G7 to convene remotely and Covid-19 death toll in Italy overtakes China – as it happened

Please follow our coverage of the latest developments here with my colleague Martin Farrer.

Situated between Britain and Ireland, the Isle of Man appeared to have avoided the coronavirus pandemic until the government reportedly announced its first confirmed case late on Thursday evening.

A statement given to Manx Radio said:

A patient on the Island has today, Thursday 19 March, tested positive for coronavirus. The patient had recently returned to the Isle of Man from a trip to Spain.

The Public Health team has been in touch with the patient to provide advice and support, and will start contact tracing. The chief minister Howard Quayle will give a full media briefing tomorrow.

We are going to close this live blog now. Thanks for following along. You can find all of our coverage of the latest coronavirus developments at our new blog here:

Frontline UK health and social care staff, people involved in food production and delivery, and utility workers are among a list of workers deemed essential to the coronavirus response.

The British government just published a list of “key workers” whose children will continue to be cared for at school despite their general closure from today.

It has been separated into eight categories, including health and social care, key public services - such as those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and journalists - and transport.

Those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery are also included, along with “administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the Covid-19 response” in local and national government.

Special schools are to remain open during the closures, while educational settings will continue to cater for vulnerable children and pupils whose parents are key workers.

In Scotland and Wales, all schools will have closed by Friday, and schools in Northern Ireland are due to shut from Monday.

The Department for Education said: “If your work is critical to the COVID-19 response, or you work in one of the critical sectors listed below, and you cannot keep your child safe at home then your children will be prioritised for education provision.”

The list had been expected to be released on Thursday. You can read it here.

There are growing calls for low-risk prisoners in the UK to be released, with former chief inspector of prisons Nick Hardwick warning against prisons becoming “incubators” for the coronavirus.

Speaking on the BBC’s Newsnight programme, he said:

If you’re talking about low risk prisoners coming to the end of their sentences, it’s perfectly possible to manage them in the community safely.

No-one is saying you’re going to let out huge numbers of dangerous people, but you can reduce pressure on the system by letting out a bit early people who maybe have got a month or two longer to serve.

He warned “hundreds” of prison staff were off work and self-isolating and that more prisoners “undoubtedly” had the virus than those confirmed so far.

Hardwick said a typical prison cell was “a bit wider than my outstretched arms, maybe twice as long, there would be two men in it, a toilet, and they’re going to be there 24 hours a day”.

Now people may not be sympathetic to that, but be clear, people doing short sentences are going to be released back into the community and if we allow prisons to be incubators for the disease that’s a problem for us all.

People are coming into the system, so if you don’t let people out and you keep pushing people in, the system simply won’t be able to cope.

The coronavirus is paralysing potential political change around the world, with lawmakers in Chile the latest to postpone an upcoming election.

The vote on rewriting the country’s Pinochet-era constitution was originally due to take place on 26 April – a date that the country’s health ministry now predicts will be the height of the virus outbreak in the country.

Chile currently has 324 confirmed cases – the highest number per capita in South America.

Haiti is to enter a state of emergency over the coronavirus outbreak after the government announced it would close its borders and impose a curfew after the first two cases of infection were detected.

President Jovenel Moise told a news conference that all ports, airports and borders would be closed from midnight, though they would remain open for goods traffic.

Schools, universities and industrial parks are to close from today, and a curfew will be in force from 8pm to 5am. Flights from Europe, Latin America and Canada were already suspended and restrictions had been imposed on the border with the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

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Two Los Angeles Lakers players in the US have tested positive for the coronavirus, the NBA franchise said on Thursday. They have been quarantined under the care of the basketball team’s doctor.

The Lakers did not identify the two infected players but said the team’s athletes were tested on the recommendation of public health officials because of a March 10 game against the Brooklyn Nets. Four players on the Nets have now since tested positive.

Top Mexican banking and financial workers are under quarantine and working from home after attending an event in the Pacific last week where at least one participant later tested positive for coronavirus.

In contrast to much of Latin America, Mexico’s government has taken a laissez-fire approach to tackling the virus and has allowed large events to go ahead, including a banking conference in the beach resort of Acapulco and a music festival in Mexico City.

“Citibanamex attendees at the banking convention are in quarantine and working from home,” a spokesman for Citigroup Inc’s Mexican operations, Citibanamex, said. “None of them have presented any symptoms related to coronavirus.”

The country registered its first death from coronavirus, a 41-year-old diabetic Mexican man whose symptoms began last week, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

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19 Mar 202019.32 EDT

Ben Butler

The Australian stock market surged 3.8% on Friday to open the last day of trade of one of the most turbulent weeks in the exchange’s history.

Share prices have been up and down - mostly down - all week as traders struggle to understand the lasting economic damage that will be wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

New Zealand flag carrier Air New Zealand, which is listed on the Australian exchange, resumes trade today after being suspended earlier this week while it negotiated a $900m bailout from the Kiwi government that could eventually nationalise the airline.

Nationalisation talk also continues to swirl around Australia’s two airlines, national carrier Qantas and challenger Virgin Australia.

On Thursday Qantas stood down 20,000 of its 30,000 strong workforce, prompting outrage from unions, and shut all international routes except for special flights to bring Australians home.

At least seven companies joined with those who have already decided that they can no longer predict the future due to the coronavirus crisis and withdrew profit guidance before the market opened.

The Australian corporate regulator said it will allow companies due to hold annual shareholder meetings during the pandemic to put them off by up to two months.

19 Mar 202019.18 EDT

Kate Proctor

Children are expected to continue to attend UK schools from Monday if they have one parent classified by the government as a key worker.

Amid the first nationwide school closure in modern British history, Downing Street has said it wants to keep parents in work who are doing vital jobs – from NHS staff to social workers and delivery drivers – to support crucial sectors that ensure the country continues to function amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Washington state in the US has reported eight more deaths from the coronavirus, bringing the death toll there to 74, the most of any American state.

New Zealand’s government is set to bail out its majority public owned national airline with more than US $500 million in loans.

Air New Zealand has already stopped most international routes and cut back on domestic flights, but from tomorrow the South Pacific nation will close its borders to all but citizens and residents.

Air New Zealand said it would subsequently cut its workforce of 12,500 by 30%. The airline is 52% owned by the government, which has offered loans of 900 million New Zealand dollars (US $511 million) over two years.

Finance minister Grant Robertson said that without the intervention, New Zealand was at risk of not having a national airline.

New Zealand has had 28 confirmed cases of Covid-19, all connected to international travel. There have been no signs yet of a local outbreak.

Donald Trump has called off the June meeting of G7 nations at Camp David, in the US, due to the pandemic. The leaders of the most economically developed countries will convene by video link, the White House has confirmed.

Could these kinds of diplomatic events be conducted remotely in the future? It would certainly save on air miles.

19 Mar 202019.00 EDT

Ian Sample

A massive effort is under way to develop a UK vaccine for coronavirus within months and make it available to save lives before the end of the year, the Guardian has learned.

Researchers at Oxford University, led by Prof Sarah Gilbert, are planning a safety trial on humans of what is expected to be the UK’s first coronavirus vaccine next month. Provided that goes smoothly, they will move directly into a larger trial to assess how effective the vaccine is at protecting against the infection.

The same vaccine will start animal trials next week at the Public Health England laboratory at Porton Down near Salisbury. Normally, animal work must be completed before human trials can start, but because similar vaccines have worked safely in trials for other diseases, the work has been accelerated.

Prof Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford, said:

We are conscious that a vaccine is needed as soon as possible and certainly by June–July, when we expect a big peak in mortality.

This is not a normal situation. We will follow all standard trial safety requirements, but as soon as we have a vaccine that’s working, we anticipate there will be an accelerated pathway to get it deployed to save lives. The more vaccine we can provide sooner, the better.

Brazil is to close its borders with most of its South American neighbours – a decision most of them had already made and is therefore mainly symbolically significant – and is treating any patient with “severe flu” as a coronavirus case.

Negotiations are still underway with Uruguay, while health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said families of people who tested positive would receive medical permission to stay home for two weeks.

President Jair Bolsonaro said Brazil is taking measures to control the coronavirus and that his role was not to cause panic. He added that the peak of the outbreak in Latin America’s largest country was expected to pass within four months and that normality would be resumed in seven months.

Meanwhile, his son Eduardo’s row with the Chinese embassy continues to rage. It tweeted:

Your arguments show that you are not sorry for your attitude, nor are you aware of your mistakes. By continuing to choose to stand on the side opposite the Chinese people, it is going further and further down the wrong path.