As Italian hospitals are overwhelmed with cases, this picture from the Cardarelli hospital in Naples shows a tent being used to screen patients, before they enter the main building.

Image source, AFP / Getty

The Nikkei stock exchange in Japan - which was earlier down by 5% - closed 4.4% lower.

European markets, which open soon, are also expected to take a hit.

Read the markets report from our business team here.

The cherry blossom season is a major annual event for Japan. Tourists flock from around the world in early Spring to enjoy the pink "sakura" flowers - there are even weather forecasts helping people plan their trips.

These people were out enjoying the trees today in Tokyo, but the virus is expected to significantly dampen the tourism surge, which will be a major economic hit for many people.

Image source, AFP

Image source, AFP

Kazakhstan is suspending all public events and taking other virus prevention measures, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

Separately, a World Trade Organization ministerial conference in Kazakhstan in June has been cancelled.

M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Islamabad

Covid-19 has claimed the life of a second Pakistani, this time in Italy. The 61-year-old man lived in Brescia in Lombardy.

Yesterday a Pakistani PhD student was reported dead in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak emerged.

No coronavirus deaths have been reported on Pakistani soil.

A 14-year-old from the Gilgit-Baltistan region has tested positive, bringing the total in Pakistan to 20. The teenager had recently travelled to Iran and returned on 4 March.

Ayeshea Perera
Digital Editor, Delhi

Officials in the southern Indian state of Karnataka have invoked 123-year-old legislation to ensure that suspected Covid-19 patients do not run away from being treated at hospitals or violate home quarantine.

The provision invoked under the 1897 Epidemic Diseases Act says that any person, organisation or institution who violates the regulations will be prosecuted.

This all comes after a passenger from Dubai who was tested at the Mangaluru airport and was found to have mild fever, ran away from a government hospital where he was taken for observation.

India, which has just suspended most entry visas to the country, has 60 confirmed cases of Covid-19.

As well as the St Patrick's Day parade being postponed in New York - and other US cities - the White House has cancelled the annual St Patrick's Day White House reception.

The White House said the decision was taken "out of an abundance of caution".

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar is in the US and is still expected to meet President Trump.

Image source, Getty Images

South Korea reported 114 new cases on Wednesday, its lowest daily total for more than two weeks.

There were also six more deaths, bringing the total to 66.

The daily total of cases was way down on the peak of 909 at the end of last month. But authorities say the danger has not passed.

"It is too early to say we are overcoming the disease," Yoon Tae-ho, director general for public health policy, said at a briefing on Thursday.

"We are still witnessing sporadic outbreaks so we cannot lower our guard."

Image source, AFP / Getty

Justin Harper
Business reporter, BBC News Singapore

Image source, Getty Images

The global airline industry is facing a massive downturn in passenger numbers due to travel restrictions.

In China, airline passenger numbers slumped by 84.5% last month, highlighting the huge economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

China's aviation regulator said on Thursday that the drop has caused a 21bn yuan (£2.35bn; $3.01bn) fall in revenue.

Earlier this week the Chinese government announced fresh measures to support its struggling carriers.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said it will provide subsidies to Chinese airlines and give additional funding for international flights.

The number of people killed when a Chinese hotel collapsed at the weekend has risen to 29. The hotel was being used for virus quarantine.

More than 70 people were in the hotel in Quanzhou; 27 died in the rubble and two died later.

Here is footage from the weekend rescue effort.

New York has postponed its annual St Patrick's Day parade because of virus fears.

The march usually attracts around two million spectators, with more than 100,000 participants.

"I know this decision didn't come easy, so I'll make this promise: this is a postponement, not a cancellation," said Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Image source, AFP / Getty

It looks like someone in Sydney has taken a dramatic step to raise public awareness. Lots of pictures are being shared on Twitter of this skywriting, telling people to "wash hands".

Thanyarat Doksone
Producer, BBC News Bangkok

Thailand has announced 11 new Covid-19 cases - all from the same group of friends, bringing the total to 70.

Sukhum Kanchanapimai, Thailand’s permanent secretary to the Public Health Ministry, said the cluster stemmed from a Thai person who met a friend from Hong Kong who later became ill with fever, shivering, headache and coughing.

He insisted the newly confirmed cases occurred in a limited circle and that the patients were not considered “super spreaders".

“The behaviours that led to the spreading in this group were they hung out together closely, drank alcohol from the same glasses, smoked from the same cigarettes, spent time together for a long time in limited space and did not take enough rest," Mr Sukhum said.

“In this group of 15 friends, those who did not become infected were because they neither drank, nor smoked from the same cigarettes with their friends."

Greece reported its first fatality on Thursday, a 66-year-old man who had returned from a religious pilgrimage to Israel and Egypt at the end of February, according to Reuters.

The man had underlying health issues, the health ministry said in a statement.

Greece reported 99 confirmed cases by late Wednesday.

Howard Johnson
Philippines Correspondent, BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

Firebrand Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who this week called Covid-19 an “idiot virus”, is now being tested to see if he is infected.

A spokesman said although the president wasn’t showing symptoms, the precautionary measure was taken after cabinet ministers he’d regularly met had come into contact with others infected.

Many of his supporters took to social media to ask God to protect "Tatay Digong" [Father Duterte].

Others pointed out, that with thousands more deaths, President Duterte’s drug war is more deadly than the coronavirus.

There are currently 49 cases of Covid-19 and two confirmed deaths in the Philippines.

But Dr Manuel Dayrit, a former Health Secretary of the Philippines, told BBC News he believes the number is low compared to other countries because of limited testing for the virus.

The White House has confirmed that only the 26 countries in the Schengen Area will be affected by the European travel ban.

This means EU countries Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Ireland and Romania will be unaffected.

President Trump had already made clear that the UK - which has left the EU, and was never in the Schengen Area - was not included in the ban.

Saudi Arabia's oil giant Saudi Aramco has apologised after pictures started circulating on social media, showing a man walking around the Aramco office dressed up as a "human hand sanitiser".

"In light of the recent social media photo of our colleague wearing a sterilisation package... [we] express our strong condemnation of this behaviour," Saudi Aramco said in a statement in Arabic, which has been roughly translated to English.

"The company immediately stopped this act and took measures to prevent it from happening again."

Nick Bryant
BBC New York Correspondent

What was striking about Trump's Oval Office speech was the lack of condolences for families of Americans who have died, let alone any empathy for other countries, including close allies, who are struggling with the virus and have suffered a large number of fatalities.

European ambassadors were blind-sided, so, too, US airlines. Even Trump administration officials were surprised by the European travel ban. In a speech intended to convey calm, there was some of the same chaos surrounding the mainly Muslim country travel bans in year one of his presidency.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

On Wednesday evening, India joined a host of countries which have imposed coronavirus-related travel restrictions on most incoming foreign traffic.

Experts say it was warranted – and the government is following the rulebook to prevent the spread of infection by visitors.

But it is also a sign of panic.

India’s Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has put on a brave front, saying India is “using all speed, scale and determination coupled with best practices” to prevent a coronavirus outbreak, which could easily overwhelm the world’s second most populous country.

It is true that despite a creaky and uneven public health care system, India has a formidable record in defeating polio, faced up to a swine flu pandemic in 2009, external and most recently, handled an recent outbreak of the deadly Nipah virus.

One reason is its "integrated disease surveillance" programme which collects data on “epidemic prone diseases” every week.

The programme has rapid response teams to diagnose and control outbreaks in the event of an escalating illness in any area. It has mainly dealt with outbreaks of diarrhoeal diseases, chicken pox, food poisoning, dengue, measles and cholera.

A senior health official told me this same programme would be used for surveillance and contact tracing to battle coronavirus.

It is too early to say whether it has the ability and skills to deal with an outbreak of coronavirus. India’s health data is scanty, and mortality reporting far from robust.