8th U.S. case of coronavirus confirmed in Massachusetts; U.S. declares a public health emergency and will bar some foreign nationals from entering the country

The decision came after the World Health Organization designated the outbreak a global public health emergency.As of Saturday, the flu-like virus had killed at least 259 people, all of them in China.The Philippine Department of Health reported on Sunday the first death from coronavirus outside of China. "Should routine monitoring of the evacuees identify ill individuals, HHS has procedures in place to transport them to a local civilian hospital.""The department's primary responsibility is the safety of our force, our families and our base communities."Massachusetts health officials said Saturday there are now eight confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States, including a first case in Massachusetts.That case was confirmed in a man who lives in Boston and recently traveled to Wuhan, the Chinese city at the center of the outbreak. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, which represents 50,000 flight attendants at 20 airlines, issued a statement Friday, a day after the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency."AFA is calling for clear direction from our government to U.S. airlines to pull down all travel to China until the spread of coronavirus is contained. The government must work with our airlines to discontinue all service, with consideration for evacuation of flight crew, and with consideration to service that facilitates efforts by public health officials to contain spread of the virus," said  AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson."The coronavirus may be spread by infected persons not yet displaying symptoms. While that may appear to be a worrying development, he said epidemics are not generally driven by people with asymptomatic infections.Republican Senator Ted Cruz called Friday for the U.S. federal government to implement a ban on all travel to and from China due to the fast-spreading new coronavirus."Given the severity of the coronavirus in China and its rapid spread across the region, as well as the mounting public fear, it's imperative that this disease is contained," Cruz, chairman of the subcommittee on Aviation and Space, said in a statement. "The administration should take every precaution in preventing additional cases from arriving in the United States, including temporarily halting flights to and from China and implementing additional screening at all U.S. airports."Earlier this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration was considering a China travel ban as it continuously evaluated measures to prevent the spread of the disease in the U.S.Many airlines have stopped flying to mainland China already, and others have significantly reduced their flights to the country. On Thursday the union representing American Airlines pilots sued the carrier, seeking an immediate suspension of services between the U.S. and China citing "serious, and in many ways still unknown, health threats posed by the coronavirus." China's delayed response to the discovery of a new coronavirus infection worsened the epidemic, the most senior official from the city at the center of the outbreak said Friday. One of the cases was confirmed in the Zabaikalsky Krai region, bordering China and Mongolia, while the other was reported in Siberia, deputy prime minister Tatyana Golikova said in televised remarks.Russia was working to evacuate its citizens who want to leave the city of Wuhan and the wider Hubei province in China, where the outbreak is believed to have originated. The three airlines affected are Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Air China and China Southern Airlines, Khokhar said.Eighteen South Koreans evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan have been hospitalized after showing symptoms while 350 others are in quarantine, Seoul's health authorities said Friday, as concerns mount about a wider outbreak of the SARS-like virus.A chartered plane carrying a total of 368 South Korean citizens arrived on Friday in the South from Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have emerged from an animal and seafood market."The 350 people, who are asymptomatic ... "So that is the thing for which we are planning, that is the risk." He said the new strain of virus remained "moderately transmissible" and had a demonstrated mortality rate of around 2% at present — much lower than other disease outbreaks such as Ebola, which had a 70% mortality rate, or even the related SARS coronavirus that had a 10% mortality rate."Nevertheless, if we got very large numbers, that is obviously a concern and this would be something we would have to take very seriously," Whitty added.The Italian government declared a state of emergency on Friday to fast-track efforts to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain after two cases were confirmed in Rome. "All new visitors with recent travel history to China within the last 14 days will not be allowed to enter into Singapore or to transit through Singapore," added Wong, who co-chairs the government task force leading the response to the virus.- AFPThai health authorities have confirmed five more cases of a new type of virus and say one of them is a taxi driver who is the country's first to become ill through human-to-human contact. Nearly 99 percent of all confirmed cases of the deadly new coronavirus were still in China on Thursday, and CBS News correspondent Ramy Inocencio said as the number of infections climbs, major international events were being postponed and canceled. As of Wednesday, there were more people in China infected by the new coronavirus than there ever were with SARS in the country.The global infection rate was still lower than the SARS epidemic, but only by a few hundred people, and the numbers were still rising.Inocencio said there was some good news; more than 100 people from the hardest-hit provinces in China had recovered from the novel coronavirus and been released from hospitals.Three Japanese evacuated from the epicenter of the deadly new coronavirus outbreak have tested positive for the illness, the government said Thursday, as it faced criticism for the country's minimal quarantine measures. On Wednesday, authorities reported a second case involving someone who had not recently travelled to China, a tour guide -- for visitors from Wuhan -- who worked on the same bus as a driver who also contracted the virus.— AFPRussian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin ordered the closure of Far East Russia's border with China as part of preventive measures against the spread of the deadly new coronavirus. - Alexandra OdynovaThe U.S. government will charter additional flights to bring home Americans stuck in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak."The Department of State will be staging additional evacuation flights with capacity for private U.S. citizens on a reimbursable basis, leaving Wuhan Tianhe International Airport on or about February 3, 2020," the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said in a statement released Thursday.The Embassy urged any American nationals interested in securing a seat on one of the flights to send an email to a State Department address with basic personal details and passport information. The health ministry says that isolation wards have been identified in different hospitals across the country in order to prepare for a potential outbreak.The Indian government said Wednesday that it is planning to operate two flights to evacuate Indians from Hubei in China and isolate them for 28 days in the Indian capital of New Delhi.— The Associated PressChina's aviation authority has OK'd charter flights to bring some Wuhan residents back from trips overseas, state television said Thursday, according to the Reuters news service.The city of 11 million is the quarantined center of the coronavirus outbreak, and many Chinese and international airlines have stopped flying in and out of Wuhan.Amid reports of shortages of food and daily necessities in virus hot-spot areas, Chinese authorities are "stepping up efforts to ensure continuous supply and stable prices," the official Xinhua News Agency reported. @CBSNews is here.Three Japanese citizens among the more than 200 evacuated from China have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus, Japan's health minister said Thursday.The three people arrived in Japan on Wednesday, on the first flight to evacuate Japanese citizens from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Public awareness about the virus had spread widely and doctors tested the grandmother, who tested positive for the new coronavirus.–The Associated Press French officials said a military aircraft with a medical team is leaving Wednesday night to evacuate some 200 citizens from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. Authorities have screened all travelers from China and hospitals are making checks.— The Associated Press The death rate from the coronavirus is currently about 2%, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. "A relatively mild virus can cause a lot of damage if a lot of people get it," he said.About 99% of the 6,000 total coronavirus cases are in China, and of those, the vast majority are concentrated in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus' outbreak. — The Associated Press The U.S. military said Wednesday that the Air Reserve Base in Southern California awaiting the arrival of about 200 evacuees from Wuhan, China, would keep service members clear of the passengers, who would be restricted to their temporary living quarters.A federal government spokesperson familiar with the plan told CBS News on Wednesday that the passengers on the flight would be quarantined and observed for at least three days in California. She said the Department of Health and Human Services would be responsible for the evacuees, "and DoD personnel will not be directly in contact with the evacuees and evacuees will not have access to any base location other than their assigned housing."Farah said plans were in place for HHS to evacuate any passengers identified as possible cases of the new coronavirus to "a local civilian hospital."China has reported more infections from the new coronavirus than it had from an outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2002-2003, although the death toll was still much lower. "We've planned for an incident like this for many, many years and that's really why we were able to get an answer so quickly," the Doherty Institute's Dr Mike Catton told the BBC.The plane evacuating more than 200 Americans from a Chinese city at the center of a virus outbreak continued Wednesday on to southern California after everyone aboard passed a health screening test in Anchorage, where the aircraft had stopped to refuel.All 201 passengers had already been through two screenings in China and were screened twice more in Anchorage by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.State health officials said there was minimal interaction between the crew and health professionals on the flight with the passengers.They also confirmed that the air circulation system in the terminal at Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage used for the flight was "completely separate" to the rest of the airport.It was unclear exactly when the plane would land at a military base in southern California, but the officials said it should be between three and four hours.— CBS/APBritain joined Australia on Wednesday in deciding to quarantine all passengers arriving from central China's Hubei province for a full two weeks — believed to be the maximum incubation period of the deadly new coronavirus sweeping across China. The BBC said they arrivals could be quarantined at a military base, but those details remained unconfirmed.The decision by the British government came as some recent arrivals from Wuhan voiced concerns that they had not been quarantined after returning to the U.K. One man told BBC News on Wednesday that he flew back into England and was allowed to return home without ongoing health monitoring or any guidance to isolate himself.Starbucks has closed more than half of its stores across China and all shops in the central province of Hubei amid the rapid spread of the deadly new coronavirus. There was reportedly only one family of migrants being housed at the facility on the island, which was built to hold roughly 1,000.— CBS/AP Germany's Health Minister Jens Spahn responded Wednesday to the country's first confirmed case of coronavirus by ordering hospitals to report any suspected cases of the deadly bug and German airlines to retain contact details of all passengers from China. "We should all try and keep calm." - Anna Noryskiewicz  British Airways said Wednesday that it was immediately suspending all flights to and from mainland China after the U.K. government warned against unnecessary travel to the country amid the coronavirus outbreak."We apologize to customers for the inconvenience, but the safety of our customers and crew is always our priority," BA said in a statement. Morocco's king has ordered his government to repatriate 100 nationals from Wuhan, and Algeria's president ordered the "immediate" repatriation of 36 citizens in Wuhan, most of them students, the official APS news agency said.— The Associated Press Three additional people in Germany have contracted the novel coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the country to four, according to the Bavarian health ministry. Health officials say the two people recently traveled to Wuhan City, China and developed respiratory symptoms."These people have more mild illness, but both sought healthcare for their illnesses and are recovering," the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services said. The student had traveled to Hunan and returned to the U.S. on January 6.— CBS BostonA German man who contracted the novel strain of coronavirus was infected by a colleague visiting from China, officials said on Tuesday, in what appeared to be the first human-to-human transmission in Europe. Other confirmed cases in Europe of the viral outbreak have so far involved patients who had recently been to China.In this instance, the 33-year-old German attended a training session held by a visiting Chinese colleague on January 21 at the office of car parts supplier Webasto in Stockdorf, in Germany's southern Bavaria region.The Chinese woman "started to feel sick on the flight home on January 23", said Andreas Zapf, head of the Bavarian State Office for Health and Food Safety.The German man tested positive for the virus on Monday evening after reporting flu-like symptoms. "I'm hoping to get my family on that flight so they can come back to Wisconsin, where I'm not feeling any anxiety about catching the coronavirus." U.S. health officials say the virus is not spreading widely in America and that danger to the public remains low, but as of Wednesday, there were five confirmed cases and nearly 100 people being tested across 26 states. — Tucker Reals and Ramy Inocencio CBS News correspondent Ramy Inocencio says there have been chaotic scenes at Hong Kong's border crossing points with mainland China as Chinese citizens try to escape the rapid spread of the deadly new coronavirus and make it into the semi-autonomous territory.Hong Kong's regional government — the leaders of which are appointed by Beijing — said Tuesday that all rail and ferry links with mainland China would be halted from Thursday. Russia's state-run TASS news agency quoted the governor of Khabarovsk as saying his region, along with the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and Amur regions, had already closed their borders.The three regions span most of Russia's shared border with northern China.Japanese authorities confirmed two new cases of the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, including a man who has never been to Wuhan in central China, where the disease originated. Medical personnel were to be on the flight to administer health checks for all passengers, who would also be asked to monitor their health for two weeks after returning.There are about 650 Japanese nationals who want to return home from the Wuhan region, so additional flights were being planned.North Korea said it's taking "emergency steps" to prevent the spread of a new virus from neighboring China. The North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said Tuesday the country is strengthening quarantine measures at airports, ports and border areas and conducting a medical surveillance of those who return from overseas trips.The paper also said North Korea's health authorities have "urgently" produced related hygiene documents and distributed them to medial facilities.North Korea hasn't officially reported any cases of the new coronavirus.Tour operators in Beijing said last week North Korea had banned foreign tourists as a precaution against the virus.— The Associated Press The health department of Bavaria announced Germany's first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus Monday, according to the Reuters news agency.