Pandemic

European Union finance ministers plan to agree on Monday on a coordinated economic response to the coronavirus pandemic, with the European Commission forecasting the effects of the virus could push the EU into a recession.

Spain and France have enacted sweeping emergency measures and widespread closures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, as the US president tested negative for the new coronavirus. 

A mini -cabinet meeting to discuss the coronavirus pandemic-management plan today with ministers at a two-metre distance from each other decided to expand restriction of movement such as a ban on organised beaches, to which many Greeks had repaired to break the enclosure of self-isolation.

Bulgaria's Parliament on March 13 voted to approve changes to the Penal Code and the law on health, which will be promulgated in the State Gazette tomorrow.

The aim of the changes is to stop the spread of infectious diseases including the new Covid-19 coronavirus.

The United States declared a state of emergency on March 13 as many European countries went on a war footing amid mounting deaths as the world mobilized to fight the widening coronavirus pandemic.

South Korea has reported that there have been more cured than new cases of infection for the first time since the start of the country's coronavirus epidemic, Reuters reported.

Turkey's health minister announced on March 13 another case of the coronavirus (COVID-19), only the second case seen in the country.

"He is from the immediate circle of our first patient, who was followed up as soon as the diagnosis was made," Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter.

The enemy dubbed coronavirus is extremely powerful as is evidenced by its rapid spread and its impact, particularly on the elderly.

Recently, the World Health Organization chairman Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has declared the spread of coronavirus infection COVID-19 for a pandemic.

"In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled.  

New York postponed the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, days after other events in US cities were canceled because of the global coronavirus pandemic, AFP reported.