China admits "shortcomings" as coronavirus infects more than 20,500

The new coronavirus outbreak has been strongly concentrated in China's Hubei province, with less than 200 cases spread across about two dozen other countries.Briand said the WHO was working with national authorities around the world to "see how we can harmonise practices" and share experiences on evacuations from China, "so other countries can implement what works better."A Chinese woman has been detained by police for "deliberately concealing" her contact with a person or people from an area affected by the deadly new coronavirus, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday. The agency said the 36-year-old woman was accused of damaging China's virus containment efforts through her actions and and was taken by local authorities for "administrative detention." It was not clear from the Xinhua report how long she was being held, or whether she might already have been released.China's senior leadership acknowledged on Tuesday that there had been "shortcomings and deficiencies" in the government's response to the spread of the deadly new coronavirus that originated in Hubei province. The first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in the U.S., a man who flew from China to Washington state, has been released from the hospital, health officials said Monday. Although scientists suspect the latest virus outbreak in China began at a seafood market in Wuhan where wild animals were on sale and in contact with people, the animal source has not yet been pinpointed.- Associated PressAirlines in Pakistan resumed flights to and from China Monday after health authorities said they were confident they had systems in place to keep the deadly coronavirus out of the country. That will allow us to deport foreign citizens if they are diagnosed with such an illness," he said Friday during a televised meeting with other government officials.On Friday, Russia reported its first two confirmed cases of coronavirus — two Chinese nationals were hospitalized in two different regions of Siberia. Like other countries, Russia has halted most of its air and train traffic with China, shut down its land border with China and Mongolia and temporarily stopped issuing work visas to Chinese citizens.- CBS/APChinese equities plunged almost eight percent Monday as nervous traders returned from their extended Lunar New Year break, hit by fears that the deadly coronavirus could hammer the country's economy.The steep losses led another sell-off across Asia following a painful week for global markets as governments around the world have banned flights to and from China.Oil prices hit 13-month lows at the start of Asian trading on expectations that crude demand could slide as the virus hits economic output.Analysts have warned that the virus outbreak could slash global growth this year, throwing a spanner in the works just as economies were showing signs of stabilizing after more than a year of slowing.Observers said that with China being a crucial part of the global trade infrastructure, other countries would also be badly hit, while major corporate names have frozen or scaled back their Chinese operations, threatening the global supply chain.- AFPThe head of the World Health Organization on Monday urged countries against implementing "measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade," just a day after the U.S. announced it would not permit non-U.S. residents to enter the country if they have been in mainland China within the last two weeks.So far the U.S., Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia have imposed restrictions on any travelers who have recently visited China. "Social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Tencent and Tiktok have also taken steps to limit the spread of misinformation," he noted.Cruise lines worldwide will deny boarding to passengers and crew who have recently travelled to China, the global Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) said Monday, as fears grow over the deadly new coronavirus."CLIA Members have suspended crew movements from mainland China and will deny boarding to any individual, whether guest or crew, who has travelled from or through mainland China within the previous 14 days," the body's Hamburg office said in a statement.CLIA represents the world's best-known cruise lines, including TUI, AIDA, MSC and Carnival Cruises.- AFPHong Kong's leader Carrie Lam announced the semi-autonomous Chinese city would shut almost all land and sea border control points with the mainland from midnight to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus from China. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier Monday that the U.S. was "working closely and hand-in-hand with the Chinese government to try and resolve what is now this global epidemiological challenge." He said the U.S. hoped to bring "some medical supplies" into China on planes chartered in the coming days to evacuate more U.S. nationals from the country.President Trump, asked Sunday on Fox News about cooperation with China in light of the ban on travelers from that country, said the U.S. had "offered China help, but we can't have thousands of people coming in who may have this problem, the coronavirus.""We're gonna see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes," Mr. Trump said, referring to the travel restrictions.- CBS/AFPChina sent medical workers and equipment to a newly built hospital Monday among other steps to try to contain the coronavirus. -- The Associated PressSecretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday the U.S. plans "a handful more flights" to bring Americans home from China's Hubei province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak."We're working closely and hand-in-hand with the Chinese government to try and resolve what is now this global epidemiological challenge, and so we'll have more details exactly on when those flights will depart ... He said the U.S. might also bring in some medical supplies.Two new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in San Benito County, California, the county public health department said. There are different viruses that develop," Cuomo said.China is set to open a new hospital in the city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak, BBC News reported. Santa Clara County public health officials confirmed its second case of coronavrius, the ninth overall in the U.S. The latest case is not related to the first one, but the patients both had recently traveled to Wuhan, China, officials said. Kennedy International Airport.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will screen those passengers upon arrival, Pekoske said, adding that the order "applies to travel from any airport with direct flights to the U.S., not just airports in China."Indonesia's U.N. Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani told CBS News in an exclusive interview that the country has suspended its airlines' direct flights to Wuhan, 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. This action is also on the AFA communicable disease checklist provided to all of our airlines again on January 24, 2020."China is decisively working to control the deadly outbreak of the novel coronavirus, its ambassador to the UN said Friday, insisting there was no need for countries impose "excessive measures" like border closures. 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. Google has also placed temporary business travel restrictions on flying to mainland China and Hong Kong, and has urged employees to return home from the country and spend two weeks working from home before returning to the office.A family of four Chinese tourists in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday became the first coronavirus cases in the Mideast, with an Emirati doctor saying the first to fall ill only showed symptoms after over a week on vacation. 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.