GENEVA/SEOUL: South Korea reported on Saturday its biggest surge in new coronavirus cases and concerns grew of a possible epidemic in the United States as the World Health Organization raised its risk alert to its highest level.
The virus has rapidly spread across the world over the past week, causing stock markets to sink to their lowest levels since the 2008 global financial crisis over fears that the disease could wreak havoc on the world economy.
More than 2,900 people have died and over 85,000 have been infected worldwide since it emerged apparently from an animal market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December.
The vast majority of infections have been in China but more daily cases are now logged outside the country, with South Korea, Italy and Iran emerging as major focal points.
South Korea has the most cases outside China, with nearly 3,000 infections as 594 more patients were reported on Saturday -- the country's biggest increase to date.
In neighbouring North Korea, the country's leader Kim Jong Un warned top party officials of the "serious consequences" of failing to prevent an outbreak of the new coronavirus on their side of the border.
The impoverished nation, with a weak and ill-equipped healthcare system, has closed its borders to prevent the spread of the disease into its territory.
The virus has also spread to new zones -- in the past 24 hours, it has affected nine new countries, from Azerbaijan to Mexico and New Zealand after reaching sub-Saharan Africa with Nigeria reporting its first case.
"We have now increased our assessment of the risk of spread and the risk of impact of COVID-19 to very high at global level," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Friday.
"We do not see evidence as yet that the virus is spreading freely in communities. As long as that's the case, we still have a chance of containing this virus."
But California health officials confirmed a second suspected US case of the new coronavirus transmitted to a person who did not travel overseas or come in contact with anyone known to be ill, prompting fears of a possible outbreak in the United States.
"This new case indicates that there is evidence of community transmission but the extent is still not clear," said Sara Cody, director of public health for Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley where tech giants like Apple and Google are based.
"What we know now is that the virus is here, present at some level, but we still don't know to what degree."
China struggling with containment
Forty seven more people have died of the deadly coronavirus, raising the death toll in the country to 2,835 while the number of confirmed cases climbed to 79,251, Chinese health officials said on Saturday.
China's National Health Commission (NHC) in its daily report on Saturday said it received reports of 427 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection and 47 deaths on Friday.
Among the deaths reported, 45 were from the epicentre of the virus Hubei Province, one in Beijing and Henan respectively, it said.
The overall confirmed cases on the mainland have reached 79,251 by the end of Friday, and 2,835 people have died of the disease, it said.
The virus, though slowing down its virulence, continued to affect more people as another 248 new suspected cases were reported taking the total to 1,418 people.
Also on Friday, 2,885 people were discharged from the hospitals after recovery, while the number of severe cases decreased by 288 to 7,664, the NHC said.
A total of 39,002 people have been discharged from the hospitals after the recovery.
By the end of Friday, 94 confirmed cases, including two deaths, have been reported in Hong Kong, 10 confirmed cases in Macao and 34 in Taiwan, including one death.
Markets tank
Stock markets around the world have plummeted this week as it has become increasingly clear the virus will take a huge toll on the global economy.
"Stock markets are well on their way to their worst week since the global financial crisis," said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda trading group.
Several companies have said they expect the virus to hit their earnings because of weaker demand.
Oil prices also dived four percent to their lowest levels for more than a year, with Brent oil for April delivery sinking as low as $50.05 a barrel.
Analysts have warned that China, the world's second largest economy, will see a major cut in growth this quarter as the country remains largely paralysed by quarantines and containment measures.
China hope
Still, signs in China offered hope that the outbreak could be contained.
China reported 44 more deaths on Friday, raising its toll to 2,788, with 327 new cases -- the lowest daily figure for new infections in more than a month.
The main concern for health officials is outside of China, with governments this week forced into increasingly drastic measures in an attempt to battle spiralling epidemics.
The biggest death toll outside China is in Iran, where 34 people have died.
As elsewhere, the virus has mostly killed the elderly or people who had other health conditions.
South Korea also now has the most cases outside China, with more than 2,000 infections and 13 deaths.
The virus has had wide-ranging impact, even forcing K-pop megastars BTS to cancel four Seoul concerts due in April.
Cruise ship victim
In Japan, the health ministry said a British man who was on board a coronavirus-stricken cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo had died, bringing the death toll to six.
The unidentified man's death is the latest linked to infections on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, where more than 700 other people tested positive for the illness.
The death comes as the governor of Japan's rural northern island of Hokkaido urged people to stay at home this weekend in a desperate effort to contain the outbreak.
In Europe, the largest epicentre is Italy with 650 cases and 17 deaths -- mostly in cities in the north.
Wide-ranging measures to halt the spread of the virus have affected tens of millions of people in northern Italy, with schools closed and cultural and sporting events cancelled.
Experts said the virus had probably "circulated unnoticed for several weeks" before the first confirmed cases -- possibly since January.
Belarus, Denmark, Iceland, Lithuania, Mexico and New Zealand were the latest countries to report new cases.
- South Korean cases -
South Korea's epidemic is centred in its fourth-largest city, Daegu, whose streets have been largely deserted for days, apart from long queues at the few shops with masks for sale.
Three women in the Daegu area died of the illness, taking the national toll to 16, authorities said Saturday.
South Korea's total is expected to rise further with the screening of more than 210,000 members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a secretive entity often accused of being a cult that is linked to around half of the country's cases.
While China reported 47 more deaths on Saturday, it recorded fewer new cases than South Korea, with 427 infections.
South Korean officials say they are not considering a citywide quarantine for Daegu similar to the lockdown imposed on the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
In Iran, unnamed health system sources told the BBC that at least 210 people had died of the coronavirus -- far beyond the official death toll of 34, but a health ministry spokesman angrily denied that figure.
What WHO is saying
A senior World Health Organisation (WHO) expert said in Geneva on Friday that it is unhelpful to declare a pandemic when people are still trying to contain COVID-19, although the WHO has raised the epidemic risk alert to the highest level.
The WHO revised on Friday the risk assessment of the COVID-19 from "high" to "very high" at global level, as an increasing number of cases in more countries were reported over the last few days.
"A Pandemic is a unique situation, in which all citizens on the planet will likely be exposed to a virus within a defined period of time," state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO Health Emergencies Programme as saying.
However, in the case of COVID-19, it has been proved that the course of the epidemic can be significantly altered through containment measures and robust public health response, the expert noted.
The word "pandemic" is "colloquial," Ryan said, appealing for actions that go beyond colloquial terms.
The existing data do not support the concept of a pandemic so far, he said, highlighting that China has clearly shown that it is not necessarily the natural outcome of the COVID-19 epidemic if indispensable responses are made quickly.