Hong Kong's government will give a handout of HK$10,000 ($1,280; £987) to all permanent residents of the city above the age of 18.

The move, which will cost the government around HK$71bn, is aimed at cushioning the blow from the coronavirus outbreak and the months of protests.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty

China wants workers to quickly return to factories in areas less affected by the coronavirus.

That has led companies and the government to step into the breach and provide free transport back to work.

Millions of workers were furloughed at the end of January to battle the spread of the virus.

So governments and businesses are paying for planes, trains and buses to help them return to work.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Sunday that factories in areas of low risk of infection should reopen.

But workers have been struggling to find transport from traditional holiday visits home which has led local governments and companies to lend a hand.

Here's what's happening in South Korea, the country with the most infections outside China:

- The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 169 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 1,146

- A US soldier stationed in South Korea has tested positive for the virus - the first such case amongst its service personnel. The 23-year-old had previously visited Camp Walker - a US military base in Daegu, the city in the centre of the outbreak

- Hundreds of people from the Myungsung Church in Seoul - one of the world's biggest Presbyterian churches - are being tested after one of the pastors was confirmed to have coronavirus

- All kindergartens across the country will be closed until 8 March

- Several countries, including Vietnam, Singapore and Japan have banned travellers who have visited Daegu

Image source, Getty Images

Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of the coronavirus outbreak.

Here's a glance at some of the major things that have taken place overnight:

• Much of the focus is now on Europe, with Italy becoming the worst-affected country in the continent

• Latin America recorded its first positive virus test, from a Brazilian resident who just returned from Italy
• Austria, Croatia and Switzerland have also announced their first virus cases - all appear to also be linked to people who had been to Italy
• But the EU says it is not planning a border closure

And over in Asia:

• More than 1,000 people have become infected in South Korea - the majority of cases are linked to a religious sect called the Shincheonji Church of Jesus

• Hong Kong authorities say they will give all its permanent residents a handout of HK$10,000 ($1,280; £987)

We're pausing our coverage for the evening, but we'll be back on Wednesday 26 February.

Here's an overview of what's happened today:

• The virus continues to spread in Italy - the worst-hit country in Europe. Over the course of the day the death toll has risen to 11, with more than 320 confirmed cases.
• Questions were raised over Iran's response to the outbreak, with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accusing Iran of suppressing the true scale of the virus.
• Also in Iran, the country's deputy health minister tested positive for the virus, and is self-isolating. Footage also emerged of him sweating profusely during a briefing.
• The US's top public health body, the CDC, has warned Americans to brace themselves for a spread of coronavirus within the country.
• A hotel in Tenerife is locked down after a visiting Italian doctor tested positive for the virus, while another in Innsbruck is also on lockdown after an Italian receptionist and her partner tested positive.
• Gulf states have imposed more flight restrictions, and Lebanon has put a halt to pilgrims travelling in and out of the country.
• A clinical trial for a potential treatment for coronavirus is now under way in Omaha, Nebraska.

Image source, EPA

Image source, Getty Images

We reported earlier that top health officials in the US have warned Americans to brace for the "inevitable" spread of the coronovirus disease.

Here is a little more detail on what the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have been saying.

Health officials outlined measures that schools and business may need to take, including limiting the size of classrooms, and employing "internet-based tele-schooling".

"For adults, businesses can replace in-person meetings with video or telephone conferences and increase tele-working options," said Dr Nancy Messonnier of the National Center for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases

Hospitals also may need to postpone elective surgeries, she warned, and increase video conferencing capabilities for treating patients remotely.

So far, 14 patients have been diagnosed with Covid-19 inside the US, while another 39 people have been diagnosed outside the US but are being treated in the country.

Read our full story here.

Image source, Reuters

The UK government has updated its travel advice for Italy, advising against "all but essential travel" to the 11 quarantined towns in northern Italy.

A Foreign Office statement said: "We advise against all but essential travel to 10 small towns in Lombardy and one in Veneto, which are currently in isolation due to an ongoing outbreak of coronavirus.

"Any British nationals already in these towns should follow the advice of the local authorities."

The 10 towns in Lombardy are: Codogno, Castiglione d'Adda, Casalpusterlengo, Fombio, Maleo, Somaglia, Bertonico, Terranova dei Passerini, Castelgerundo and San Fiorano. The one in Veneto is Vo' Euganeo.

Earlier, the UK government had said any Britons who had been to the 11 quarantined towns must self-isolate on returning to the UK.

Algeria has confirmed its first case of the coronavirus, according to state television.

It reports that the patient is an Italian man who arrived in the country on 17 February. He has now been put into quarantine.

Elsewhere, France reported two new cases - one was a Frenchman who had recently returned from Lombardy in Italy.

Romanian health officials said no suspected cases of coronavirus in the country had so far tested positive.

Kuwait's civil aviation authority has announced the suspension of all flights to Singapore and Japan over coronavirus fears, state news agency Kuna reports.

The decision follows the suspension of flights from Kuwait to South Korea, Iran, Thailand, Italy and Iraq on Monday.

The country has so far registered nine cases of coronavirus, all coming from Iran.

Italy has confirmed more than 320 cases in recent days, making it the worst-affected part of Europe.

In a bid to control the outbreak, several small towns in Lombardy and Veneto have been put under strict quarantine - see the map below.

Image source, Inpho

Ireland's minister for health said the Six Nations rugby match between Ireland and Italy in Dublin "should not go ahead" due to the coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy.

Simon Harris said it was the "very clear view" of the public health emergency team that the game on 7 March should be cancelled.

He told RTE news: "It would constitute a significant risk, because a very large number of people will be travelling from what is now an affected region.

"So my department will be contacting the IRFU (Irish Rugby Football Union) in relation to this.

"I know (it will) cause a great disappointment to many, but it is important to make decisions in relation to public health above and beyond all other considerations."

The coronavirus outbreak has already affected Italy's football fixtures in Serie A.

Healthcare workers and officials appear to be particularly vulnerable to contracting the coronavirus.

An estimated 3,000 healthcare workers in China, who have been working on the front lines of the fight against the virus, have tested positive.

Iran's deputy health minister has tested positive for the virus too - after being filmed sweating profusely during a press briefing.

And of course, Dr Li Wenliang - the ophthalmologist who first alerted his colleagues to a new coronavirus - died of the disease earlier this month.

During the Ebola crisis in 2015, a WHO report from the time, external said that, depending on their role, health workers were up to 32 times more likely to be infected than adults in the general population.

Stat, a news website for medical professionals, also quoted an infection prevention epidemiologist who described the conditions healthcare workers face during epidemics.

"You are expected to be there and stay there and take care of those people, but know that you are at risk and know that you have a family to go home to," Salah Qutaishat is quoted as saying.

And last week the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions released a statement demanding that front line health workers be given a set of preventative respirators and masks to protect them from the virus.

But Dr Bruce Aylward, an assistant director general and head of the joint WHO-Chinese mission on the outbreak, said the thousands of infected healthcare workers in China didn't necessarily contract the virus while on the job.

"Most healthcare workers got infected in the community, not in the healthcare work," he told reporters in Geneva, following a trip to China.

While cases of the new coronavirus are increasing worldwide, scientists are working on treatments.

US health officials say the first clinical trial of an experimental antiviral drug that could treat coronavirus has begun, at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

The drug, remdesivir, has been developed by the US-based pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences.

It's now being trialled on patients who've tested positive for the new coronavirus. The first participant is an American who was repatriated after being quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

Earlier, a World Health Organization (WHO) official told reporters in Beijing that remdesivir had showed signs that it could treat the virus.

"There is only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy and that's remdesivir," Bruce Aylward, an assistant director general at WHO, said.

Image source, Getty Images

A hotel in the Austrian Alps has been put on lockdown after an Italian receptionist working there contracted the virus.

Officials haven't named the hotel, but they have said it's in the Alpine city of Innsbruck. It's also not clear how long it will remain on lockdown.

Austria's Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told reporters: "No one can get in or out of the hotel to make sure that if other infected people are staying in the hotel, the virus won't be spread.

"All these measures have one purpose - to stop the virus and its spread. There is no reason to panic."

Innsbruck is the capital of the state of Tyrol, which borders Italy.

The infected woman's home was also being isolated, a state government spokeswoman told AFP.

She and her partner, both 24, had travelled to Innsbruck by car from their home in Lombardy, Italy last week.

Italy is the worst-hit European country, with 322 cases and 11 deaths.

Image source, Getty Images

While the global spread of coronavirus is halting sports fixtures in Italy and China, for now this year's Olympic Games in Tokyo is set to go ahead as planned.

International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound has told Associated Press that preparations are "business as usual", and that he'd told athletes to "keep focused on your sport".

"As far as we all know, you're going to be in Tokyo," he said.

As the Olympics isn't due to start until 24 July, Mr Pound said they wouldn't need to take a decision about whether it should happen or not until late May.

He also told BBC Radio 5 Live that their eventual decision will be led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and individual national governments.

"We're pretty good at dealing with sport problems, but a pandemic is beyond our pay grade," he said.

Japan has had 861 confirmed cases of the virus - 709 of which are linked to the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess.

Read more here.

A 76-year-old woman has died in the Veneto region, officials said, bringing the death toll in Italy to 11.

The latest victim was hospitalised today with respiratory problems.

Of the 11 deaths, nine were in Lombardy and two were in Veneto.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US's top public health agency, has warned Americans to brace themselves for a spread of coronavirus within the country.

"It's not so much a question of if this will happen in this country any more but a question of when this will happen," Dr Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), said.

"We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad."

It's a change of tone for the CDC, which, until now, has largely been focused on efforts to stop the virus entering the country and on quarantining people who have travelled from China.

Image source, EPA

Meanwhile Alex Azar, the US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, has asked a Senate subcommittee to approve $2.5 billion (£1.92 billion) in funding to fight the outbreak.

The money, he said, would pay for the US to expand its surveillance systems for the virus, would support local and state governments, and would help scientists develop vaccines.

Mr Azar also said the US needed to expand its stockpiles of protective equipment, like surgical masks. He said that right now the US has a stockpile of about 30 million masks, but it actually needs 300 million.

Image source, Getty Images

Filming on the new Mission: Impossible movie has been halted, amid the spread of coronavirus in Italy.

Tom Cruise and the rest of the cast were due to shoot scenes in Venice over the next few weeks.

This is the seventh film in the Mission: Impossible series.

But Paramount has paused production of the film after it became clear Italy was the worst-hit by coronavirus in Europe, and the third worst-hit in the world after China and South Korea.

A total of 322 people have been diagnosed with the virus in Italy, and 10 people have died.

"Out of an abundance of caution for the safety and well-being of our cast and crew, and efforts of the local Venetian government to halt public gatherings in response to the threat of coronavirus, we are altering the production plan for our three-week shoot in Venice," a statement from Paramount said.

"During this hiatus we want to be mindful of the concerns of the crew and are allowing them to return home until production starts. We will continue to monitor this situation, and work alongside health and government officials as it evolves."

Read more here.

Three more people have died of the disease in northern Italy, bringing the total number of deaths in the country to 10.

Angelo Borrelli, head of the Civil Protection agency, said the total number of people diagnosed with Covid-19 had gone up to 322.

The three latest victims were all in their 80s and came from the worst-impacted region, Lombardy.

Italy is the worst-hit country in Europe.

A number of sports fixtures have been cancelled, while hotel chain Hyatt has said it will allow tourists who'd planned to travel to Italy to cancel their bookings for free.