US President Donald Trump (2nd L) gestures, flanked by US Vice President Mike Pence (R), after speaking at a news conference on the COVID-19 outbreak at the White House on February 26, 2020. - US President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his administration's response to the novel coronavirus, lashing the media for spreading panic as he conducts an evening news conference on the epidemic. - AFP

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has played down fears
of a major coronavirus outbreak in the United States, even as infections
ricochet around the world, prompting Saudi Arabia to ban pilgrims from visiting
Islam's holiest sites. China is no longer the only breeding ground for the
deadly virus as countries fret over possible contagion coming from other
hotbeds of infection, including Iran, South Korea and Italy.

There are now more daily cases being recorded outside China
than inside the country, where the virus first emerged in December, according
to the World Health Organization. More than 2,700 people have died in China and
some 78,000 have been infected. There have been more than 50 deaths and 3,600
cases in dozens of other countries, raising fears of a pandemic.

"I think that there's a chance that it could get worse,
a chance it could get fairly substantially worse, but nothing's
inevitable," Trump told reporters at the White House. His comments
contradicted US health officials who urged Americans to be ready to cancel mass
gatherings and work from home. There are 60 cases in the US so far.

Following Trump's upbeat assessment, the US Centers of
Disease Control and Prevention said it had detected the first case of unknown
origin in the country, signalling that the virus may be spreading within
communities. The US and other countries are also bracing for more cases to be
imported from abroad, with growing concern for poorer nations with weak health
care systems.

With the virus spreading in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia
suspended visas for visits to Islam's holiest sites for the umrah pilgrimage,
an apparently unprecedented move, raising questions over the hajj which starts
in July. The foreign ministry said it was also suspending visas for tourists
visiting from countries where the new virus is a "danger".

Several governments have now also advised against travel to
Italy -- which has 400 cases and 12 deaths. Iran's neighbors have shut their
borders, while Mongolia has suspended flights from South Korea and Japan.


Medical workers wearing protective gear transfer a suspected coronavirus patient (C) to another hospital from Daenam Hospital where a total of 16 infections have now been identified with the COVID-19 coronavirus, in Cheongdo county near the southeastern city of Daegu on February 21, 2020. - South Korea's coronavirus cases nearly doubled on February 21, rising above 200 and making it the worst-affected country outside China as the number of infections linked to a religious sect spiked. -AFP

Infections outside China

Trump said the US was considering travel restrictions on
Italy and South Korea, which has almost 1,600 cases, the highest number outside
China. The US already restricts arrivals from China. Even China -- which sealed
off an entire province and shut down cities across the country to contain the
virus -- is now worried about importing cases and ordered people arriving in
Beijing from virus-hit countries to go into 14-day self-quarantine.

The virus is believed to have originated in a market in the
central Chinese city of Wuhan, where it is suspected of having hopped from
animal to human before spreading across the country and proliferating abroad.
China reported 29 more deaths yesterday -- its lowest daily tally since January
-- and 433 new cases, most of them in hard-hit Hubei province and well below
massive increases from just a week ago.

Zhong Nanshan, a respected scientist who advises the
government, said the country would have had much fewer cases if action had been
taken as early as December -- a rare critique from a prominent insider. Hubei
officials have been accused of initially covering up the outbreak and silencing
a whistleblowing doctor who later died from the disease. Nevertheless, Zhong
said he expected China to bring the epidemic under control by late April.

But other countries have now become sources of concern. In
Latin America's first case, the 61-year-old patient had travelled to Italy's
Lombardy region. In Romania, a man was infected after coming in contact with a
visiting Italian. Countries from Denmark to Spain and Algeria have also
reported infections linked to Italy.

The first cases in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Estonia
involved people who had been in Iran. Iran has emerged as a major hotspot in
the region, where 22 people have succumbed to the disease -- the biggest death
toll outside China. The Islamic Republic imposed domestic travel restrictions
for people with confirmed or suspected cases and slapped curbs on visits to
major Muslim pilgrimage sites, but it said it was not quarantining cities.


This handout photo taken and released on February 27, 2020 by the Secretariat of the Thai Parliament shows cleaners disinfecting the Thai Parliament in Bangkok, after a lawmaker had been in the building following a trip to Japan, amid fears over the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. - AFP

 'No panic'

Fears over the epidemic's spread have rocked global markets
in recent days, while sports matches and festivals across Europe have been
cancelled. The US and South Korea's militaries on Thursday postponed
forthcoming joint exercises because of the outbreak. A Six Nations rugby match
between Italy and Ireland in Dublin on March 7 has been called off, and next
month's alpine skiing World Cup Finals in Italy will be held without fans on
the slopes.

The WHO has urged countries to prepare for a potential
pandemic, though it stopped short of declaring one. Australian Prime Minister
Scott Morrison, however, said his government was "effectively operating
now on the basis that there is one -- a pandemic". But EU Health
Commissioner Stella Kyriakides appealed for calm. "This is a situation of
concern, but we must not give in to panic," Kyriakides said. - AFP