793 cases and 3,169 deaths. Of the total cases, 62,793 have recovered and been discharged from hospital, according to the NHC.