By B Izzak, Faten Omar and Agencies

KUWAIT: The Cabinet yesterday decided to extend school holidays for two more weeks until March 26 and close all cinemas, theatres, wedding halls and hotel meeting rooms until further notice to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The Cabinet also assigned authorities to coordinate to suspend issuance of all entry permits and visas unless those issued through diplomatic missions abroad.

MPs called for closing the sagging bourse and studying the impact of the slide in oil prices, while lawmakers led by MP Safa Al-Hashem submitted urgent amendments stipulating that expats who refuse to undergo medical tests should be deported immediately.

The health ministry announced one more case of COVID-19, raising the total number to 65, a majority of them of people who returned from Iran, as the number of coronavirus cases in the Gulf has sharply increased. The ministry reiterated that only one case is in critical condition while the rest are stable. Two cases have recovered. In the meantime, Health Minister Sheikh Dr Basel Al-Sabah denied he has resigned.

The interior ministry said yesterday it will facilitate the renewal of work permits and residencies of employees in the private sector even if they are abroad due to the spread of coronavirus. Employers should take the work permit from the Public Authority of Manpower and then renew the residency at the immigration department, the ministry's Assistant Undersecretary for Residency Affairs Maj Gen Talal Maarafi said in a statement.

He said employers can do this even if their employees are out of the country, but their passports should be valid. Maarafi said residencies of the employee's family members who are in Kuwait can be renewed as well. Visit visas can also be extended for two months, he explained. The official said employers of domestic workers can renew their residencies even if they are in their home countries. He said these measures apply to citizens of Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria and Thailand.

The health ministry yesterday announced three quarantine categories for people returning from countries with confirmed coronavirus cases. The first category stipulates compulsory quarantine at government quarantine centers for 14 days for people returning from China, Hong Kong, Iraq, Iran, Italy and South Korea.

The second category stipulates compulsory home quarantine for 14 days and following up with health authorities in case symptoms develop for people returning from Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Japan, Lebanon, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Syria.

The third category stipulates noncompulsory - but preferably home quarantine - for 14 days, avoiding gatherings and following up with health authorities in case symptoms develop for people returning from Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States of America.

HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah and a number of ministers will brief MPs on the latest developments in a brief meeting in the speaker's office. The meeting was called after the Assembly postponed sessions until March 24. MPs praised the government for the school closure extension and for halting flights to seven countries to prevent the spread of the disease.

Hashem said she and a number of lawmakers submitted urgent amendments to a law governing health measures to contain epidemics stipulating that expatriates who refuse to undergo mandatory medical tests must be deported immediately. The amendments also propose giving additional powers to the health minister to take necessary measures. Meanwhile, a Kuwait Airways flight brought back some 250 citizens from Egypt yesterday. The arrivals will be sent to quarantine and will undergo tests.

MP Bader Al-Mulla called on the Capital Market Authority to suspend trading at Boursa Kuwait for at least one week in a bid to stop the unprecedented slide in the market's various indices. The Premier Index, grouping the top listed firms, yesterday dropped by the maximum 10 percent for the second day in a row, leading authorities to suspend trading. Kuwait bourse was the top loser among the Gulf bourses in the past two days.

As oil prices, the mainstay of public revenues in Kuwait, crashed by some 30 percent yesterday, the biggest single day drop in three decades, head of the budgets committee MP Adnan Abdulsamad called for a top level meeting with the government to study the situation. He said the sharp fall in oil prices requires revising figures in the 2020/2021 budget in which oil revenues were based on a price of $55 barrel. Brent crude was trading at around $36 a barrel and is expected to slide further if oil producers do not reach a deal to cut output.

Abdulsamad said Kuwait posted a budget deficit of KD 22.8 billion since oil prices began to drop over five years ago and the amount was paid from the state reserve fund. MP Riyadh Al-Adasani said the government should reevaluate assets in the sovereign wealth fund in light of the huge drop in the bourse.

Iran yesterday reported 43 new deaths from the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours, bringing the overall toll to 237 dead. "Our colleagues have confirmed 595 new cases across the country," Kianoush Jahanpour, the health ministry's spokesman said in a televised conference. "This brings the overall number of confirmed cases to 7,161 as of today noon," he added. Jahanpour said the rate of new infections was dropping "but it is still too early to judge" when the outbreak could be brought under control. "Forty-three people have unfortunately been added to the number of those who have died of the disease, so to date we have 237 dead."

The outbreak of the virus in Iran is one of the deadliest outside of China, where the disease originated. With 1,945 cases, the capital Tehran remains the province with the most cases, according to the official. The second worst-hit province with 712 confirmed cases is Qom, the Shiite pilgrimage city south of Tehran where the Islamic republic's first cases were reported. Iran has temporarily freed about 70,000 prisoners to combat the spread of the coronavirus in jails, the head of the judiciary said yesterday.

Meanwhile, 27 people have died from methanol poisoning in Iran after rumors that drinking alcohol can help cure the novel coronavirus infection, state news agency IRNA reported yesterday. Twenty have died in the southwestern province of Khuzestan and seven in the northern region of Alborz after consuming bootleg alcohol, IRNA said. Drinking alcohol is banned in Iran for everyone except some non-Muslim religious minorities. Local media regularly report on lethal cases of poisoning caused by bootleg liquor.

A spokesman for Jundishapur medical university in Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan, said 218 people had been hospitalized there after being poisoned. The poisonings were caused by "rumors that drinking alcohol can be effective in treating coronavirus," Ali Ehsanpour said. The deputy prosecutor of Alborz, Mohammad Aghayari, told IRNA the dead had drunk methanol after being "misled by content online, thinking they were fighting coronavirus and curing it". If ingested in large quantities, methanol can cause blindness, liver damage and death.