NEW CASE IN UAE

■ The UAE yesterday announced a new case of coronavirus — a 37-year-old Chinese man

who is in stable condition. With this, the total number of cases has risen to 9, of which 3 recovered. Six patients are still under intensive care.

■ New cases in China brought the total to 68,500, with 1,665 deaths.

■ Taiwan confirmed its first death from the virus.

■ Americans were taken off a cruise liner to fly back home after being quarantined off Japan. Forty-four of them were infected. The total cases on the ship rose to 355.

The number of new cases from China’s coronavirus epidemic dropped for a third consecutive day on Sunday, as the World Health Organisation chief warned it was “impossible” to predict how the outbreak would develop.

The death toll jumped to 1,665 in mainland China on Sunday after 142 more people died from the virus. More than 68,000 people have now been infected — but the number of new cases of the COVID-19 strain continued to decline. In hardest-hit Hubei, the number of new cases slowed for a third consecutive day and at 139, the number of deaths was level with Saturday’s toll.

The number of new cases in other parts of the country has dropped for twelve straight days. The WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned however that it was “impossible to predict which direction this epidemic will take”.

“We ask all governments, companies, and news organisations to work with us to sound the appropriate level of alarm without fanning the flames of hysteria,” he said, speaking at the Munich Security Conference. “China has bought the world time. We don’t know how much time.”

The UN health body has asked China for more details on how diagnoses are being made.