Iraq's foreign minister has summoned the ambassadors of the United States and United Kingdom over a series of deadly air raids against Iraqi military positions overnight.
"The foreign minister held an emergency meeting in which the ministry's undersecretaries, advisors and official spokesman discussed the measures regarding the recent American aggression. He has ordered the summoning of the United States and British ambassadors to Baghdad," a spokesman said in a statement.
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It came after Iraq's military said at least one civilian and five security personnel were killed in the US raids, which it denounced as a violation of sovereignty and a targeted aggression against Iraq's armed forces.
The civilian killed in the overnight attack was a cook working at an airport under construction in Karbala, the military said in a statement. The death toll included three soldiers and two policemen, while four soldiers, two policemen, one civilian and five militiamen were wounded, it said.
Earlier, the Pentagon said the US conducted "defensive precision strikes" against the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah facilities across Iraq, in an attack that was in response to an earlier rocket barrage that killed two US troops and one British soldier.
A US official told The Associated Press news agency that the raids were a joint operation with the British.
Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera's Simona Foltyn said there had been "widespread condemnation" of the attacks that targeted different southern positions belonging to the Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella organisation of several armed militias, with the latest incident likely to once again ignite calls in Iraq for the expulsion of US troops.
Citing the military's statement, Foltyn said the "fatalities suggest that these air strikes were not as precise as the US said that they were, and this is rather embarrassing for the US because the Iraqi army and police are its partners under the coalition to fight ISIL.
"Essentially, rather than deterring Kataib Hezbollah and other Iranian-linked groups from conducting further attacks on US servicemen, the US in fact ended up further rupturing the relationship between its Iraqi partners and its presence here in Iraq."
Members of Iraqi security forces inspect the damage at the airport hit by US air strikes in Karbala [Alaa al-Marjani/Reuters]
US President Donald Trump gave the Pentagon the authority to respond to Wednesday's attack, responsibility for which has not been claimed, again raising tensions with neighbouring Iran after the two countries came to the brink of war earlier this year.
Washington had blamed Kataib Hezbollah for an attack in December that killed a US contractor, leading to a cycle of tit-for-tat confrontations that culminated in the January 3 US assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani on January 3. Five days later, a retaliatory Iranian missile attack on two bases in Iraq housing US troops left more than 100 US troops with brain injuries but caused no fatalities.
Iran on Friday warned US President Donald Trump against taking "dangerous actions" after the overnight air raids.
"The United States cannot blame others ... for the consequences of its illegal presence in Iraq and the nation's reaction to the assassination and killing of Iraqi commanders and fighters," foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said.
"Instead of dangerous actions and baseless accusations, Mr Trump should reconsider the presence and behaviour of his troops in the area," he added.
The Pentagon said late on Thursday that its "strikes" had targeted Kataib Hezbollah that housed weapons used to target US and coalition troops," it said.
Damage at the civilian airport under construction hit by US air strikes in Kerbala [Alaa al-Marjani/Reuters]
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, at the Victoria Airport in 2016. Grégoire Trudeau has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the prime minister's office said Thursday.
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Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the wife of Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, becoming the latest in a string of high-profile individuals to become infected with the potentially deadly pathogen.
In a statement on Thursday, the office of the prime minister said Grégoire Trudeau had begun experiencing a low-grade fever and other mild flu-like symptoms the previous day and was subsequently tested.
"The test came back positive," it said.
"She is feeling well, is taking all the recommended precautions and her symptoms remain mild," the statement said, adding that the prime minister himself "is in good health with no symptoms."
Grégoire Trudeau will self-isolate for 14 days, along with the prime minister and the couple's three children, "[as] a precautionary measure," according to the statement.
It said that the isolation would not interfere with the prime minister's duties as head of government and that "on the advice of doctors, he will not be tested at this stage since he has no symptoms."
In her own statement, Grégoire Trudeau, 44, thanked well-wishers, saying that although she is "experiencing uncomfortable symptoms," she would be "back on my feet soon."
"Being in quarantine at home is nothing compared to other Canadian families who might be going through this and for those facing more serious health concerns," she said.
In a gesture of support for Grégoire Trudeau, the leader of Canada's opposition conservatives, Andrew Scheer, tweeted that he and his wife "wish her a speedy recovery."
"We're thinking of her and her family at this difficult time," Scheer wrote.
Very sorry to hear that Sophie Grégoire Trudeau has been diagnosed with COVID-19. Jill and I wish her a speedy recovery. We’re thinking of her and her family at this difficult time.
On Thursday, the prime minister spoke by telephone with President Trump and the two leaders discussed efforts to respond to the pandemic, with nearly 135,000 known cases globally and nearly 5,000 deaths from the virus.
In a readout of the call, the prime minister's office said: "The two leaders discussed the steps they are taking to protect the health and safety of their citizens and to promote economic resilience in response to the COVID-19 virus."
"The Prime Minister and the President welcomed the close coordination between Canada and the United States in managing this challenge, including as it relates to the Canada-U.S. border, and looked forward to staying in touch," according to the readout.
Trudeau on Thursday also spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy, which has seen a surge in cases in recent days that have severely strained the country's health care system. In the World Health Organization's latest situation report on the pandemic, Italy was reporting nearly 12,500 cases with more than 800 deaths across the country from COVID-19.
Grégoire Trudeau joins a growing list of prominent government officials and celebrities who have become infected by the virus, which attacks the lungs and has proved highly contagious even though it causes mild or no symptoms in most people. However, older individuals and those with compromised immune systems are especially vulnerable.
The Brazilian government said Thursday that Fábio Wajngarten, the communications director for President Jair Bolsonaro, had tested positive for the virus.
Wajngarten was part of a delegation that traveled to the U.S. last weekend and met Trump and Vice President Pence at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. A statement from White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said that the president and vice president "had almost no interactions with the individual who tested positive and do not require being tested at this time."
In Australia, Home Minister Peter Dutton said in a statement that he "woke up with a temperature and sore throat" Friday morning, was tested, and came back with a positive result. He said he had been admitted to the hospital in accordance with directives from health officials.
"I feel fine and will provide an update in due course," Dutton said. The government in Canberra advised anyone who had come in contact with Dutton in the 24 hours previous to self-isolate.
A day earlier, actors Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, announced that they had tested positive for the virus while in Australia, where Hanks was preparing for shooting to begin on a new Elvis Presley biopic.
NBA basketball players Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell have also tested positive for the virus, contributing to the league's stunning decision this week to suspend the season, a move mirrored by college basketball's NCAA.
Thanks for so many good wishes. It’s been pretty rubbish but I hope I’m over the worst of it now. More worried about my 84yo mum who is staying with me and began with the cough today. She is being tested tomorrow. Keep safe and keep washing those hands, everyone.
MILAN/SEOUL (Reuters) - In Italy, millions are locked down and more than 1,000 people have died from the coronavirus. In South Korea, hit by the disease at about the same time, only a few thousand are quarantined and 67 people have died. As the virus courses through the world, the story of two outbreaks illustrates a coming problem for countries now grappling with an explosion in cases.
FILE PHOTO: Medical workers wearing protective masks check patients at a medical checkpoint at the entrance of the Spedali Civili hospital in Brescia, Italy March 3, 2020. REUTERS/Flavio Lo Scalzo
It’s impractical to test every potential patient, but unless the authorities can find a way to see how widespread infection is, their best answer is lockdown.
Italy started out testing widely, then narrowed the focus so that now, the authorities don’t have to process hundreds of thousands of tests. But there’s a trade-off: They can’t see what’s coming and are trying to curb the movements of the country’s entire population of 60 million people to contain the disease. Even Pope Francis, who has a cold and delivered his Sunday blessing over the internet from inside the Vatican, said he felt “caged in the library.”
Thousands of miles away in South Korea, authorities have a different response to a similar-sized outbreak. They are testing hundreds of thousands of people for infections and tracking potential carriers like detectives, using cell phone and satellite technology.
Both countries saw their first cases of the disease called COVID-19 in late January. South Korea has since reported 67 deaths out of nearly 8,000 confirmed cases, after testing more than 222,000 people. In contrast, Italy has had 1,016 deaths and identified more than 15,000 cases after carrying out more than 73,000 tests on an unspecified number of people.
Epidemiologists say it is not possible to compare the numbers directly. But some say the dramatically different outcomes point to an important insight: Aggressive and sustained testing is a powerful tool for fighting the virus.
Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, said extensive testing can give countries a better picture of the extent of an outbreak. When testing in a country is limited, he said, the authorities have to take bolder actions to limit movement of people.
“I’m uncomfortable with enforced lockdown-type movement restrictions,” he said. “China did that, but China is able to do that. China has a population that will comply with that.”
The democracies of Italy and South Korea are useful case studies for countries such as America, which have had problems setting up testing systems and are weeks behind on the infection curve. So far, in Japan and the United States particularly, the full scale of the problem is not yet visible. Germany has not experienced significant testing constraints, but Chancellor Angela Merkel warned her people on Wednesday that since 60% to 70% of the populace is likely to be infected, the only option is containment.
South Korea, which has a slightly smaller population than Italy at about 50 million people, has around 29,000 people in self-quarantine. It has imposed lockdowns on some facilities and at least one apartment complex hit hardest by outbreaks. But so far no entire regions have been cut off.
Seoul says it is building on lessons learned from an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2015 and working to make as much information available as possible to the public. It has embarked on a massive testing program, including people who have very mild illness, or perhaps don’t even have symptoms, but who may be able to infect others.
This includes enforcing a law that grants the government wide authority to access data: CCTV footage, GPS tracking data from phones and cars, credit card transactions, immigration entry information, and other personal details of people confirmed to have an infectious disease. The authorities can then make some of this public, so anyone who may have been exposed can get themselves - or their friends and family members - tested.
In addition to helping work out who to test, South Korea’s data-driven system helps hospitals manage their pipeline of cases. People found positive are placed in self-quarantine and monitored remotely through a smartphone app, or checked regularly in telephone calls, until a hospital bed becomes available. When a bed is available, an ambulance picks the person up and takes the patient to a hospital with air-sealed isolation rooms. All of this, including hospitalization, is free of charge.
South Korea’s response is not perfect. While more than 209,000 people have tested negative there, results are still pending on about 18,000 others - an information gap that means there are likely more cases in the pipeline. The rate of newly confirmed cases has dropped since a peak in mid-February, but the system’s greatest test may still be ahead as authorities try to track and contain new clusters. South Korea does not have enough protective masks - it has started rationing them - and it is trying to hire more trained staff to process tests and map cases.
And the approach comes at the cost of some privacy. South Korea’s system is an intrusive mandatory measure that depends on people surrendering what, for many in Europe and America, would be a fundamental right of privacy. Unlike China and the island-state of Singapore, which have used similar methods, South Korea is a large democracy with a population that is quick to protest policies it does not like.
“Disclosing information about patients always comes with privacy infringement issues,” said Choi Jaewook, a preventive medicine professor at Korea University and a senior official at the Korean Medical Association. Disclosures “should be strictly limited” to patients’ movements, and “it shouldn’t be about their age, their sex, or their employers.”
Traditional responses such as locking down affected areas and isolating patients can be only modestly effective, and may cause problems in open societies, says South Korea’s Deputy Minister for Health and Welfare Kim Gang-lip. In South Korea’s experience, he told reporters on Monday, lockdowns mean people participate less in tracing contacts they may have had. “Such an approach,” he said, “is close-minded, coercive, and inflexible.”
ITALY “AT THE LIMIT”
Italy and South Korea are more than 5,000 miles apart, but there are several similarities when it comes to coronavirus. Both countries’ main outbreaks were initially clustered in smaller cities or towns, rather than in a major metropolis - which meant the disease quickly threatened local health services. And both involved doctors who decided to ignore testing guidelines.
Italy’s epidemic kicked off last month. A local man with flu symptoms was diagnosed after he had told medical staff he had not been to China and discharged himself, said Massimo Lombardo, head of local hospital services in Lodi.
The diagnosis was only made after the 38-year-old, whose name has only been given as Mattia, returned to the hospital. Testing guidelines at the time said it was not necessary to test people who had no link to China or other affected areas. But an anaesthetist pushed the protocols and decided to go ahead and test for COVID-19 anyway, Lombardo said. Now, some experts in Italy believe Mattia may have been infected through Germany, rather than China.
Decisions about testing hinge partly on what can be done with people who test positive, at a time when the healthcare system is already under stress. In Italy at first, regional authorities tested widely and counted all positive results in the published total, even if people did not have symptoms.
Then, a few days after the patient known as Mattia was found to have COVID-19, Italy changed tack, only testing and announcing cases of people with symptoms. The authorities said this was the most effective use of resources: The risk of contagion seemed lower from patients with no symptoms, and limited tests help produce reliable results more quickly. The approach carried risks: People with no symptoms still can be infected and spread the virus.
On the other hand, the more you test the more you find, so testing in large numbers can put hospital systems under strain, said Massimo Antonelli, director of intensive care at the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS in Rome. Testing involves elaborate medical processes and follow-up. “The problem is actively searching for cases,” he said. “It means simply the numbers are big.”
Italy has a generally efficient health system, according to international studies. Its universal healthcare receives funding below the European Union average but is comparable with South Korea’s, at 8.9% of GDP against 7.3% in South Korea, according to the World Health Organization.
Now, that system has been knocked off balance. Staff are being brought into accident and emergency departments, holidays have been canceled and doctors say they are delaying non-urgent operations to free up intensive care beds.
Pier Luigi Viale, head of the infectious disease unit at Sant’ Orsola-Malpighi hospital in Bologna, is working around the clock - in three jobs. His hospital is handling multiple coronavirus cases. His doctors are shuttling to other hospitals and clinics in the area to lend their expertise and help out with cases. In addition, his doctors also have to deal with patients with other contagious diseases who are struggling to survive.
“If it drags on for weeks or months we’ll need more reinforcements,” he told Reuters.
Last week, the mayor of Castiglione d’Adda, a town of about 5,000 people in Lombardy’s “red zone” which was the first to be locked down, made an urgent online appeal for help. He said his small town had had to close its hospital and was left with one doctor to treat more than 100 coronavirus patients. Three of the town’s four doctors were sick or in self quarantine.
“Doctors and nurses are at the limit,” said a nurse from the hospital where Mattia was taken in. “If you have to manage people under artificial respiration you have to be watching them constantly, you can’t look after the new cases that come in.”
Studies so far suggest that every positive case of coronavirus can infect two other people, so local authorities in Lombardy have warned that the region’s hospitals face a serious crisis if the spread continues - not just for COVID-19 patients but also for others whose treatment has been delayed or disrupted. As the crisis spreads into Italy’s less prosperous south, the problems will be magnified.
Intensive care facilities face the most intense pressure. They require specialist staff and expensive equipment and are not set up for mass epidemics. In total, Italy has around 5,000 intensive care beds. In the winter months, some of these are already occupied by patients with respiratory problems. Lombardy and Veneto have just over 1,800 intensive care beds between public and private systems, only some of which can be set aside for COVID-19 patients.
The government has asked regional authorities to increase the number of intensive care places by 50% and to double the number of beds for respiratory and contagious diseases, while reorganizing staff rosters to ensure adequate staffing. Some 5,000 respirators have been acquired for intensive care stations, the first of which are due to arrive on Friday, deputy Economy Minister Laura Castelli said.
The region has already asked nursing institutes to allow students to bring forward their graduation to get more nurses into the system early. Pools of intensive care specialists and anaesthetists are to be set up, including staff from outside the worst affected regions.
To add to the burden, hospitals in Italy depend on medical personnel to try to trace the contacts that people who test positive have had with others. One doctor in Bologna, who asked not to be named, said he had spent a 12-hour day tracing people who had been in contact with just one positive patient, to ensure those who next need testing are found.
“You can do that if the number of cases remains two to three,” the doctor said. “But if they grow, something has to give. The system will implode if we continue to test everyone actively and then have to do all this.”
“MAXIMUM POWER”
In South Korea as in Italy, an early case of COVID-19 was identified when a medical officer followed their intuition, rather than the official guidelines, on testing.
The country’s first case was a 35-year-old Chinese woman who tested positive on Jan. 20. But the largest outbreak was detected after the 31st patient, a 61-year-old woman from South Korea’s southeastern city of Daegu, was diagnosed on Feb. 18.
Like the patient named Mattia in Italy, the woman had no known links to Wuhan, the Chinese province where the disease was first identified. And as in Italy, the doctors’ decision to recommend a test went against guidelines at the time to test people who had been to China or been in contact with a confirmed case, said Korea Medical Association’s Choi Jaewook.
“Patient 31,” as she became known, was a member of a secretive church which Deputy Minister for Health and Welfare Kim Gang-lip said has since linked to 61% of cases. Infections spread beyond the congregation after the funeral of a relative of the church’s founder was held at a nearby hospital, and there were several other smaller clusters around the country.
Once the church cluster was identified, South Korea opened around 50 drive-through testing facilities around the country.
In empty parking lots, medical staff in protective clothing lean into cars to check their passengers for fever or breathing difficulties, and if needed, collect samples. The process usually takes about 10 minutes, and people usually receive the results in a text reminding them to wash their hands regularly and wear face masks.
A total of 117 institutions in South Korea have equipment to conduct the tests, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). The numbers fluctuate daily, but an average of 12,000 is possible, and maximum capacity is 20,000 tests a day. The government pays for tests of people with symptoms, if referred by a doctor. Otherwise, people who want to be tested can pay up to 170,000 won ($140), said an official at a company called Seegene Inc, which supplies 80% of the country’s kits and says it can test 96 samples at once.
There are also 130 quarantine officers like Kim Jeong-hwan, who focus on minute details to track potential patients. The 28-year-old public health doctor spends his whole working days remotely checking up on people who have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Kim, who is doing military service, is one of a small army of quarantine officers who track the movements of any potential carriers of the disease by phone, app or the signals sent by cell phones or the black boxes in automobiles. Their goal: To trace all the contacts people may have had, so they too can be tested.
“I haven’t seen anyone telling bad lies,” Kim said. “But lots of people generally don’t remember exactly what they did.”
Underlining their determination, quarantine officers told Reuters they located five cases after a worker in a small town caught the virus and went to work in a “coin karaoke,” a bar where a machine lets people sing a few songs for a dollar. At first, the woman, who was showing symptoms, did not tell the officers where she worked, local officials told Reuters. But they put the puzzle together after questioning her acquaintances and obtaining GPS locations on her mobile device.
“Now, quarantine officers have maximum power and authority,” said Kim Jun-geun, an official at Changnyeong County who collects information from quarantine officers.
Slideshow (7 Images)
South Korea’s government also uses location data to customize mass messages sent to cellphones, notifying every resident when and where a nearby case is confirmed.
Lee Hee-young, a preventative medicine expert who is also running the coronavirus response team in South Korea’s Gyeonggi province, said South Korea has gone some of the way after MERS to increase its infrastructure to respond to infectious diseases. But she said only 30% of the changes the country needs have happened. For instance, she said, maintaining a trained workforce and up-to-date infrastructure at smaller hospitals isn’t easy.
“Until we fix this,” Lee said, “explosions like this can keep blowing up anywhere.”
Reporting by Emilio Parodi, Stephen Jewkes, Angelo Amante, Sangmi Cha and Ju-min Park; Additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Milan and Josh Smith in Seoul, Julie Steenhuysen in New York; Edited by Sara Ledwith and Jason Szep
A senior cabinet member in Australia's government who said Friday he is infected with the new coronavirus was pictured last week standing next to Ivanka Trump, Attorney General William Barr and other White House officials.
Peter Dutton, who is Australia's minister for home affairs, released a statement saying he has been diagnosed with the virus – COVID-19 – and admitted to the hospital, where he is in isolation.
Dutton was in Washington for meetings connected to the so-called Five Eyes security pact, an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the U.S. White House adviser Kellyanne Conway also appears in the March 6 photo.
Coronavirus sweeps country: Parents worry about vulnerable kids in school
Australia has more than 120 cases of COVID-19. Among them: The actor Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson. The Hollywood couple confirmed on Wednesday that they are in isolation in the country after testing positive for the disease. "We are taking it one-day-at-a-time," Hanks said in a tweet. He posted a picture of them on Thursday night.
Earlier, Brazil confirmed that a senior adviser to President Jair Bolsonaro who tested positive for the coronavirus was among a group of officials who met with President Donald Trump on March 7. Fabio Wajngarten is Bolsonaro's communications secretary.
Coronavirus updates: Testing is 'No. 1 issue' for US as death toll hits 40; Wall Street drop spooks world markets
He posted a photo of himself standing next to the U.S. president at Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday. Trump has said he "isn't concerned" about getting tested.
It is not immediately clear where in Washington the photo was taken or if Dutton visited the White House. A growing number of lawmakers are in self-quarantine as a result of having had contact with someone who has been diagnosed with the virus.
It emerged late Thursday that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, has tested positive for coronavirus. Canada's leader is self-isolating.
More and more countries around the world have announced school and university closures, bans on large gatherings and shuttered sports and cultural events as the pandemic increasingly interrupts daily life. Global stock markets remain volatile.
In Italy, millions are locked down and more than 1,000 people have died from the coronavirus.
But in South Korea, which was hit by the disease at about the same time, only a few thousand are quarantined and 67 people died.
More:
The story of the two outbreaks illustrates a difference in approach.
Italy started out testing widely, then narrowed the focus so that now, authorities do not have to process hundreds of thousands of tests. But there's a trade-off: They can't see what's coming and are trying to curb the movements of the country's entire population of 60 million people to contain the disease.
Coronavirus: Too late to stop? | UpFront (24:55)
In South Korea, authorities are testing hundreds of thousands of people for infections and tracking potential carriers like detectives, using mobile phone and satellite technology.
Both countries saw their first cases of the disease called COVID-19 in late January.
South Korea has since reported nearly 8,000 confirmed cases, after testing more than 222,000 people.
In contrast, Italy has more than 12,000 confirmed cases after carrying out more than 73,000 tests on an unspecified number of people.
Epidemiologists say it is not possible to compare the numbers directly. But some say the different outcomes point to an important insight: Aggressive and sustained testing is a powerful tool for fighting the virus.
Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, said extensive testing can give countries a better picture of the extent of an outbreak. When testing in a country is limited, he said, the authorities have to take bolder actions to limit the movement of people.
"I'm uncomfortable with enforced lockdown-type movement restrictions," said Konyndyk. "China did that, but China is able to do that. China has a population that will comply with that."
Previous lessons
Italy and South Korea are more than 5,000 miles (8,000 km) apart, but there are several similarities when it comes to coronavirus.
Both countries' main outbreaks were initially clustered in smaller cities or towns, rather than in a major metropolis - which meant the disease quickly threatened local health services.
Both confirmed their first cases after doctors decided to ignore testing guidelines.
South Korea, which has a slightly smaller population than Italy at about 50 million people, has around 29,000 people in self-quarantine. It has imposed lockdowns on some facilities and at least one apartment complex hit hardest by outbreaks. But so far no entire regions have been cut off.
Seoul says it is building on lessons learned from an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2015 and working to make as much information available as possible to the public.
South Korea is also enforcing a law that grants the government wide authority to access data: CCTV footage, GPS tracking data from phones and cars, credit card transactions, immigration entry information, and other personal details of people confirmed to have an infectious disease.
The authorities can then make some of this public, so anyone who may have been exposed can get themselves - or their friends and family members - tested.
Coronavirus: What is a pandemic and how will things change? (02:14)
In addition to helping work out who to test, South Korea's data-driven systems help hospitals manage their pipeline of cases.
People found positive are placed in self-quarantine and monitored remotely through an app or checked regularly in telephone calls until a hospital bed becomes available. When this occurs, an ambulance picks the person up and takes them to a hospital with air-sealed isolation rooms.
This approach comes at the cost of some privacy. South Korea's system is an intrusive mandatory measure that depends on people surrendering what, for many in Europe and the US, would be a fundamental right of privacy.
"Traditional responses such as locking down affected areas and isolating patients can be only modestly effective, and may cause problems in open societies, says South Korea's Deputy Minister for Health and Welfare Kim Gang-lip.
In South Korea's experience, he told reporters on Monday, lockdowns mean people participate less in tracing contacts they may have had. "Such an approach," he said, "is close-minded, coercive and inflexible."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau at the Victoria Airport in 2016. Grégoire Trudeau has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the prime minister's office said Thursday.
Chris Jackson/Getty Images
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Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the wife of Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has tested positive for novel coronavirus, becoming the latest in a string of high-profile individuals to become infected with the potentially deadly pathogen.
In a statement on Thursday, the office of the prime minister said that Grégoire Trudeau began experiencing a low-grade fever and other mild flu-like symptoms the previous day and was subsequently tested.
"The test came back positive," it said.
"She is feeling well, is taking all the recommended precautions and her symptoms remain mild," the statement said, adding that the prime minister himself "is in good health with no symptoms."
Grégoire Trudeau will self-isolate for 14 days, along with the prime minister "[as] a precautionary measure" along with the couple's three children, according to the statement.
It said that the isolation would not interfere with the prime minister's duties as head of government and that "on the advice of doctors, he will not be tested at this stage since he has no symptoms."
In her own statement, the 44-year-old Grégoire Trudeau thanked well wishers, saying that although she is "experiencing uncomfortable symptoms," that she would be "back on my feet soon."
"Being in quarantine at home is nothing compared to other Canadian families who might be going through this and for those facing more serious health concerns," she said.
In a gesture of support for Grégoire Trudeau, the leader of Canada's opposition conservatives, Andrew Scheer, tweeted that he and his wife "wish her a speedy recovery."
"We're thinking of her and her family at this difficult time," Scheer wrote.
Very sorry to hear that Sophie Grégoire Trudeau has been diagnosed with COVID-19. Jill and I wish her a speedy recovery. We’re thinking of her and her family at this difficult time.
On Thursday, the prime minister spoke by telephone with President Trump and the two leaders discussed efforts to respond to the pandemic, with nearly 135,000 known cases globally and nearly 5,000 deaths from the virus.
In a readout of the call, the prime minister's office said: "The two leaders discussed the steps they are taking to protect the health and safety of their citizens and to promote economic resilience in response to the COVID-19 virus."
"The Prime Minister and the President welcomed the close coordination between Canada and the United States in managing this challenge, including as it relates to the Canada-U.S. border, and looked forward to staying in touch," according to the readout.
Trudeau on Thursday also spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy, which has seen a surge in cases in recent days that have severely strained the country's health care system. In the World Health Organization's latest situation report on the pandemic, Italy was reporting nearly 12,500 cases with more than 800 deaths across the country from the COVID-19 disease.
Grégoire Trudeau joins a growing list of prominent government officials and celebrities who have become infected by the virus, which attacks the lungs and has proven highly contagious even though it causes mild or no symptoms in most people. However, older individuals and those with compromised immune systems are especially vulnerable.
The Brazilian government said Thursday that Fábio Wajngarten, the communications director for President Jair Bolsonaro, had tested positive for the virus.
Wajngarten was part of a delegation that traveled to the U.S. last weekend and met Trump and Vice President Mike Pence at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, to concerned that the president and vice president may have become infected. A statement from White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said that the president and vice president "had almost no interactions with the individual who tested positive and do not require being tested at this time."
In Australia, Home Minister Peter Dutton said in a statement that he "woke up with a temperature and sore throat" Friday morning, was tested, and came back with a positive result. He said he had been admitted to the hospital in accordance with directives from health officials.
"I feel fine and will provide an update in due course," Dutton said. The government in Canberra advised anyone who had come in contact with Dutton in the 24 hours previous to self-isolate.
A day earlier, actors Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, announced that they had tested positive for the virus while in Australia, where Hanks was preparing for shooting to begin on a new Elvis Presley biopic.
NBA basketball players Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell have also tested positive for the virus, contributing to the league's stunning decision this week to suspend the season, a move mirrored by college basketball's NCAA.
Thanks for so many good wishes. It’s been pretty rubbish but I hope I’m over the worst of it now. More worried about my 84yo mum who is staying with me and began with the cough today. She is being tested tomorrow. Keep safe and keep washing those hands, everyone.
The Australian Minister for Home Affairs said on Friday that he has tested positive for coronavirus.
Peter Dutton, an Australian Liberal Party politician serving as Minister for Home Affairs since 2017, said in a statement that he had been feeling ill and took a test for the illness.
“This morning I woke up with a temperature and a sore throat,” the statement read.
“I immediately contacted the Queensland Department of Health and was subsequently tested for COVID-19.
“I was advised by Queensland Health this afternoon that the test had returned positive.”
The Australian Department of Home Affairs deals with “law enforcement, national and transport security, criminal justice, emergency management, multicultural affairs, settlement services and immigration and border-related functions,” according to its website.
On Thursday, the country advised against gatherings of more than 500 people due to the spread of the virus.
Australia’s tally of coronavirus cases stood at 156, with three fatalities.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australians should reconsider their need to travel overseas.
