Veteran Afro-jazz star Manu Dibango died on Tuesday after contracting the coronavirus, his music publisher told AFP.

The 86-year-old Cameroonian, best known for the 1972 hit “Soul Makossa”, is one of the first worldwide stars to die as a result of COVID-19.

“He died early this morning in a hospital in the Paris region,” his music publisher Thierry Durepaire said.

Dibango arrived in Marseilles in 1949 as a teenager and was made Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 2010.

He maintained his energy and love for live performance that defined his 60-year career with a 2019 tour with Symphonic Safari, mixing jazz and classical music. 

Pioneer 

A message on his official Facebook page confirmed that his death had come after he contracted COVID-19.

“His funeral service will be held in strict privacy, and a tribute to his memory will be organized when possible,” the message said.

The saxophonist was one of the pioneers of Afro jazz and also fused funk with traditional Cameroonian music.

In 2009, he accused Michael Jackson of borrowing one of his hooks for two songs on the legendary “Thriller” album.

Jackson settled out of court.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Iran’s supreme leader refused US assistance on Sunday to fight the new coronavirus, citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus could be man-made by America.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comments come as Iran faces crushing US sanctions blocking the country from selling its crude oil and accessing international financial markets.

But while Iranian civilian officials in recent days have increasingly criticized those sanctions, 80-year-old Khamenei instead chose to traffic in the same conspiracy theory increasingly used by Chinese officials about the new virus to deflect blame for the pandemic.

“I do not know how real this accusation is but when it exists, who in their right mind would trust you to bring them medication?” Khamenei said. “Possibly your medicine is a way to spread the virus more.”

He also alleged without offering any evidence that the virus “is specifically built for Iran using the genetic data of Iranians which they have obtained through different means.”

“You might send people as doctors and therapists, maybe they would want to come here and see the effect of the poison they have produced in person,” he said.

No scientific proof

There is no scientific proof offered anywhere in the world to support Khamenei’s comments.

However, his comments come after Chinese government spokesman Lijian Zhao tweeted earlier this month that it “might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe(s) us an explanation!”

Lijian likewise offered no evidence to support his claim, which saw the U.S. State Department summon China’s ambassador to complain.

Wuhan is the Chinese city where the first cases of the disease were detected in December. In recent days, the Trump administration has increasingly referred to the virus as the “Chinese” or “Wuhan” virus, while the World Health Organization used the term COVID-19 to describe the illness the virus causes. Even a U.S. senator from Arkansas has trafficked in the unfounded conspiracy theory it was a man-made Chinese bioweapon.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover from the new virus.

Scientists have not yet determined exactly how the new coronavirus first infected people. Evidence suggests it originated in bats, which infected another animal that spread it to people at a market in Wuhan. The now-shuttered Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market advertised dozens of species such as giant salamanders, baby crocodiles and raccoon dogs that were often referred to as wildlife, even when they were farmed.

An article published last week in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Medicine similarly said it was “improbable” that the virus “emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.”

Khamenei made the comments in a speech in Tehran broadcast live Sunday across Iran marking Nowruz, the Persian New Year. He had called off his usual speech at Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad over the virus outbreak.

His comments come as Iran has over 21,600 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus amid 1,685 reported deaths, according to government figures released Sunday.

Support for conspiracy theories

Iran is one of the hardest-hit countries in the world by the new virus. Across the Middle East, Iran represents eight of 10 cases of the virus and those leaving the Islamic Republic have carried the virus to other countries.

Iranian officials have criticized US offers of aid during the virus crisis as being disingenuous. They have accused the Trump administration of wanting to capitalise on its “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran since withdrawing from the nuclear deal in May 2018. However, the US has directly offered the Islamic Republic aid in the past despite decades of enmity, like during the devastating Bam earthquake of 2003.

Reassigning blame could be helpful to Iran’s government, which faced widespread public anger after denying for days it shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing 176 people. Widespread economic problems as well has seen mass demonstrations in recent years that saw hundreds reportedly killed.

Iranian hard-liners have supported conspiracy theories in the past when it suited their interests. Following the September 11 attacks, some publicly doubted al-Qaida’s role and state TV promoting the unfounded conspiracy theory that the Americans blew up the building themselves.

Former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad similarly raised doubt about the September 11 attack, calling it a “big lie,” while also describing the Holocaust as a “myth.”

Meanwhile on Sunday, Iran imposed a two-week closure on major shopping malls and centers across the country to prevent spreading the virus. Pharmacies, supermarkets, groceries and bakeries will remain open.

In Saudi Arabia, the kingdom said its armed forces are now taking part in combating the virus, setting up mobile hospitals in various cities.

And, in Kuwait, authorities have instituted a nightly curfew from 5 p.m. to 4 a.m., warning violators face up to three years in prison and fines of $32,000 if arrested and convicted.

Source: AP

US President Donald Trump viciously attacked an NBC News reporter after he asked Trump what his message was to Americans who were afraid the coronavirus pandemic is spreading across the country.

The extraordinary exchange, which occurred on Friday at the White House’s daily coronavirus task force briefing, began when NBC News reporter Peter Alexander asked Trump whether he was giving Americans “false hope” by touting unproven drugs for treating Covid-19.

Trump has repeatedly used the term “fake news” to cast doubt on critical media reports about his administration, often without providing any evidence to support his case.

“What do you say to Americans, who are watching you right now, who are scared?” Alexander asked. The reporter cited the latest pandemic statistics showing thousands of Americans are now infected and millions are scared.

Erupting in anger, Trump unleashed a tirade: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.”

Trump continued by blasting NBC News and its parent company, Comcast.

“You’re doing sensationalism,” Trump charged. “And the same with NBC and Comcast. I don’t call it Comcast. I call it ‘Con-Cast.'”

Moments later, Kaitlan Collins, a White House correspondent for CNN, asked Trump if it was appropriate to embark on tirades against members of the news media during a public health crisis.

Trump defended his verbal assault on Alexander, saying he’s “not a good journalist” and launching into another rant against him.

“Coming together is much harder when we have dishonest journalists,” Trump said.

At Thursday’s coronavirus press briefing, Trump smeared The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. “They’re very dishonest,” Trump said.

About 60 percent of Americans are now ‘very’ or ‘somewhat worried’ they or a family member will be exposed to the coronavirus, up from 36 percent in February, while confidence in the government’s ability to respond has fallen sharply, a Gallup poll released on Monday showed.

As of Saturday morning, at least 19,624 people across the US have tested positive for the coronavirus, and 241 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Globally, over 275,000 people have now been confirmed with the virus, while nearly 11,400 have died.

Sick people across the US say they are being denied the coronavirus test, as American states scramble to slow the spread of COVID-19 and stop hospitals from being overwhelmed with a surge in critically ill patients.

The former Surgeon General of the United States warned last week that America’s top medical centers are suffering from a severe shortage of coronavirus testing supplies and are being forced to turn away potential patients amid the fast-spreading pandemic.

Source: Presstv

California’s governor on Thursday issued an unprecedented statewide “stay at home order” directing the state’s 40 million residents to hunker down in their homes for the foreseeable future in the face of the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s directive, effective immediately, marks the largest and most sweeping government clampdown yet in the worsening public health crisis brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak, which he predicted could infect more than half the state within eight weeks.

“We are confident the people of California will abide by it, they will meet this moment,” Newsom, a Democrat in his first term as governor of the nation’s most populous state, told a late-afternoon news briefing from the state capital in Sacramento.

“They’ll step up as they have over the last number of weeks to protect themselves, to protect their families and to protect the broader community in this great state and the world we reside in,” he said.

Newsom called the order essential in light of modeling by experts that showed roughly 56 percent of the state’s residents, or 25 million people, would contract the respiratory illness in the next eight weeks. Such numbers would require nearly 20,000 more hospital beds than the state could provide.

Already more than 1,000 Californians have been confirmed as infected and 18 have died, the third largest death toll in the United States behind only Washington state and New York.

Newsom said exceptions to the stay-at-home rule would be granted for residents to make trips to grocery stores, pharmacies, doctors and laundromats, and workers in “critical infrastructure sectors.”

The governor did not give an end date for the order but suggested it would last for at least eight weeks.

‘Social pressure’

Newsom was also vague about enforcement, saying he expected Californians would bend to “social pressure” on their own.

The announcement caught many in the state by surprise and drew swift criticism from U.S. House of Representatives Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who told Fox News Channel he was unhappy the governor did not consult with lawmakers in Washington.

“We do think there was an ability to do this without shutting down the entire state. I hope he consulted with a lot of experts before he just made this decision,” McCarthy told Fox.

Newsom said during the news conference he had discussed the matter with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from Northern California.

Earlier on Thursday the governor asked President Donald Trump to send a U.S. Navy hospital ship to the port of Los Angeles “immediately” as the state braces for the expected surge in the number of coronavirus cases.

Trump has said he would deploy two Navy hospital ships, one to each coast, but defense officials have said the vessels were not yet ready to take on patients.

(REUTERS)

The Trump administration’s response to the novel coronavirus has been characterized by misinformation, missteps and bureaucratic infighting. President Trump has tested negative for the coronavirus, but will he pass the leadership test as new cases of the highly-contagious respiratory disease pop up across the United States?

While Trump is not responsible for the coronavirus hitting the American shores and spreading throughout the country, he is certainly responsible for grave errors that critics say could even cost him his presidency.

“These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and, for a few crucial weeks, they created a false sense of security,” Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at Ethics & Public Policy Center, wrote for The Atlantic.

President Trump has sent mixed messages on the outbreak in the US, going out of his way to deny evidence and brush aside the threat. He has also shrugged off blame for any mistakes his administration has made that have hampered efforts to contain and mitigate the spread of the virus that has killed dozens of people across the nation.

Since taking office, Trump has taken steps that experts have warned would prove disastrous during a public health crisis.He has shut down the National Security Council’s entire global health security unit, ignored an expert panel’s warning that the US is unprepared to deal with a pandemic and proposed budget cuts for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The most recent mistakes include the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, cutting personnel from pandemic preparedness,the decision to test too few people for the coronavirus and the delay in expanding testing to labs outside the CDC.

“No, I don’t take responsibility at all,” Trump said Friday when asked whether he took responsibility for the inadequate number of COVID-19 tests in the US. He instead blamed the testing failures on “rules, regulations, and specifications from a different time.”

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,acknowledged in congressional testimony early in the week that America is still not providing adequate testing for the coronavirus.

“The idea of anybody getting [testing] easily, the way people in other countries are doing it, we’re not set up for that. I think it should be, but we’re not,”Fauci said.

Trump on Friday declared an emergency, unblocking tens of billions of dollars in federal aid. The administration has also negotiated a spending bill with Congress to provide assistance to the economy during the crisis.

However, the measure has proven too little too late. States across the country have largely been left on their own as they struggle to help their citizens.

For weeks, Trump and his team had had been too preoccupied by the potential political damage of an outbreak in an election year to acknowledge the true scale of the disaster. The president repeatedly contradicted health officials, claiming that the virus was contained in the US when it was actually spreading. He had also called the outbreak a Democratic “hoax” designed to hurt his reelection chances.

“They’ve simply lost time they can’t make up. You can’t get back six weeks of blindness,” Jeremy Konyndyk, who helped oversee the international response to Ebola during the Obama administration, told The Washington Post.

“To the extent that there’s someone to blame here, the blame is on poor, chaotic management from the White House and failure to acknowledge the big picture,” said Konyndyk, who is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.

So far none of President Trump’s disastrous policy decisions have caught up on him like his failure on the coronavirus. He has largely escaped the fallout from his trade war with China because the US economy was strong. He walked away from a critical global climate accord relatively unharmed because global warming happens slowly.

“But now, in the face of a global health threat that is immediate and all around us—and requires, more than anything, a coordinated global response—Trump finds that his errors are flying back in his face like clown pies almost every time he opens his mouth,”  wrote Michael Hirsh for the Foreign Policy magazine.

“All the defining attributes of his presidency—his ‘America First’ arrogance, his us-versus-them pettiness toward the rest of the world, his obvious desire for American self-isolation—are suddenly working against him. Trump had very little credibility before; it appears to be all but shot now,” Hirsh said.

Financial markets have suffered their worst losses since the 1987 stock market crash, wiping out nearly three years of economic gains. As the pandemic threatens to derail the US economy, reports say President Trump grows more worried about his reelection chances.

“The president, enraged for having been unmasked, will become more desperate, more embittered, more unhinged. He knows nothing will be the same. His administration may stagger on, but it will be only a hollow shell. The Trump presidency is over,” Wehner argued in his piece.

Culled from Presstv

The spread of the new coronavirus around the world is also taking a toll on international diplomacy at the United Nations (UN) in New York, where mandatory social distancing has caused major disruptions to routine work.

Restrictions at the UN headquarters in downtown Manhattan include mandatory work from home for the majority of the 3,000 employees, and reduced physical participation for diplomats at the Security Council. Several sessions of the Council in the coming week have also been canceled.

The UN Secretariat oversees nearly 100,000 peace-keeping forces at conflict zones around the world, and employees and diplomats routinely discuss a wide variety of world issues at small and large meetings. Significantly reduced staff at the UN offices would therefore translate to sweeping disruptions to work.

“Everything gets a bit more complicated,” said one diplomat working from home, according to AFP, which did not reveal the diplomat’s name.

“We come, but there are fewer and fewer meetings, and consensus is going to be more difficult to achieve,” said one ambassador, whose name was also not mentioned.

On Thursday, a Philippine diplomat tested positive for the new virus, becoming the first case of infection in the UN community and prompting the closing of the Philippines’ mission.

A day later, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres canceled a trip to Africa and required all non-essential employees to telework until April 12.

“The United Nations is facing one of the biggest challenges in our history,” Guterres wrote in a letter to all UN employees obtained by AFP, adding that the virus was having “a major impact on us and our work.”

Diplomatic delegations at the 15-member Security Council should include no more than three people. And a recent attempt to hold a meeting of the Council by teleconference also failed due to technological shortcomings.

Self-service in the cafeterias in the building has also been recently banned.

The near-empty hallways of the vast complex have the feel of a “ghost town,” according to one guard at a checkpoint in the building.

The new virus from the coronavirus family first emerged in China’s Wuhan City in December last year. Since then, it has spread across the world, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global pandemic.

Source: Presstv

A barrage of rockets hit a base housing U.S. and other coalition troops north of Baghdad, Iraqi security officials said Saturday, just days after a similar attack killed three servicemen, including two Americans.

At least two Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the attack at Camp Taji, according to the Iraqi officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The officials said over a dozen rockets landed inside the base. Some struck the area where coalition forces are based, while others fell on a runway used by Iraqi forces.

The was no immediate comment from the coalition regarding Saturday’s attack.

The attack was unusual because it occurred during the day. Previous assaults on military bases housing U.S. troops typically occurred at night.

The previous rocket attack against Camp Taji on Wednesday also killed a British serviceman. It prompted American airstrikes Friday against what U.S. officials said were mainly weapons facilities belonging to Kataib Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia group believed to be responsible.

However, Iraq’s military said those airstrikes killed five security force members and a civilian, while wounding five fighters from the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella organization including an array of militias, including some Iran-backed groups.

Iran-backed Shiite militia groups vowed to exact revenge for Friday’s U.S. strikes, signalling another cycle of tit-for-tat violence between Washington and Tehran that could play out inside Iraq.

America’s killing of Iraqi security forces might also give Iran-backed militia groups more reason to stage counterattacks against U.S. troops in Iraq, analysts said.

“We can’t forget that the PMF is a recognized entity within the Iraqi security forces; they aren’t isolated from the security forces and often are co-located on the same bases or use the same facilities,” said Sajad Jiyad, a researcher and former managing director of the Bayan Center, a Baghdad-based think tank.

“Now the (Iran-backed) groups who supported the initial strike in Taji, who were the most outspoken, feel obliged, authorized, maybe even legitimized to respond, ostensibly to protect Iraqi sovereignty but really to keep the pressure up on Americans,” he added.

“There are no red lines anymore,” Jiyad said.

Wednesday’s attack on Camp Taji was the deadliest to target U.S. troops in Iraq since a late December rocket attack on an Iraqi base, which killed a U.S. contractor. That attack set in motion a series of attacks that brought Iraq to the brink of war.

After the contractor was killed, America launched airstrikes targeting Kataib Hezbollah, which in turn led to protests at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

A U.S. drone strike in Baghdad then killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a top commander responsible for expeditionary operations across the wider Mideast. Iran struck back with a ballistic missile attack on U.S. forces in Iraq, the Islamic Republic’s most direct assault on America since the 1979 seizing of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

The U.S. and Iran stepped back from further attacks after the Soleimani incident. A senior U.S. official said in late January, when U.S.-Iran tensions had cooled, that the killing of Americans constituted a red line that could spark more violence.

(AP)

A senior Australian politician tested positive for the new coronavirus and entered hospital quarantine Friday, days after returning from Washington where he met Ivanka Trump and US Attorney General William Barr. 

Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, was in the United States last week for a meeting with members of the FiveEyes intelligence alliance — Australia, the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand — that included Barr. 

He also met with US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka on March 6, according to a photo posted by the Australian embassy in Washington, which shows the pair standing close together. 

It is not yet known when Dutton contracted the virus.

“This morning I woke up with a temperature and sore throat,” said Dutton, an influential member of the government and a key architect of Australia’s controversial immigration laws.

“It is the policy of Queensland Health that anyone who tests positive is to be admitted into hospital and I have complied with their advice.”

Dutton said he feels “fine” but his diagnosis will raise concerns about whether other members of the cabinet and Prime Minister Scott Morrison may have been infected.

The prime minister’s office confirmed Friday that Dutton attended a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, but other participants would not be quarantined.

“Only people who had close contact with the minister in the preceding 24 hours before he became symptomatic need to self-isolate,” a spokesman said. “That does not include the Prime Minister or any other members of the Cabinet.”

In contrast, New Zealand Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin — who also met Dutton in Washington — has self-isolated and will get tested for the virus on Saturday, local media reported.

Morrison will no longer attend a rugby match on Saturday night after earlier saying he would even as he announced a bar on gatherings of more than 500 people.

Dutton is among the 184 people in Australia who have been confirmed as having COVID-19. He is just the latest in a string of political figures around the world to suffer a scare.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has been tested for the virus after a top aide was diagnosed with the disease following a trip to the US during which both met with Trump. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in quarantine for two weeks after his wife tested positive for the virus. 

British MP Nadine Dorries a junior health minister who helped craft legislation to fight the contagion, is also infected.

Several US lawmakers have isolated themselves after attending a conservative conference in late February.

The White House has insisted Trump does not need testing, despite interactions with several people who have been exposed to the virus, saying “only people with prolonged close exposure to confirmed positive cases should self-quarantine.”

(Source: AFP)

The United States waged a series of precision air strikes on Thursday against an Iran-backed militia in Iraq that it blamed for a major rocket attack a day earlier that killed two American troops and a 26-year-old British soldier.

The U.S. strikes appeared limited in scope and narrowly tailored, targeting five weapons storage facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah militants – including facilities used to store weaponry for past attacks on U.S.-led coalition troops, the Pentagon said.

Iraq’s military said in a statement that the U.S. air strikes hit four locations in Iraq.

The U.S. military did not estimate how many people in Iraq may have been killed in the strikes, which officials said were carried out by piloted aircraft.

But there no was no indication of the kind of high-profile killings that President Donald Trump authorized in January, when the United States targeted a top Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, in a Pentagon statement detailing the strikes, cautioned that the United States was prepared to respond again, if needed.

“We will take any action necessary to protect our forces in Iraq and the region,” Esper said.

Trump had been quick to authorize the U.S. military to respond following Wednesday’s attack in Iraq, in which militants fired dozens of 107 mm Katyusha rockets from a truck, striking Iraq’s Taji military camp north of Baghdad.

Out of the roughly 30 rockets fired, some 18 hit the base. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

It was the third time in recent months the U.S. military lashed out against Kataib Hezbollah. It killed more than two dozen militants in December in response to an attack on an Iraqi base that killed a U.S. contractor. The U.S. military drone strike in January that targeted Soleimani also killed Kataib Hezbollah founder Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

It was unclear whether the latest strikes would deter the militants from further action. The rocket attack on Taji took place on what would have been Soleimani’s 63rd birthday, suggesting the militants were still looking for revenge.

Further attacks?

Dennis Ross, a former U.S. ambassador now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, cast doubt on the Pentagon’s ability to deter Kataib Hezbollah.

“Regrettably, these attacks on our forces will continue as Iran has no problem fighting to the last of the Shia militias and believe they can force us out of Iraq,” he said on Twitter.

Iran retaliated for the U.S. drone strike that killed Soleimani by launching missiles from its territory at an Iraq base hosting U.S. troops – leaving more than 100 U.S. forces with brain injuries.

In the latest attack, 14 U.S.-led coalition personnel were wounded, including American, British, Polish and other nationals. Private-industry contractors were among the wounded.

U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters that five of the wounded were categorized as “urgent,” suggesting serious injuries that could require rapid medical evacuation.

The UK named its fallen service member as Lance Corporal Brodie Gillon. The United States has not yet identified the U.S. service members killed.

In a sign of concern that tensions between the United States and Iran could be headed toward open conflict, the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday to limit Trump’s ability to wage war against Iran.

The Republican president has been engaged in a maximum-pressure campaign of renewed sanctions and near-constant rhetoric against Iran, after pulling the United States out of the international nuclear deal reached during the administration of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran have mostly played out on Iraqi soil in recent months.

Iran-backed paramilitary groups have regularly been rocketing and shelling bases in Iraq that host U.S. forces and the area around the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Source: REUTERS

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in isolation for two weeks after his wife, Sophie, tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday, and the outbreak prompted the province of Ontario to shutter schools to limit the spread.

Sophie Gregoire Trudeau recently returned from London and experienced flu-like symptoms, so she was tested for the coronavirus, the prime minister’s office said earlier on Thursday. The test came back positive, it said in the evening.

“The Prime Minister is in good health with no symptoms. As a precautionary measure and following the advice of doctors, he will be in isolation for a planned period of 14 days,” an official statement said. Sophie will be in quarantine for 14 days.

“The Prime Minister will continue to fully assume his duties and will address Canadians tomorrow.”

In a personal note, Sophie said she was “experiencing uncomfortable symptoms of the virus,” adding that she “will be back on my feet soon”.

Canada reported 145 new case of the virus, a three-fold gain from a week ago. There has been one death. Seven of Canada’s 10 provinces have recorded infections.

Ontario, the most populous province, reported 17 new cases overnight, a 40% jump. To contain the virus, authorities ordered all schools to close from Saturday to April 5.

Globally, more than 127,000 people have been infected by the sometimes deadly respiratory illness COVID-19.

In a blow to hockey-obsessed Canadians, the National Hockey League suspended its season because of the outbreak, although it said its goal was to resume play “as soon as it is appropriate and prudent,” so teams can compete for the Stanley Cup championship.

With the Canadian dollar at a four-year low against its U.S. counterpart and stocks plunging, the Bank of Canada announced measures to inject liquidity into the market.

Working from home on Thursday, Trudeau spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and joined a special cabinet meeting on the coronavirus by phone, his spokesman said on Twitter.

The Pacific province of British Columbia, north of Washington state, advised against all non-essential foreign travel, including to the United States. Washington is one of the worst-affected states.

Any warning that involves the United States is politically sensitive, given the two countries’ 5,525-mile (8,890-km) shared border and Canada’s overwhelming reliance on bilateral trade.

“This is really important … the evolving situation both in the United States and globally is a risk for all of us,” British Columbia’s provincial chief medical officer, Bonnie Henry, told reporters.

Alberta’s chief medical officer, Deena Hinshaw, banned gatherings of more than 250 people and canceled all international events. Hinshaw also discouraged foreign travel.

Quebec, which has recorded 13 cases, has banned all indoor events with more than 250 people and said people returning from any foreign country should self-isolate for 14 days. Health and education public-sector workers who travel abroad will be required to self-isolate.

Separately, Canadian authorities canceled the JUNO music awards, Canada’s version of the Grammys, and Toronto’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade was suspended.

Ottawa committed C$1 billion ($723 million) on Wednesday toward bolstering the healthcare system and limiting the impact of the virus, while Ontario said on Thursday it had set aside C$100 million in “contingency funding.”

On Thursday, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said the public health crisis alone would cost the country “well north of C$10 billion.”

Source: REUTERS