Lockdown: World travel bans to curb coronavirus

A passenger, wearing protective mask following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), looks on her mobile phone at the almost empty Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan, March 14, 2020. [Reuters]

Countries around the world on Saturday continued to close borders, impose strict entry and quarantine requirements and restrict large gatherings to contain the spread of new coronavirus.

Apple Inc said it will close all its retail stores outside Greater China until March 27. Apple reopened all 42 of its branded stores in China on Friday as the spread of the virus on mainland China slowed dramatically.

Countries have shuttered museums, tourist attractions and sporting events to minimise the risk of transmission.

In a bid to limit the economic damage from a pandemic that has infected more than 138,000 people worldwide and left more than 5,000 dead, the US House of Representatives passed an aid package that would provide free testing and paid sick leave.

Colombia said it will close its borders with Venezuela and stop visitors who have been in Europe or Asia, while a US ban on entry for most people from continental Europe was due to start midnight Friday.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says Europe has become the pandemic’s current epicentre after reporting more cases and deaths than the rest of world combined, apart from China where the coronavirus originated last December.

Saudi Arabia will suspend all international flights for two weeks, starting Sunday, state news agency SPA said, Taiwan will require travellers from mainland Europe, Britain and Ireland to self-isolate for 14 days, while New Zealand implemented a similar measure for all those entering the country.

Border restrictions

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also called on cruise ships, a major source of infections in some countries, not to come to New Zealand until June 30. “Alongside Israel, and a small number of Pacific Islands who have effectively closed their border, this decision will mean New Zealand will have the widest ranging and toughest border restrictions of any country in the world,” she said.

The country has just six confirmed cases and has had no deaths, but Ardern said that number inevitably would rise.

The US military also said it will halt most domestic travel, extending earlier restrictions on international travel for its more than a million active-duty troops around the world.

While infections continue to climb around the world, in mainland China the number of new cases is falling.

The number of new coronavirus cases imported into mainland China from overseas surpassed the number of locally transmitted new infections for the first time on Friday.

Mainland China had 11 new confirmed cases on Friday, up from eight cases a day earlier, but only four of those - all in the virus epicentre of Hubei province - were locally transmitted.