Also on Monday, the leader of a religious sect linked to the outbreak apologised for the spread of the virus.

“I would like to offer my sincere apology to the people on behalf of the members,” Shincheonji sect head Lee Man-hee said, bowing on his knees in Gapyeong.

“Although it was not intentional, many people have been infected.

“We made our utmost efforts but were unable to prevent it all. I seek the forgiveness of the people.

“I am very thankful to the government for its efforts. I also seek the forgiveness of the government.”

A 61-year-old woman in the sect developed a fever on February 10 but attended at least four church services in Daegu – the country’s fourth-biggest city with a population of 2.5 million and the centre of the outbreak – before being diagnosed.

First human-to-human transmission in Australia

Australia confirmed its first cases of the virus contracted on home soil on Monday, with the infection of a woman whose brother arrived in Australia from Iran on Saturday and tested positive for Covid-19, and a health worker who had not travelled overseas for three months.

They were among three new cases in New South Wales, bringing the country’s total infections to 30, as of Monday afternoon.

New South Wales health minister Brad Hazzard said it was “particularly concerning” that two of the latest patients had not travelled outside the country. Authorities believe they are the first cases of human-to-human transmission in Australia.

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Hazzard said there a “high likelihood” the 43-year-old Iranian man had infected his 41-year-old sister on his return home. A 53-year-old health worker who has also contracted the virus had not travelled overseas for three months, he added.

“That would indicate a second case that is highly likely of transmission on New South Wales soil.”

All patients are being treated at Sydney's Westmead Hospital.

Australia recorded its first fatality on Sunday, a 78-year-old man who died in a Perth hospital after being evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

Top Iranian adviser dies

The report on Monday said Expediency Council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi had died. He was 71.

The council advises Khamenei, as well as settles disputes between the supreme leader and parliament.

His death comes as other top officials have contracted the virus in Iran, which has the highest death toll in the world after China, the epicentre of the outbreak.

Two cases confirmed in Indonesia

Two Indonesians have tested positive for the coronavirus – the first confirmed cases in the world’s fourth most populous country and Southeast Asia's largest economy.

Indonesian business news outlet Kontan said the patients, a 64-year-old woman and her 31-year-old daughter, had come into contact with a Japanese national who was confirmed to have the virus in Malaysia. They are being treated in a Jakarta hospital.

Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto said the Japanese national, who lived in Malaysia, was a family friend of the two women and had visited their home. He said authorities were checking who else the Japanese visitor may have come into contact with.

Indonesia’s first coronavirus cases linked to Japanese national in Malaysia

The Indonesian authorities had previously had defended their screening processes, after some medical experts raised concerns about a lack of vigilance and a risk of undetected cases in the country of more than 260 million people.

Last week, Malaysian health authorities said a female Japanese expatriate had tested positive for the coronavirus and had travelled to Japan and Indonesia in February.

Second death from virus in US

Health officials in Washington state have reported a second US death as a result of the coronavirus outbreak on Monday morning, after confirming the country’s first fatality on Saturday. Both victims were said to have underlying health conditions.

The Seattle and King County public health department, which has now reported 10 infections, said three other new reported cases were older people in critical condition. All of the four new cases – including the man who died on Saturday – were residents of a Kirkland nursing facility that had reported two prior cases.

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New York state meanwhile confirmed its first positive coronavirus test as the US government said it would start screening travellers for the virus and boost production of protective masks.

More than 70 cases have been reported in the US, with most on the West Coast but new cases in the Chicago area and Rhode Island, aside from New York.

Covid-19 exceeds Sars in three months

Covid-19 has now killed more than three times as many people as the 813 fatalities attributed by the World Health Organisation to the Sars outbreak from November 2002 until July 2003. The new disease has also spread to twice as many countries as Sars, which reached 26 nations by the end of the epidemic in 2003.

Covid-19 exceeded Sars in all these measures in about three months, whereas the Sars epidemic lasted about nine months.

Taiwan postpones war games

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry has postponed the first part of its Han Kuang exercises – the island’s most important annual war games – to the second half of the year, over concerns about potential cluster infections within the military.

Defence Minister Yen Te-fa said the first part of the exercises – which involve indoor computer simulations – had been planned for April. The second part of the war games, which usually takes place in September, involves live-fire drills by the island’s air force, army and navy.

Hong Kong asylum seekers hit by Taiwan’s coronavirus travel ban

Meanwhile, a number of universities in Taiwan are offering distance learning to 15,433 students from Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China. The students, including 7,466 on the mainland, did not make it back to the island before a travel ban on residents of those places was issued on February 6.

A group of 11 Taiwanese tourists in Israel is being repatriated after a female passenger on their February 28 Turkish Airlines flight tested positive for the virus. The group is due to arrive in Taiwan on Monday night and will be required to self-isolate at home for 14 days if they test negative for the virus, health officials said.

Deaths and infections rise in other countries

Australia reported its first fatality over the weekend, while infections nearly doubled in the past 48 hours in Italy – Europe’s hardest-hit country – where the death toll has risen to 34. The head of Italy’s Civil Protection Agency said the total number of confirmed cases had jumped to 1,694, from 1,128 on Saturday.

Italy coronavirus cases jump 50 per cent in a day

Iraq reported six new coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing the total number of cases there to 19, the health ministry said. Also on Sunday, the Dominican Republic reported its first confirmed case of the new coronavirus. France has raised its number of confirmed infections to 130.

The virus has now been reported in as many as 65 countries and territories around the world, according to World Health Organisation data and reports from local authorities. That means the virus has spread to almost a third of the world's 197 nations as listed by the United Nations.

Downward trend predicted in Hubei

With daily new infections at their lowest since January 22, Chinese officials are predicting a drop in new cases in the province to between 10 and 100.

There were 259 new infections in mainland China on the day before Wuhan went into lockdown, with a surge to 15,152 on February 12 because of a change in diagnostic criteria, before numbers began to fall.

Chen Yixin, deputy head of a central government team dispatched to contain the outbreak in Hubei, said the number of fatalities and suspected cases, including people in serious and critical condition, was going down. Up to 90 per cent of new infections had been identified through testing of suspected cases.

“This shows the epidemic is effectively contained. The battle facing Wuhan has entered a decisive stage,” he said, according to the Communist Party politics and law commission’s social media account.

Villagers hospitalised after mistake

More than 20 villagers in Hubei province were hospitalised after they were told to take disinfectant tablets as oral medication.

The tablets – which should have been diluted in water and used for sterilising purposes – were handed out in Xiangyao village on Friday by a volunteer, who gave each villager one but did not tell them how to use it, according to a local government statement on Sunday.

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The notice said the villagers swallowed the tablets later that day, on the instruction of the village head Jiang Jianjun, who mistook them for an oral medicine to prevent the new virus.

On Monday the local government said on social media platform Weibo that 18 of the villagers had recovered after treatment, while four remained in hospital in a stable condition. The same post said Jiang was held responsible and that the county would “improve public education on how to store and use disinfectant material correctly”.

China’s imported cases rise to five

The number of infections which have arrived in mainland China from overseas has risen to five. Beijing confirmed two imported cases on Sunday, days after introducing mandatory 14-day quarantine for anyone arriving in the city. The male patients, a 27-year-old and a 30-year-old, left Iran on Wednesday and travelled via Moscow before arriving in Beijing on Thursday.

China targets travellers at borders to stop coronavirus spread

Also on Sunday, Guangdong province also reported the case of a 35-year-old man who arrived in Shenzhen on Friday and tested positive early on Sunday morning. The man, who works in Bristol, flew from London to Hong Kong on Thursday before travelling by ferry to Shenzhen.

Another imported case, from Italy, was reported by Zhejiang province on Sunday. Last Thursday, Shanghai’s municipal government said an imported case from Iran – one of two which had been previously confirmed in Ningxia autonomous region – had also visited multiple locations in Shanghai.

Chinese officials last week imposed stricter health screening on people entering the country due to fears of reinfection from overseas.

Weak and elderly most at risk

The World Health Organisation said on Sunday that the virus appeared to particularly hit those over the age of 60 and people who were already weakened by other illness.

The agency noted that most people with Covid-19 experienced mild symptoms, while around 14 per cent suffered severe disease like pneumonia and five per cent become critically ill.

WHO said the mortality rate appeared to be between two and five per cent. Seasonal flu has an average mortality rate of about 0.1 per cent but is highly infectious, with up to 400,000 people worldwide dying from it each year.

Other strains of coronavirus, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), have established mortality rates of 9.5 per cent and 34.5 per cent, respectively.

WHO issues scam warning

Criminals are passing themselves off as the World Health Organisation in a bid to steal money or sensitive information, according to a cybersecurity alert posted on the agency’s website.

WHO has called on the public to report suspected scams directly to WHO, and remain alert to emails which appear to be from the agency asking for login information or donations, or which contain links to outside websites or attachments.

The agency said it would “never ask you to donate directly to emergency response plans or funding appeals” and said scams could take the form of emails, phone calls, text messages or even fax messages.

Heavy lifting by China’s military in virus fight

Chen Jingyuan, director of the Health Bureau of the Logistics and Security Department of the Military Commission, said on Monday more than 10,000 army medical staff had been deployed in 63 designated hospitals –. providing nearly 3,000 additional beds for coronavirus patients.

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At the same press conference, Zhang Tianxiang, deputy director of the Transportation and Delivery Bureau of the Central Military Commission, said the Chinese Air Force had deployed 12 transport planes, including the Y-20, China’s first heavy airlifter, on February 13 and 17, sending more than 1,600 military medical personnel to Wuhan.

“This is also the first time that this large domestic military transport aircraft has participated in non-war military operations since its first flight in 2013,” Zhang said.

Additional reporting by Associated Press and Reuters