Coronavirus news – live: Outbreak overtakes SARS for confirmed cases as Britons arriving from Wuhan to be quarantined for two weeks

Follow the latest updates

Stephen Barclay dodges Andrew Marr's coronavirus airlift question 4 times

Japan and the US have airlifted hundreds of their citizens from the virus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan as the death toll from the coronavirus outbreak rose again to 132.

Some 201 US citizens were airlifted to southern California where they will remain under medical observation.

However the UK government has said it will not be launching an evacuation of its citizens anytime soon. It is understood China has not granted the necessary permissions to allow for the removal of British nationals on Thursday.

Confirmed cases of the virus also rose sharply to more than 6,000 on Wednesday, overtaking the 5,327 confirmed cases of SARS during the same time period in the 2002-2003 outbreak which killed more than 750 people in 17 countries worldwide.

Meanwhile the World Health Organisation (WHO) said it would reconvene officials to decide whether the outbreak constituted an emergency of international concern.

Here are the days events as they happened...

Key Points

• Hancock to chair emergency Cobra meeting on UK response
• More than 100 tested for virus in UK, all tests negative so far
• More than 6,000 confirmed cases in China, local media reports
• Evacuated Britons to be quarantined for 14 days on arrival to UK
• British Airways suspends all flights to mainland China
• UAE confirms first cases of coronavirus in Middle East

[29 January 2020 16:50 · Vincent Wood]

German airline Lufthansa cancels China flights

German airline Lufthansa, among the world's largest airlines, has cancelled all flights to and from China due to the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus - according to news outlet Die Welt.

In a statement the firm announced it would still fly to Hong Kong, but would stop taking bookings on flights to the mainland until the end of February.

It comes after British Airways announced they would maintain a similar ban on flights until Friday.

[29 January 2020 17:24 · Vincent Wood]

US working closely with China - Trump says after Xi call

Donald Trump says he has spoken with China's President Xi, and the US is working closely with Beijing to limit the spread of Coronavirus.

It comes after a US chartered flight with 201 evacuees from Wuhan arrived in southern California.

[29 January 2020 17:38 · Vincent Wood]

WHO will consider new coronavirus spread as part of global emergency decision

The person-to-person spread of the new coronavirus in three countries - Germany, Vietnam and Japan - is worrying and will be considered by experts reconvened to consider declaring a global emergency, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking to a news conference in Geneva on return from China, said of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping: "I was very encouraged and impressed by the President's detailed knowledge of the outbreak and his personal involvement in the outbreak, this for me is real leadership".

The health chief, asked about an international team agreed to be sent to China, said it would be composed of WHO staff and countries should make "bilateral arrangements" to send their own experts. He would like to reform the current system for declaring international emergencies to have a three-phase system. 

[29 January 2020 17:55 · Vincent Wood]

Videos circulate that appear to show infected being barricaded inside homes

Videos have been spreading around Chinese social media purporting to show infected people in the country being barricaded in their homes.

The footage, which the Independent has not been able to verify, appear to show an orchestrated effort to ensure people remain in quarantine.

Here is the BBC's Stephen McDonell:

[29 January 2020 18:35 · Vincent Wood]

Pharmacy fined for hiking breathing mask prices from £16 to £94

A pharmacy in the Chinese capital will be fined 3 million yuan (£332,576) for hiking the price of masks by almost six times the online rate, the Beijing municipal market regulator said on Wednesday.

An administrative penalty notice has been issued to the Beijing Jimin Kangtai Pharmacy for sharply raising the price of N95 masks, the regulator said in a statement on its website.

The store raised the price of a box of 3M brand masks to 850 yuan (£94) while the online price was just 143 yuan (£16), state television said.

[29 January 2020 18:52 · Vincent Wood]

British family split up as Chinese wife not allowed on evacuation plane from Wuhan

The rush to evacuate British nationals from areas of China affected by deadly coronavirus is apparently forcing the separation of some families, including that of a British man who has said he is being forced to leave his wife, who is Chinese, behind - Harry Cockburn reports.

Sindy and Jeff Siddle, who have a nine-year-old daughter, Jasmine, have described the situation as their “worst nightmare”, after the UK Foreign Office told them Ms Siddle will not be allowed to board the plane evacuating British nationals out of Wuhan airport.

"This ordeal just turned into our worst nightmare" - Mr Siddle wrote on Facebook.

More below:

[29 January 2020 19:22 · Vincent Wood]

WHO puts total cases at above 6,000

The World Health Organisation has put the total number of infected people at more than 6,000.

There are 6,065 cases worldwide, all but some 70 in China, with 132 deaths in China - according to the agency's latest figures.

"The continued increase in cases and the evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China are of course both deeply concerning. Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

[29 January 2020 20:05 · Vincent Wood]

The truth about the conspiracy theories and fake news on China’s outbreak

The Independent's Conrad Duncan has looked into some of the conspiracy theories surrounding the virus.

Among them are the claims the disease was caused by Chinese people eating bats, those saying Bill Gates is linked to the outbreak and others saying the virus can be cured by drinking bleach.

Here's a fact check from our InFact service below: 

[29 January 2020 20:28 · Vincent Wood]

British Airways suspension could impact thousands

Earlier British Airways quickly switched from an open ended cancellations of all flights, to a promise to temporarily suspend flights until Friday.

A long term cancellation would likely take its toll on the firm, if not thousands of passengers. Travel data and analytics firm Cirium calculated that suspending its routes from Heathrow to Shanghai until March would likely affect up to 24,000 people who had been scheduled to fly on 129 flights.

[29 January 2020 20:41 · Vincent Wood]

World Indoor Athletics Championships in Nanjing postponed due to coronavirus fears

The World Athletics Indoor Championships scheduled to take place in Nanjing, China in March have been postponed until 2021 over fears related to the coronavirus outbreak in the country, the sport's global governing body said on Wednesday.

World Athletics said it had considered relocating the event to another country but decided against that option because the spread of the virus outside China could have forced another postponement.

More below: