BEIJING, April 1 (Xinhua) -- The world is now in a battle against COVID-19, a disease caused by a previously unknown coronavirus that has spread to over 200 countries and regions.
The following are the updates on the contagious disease.
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HANOI -- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc signed a decree on Wednesday to declare COVID-19 a nationwide epidemic in Vietnam, according to the government website.
The COVID-19 is spreading nationwide as it was classified as a Class A contagious disease, and defined as a group of "extremely dangerous infectious diseases that can transmit very rapidly and spread widely with high mortality rates", according to the prime minister.
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TOKYO -- Tokyo stocks tumbled Wednesday amid concerns over downbeat consumer sentiment data for March dragging U.S. shares lower overnight and the Bank of Japan's Tankan survey further fueling concerns over the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average dropped 851.60 points, or 4.50 percent, from Tuesday to close the day at 18,065.41.
The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, meanwhile, fell 51.96 points, or 3.70 percent, to finish at 1,351.08.
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SYDNEY -- Australia's Queensland State government has established a special police unit to enforce public health orders amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, officials revealed on Tuesday.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said even though the state's health department had allocated 500 staff working on COVID-19 contact tracing, the job needed to be strengthened.
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MEXICO CITY -- A total of 121 more COVID-19 cases has been reported in Mexico in the past 24 hours, bringing the tally to 1,215, said the health ministry on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the coronavirus increased by one to 29, said Jose Luis Alomia, the ministry's director general of epidemiology, at a daily press conference
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WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday floated the idea of a 2-trillion-dollar infrastructure package as part of the government's next-phase response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has continued sweeping across the country.
"With interest rates for the United States being at ZERO, this is the time to do our decades long awaited Infrastructure Bill," Trump said in a tweet.
