Coronavirus updates: US flies out its Diamond Princess passengers as China cases pass 70,000 – live news | World news

A fifth evacuation flight of Japanese citizens from Wuhan has landed in Tokyo.

It landed at Haneda airport shortly before 7.00am on Monday, the Japanese broadcaster NHK said, carrying 36 Japanese nationals and 29 Chinese nationals, including spouses of Japanese.

A total of 763 people returned to Japan from Hubei on the four previous flights, NHK says.

Singapore has cut its 2020 growth and exports forecasts due to an expected economic blow from the new coronavirus outbreak, flagging the chance of a recession this year, Reuters reports.

The country has reported 75 cases of the virus to date, one of the highest tallies outside China.

The downgrade of its GDP forecast range to -0.5% to 1.5%, from 0.5% to 2.5% previously, opens up the possibility that full-year growth could be negative, with the prime minister saying on Friday that a recession is possible.

“The outlook for the Singapore economy has weakened since the last review… In particular, the Covid-19 outbreak is expected to affect the Singapore economy,” said the ministry’s permanent secretary, Gabriel Lim.

Lim said the impact would be most keenly felt in manufacturing, trade, tourism and transport, alongside retail and food services.

Singapore is set to roll out a hefty package of measures to cushion the blow from the epidemic on its economy at its annual budget on Tuesday, with some analysts expecting it to plan for its biggest deficit in over a decade.

The full-year forecast range for non-oil domestic exports was also lowered on Monday to -0.5% to 1.5%, from 0% to 2% previously.

The economy had been staging a nascent recovery after recording its lowest growth rate in a decade in 2019 at 0.7% before the virus spread to the city-state in late January.

There’s been a lot of discussion about how the figures are trending over the past few days, particularly as there was a big spike in the number of recorded cases of infections in Hubei province last Wednesday, when it changed the way it was recording cases to include people who had been clinically diagnosed with Covid-19, as well as those who had tested positive on a Covid-19 test.

First let’s look at the trend for infections inside China but outside of Hubei, since they changed the way they were counting cases.

• Sunday 16 February: 125 new cases excluding Hubei (1,933 inside Hubei)
• Saturday 15 February: 166 new cases excluding Hubei (1,843 inside Hubei)
• Friday 14 February: 221 cases excluding Hubei (2,641 inside Hubei)
• Thursday 13 February: 267 cases excluding Hubei (4,823 inside Hubei)

On Wednesday 12 February, Hubei changed the way it was counting cases. That day the National Health Commission recorded 312 cases outside of Hubei.

The daily national figures for China have been announced. It says the total number of confirmed cases have by 2,048 to 70,548.

Total deaths now stand at 1,770, after 105 more deaths were reported in the past 24 hours.

Of those new deaths, only five were reported outside of Hubei province (3 in Henan, and 2 in Guangdong).

Of the new infections, only 125 were recorded outside of Hubei.

China’s ambassador in Australia, Chen Jingye, is giving an interview on Sky News Australia about the coronavirus outbreak.

“This is controllable. This is curable,” he says. “So we have every confidence and capacities to win against the epidemic.”

He says the Australian travel ban on people entering the country if they have travelled to China is “out of proportion”

“The situation here is … inconsistent with recommendations from WHO,” he says.

He says he hopes the Australian government will take this into account when next reviewing the travel ban, due to expire on Saturday. He hopes restrictions will be relaxed.

He’s now being asked about the death of the whistleblower doctor, Li Wenliang, who died from the virus around 10 days ago.

“His contributions is (sic) acknowledged,” he says.

Chen says the best way to honour his memory is to keep fighting the virus.

The next question is about reports a speech President Xi gave on 3 February, in which he gave instructions to fight the virus on 7 January. His remarks were published by state media late Saturday.

“President Xi himself has shown strong leadership in this fight against the virus. He’s has been personally involved … giving orders … and overseeing and guiding efforts throughout this outbreak,” Chen said.

Chinese state media is reporting that penalties up to life imprisonment can be handed out to people who sell face masks or goggles which don’t meet national standards.

Hubei province is tightening its restrictions on movement further, in an effort to combat the virus. About 56 million people are effectively under quarantine, including in Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have started.

New measures include broad instructions that residential compounds and villages be “sealed off” from unnecessary visitors, with tenants’ outings “strictly managed”.

Last week Beijing, a city of more than 20 million people, said anyone returning to the city must go into self-imposed quarantine for 14 days, or face stiff penalties.

The World Health Organization says international experts in a WHO-led joint mission had arrived in Beijing and had had their first meeting with their Chinese counterparts.

“We look forward to this vitally important collaboration contributing to global knowledge about the COVID19 outbreak,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Twitter.

On Sunday, a spokesman for China’s National Health Commission said slowing case numbers nationally showed that China was controlling the outbreak.

But Tedros has warned it is “impossible to predict which direction this epidemic will take”.

Tedros also said the international community must “use the window of opportunity” to intensify preparations for the spread of Covid-19 infections.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the coronavirus outbreak.

The epicentre of the outbreak – Hubei province – has reported 100 new deaths in its daily update of figures on Monday, with 1,933 new infections.

This takes infections in China past 70,000, and deaths to at least 1,765. We are still waiting for Monday’s national figures and will bring you them shortly.

Five other deaths have been reported globally.

Outside China, attention has turned to the Diamond Princess cruise ship, stuck in Japan. The US has airlifted its passengers out, but around 40 Americans who tested positive to Covid-19, will remain in Japan where they are being treated. Here’s a quick summary of what else we know so far: