Pressure has been mounting on Iranian officials to take action against the virus as the death toll and number of cases rapidly shoots up. Iran has reported 92 deaths, as 586 new infections were reported overnight, bringing the total up to 2,922, state media reported.
The country has also come under pressure as Middle Eastern nations, including Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have reported cases with links to the Iranian city of Qom, where several holy sites are regularly visited by large crowds.
After weeks of refusing to restrict visits to the sites, the government on Wednesday said that those trying to leave the city would be quarantined if they showed symptoms of the virus, including a fever. Medical teams will begin taking temperatures of those trying to leave, according to Qom University of Medical Science's Deputy Dean Ali Abrazi. He also said the university was building a field hospital to tackle the outbreak, according to state media.
Iranian officials initially reassured its nationals that the virus would be contained, but it was difficult to convince Iranians that was the case as 23 members of parliament tested positive for the virus and an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died on Monday.
Iran's First Vice President Eshaq Jahanghiri issued an order to government ministries, with the exception of the foreign ministry, suspending travel to international conferences and gatherings until further notice, state media reports.
Questions had swirled over whether the government was being transparent in reporting case numbers, as the high death toll reported several days ago suggested infection numbers should have been much higher than officials had confirmed.
Health system under stress
Iranian Deputy Health Minister Ali Reza Reisy announced Tuesday that a nationwide team of 300,000 health workers and specialists would be deployed to prop up the country's healthcare system.
There are growing concerns that Iran's health services are ill-equipped to respond effectively to the growing number of cases. Although the system has improved in recent decades, crippling sanctions have hampered its development.
International organizations are now looking at how to fill the gaps in the system. The World Health Organization sent a team to Iran on Monday as well as its first planeload of assistance.
"The plane carrying the technical team members also contained a shipment of medical supplies and protective equipment to support over 15,000 health care workers, as well as enough laboratory kits enough to test and diagnose nearly 100,000 people," the WHO said in a statement.
Iran said the WHO supplied eight tons of medicines and test kits via a UAE military aircraft from Dubai as well as six teams of epidemiologists, physicians and laboratory tests specialists, state-run IRNA reported.
Britons stuck in Iranian jails
Iran's Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said the health ministry would oversee the release of prisoners, semi-official news agency ISNA reported. He did not elaborate on where they would be kept or how authorities would keep track of them,
"The health of the prisoners is very important for us regardless of their status as security prisoners or regular prisoners," Esmaili said.
It was also unclear whether Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian mother jailed in Iran on espionage charges, would be among those released.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe believes she has contracted coronavirus in Evin prison outside Tehran, according to a family statement released Saturday.
On Tuesday, Iran's ambassador to the United Kingdom Hamid Baeidinejad tweeted that Zaghari-Radcliffe did not have coronavirus, amid calls for her to be tested.
He added that she may be granted a furlough on Wednesday or Thursday to join family in Tehran. Her husband Richard Ratcliffe told CNN her release had not yet happened.
The UK's foreign office said in a statement: "We're following up the Iranian ambassador's comments on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and are urgently seeking clarification from the Iranian Government on her situation."
It also called for information from Iran on reports that the virus was spreading in Evin prison and to "immediately allow health professionals into Evin prison to assess the situation of British-Iranian dual nationals there."
People in Iran are among those in many countries panic-buying goods in case the outbreak worsens. The country is facing a shortage of hand sanitizers, as demand for the products soar.
CNN's Samantha Beech in Atlanta and Hira Humayun contributed to this report.
The COVID-19 virus has hit thousands more across the globe, the majority of cases in China, South Korea, Italy and Iran. The U.S. death toll had risen to nine as of Wednesday, all of which were reported in Washington state.
New cases have also been recently reported in Morocco, Latvia, Saudi Arabia and Senegal, according to the latest report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday.
The virus, which was first identified in Wuhan city in the Hubei province of China, has now affected at least 93,160 people. Of that figure, 80,270 are in China, including 2,871 deaths. Around the world, the death toll has reached 3,198, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.
The WHO warned that "severe and mounting disruption to the global supply of personal protective equipment (PPE)—caused by rising demand, panic buying, hoarding and misuse—is putting lives at risk from the new coronavirus and other infectious diseases," in a statement on Tuesday.
"WHO has so far shipped nearly half a million sets of personal protective equipment to 47 countries, but supplies are rapidly depleting," it added.
WHO's director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in the statement: "Without secure supply chains, the risk to healthcare workers around the world is real. Industry and governments must act quickly to boost supply, ease export restrictions and put measures in place to stop speculation and hoarding. We can't stop COVID-19 without protecting health workers first."
The increase of the virus in the eastern Mediterranean is of great concern, the WHO said.
"While the numbers inside China have been rapidly declining, the sudden increase in cases in countries outside China, including in our Region, is deeply alarming. We remain concerned about the surge of cases and deaths in the Region and the increase in the number of travel-related confirmed cases," the WHO regional director of the Eastern Mediterranean region, Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandharim, said in a statement.
"We have also seen cases of local transmission in our Region, and it is likely that the outbreak may continue to progress from case importation to local transmission."
The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates the spread of the COVID-19 virus as of March 4.
A map by Statista shows the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases as of March 4.
Death toll climbs in the U.S.
The U.S has confirmed three more deaths in Washington, bringing the death toll to nine in the country, all of which were reported in the state. Eight of the deaths were in King County, while one of them was in the neighboring Snohomish County.
There are now 27 confirmed cases across the state, 21 of which are in King County, while the remaining six are in Snohomish County, according to the Washington State Department of Health.
The state has placed 231 others under "public health supervision," which includes those at risk of having been exposed to the virus "who are monitoring their health under the supervision of public health officials," as well as those who have returned from China in the past 14 days.
"This is a very fluid, fast-moving situation as we aggressively respond to this outbreak," said Dr. Jeff Duchin, a health officer for Seattle and King County.
A second case has tested positive in New York City, Governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed. The patient was reported to be a man from Westchester County who commutes to work in Manhattan and lives with school-age children, the governor told Long Island radio station 103.9.
Berkley and Contra Costa County each reported their first case of the virus, while Santa Clara County is expected to see more cases, with older residents, especially those aged above 80, facing the greatest risk of developing serious conditions from infection.
North Carolina's department of health confirmed the state's first "presumptively positive" case of the virus on Tuesday, meaning it has been confirmed as positive by a public health lab and is pending confirmation from testing by a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lab. The individual, who is from Wake County, was reported to be in isolation at home.
"Local health department officials are identifying close contacts to monitor symptoms and contain spread," the department said in a statement.
"Today's [Tuesday] announcement represents an isolated case, and COVID-19 is currently not widespread in North Carolina," it added.
New Hampshire announced its second presumptive positive case on Tuesday. The individual is an adult male from Grafton County who was in close contact with an infected person, the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) confirmed.
The DHHS has also been tracing the contacts of the state's first presumptive positive case, an employee of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC), who has defied the department's instruction for isolation.
"Through the course of the investigation, DHHS has determined that the first patient, despite having been directed to self-isolate, attended an invitation-only private event on Friday, February 28. DHHS has issued an official order of isolation to the first patient under RSA-141-C:11," the department said in the statement.
"DHHS is managing the investigation into individuals in the community who may have been exposed to the virus," it added.
Nearly 120 people who were quarantined for 14 days in the Lackland Air Force Base in Texas after being aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship were released yesterday, while around 15 were reported to be "locally in medical care or quarantine because of their close contact with a confirmed case," according to a CDC statement.
Two people in Wisconsin are also being tested, while the first person who tested positive in the state last month has recovered and is no longer in isolation, CBS 58 WDJT-Milwaukee said.
South Korea cases surpass 5,000
South Korea, which has the highest number of cases outside China, had confirmed at least 5,328 cases as of Wednesday, an increase of 516 since Tuesday, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control.
Most of the cases continue to concentrate around the city of Daegu, which has seen more than 4,000 patients to date, while the capital Seoul has seen 99, followed by 93 cases in Busan.
Most patients have been linked to a religious group known as the Shincheonji, Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (SCJ), with several members of the secretive sect reported having been infected by an infected member who attended a service in Daegu.
SCJ is known for hosting large services with people sitting close to each other for long periods.
The leader of the group, Lee Man-hee, issued an official apology to the public after authorities in Seoul accused him of failing to cooperate in containing the outbreak.
Appreciated the opportunity to meet with Vice Foreign Minister Cho @MOFA_Kr to discuss our strong continued cooperation to defeat #COVID19. We remain confident in the South Korean government’s robust and comprehensive response efforts to limit the spread of the virus pic.twitter.com/VsvDfFAvXf
Prosecutors have been asked by Seoul officials to file charges of homicide against Lee and 11 other SCJ leaders, alleging the leaders submitted false lists of church members to authorities who were trying to track other possibly affected individuals.
"We remain confident in the South Korean government's robust and comprehensive response efforts to limit the spread of the virus," US ambassador Harry Harris said on his official Twitter account Wednesday after meeting with the country's prime minister, Cho Sei-young, to discuss measures around the coronavirus outbreak.
Italy reports highest number of deaths outside China
Italy has reported 79 deaths, surpassing Iran as the nation with the highest number of deaths outside China. Most of the deaths were reported to be in the high-risk category and the older population has seen the highest number of cases so far.
The country has seen the greatest outbreak of the virus in Europe, with at least 2,502 cases confirmed. Italy has reported 27 more deaths and nearly 500 new cases since Tuesday, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.
Europe has seen more than 3,190 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University, the majority of which has been in Italy, followed by France (212), Germany (203) and Spain (165), which reported its first death, in the city of Valencia, on Tuesday.
"Despite contact tracing measures initiated to contain further spread, there continue to be cases exported between EU/EEA [European Union/ European Economic Area] countries, and an increasing number of sporadic cases across EU/EEA countries," the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in its latest assessment on Wednesday.
Tourists wear protective masks in front of the Trevi fountain downtown Rome, on March 3, 2020.Getty Images
"The probability of further transmission in the EU/EEA and the UK is considered high. There is still a level of uncertainty regarding several unpredictable factors in a situation that is still evolving."
A new concentration of cases has been reported in the Italian city of Bergamo, just northeast of Milan, including a newborn baby. It has yet to be determined how the baby was infected.
The recent surge in cases in the Milan area may see another quarantine zone be imposed around the region, according to the head of Italy's national health institute.
The majority of the cases and deaths in Italy are in the northern region of Lombardy, which has seen around 55 deaths and 1,500 positive cases, while the second worst-hit region is Emilia Romagna with 420 positive cases and 18 deaths.
The Veneto region has reported 307 positive cases and 3 deaths, while two were reported in Marche and one was reported in Liguria. The Alpine region of Valle d'Aosta, the country's smallest and least populated region, is the only unaffected patch in Italy.
"None of us can be sure about the future evolution of the disease. This is an important week to understand what will happen," Angelo Borrelli, head of Italy's civil protection agency, said at a news conference.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced on his official Twitter account that the country, which reported its fourth death on Tuesday, will regulate the distribution of face masks to be sure they are reserved for the infected and healthcare professionals.
Nearly 2,000 surgical masks were reportedly stolen from a hospital in Marseille in southern France.
"We requisition all stocks and the production of protective masks. We will distribute them to healthcare professionals and French people affected by the Coronavirus," Macron said on Twitter.
The country's finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, has reportedly directed France's consumer watchdog to launch an investigation following reports that prices for masks and hand sanitizers have doubled or tripled.
"I'm ready to regulate prices of masks and gels by decree if the abuses are numerous," he said on his official Twitter account.
Elsewhere in Europe, Poland reported its first case on Wednesday, while cases rose to 203 in Germany and doubled in Sweden from 15 on Monday to 30 by Tuesday.
More cases in Africa, Middle East, Asia and Australia rations toilet paper
Australia's confirmed cases rose to 41 on Wednesday, which includes 10 from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Most other cases involve people who have traveled to China, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, while two infections are of unknown origin, Australia's department of health confirmed.
The panic buying of supplies has ensued since the outbreak, prompting Woolworths, Australia's largest grocery store, to place a four-pack limit on toilet paper purchases on Wednesday.
"Before this we were seeing people with trolley loads, more than folks need," a Woolworths spokesperson said.
"The demand has been pretty unprecedented, unlike anything we've seen before.
"Our teams are continuing to work hard on restocking stores with long-life food and groceries from our distribution centers," the spokesman said.
The ration was introduced after Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison contacted Woolworths to ensure essential supplies would not run out.
The prime minister has reassured locals that supplies are guaranteed and that they should not panic.
Elsewhere in the world, Algeria confirmed three more cases, bringing its total to eight, while Qatar and India also confirmed new cases.
Six more were confirmed in Oman, bringing its total to 12.
Argentina also reported its first case, while Pakistan's total cases reached five, following a new case confirmed on Tuesday.
U.S. military spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett said in a tweet that the airstrike Wednesday was conducted against four Taliban fighters in Nahr-e Saraj, in the Helmand province, who he said were “actively attacking” an Afghan National Defense and Security Force (ANDSF) checkpoint.
“This was a defensive strike to disrupt the attack,” he added. “This was our 1st strike against the Taliban in 11 days.”
Leggett, who called on the militant group to uphold their commitments to the peace deal signed on Feb. 29, added that Taliban forces had conducted 43 attacks on Afghan troops on Tuesday in the same province.
“To be clear – we are committed to peace, however, we have the responsibility to defend our ANDSF partners,” Leggett continued. “Afghans & US have complied (with) our agreements; however, Talibs appear intent on squandering this (opportunity) and ignoring the will of the people for peace.”
Afghanistan’s interior ministry said four civilians and 11 troops were killed Wednesday in a wave of attacks attributed to the Taliban across the country in the past 24 hours. Afghan forces killed at least 17 Taliban members during those clashes.
The Taliban have not claimed responsibility for any of the attacks so far and have not commented on the U.S. airstrike.
President Trump said Tuesday he spoke on the phone to a Taliban leader, making him the first U.S. president believed to have spoken directly to the militant group responsible for the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops in nearly 19 years of fighting in Afghanistan.
"I spoke to the leader of the Taliban today," Trump told reporters on the South Lawn. "We had a very good talk."
He didn't provide any more details, but Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid confirmed Trump spoke with Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
Taliban leaders and U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad signed the historic peace deal in Doha, Qatar. It lays out a conditions-based path to the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who witnessed the signing of the agreement, told Fox News' Bret Baier on Monday that the Trump administration was able to accomplish something the Obama administration could not.
"They never got the Taliban to break with Al Qaeda and they never got a commitment that says, 'If I execute the following conditions based -- that is if the violence levels come down. That is, if the security posture for the United States of America is reduced, then and only then will we deliver a commensurate footprint inside your country," he said.
Additional peace negotiations between the warring Afghan sides are supposed to begin on March 10. However, Afghanistan’s leaders have already rejected releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners ahead of launching the talks – a precondition which the militants say was part of the U.S. agreement.
Fox News' Adam Shaw and Paulina Dedaj, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
The coronavirus that emerged late last year and spread from central China was in almost 80 countries Wednesday morning, with outbreaks growing fast in South Korea, Italy, Iran and the United States. At least nine people have died of the COVID-19 disease in the U.S., all of them in Washington state and most of them from a single nursing home in the Seattle area.
Experts were clearly still struggling to get a firm grasp on how easily the disease spreads and how deadly it is, with the head of the World Health Organization saying the data available as of Tuesday suggested it could be more lethal, but less easily transmitted than previously thought. But epidemiologists have stressed there's still too little data to draw firm conclusions.
The WHO chief did issue an urgent plea for more data, urging countries facing outbreaks to test more people, more quickly, to bolster understanding of the disease. After faulty tests were distributed last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was working to get local health authorities across the U.S. the capacity to test about 1 million people by the weekend, to help assess the spread of the disease.
While the spread of the virus has slowed dramatically in China, infections were mounting fast in the U.S. and elsewhere. Almost 130 people in 16 states were infected by Wednesday, including the outbreak in the Seattle area.
CDC expected to produce more coronavirus test kits
With over 93,000 cases globally and more than 3,200 deaths attributed to the disease, officials were still trying to answer the big question: how bad will it get?
The coronavirus that emerged late last year and spread from central China was in almost 80 countries Wednesday morning, with outbreaks growing fast in South Korea, Italy, Iran and the United States. At least nine people have died of the COVID-19 disease in the U.S., all of them in Washington state and most of them from a single nursing home in the Seattle area.
Experts were clearly still struggling to get a firm grasp on how easily the disease spreads and how deadly it is, with the head of the World Health Organization saying the data available as of Tuesday suggested it could be more lethal, but less easily transmitted than previously thought. But epidemiologists have stressed there's still too little data to draw firm conclusions.
The WHO chief did issue an urgent plea for more data, urging countries facing outbreaks to test more people, more quickly, to bolster understanding of the disease. After faulty tests were distributed last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was working to get local health authorities across the U.S. the capacity to test about 1 million people by the weekend, to help assess the spread of the disease.
While the spread of the virus has slowed dramatically in China, infections were mounting fast in the U.S. and elsewhere. Almost 130 people in 16 states were infected by Wednesday, including the outbreak in the Seattle area.
CDC expected to produce more coronavirus test kits
With over 93,000 cases globally and more than 3,200 deaths attributed to the disease, officials were still trying to answer the big question: how bad will it get?
The U.S. military said early Wednesday it had conducted an airstrike against Taliban forces in Afghanistan, the first such attack since a historic peace deal was signed with the militant group Saturday.
The Helmand Province strikes targeted fighters attacking an Afghan government checkpoint.
“This was a defensive strike to disrupt the attack. This was our 1st strike against the Taliban in 11 days,” Col. Sonny Leggett, a U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, tweeted.
“To be clear- we are committed to peace, however, we have the responsibility to defend our #ANDSF partners. #Afghans & US have complied w/ our agreements; however, Talibs appear intent on squandering this opp. and ignoring the will of the people for #peace. #Showyourcommitment,” he added.
He said the U.S. is calling on the Taliban to stop needless attacks and uphold their commitments to the peace deal.
President Trump confirmed Tuesday that he spoke on the phone to a Taliban leader, making him the first U.S. president believed to have ever spoken directly with the militant group responsible for the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops in nearly 19 years of fighting in Afghanistan.
EU officials have pledged millions of euros of financial assistance to Greece to help tackle a migration surge from neighbouring Turkey, warning against those wishing to "test Europe's unity".
Flying by helicopter over the Greece-Turkey border, where thousands of desperate asylum seekers have tried to break through for days, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday the bloc would provide Greece "all the support needed".
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"Those who seek to test Europe's unity will be disappointed. We will hold the line and our unity will prevail," von der Leyen said, standing alongside Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the chiefs of the European Council and European Parliament.
Von der Leyen said the bloc would provide 700 million euros ($777m), half of it immediately, to help manage the refugee situation.
In addition, the EU border agency Frontex will deploy a rapid intervention team including an additional 100 guards backed by coastal patrol vessels, helicopters and vehicles, she said.
"Our first priority is making sure that order is maintained at the Greek external border, which is also the European border," von der Leyen told journalists.
'Wake-up call' for Europe
Earlier, Mitsotakis announced that Greek border forces had averted "over 24,000 attempts at illegal entry" by land and sea, making dozens of arrests.
"Europe has not been up to the task of dealing with the migration crisis," he said.
"I hope this crisis will serve as a wake-up call for everyone to assume their responsibilities."
Amid claims on the Turkish side that Greek security forces are shooting near refugees and migrants, European Council President Charles Michel said it was "crucial to act in a proportionate manner and to show respect for human dignity and international law".
At the Greek border crossing of Kastanies, reporters with the AFP news agency saw soldiers boarding refugees and migrants onto military vehicles. Other unmarked vans were also picking up people wandering on the streets.
Thousands have arrived at the frontier since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced last week that Turkey would no longer stop them trying to enter Europe.
European leaders have insisted Ankara abide by a 2016 deal to stop departures in exchange for six billion euros in assistance.
"Our first priority is making sure that order is maintained at Greece’s external border, which is also Europe’s border." President @vonderleyenpic.twitter.com/qU8tcZ9v0h
— European Commission 🇪🇺 (@EU_Commission) March 3, 2020
Von der Leyen said she had "compassion for the migrants that have been lured through false promises into this desperate situation."
Turkey is the world's largest host of refugees - about four million, and faces another influx from Syria where the government, backed by Russian air power, is pressing a violent offensive to retake the last rebel-held province of Idlib.
Erdogan had previously warned that he would open the gates, accusing the EU of not fulfilling its promises.
"We have been calling for a more equitable burden and responsibility-sharing for a long time," Hami Aksoy, the Turkish foreign ministry spokesman, told Al Jazeera.
"All our efforts contributed significantly to the security of Europe. However, our calls were ignored by the EU and member states."
