CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: Latest updates

VIRUS CONTAGION SLOWS FOR FOURTH DAY: IRAN

Iran's new cases of coronavirus have dropped for the fourth consecutive day, official figures released Saturday showed, as a two-week holiday in the Islamic republic came to an end. Iran registered 2,560 new infections of COVID-19 in the previous 24 hours, health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour told a televised news conference. It is the fourth consecutive drop in new cases since Tehran declared 3,111 on March 31.

MODI DISCUSSES SITUATIONS WITH SONIA, PRANAB

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday spoke to several leaders, including his predecessor Manmohan Singh, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and former president Pranab Mukherjee, on the situation arising out of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Sources said Modi also called up various leaders, including Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik.

MAN SHOT DEAD IN PHILIPPINES

A 63-year-old man was shot dead in the Philippines after threatening village officials and police with a scythe at a coronavirus checkpoint, police said on Saturday.  The man is believed to have been drunk when he threatened village officials and police manning the checkpoint in the town of Nasipit in the southern province of Agusan del Norte on Thursday, a police report said.

GREECE QUARANTINES SECOND MIGRANT CAMP

Officials in Greece yesterday placed a second migrant camp near Athens under lockdown after an Afghan resident tested positive for the coronavirus, the migration ministry said. Officials said the camp in Malakasa, some 38 kilometres (24 miles) northeast of Athens, had been placed under "full sanitary isolation" for 14 days, with no one allowed to enter or leave.

PAKISTAN HUNTS WORSHIPPERS

Pakistani authorities are searching for tens of thousands of worshippers who attended an Islamic gathering in Lahore last month amid fears they could be spreading Covid-19 across the country. At least 154 attendees have tested positive following the Tablighi Jamaat event, which attracted 100,000 people.

JAPAN 'ON THE BRINK'

Japan will ban entry to foreigners from 73 countries and ask everyone arriving from abroad to quarantine themselves for two weeks as it struggles to contain the coronavirus, with a senior minister warning the country had been pushed "to the brink". Medical experts advising Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a news conference that the rapid spread of contagion was severely straining hospitals in Tokyo.