Coronavirus news – live: UK hospitals instructed to create secure pods for patients as emergency Cobra meeting called

Newborn infant diagnosed just 30 hours after birth

Timelapse video shows China's emergency coronavirus hospital built within 10 days

Coronavirus could be capable of passing from a mother to her baby inside the womb, doctors fear, after a newborn tested positive for the disease just 30 hours after birth.

It came as cruise ship passengers were quarantined in Japan after 10 people aboard were found to be infected with coronavirus. Some 3,700 passengers and crew are now locked down on the Diamond Princess, including a number of Britons.

Hundreds of people are being held aboard another cruise ship in Hong Kong, where medical staff are demanding leader Carrie Lam completely close the border with China.

In the UK, The Independent can exclusively reveal that NHS hospitals have been ordered to create secure coronavirus testing areas to keep pressure off A&E departments.

While the professor leading the NHS’s coronavirus response claimed the measures were “appropriate” to ensure daily services were not affected, Dr Bharat Pankhania at the University of Exeter said the pods “could raise the risk of infection” as a result of “all sorts of issues about ventilation and air clearance”.

In the letter obtained by this paper, NHS 2019-nCoV lead, Professor Keith Willet, said the pods would need to be decontaminated in line with Public Health England guidance after every patient.

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Key Points

• Newborn baby infected
• Olympics chief fears impact of virus
• Final evacuation flight for Britons
• Hong Kong in further clampdown

[5 February 2020 19:30 · Andy Gregory]

Here's footage of the WHO chief's speech in which he urged countries to donate £520m to stop the spread of the virus

[5 February 2020 19:43 · Andy Gregory]

Economists warn of air transport disruption

Reuters has the following report: 

The air transport sector, already reeling from China passenger flight cancellations designed to slow the spread of coronavirus, now faces mounting freight and logistics disruption with broader repercussions at stake, economists warn.

The thousands of dropped flights have already slashed "belly cargo" capacity in airliner holds, with operators like Lufthansa also scaling back freighter services in response to crew health concerns and uncertain demand.

The crisis has dimmed hopes of a rebound for air cargo after its worst year in the decade since the financial crisis, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a group of 280 global airlines, said on Wednesday.

Air cargo is widely seen as an early warning system for blips in global trade and business confidence that would not otherwise be easily visible for weeks or months.

"We are in unknown territory with respect to the eventual impact of the coronavirus on the global economy," IATA said. "With all the restrictions being put in place, it will certainly be a drag on economic growth."

[5 February 2020 20:38 · Andy Gregory]

A dozen cases now confirmed in US

The twelfth known US case of coronavirus has been confirmed in Wisconsin by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the state health agency says.

The patient was identified only as an adult with a history of travel to Beijing prior to becoming ill, and was exposed to other known cases while in China, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services said.