Australian minister tests positive for coronavirus after US trip

Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has tested positive for the new coronavirus and has been admitted to hospital, he said on Friday.

After waking up in the morning with a temperature and sore throat, he was tested for Covid-19 and was told in the afternoon the test came back positive, Dutton said in a statement.

Dutton had recently returned from the United States after meeting officials from the US, Britain and Canada on March 6 in Washington as part of the Five Eyes intelligence network.

Photos shared on the social media show him standing next to top US government officials, including Attorney General William Barr and Ivanka Trump, the daughter of US president, a week earlier. 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison will not need to go into isolation, his spokesman said in a statement, because only those who had close contact with Dutton in the 24 hours before he became symptomatic will need to self-isolate according to health advice. 

New Zealand Interior Minister Tracey Martin, who was in the Five Eyes meeting in Washington, was self-isolating and would be getting tested for coronavirus on Saturday morning, her spokesman said, according to news website stuff.co.nz.

Just an hour before Dutton’s news broke, Morrison had announced the government was advising the cancellation of all “organized, non-essential gatherings of 500 people or greater” from Monday onwards. 

Australia has three deaths and 156 confirmed coronavirus cases.

Meanwhile, the Japanese parliament has enacted legislation that enables Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to declare a state of emergency to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus in his country. Japan has nearly 1,400 confirmed cases.

Earlier on Friday, South Korea reported its lowest daily increase of new coronavirus cases in more than two weeks, while China reported seven deaths and eight new cases – the smallest increases since the daily reporting began in late January. 

The latest tally of 110 new infections recorded and one death brought the number of total cases in South Korea to 7,979 and the death toll up to 67, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

An overnight increase of 17 cases in the city of Sejong has been linked to an outbreak in a government department. 

China’s National Health Commission said five of the new cases and six of the deaths were recorded in Hubei province, where the outbreak first emerged in December.

Friday’s numbers bring the total coronavirus cases in China to 80,813 including 3,176 deaths.

Globally there have been more than 132,000 confirmed cases of the virus as of Friday, according to the World Health Organization.

Overnight, India confirmed its first death linked to the coronavirus, after a 76-year-old man, who suffered from high blood pressure and asthma, died in a hospital on Tuesday. 

Read also: Number of COVID-19 cases rises to 24 in S/Africa

In Taiwan, the parliament on Friday approved a 60 billion Taiwan dollar (2 billion US dollar) special budget to both ease the economic impact and further control the epidemic.

Hong Kong saw its fourth death from Covid-19 on Friday after an 80-year-old man with underlying health issues developed the virus. 

Singapore announced a new travel ban on foreigners who have been to France, Germany, Italy or Spain during the past 14 days from March 15 onwards. They have already banned visitors from China, South Korea and Iran. 

Also, Singapore’s Changi Airport, a major international transit hub, said passenger movements for February were down 32.8 per cent year-on-year to 3.45 million, while aircraft movements dropped by 12.3 per cent to 26,200 landings and take-offs due to coronavirus impact.

Nepal cancelled all climbing expedition permits for Everest in the spring season, which runs from April to May, due to coronavirus outbreak, a Tourism Ministry spokesman said. Nepal’s economy relies heavily on tourist dollars. 

Myanmar’s government announced on Friday it has cancelled celebrations for the country’s Buddhist new year festival in April to prevent the spread of coronavirus, though there has been no confirmed case yet.

In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the memorial marking one year since the deadly attack by a white supremacist on two mosques in Christchurch, which left 51 people dead, will go ahead on Sunday. (dpa)