So how deadly IS coronavirus? You're most likely to die if you're a man, elderly and have an underlying heart condition, stats suggest

Men are 65 per cent more likely than women to die from CoronaVirus, according to statistics.

Figures from the World Health Organization and Chinese scientists have revealed that 1.7 per cent of women who catch the virus will die compared to 2.8 per cent of men, even though neither sex is more likely to catch it.

More than 98,000 people around the world have now been diagnosed with the virus, which causes a disease called COVID-19, and at least 3,383 have died.  

Some experts have put the higher risk among men down to higher smoking and drinking rates – both habits weaken the immune system, making people more likely to get ill. 

The elderly and infirm have also been found to more at risk of coronavirus, with 10.5 per cent of heart disease patients expected to die if they catch the deadly virus.

Death rates among people with diabetes – of which there are four million in the UK and 34m in the US – are expected to be around 7.3 per cent, while six per cent of patients who have high blood pressure might die if infected.  

Some 5.6 per cent of cancer sufferers infected with the coronavirus would be expected to die along with 6.3 per cent of people with long-term lung diseases. 

In the US, at least 233 people have now been confirmed to have the coronavirus, and 12 have died from it, while in the UK there has been one death among 116 cases. 

The male-female analysis was produced by the statistics website Worldometer, which is tracking the outbreak in real-time. 

It added that men were also disproportionately likely to die during the SARS and MERS outbreaks, which were caused by extremely similar coronaviruses in China and Saudi Arabia. 

Professor Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia, said women may simply have better immune systems and be biologically better at fighting off the virus.

'Some of the differences are probably due to men smoking more and being chronic abusers of alcohol, but also, women are intrinsically different to men in their immune response,' he told The Daily Telegraph.

The UK announced its first coronavirus death on home soil yesterday after a patient, believed to be a woman in her 70s, died in a hospital in Reading.

The death came as the number of infections in the country has doubled over the past two days from 51 to 116.

Meanwhile in the US, which declared its first official case of the infection on January 20, 12 people have died – the 12th was recorded in Kings County, Washington yesterday.

Age is a major factor in how seriously ill the coronavirus is likely to make someone.

Those aged 80 years or older are most at risk, with 14.8 per cent of people catching the disease in that age bracket expected to die.

However, the UK Government's chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, yesterday reassured the public that not old person who catches the disease will be 'a goner'. 

And the younger someone is, the less chance they have of dying. 

Between 60 and 69 years old the death rate is around 3.6 per cent, while it is more like 1.3 per cent for those aged 50 to 59. 

For people in their 40s this drops to 0.4 per cent, and it's just 0.2 per cent for those in their 30s. 

Children do not seem to catch the virus very often, according to data from China, and there are no high-profile reports of children dying.

Almost 300 million students worldwide faced weeks at home with Italy and India the latest to shut schools, as health officials on Thursday warned many countries were not doing enough to fight the outbreak.

The number of cases rose above 96,000 worldwide with over 3,300 deaths in some 85 countries.

The Paris marathon, Russia's main business forum and Italy's final match against England in the Six Nations Championship on March 14 were among the events cancelled or postponed.

In the UK forty-five patients have already been told to self-isolate at home instead of getting hospital treatment because they have minor flu-like symptoms, amid mounting fears overwhelmed NHS hospitals won't be able to cope with an inevitable outbreak. 

The guidance is at odds with guidelines set out by the European Centre for Disease Control, which says patients must be separated from the public and isolated in hospital in the first stages of an epidemic.

The vast majority of cases and infections have still been in China, in its Hubei province of which Wuhan is the capital city, but the situation there is coming under control some two months after it began.  

Elsewhere in the world, however, under-prepared countries are facing uncontrollable outbreaks and surging numbers of deaths.

In South Korea, more than 6,500 people have caught the infection and 40 have died.

Italy, the worst-hit Western nation, has recorded 3,858 infections and 148 amid an outbreak which began in its skiing resorts in the Alpine north.

And Iran, where an epidemic has happened at breakneck speed and infected senior politicians, there are 3,513 confirmed cases and 107 deaths on record.

Meanwhile, France (423 cases, 7 deaths) has admitted an epidemic – when a disease keeps spreading for a long period of time in one country or region – is inevitable.

And the virus is also spreading fast in Germany, where there are now at least 545 infections. 

Some nations have implemented extraordinary measures, with UNESCO saying on Wednesday that school closures in more than a dozen countries have affected 290.5 million children.

But the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Thursday that several countries were not showing 'the level of political commitment' needed to 'match the level of the threat we all face'.

'This is not a drill,' WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. 'This epidemic is a threat for every country, rich and poor.' 

Britain and Switzerland reported their first deaths from the outbreak on Thursday, while Bosnia and South Africa confirmed their first cases and Algeria said 16 members of the same family had been infected.

A British United Nations employee was one of four people to test positive for the virus in Senegal, in the UN's first case among staff. 

Next week's session of the European parliament will also be moved from Strasbourg to Brussels due to 'significantly higher health risks'.

Virus fears also affected the joyful Indian celebration of Holi, in which Hindu revelers celebrate the arrival of spring with bursts of color, including bright powders smeared on faces. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders said they wouldn't attend Holi events and the Holi Moo Festival in New Delhi was canceled.

Palestinian officials closed the legendary Church of the Nativity in the biblical city of Bethlehem indefinitely, weeks ahead of the busy Easter holiday.

The US coronavirus death toll has risen to 12 after a woman in her 90s died in Washington state. 

In total, 11 people have now died in Washington and one death has been reported in California as the number of cases in the U.S. soars to more than 200 across 19 states. 

The elderly woman died on Tuesday but her death was only reported by health officials on Thursday.  

It comes as health officials in Washington, who are dealing with the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, bought a $4 million motel and set up a coronavirus quarantine site made up of 'mini hotel room' trailers for infected patients. 

The number of cases in Washington alone jumped to 70 on Thursday with health officials there scrambling to keep the coronavirus at bay.  

Officials in King County, which is where the majority of Washington cases are, bought the motel in suburban Seattle for $4 million earlier this week to be used as a quarantine facility for coronavirus patients. They have also started setting up trailers in one neighborhood in what will become a temporary quarantine village that initially won't have water or sewage.

The majority of cases in Washington state have been linked to an outbreak at the Life Care Center nursing home in Kirkland, which is in King County. Authorities have since launched a federal investigation into the nursing home and the outbreak. 

In total, King County has recorded 10 deaths while another occurred in nearby Snohomish County. The death in California has been linked to a cruise ship that is currently being held 400 miles off the coast on San Francisco amid fears of a suspected outbreak. The US Coast Guard on Thursday delivered a series of coronavirus test kits to Grand Princess cruise ship after 20 people onboard fell ill. 

An increase in testing countrywide has seen a jump in confirmed cases in Washington state, California and New York - with Nevada and Tennessee each reporting their first cases in the last 24 hours. The cases in New York state jumped to 22 after a Manhattan attorney infected more than a dozen people, including his own family, and multiple other unrelated cases were announced.   

Health officials in Washington state have bought a $4 million motel (above) and have set up a coronavirus quarantine site made up of 'mini hotel room' trailers for infected patients as the number of cases in the U.S. soars to more than 200 across 19 states

Officials in King County, which is where the majority of Washington cases are, also started setting up trailers in one neighborhood in what will become a temporary quarantine village that initially won't have water or sewage

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF CORONAVIRUS?

The two-story, 84-room motel is part of the efforts officials are taking in an epicenter of the outbreak in the US. Its hard surfaces, easy-to-clean floors and separate heating-and-cooling units in each room were exactly what officials were looking for when they started looking for in a quarantine facility.

The doors of each room open to the outside, rather than to a central hallway, reducing the likelihood of contact between the patients. The individual heating-and-cooling units reduce the chance of germs spreading through a ventilation system. 

'Maybe you're a patient who is out of the hospital, out of the active treatment phase, but you have someone who is high-risk, elderly or a pregnant spouse at home, so you can't go there - this would be a place for someone like that,' said county spokesman Chase Gallagher. 'The other category would be maybe someone who is homeless and can't go to a shelter.' 

Officials are also setting up isolation units in trailers on public parking lots or other land. 

Up to eight trailers are currently being set up on a vacant lot of land in White Center, just outside Seattle.

'They are kind of like little mini-hotel rooms,' a King County official told KOMO News. 'They have two beds in each, and public health (officials) will determine if there's only going to be one person in each room.'

The trailers will not initially have water or sewage so a portable restroom will be set up on site. 

Residents of King County are also being advised to work from home to avoid possible exposure. Officials in the County, which includes Seattle and is home to over 2.2 million people, have urged local businesses to allow employees to telecommute for the next three weeks in an effort to curb the outbreak. 

They are also recommending that higher-risk groups - including people over the age of 60, pregnant women and people with underlying health conditions or weakened immune systems - stay home and away from large social gatherings. 

Meanwhile, public officials in Washington have come under pressure to take more aggressive steps against the outbreak, including closing schools and canceling large events. While the state and Seattle have declared emergencies, giving leaders broad powers to suspend activities, they have not issued any orders to do so. 

The coronavirus death toll in the U.S. has now climbed to six as the top infectious disease official in the country warned the disease had likely reached 'pandemic proportions'. 

Health officials announced on Monday that four additional people had died in Washington state. Two other patients in that same area died over the weekend. 

Five of the six deaths have been linked to the LifeCare long-term aged care facility in Kirkland just outside Seattle. 

News of the additional deaths came after Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News on Monday that the disease had now reached 'outbreak proportions' as 91 cases were confirmed across the U.S. 

'We're dealing with an evolving situation. We're dealing with clearly an emerging infectious disease that has now reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic proportions,' Dr Fauci said. 'If you look at multiple definitions of what a pandemic is... multiple sustained transmissions of of a highly infectious agent in multiple regions of the globe.'

Dr Fauci went on to say the U.S. might need to consider social mitigation, including closing down schools and not allowing events where large crowds are in confined spaces.

'We're not ready for it right now but we need to be at least thinking about the possibility,' he said in the interview that will air in full on NBC Nightly News on Monday. 

Dr Fauci also speculated that the current mortality rate would go down as more cases are diagnosed.

'I think 2.5 percent is probably a bit high... It's dangerous to make firm kinds of predictions. I think it likely will be down around 1 percent but I'm not sure.'

Dr Fauci, who is one of the few medical professionals on the White House appointed task force to address the U.S. response to the disease, was reportedly banned from speaking out unless prior approval was given by Vice President Mike Pence's office.  

He denied on Monday that the Trump administration had pressured him to downplay his assessments of the disease, saying: 'No, absolutely not. There's no pressure. I tell it like it is. I've been doing that for 36 years and I will continue to tell it like it is.'     

The coronavirus death toll in the U.S. has now climbed to six. Five of the six deaths have been linked to the LifeCare (above) long-term aged care facility in Kirkland just outside Seattle in Washington state

Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has warned that the coronavirus has likely reached 'pandemic proportions'. He is pictured above flanked by Donald Trump and Mike Pence at the White House on Saturday

It comes after a New York doctor warned coronavirus cases in the U.S. will surge into the thousands by next week and the former head of the FDA claimed three critical weeks were lost in containing the spread of the virus due to faulty test kits given out by the government. 

Health officials have been scrambling to get their own coronavirus testing kits up and running after getting stuck with faulty tests from the federal government that they said left them unable to diagnose people quickly. 

State and local authorities are now also stepping up testing for the illness as the number of new cases grew to 91 across the U.S. on Monday, with new infections announced in California, Florida, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York and Washington state. 

New York confirmed its first coronavirus case on Sunday as a female healthcare worker in her 30s who returned from Iran last week and is now being quarantined in her Manhattan home. 

Florida late Sunday declared a public health emergency as it confirmed its first two cases, while Rhode Island announced its two cases - two people who had returned from a school trip to Italy - had prompted the closure of a school so it could be sanitized. 

Dr Matt McCarthy, who is a staff physician at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, has claimed he doesn't have the tools to properly care for patients because of the lack of coronavirus tests being made available to hospitals. 

He told CNBC's Squawk Box on Monday that the bungled test distribution was a 'national scandal' and claimed New York had only been able to properly carry out 32 tests so far. 

'We hear it's coming very soon but I'm here to tell you that at one of the busiest hospitals in the country, I don't have it at my finger tips. I still have to call the department of health, I still have to make my case and plead to test people,' he said. 

'This is not good. We know that there are (91) cases in the United States. There are going to hundreds by middle week, there's going to be thousands by next week. This is a testing issue.'

Dr Matt McCarthy (right), who works at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, warned coronavirus cases in the U.S. will surge into the thousands by next week. Scott Gottlieb(left), who is the former commissioner of the FDA, said three critical weeks were lost in trying to contain the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. because of the faulty tests 

• Female healthcare worker, 39, has become the first confirmed case of coronavirus in New York and is currently isolated in her Manhattan apartment
• Officials confirmed over the weekend that two people had died in Washington after contracting coronavirus
• The total number of coronavirus cases in the United States has now soared to 91
• Florida late Sunday declared a public health emergency as it confirmed its first two cases and Rhode Island was hit with its second case 
• Panic buying hit New York and other parts of the country over the weekend with anxious shoppers clearing supermarket shelves as they stock up on food and medical supplies
• Health officials have been scrambling to get their own coronavirus testing kits up and running after getting stuck with faulty tests from the federal government
• The coronavirus, which emerged in China late last year, has decimated global markets as it quickly moves around the world 

He said the infectious disease team at his hospital, one of the busiest in the country, was equipped to deal with the outbreak but were crippled by the lack of diagnostic tests being made available by the government. 

'Keep in mind in New York state the person who tested positive is only the 32nd test we've done in this state. That is a national scandal,' he said.  'They're testing 10,000 a day in some countries and we can't get this off the ground. 

'I'm a practitioner on the firing line and I don't have the tools to properly care for patients today.'

Scott Gottlieb, who is the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, also told CNBC that three critical weeks were lost in trying to contain the spread of coronavirus in the U.S. because of the faulty tests. 

'We lost about three critical weeks,' he said. 

He said they should have also been working with manufacturers and working with academic labs to ensure they weren't just waiting for one test.

Gottlieb said the current situation is a consequence of that 'hiccup'. 

It comes as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed on Sunday that a healthcare worker in her 30s was the first confirmed coronavirus case in the state.

She is thought to have contracted the coronavirus in Iran and is now currently self-quarantined in her Manhattan home.  

Health authorities had previously tested more than 30 New York patients who have reported symptoms consistent with the virus, but until now each suspected case had proven to be a false alarm. 

The test confirming the woman's illness was done at New York's Wadsworth Lab in Albany rather than the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Gov. Cuomo said on Saturday his state would immediately begin using its own test kit developed in-state after asking the FDA on Friday for permission to do so.  

Previously, tests on New York patients were still being handled only by federal authorities. 

Panic buying hit New York and other parts of the country over the weekend with anxious shoppers clearing supermarket shelves as they stock up on food and medical supplies. Pictured is a Costco in Brooklyn on Monday

Patrons with shopping carts loaded with tissue and water wait in checkout queues at a very busy Costco in Miami, Florida

People gather as street vendor Mike James sells them surgical mask, hand sanitizer and alcohol in Flushing, Queens on Monday

The weeks-long struggle to expand local testing has been criticized as an early misstep in the response by President Donald Trump's administration to the outbreak. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Sunday that it is investigating a manufacturing defect in some initial coronavirus test kits that prompted some states to seek emergency approval to use their own test kits. 

Three weeks ago, the FDA gave the green light for state and local labs to start using a testing kit developed by the CDC. But most labs that received the kits complained they had faulty components and produced inconclusive results, which the CDC later acknowledged. 

In New York City, the kit they received was even more faulty than most, meaning city officials could not use a workaround released by the CDC this week. Meanwhile, it has had to courier samples to CDC's laboratories in Atlanta, adding a day or more to the process.  

As of last week, only seven state labs had the ability to test for the coronavirus locally. The CDC has since been working to manufacture new kits that produce more reliable results. 

Over the weekend, authorities confirmed that two people had died in Washington state after contracting coronavirus. 

The total number of U.S. case has now soared to 91. The spread of the disease, which began in China, has now seen more than 89,000 cases worldwide and over 3,000 fatalities.

The coronavirus appeared poised for a spike in the United States in part because of more testing to confirm cases.  

Florida's governor Ron DeSantis disclosed late Sunday that two people had become the first in his state to test positive and ordered his top health officer to declare a statewide public health emergency. 

Two people who returned to Rhode Island from a trip to Europe have also tested positive for coronavirus. The patients in Rhode Island were on a school trip to Italy together in February. A third person from the trip is being tested and the school is shutting down for the week. 

Officials in King County, Washington, which includes the city of Seattle, said in a statement on Saturday that new cases had been identified, including one patient who died.

No other details were immediately available about the two new cases in Washington, including the ages of the patients and any other potential health issues. 

A press conference with more details is scheduled for 1pm PST. 

It follows the revelation on Friday that cases of community spread with no identifiable origin had been detected in California, Oregon, and Washington State. 

The patients - an older Northern California woman with chronic health conditions, a high school student in Everett, Washington and an employee at a Portland, Oregon-area school - hadn't recently traveled overseas or had any known close contact with a traveler or an infected person, authorities said.

Earlier U.S. cases include three people who were evacuated from the central China city of Wuhan, epicenter of the outbreak; 14 people who returned from China, or their spouses; and 42 American passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, who were flown to U.S. military bases in California and Texas for quarantining.

Convinced that the number of cases will grow but determined to keep them from exploding, health agencies were ramping up efforts to identify patients.

The California Department of Public Health said Friday that the state will receive enough kits from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to test up to 1,200 people a day for the COVID-19 virus - a day after Governor Gavin Newsom complained to federal health officials that the state had already exhausted its initial 200 test kits.

Santa Clara County in the San Francisco Bay Area reported two cases where the source of infection wasn´t known. The older woman was hospitalized for a respiratory illness, and rapid local testing confirmed in one day that she had the virus, health officials said.

'This case represents some degree of community spread, some degree of circulation,' said Dr. Sara Cody, health officer for Santa Clara County and director of the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department.

'But we don't know to what extent,' Cody said. 'It could be a little, it could be a lot.'

'We need to begin taking important additional measures to at least slow it down as much as possible,' she said.

Cody said the newly confirmed case in Santa Clara County is not linked to two previous cases in that county, nor to others in the state.

The Santa Clara County resident was treated at a local hospital and is not known to have traveled to Solano County, where another woman was identified Wednesday as having contracted the virus from an unknown source.

Dozens of people had close contact with the Solano County woman. They were urged to quarantine themselves at home, while a few who showed symptoms of illness were in isolation, officials said.

At UC Davis Medical Center at least 124 registered nurses and other health care workers were sent home for 'self-quarantine' after the Solano County woman with the virus was admitted, National Nurses United, a nationwide union representing RNs, said Friday.

The case 'highlights the vulnerability of the nation´s hospitals to this virus,' the union said.

Earlier Friday, Oregon confirmed its first coronavirus case, a person who works at an elementary school in the Portland area, which will be temporarily closed.

The Lake Oswego School District sent a robocall to parents saying that Forest Hills Elementary will be closed until Wednesday so it can be deep-cleaned by maintenance workers.

Washington state health officials announced two new coronavirus cases Friday night, including a high school student who attends Jackson High School in Everett, said Dr. Chris Spitters of the Snohomish County Health District.

The other case in Washington was a woman in in King County in her 50s who had recently traveled to South Korea, authorities said.

Both patients weren´t seriously ill.

The number of coronavirus cases in the United States is considered small. Worldwide, the number of people sickened by the virus hovered Friday around 83,000, and there were more than 2,800 deaths, most of them in China.

But health officials aren't taking any chances. Some communities, including San Francisco, already have declared local emergencies in case they need to obtain government funding.

In Southern California's Orange County, the city of Costa Mesa went to court to prevent state and federal health officials from transferring dozens of people exposed to the virus aboard a cruise ship in Japan to a state-owned facility in the city. The passengers, including some who tested positive for the virus and underwent hospital care, had been staying at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California.

On Friday, state officials said the federal decided it no longer had a crucial need to move those people to the Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa. That's because of the imminent end of the isolation period for those passengers and the relatively small number of persons who ended up testing positive, officials said.

The new coronavirus cases of unknown origin marks an escalation of the worldwide outbreak in the U.S. because it means the virus could spread beyond the reach of preventative measures like quarantines, though state health officials said that was inevitable and that the risk of widespread transmission remains low.

California public health officials on Friday said more than 9,380 people are self-monitoring after arriving on commercial flights from China through Los Angeles and San Francisco. That's up from the 8,400 that Newsom cited on Thursday, though officials said the number increases daily as more flights arrive.

Officials are not too worried, for now, about casual contact, because federal officials think the coronavirus is spread only through 'close contact, being within six feet of somebody for what they´re calling a prolonged period of time,' said Dr. James Watt, interim state epidemiologist at the California Department of Public Health.

The virus can cause fever, coughing, wheezing and pneumonia. Health officials think it spreads mainly from droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes, similar to how the flu spreads.

As infectious disease experts fanned out in the Solano County city of Vacaville, some residents in the city between San Francisco and Sacramento stocked up on supplies amid fears things could get worse despite official reassurances, while others took the news in stride.

The woman in the community who has coronavirus first sought treatment at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville, before her condition worsened and she was transferred to the medical center in Sacramento.

Sacramento County´s top health official told The Sacramento Bee on Friday that he expects several medical workers to test positive themselves in the next few days. Numerous workers at both hospitals have been tested, but the tests were sent to labs approved by the CDC and generally take three to four days to complete.

Peter Beilenson, Sacramento County's health services director, said he expects even those who test positive to become only mildly ill.

Confusion over how quickly the woman was tested for coronavirus concerned McKinsey Paz, who works at a private security firm in Vacaville. The company has already stockpiled 450 face masks and is scrambling for more 'since they´re hard to come by.' The company's owner bought enough cleaning and disinfectant supplies to both scrub down the office and send home with employees.

But they appeared to be at the extreme for preparations.

Eugenia Kendall was wearing a face mask, but in fear of anything including the common cold. Her immune system is impaired because she is undergoing chemotherapy, and she has long been taking such precautions.

'We´re not paranoid. We´re just trying to be practical,' said her husband of 31 years, Ivan Kendall. 'We wipe the shopping carts if they have them, and when I get back in the car I wipe my hands - and just hope for the best.' 

CoronaVirus fears have been raised on board a new cruise ship after it was blocked from docking in Jamaica because a member of its crew was sick.

The MSC Meraviglia, which is carrying more than 4,500 passengers and 1,600 crew from Miami, was barred from making port in Ocho Rios on Tuesday when officials discovered that a member of the crew was in isolation with flu-like symptoms.

Health minister Chris Tufton said the decision was taken because the person had a fever, cough, muscle pains and had been to a 'country of interest' linked with coronavirus.

The ship is now headed for Georgetown, the capital of the Cayman Islands, where health authorities have already said it will not be able to dock.

It comes after cruise ship MS Westerdam was rejected from five ports earlier this month amid fears over coronavirus, and after an outbreak of the disease on the Diamond Princess ship which sickened more than 600 and killed four.    

The MSC Meraviglia cruise ship was turned away from port in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, on Tuesday and has already been told it cannot dock in the Cayman Islands over coronavirus fears (file)

It comes after a member of the crew from the Philippines was quarantined after suffering flu-like symptoms, though MSC insists that there is no coronavirus on board

It is unclear what will become of the Meraviglia, which departed from Miami on Sunday and was due to cruise around the Caribbean for a week.

MSC said that the crew member in question had boarded the ship in Miami on Sunday after travelling from Manila, in the Philippines, via the Turkish city of Istanbul.

All passengers and crew passed health checks before being allowed to depart. 

The crew member reported to the on-board medical station at some point between Sunday and the ship's arrival in Ocho Rios on Tuesday.

The cruise line said the person has tested positive for Type A influenza, rather than coronavirus, and has been placed in quarantine.

'Out of precaution he was isolated from other crew members and guests from the moment that he showed symptoms and will remain so until he is fully recovered,' a spokesman said.

'No other cases of type A influenza have been reported on board MSC Meraviglia.

'Moreover, no cases of COVID-19 virus (Coronavirus) have been reported on board MSC Meraviglia or any other ship in MSC Cruises’ fleet.' 

Still, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands were taking no chances.

Online records show that the ship arrived in Ocho Rios around 8.20am local time on Tuesday. It then remained held in port until 1.20pm, when it departed. 

While still on its way to the Cayman Islands, where it was due to arrive on Wednesday morning, health authorities confirmed it will also not be granted access to the port. 

Passengers had been due to spend the day in Ocho Rios before being barred from coming ashore. The ship is due to call in Mexico before going back to Miami

It is unclear what will happen to the ship, which is due to head to Cozumel before arriving back in the US on March 1

Dwayne Seymour, health minister for the Cayman Islands, said: 'In an abundance of caution... the government has denied permission for the cruise ship to call on Grand Cayman as previously scheduled.'

The ship's next port of call after the Cayman Islands was due to be Cozumel, in Mexico, before a stop at on a private island in the Bahamas.

It was then due to return to Miami on March 1.

One passenger said that bottles of hand sanitizer had been placed around the ship for people to use, and that people were being encouraged to clean their hands before and after eating.

Photos posted by other passengers on board showed that people had been allowed to roam freely around the deck.

News about the Meraviglia broke as Indonesia announced it was evacuating 1,800 cruise ship staff from on board the World Dream cruise ship, where they have been stranded since February 9.

The ship had been denied entry in Thailand after it was revealed that three Chinese nationals who had taken part in an earlier cruise had tested positive for coronavirus.

The vessel was eventually allowed to dock in Hong Kong and passengers allowed off, but the crew were told to remain behind.

Medical boats have now been sent to evacuate the staff members, who may be quarantined for a further 28 days.

Coronavirus has infected more than 80,000 people worldwide and killed more than 2,700, with new outbreaks reported this week in South Korea, Iran and Italy

• Senior CDC official Nancy Messonier said coronavirus is moving closer to meeting the criteria of a pandemic
• She says she that it's not a question of if, but when, spread will occur in the US
• Dr Messonier said she called her children's school and asked if there are plans for tele-schooling if necessary and recommended parents do the same 
• More than 80,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 2,700 people have died

It's no longer 'a question of if...but when' the coronavirus will spread in the US, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials said on Tuesday as they told parents to prepare their children for the possibility of school closures. 

The CDC said Americans may need to prepare for 'tele-schooling' should the virus continue to spread throughout the US. 

So far, 57 cases have been confirmed - 14 in the nation, 40 from citizens repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan and three evacuated from China.

And although the threat is currently low, Dr Nancy Messonier, CDC's director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, says the public needs to be ready if the virus becomes a pandemic.

'It's not so much of a question of if this will happen in this country any more but a question of when this will happen,' she told reporters in a media call on Tuesday.

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

Dr Nancy Messonier (pictured) of the CDC says the public needs to prepare if the coronavirus spreads in the US and suggested parents asks schools if they plans for doing classes over the Internet 

Dr Messonier says that it's not a question of if, but when, spread will occur in the US as the virus continued to spread abroad. Pictured: Doctors look at a scan of a patient with coronavirus at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital, February 16

World Health Organisation warns coronavirus has 'pandemic potential'

Dr Messonier is so concerned that she suggested that parents call their children's schools and ask if there are plans for children to attend class over the Internet or via video chat should the buildings need to close.

In fact, she told reporters she has already called her own children's school to ask how it would handle closures due to the outbreak. 

Dr Messonier said although the threat of coronavirus in the US is currently slim, the infection's international spread abroad makes containment at the US border and within the nation increasingly difficult. 

Therefore, she suggested recommendations that the public could take if the virus reaches pandemic-like levels.

At a community level, this means reducing face-to-face contact in schools and officers and replacing in-person meetings with teleschooling and teleconferencing.

'I had a conversation with my family over breakfast this morning, and I told my children that - while I didn't think they were at risk - right now, we as a family, need to be preparing for significant disruption of our lives,' Dr Messonier said.  

Worldwide, more than 80,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 2,700 people have died

She said she called her children's school and asked if they are plans for tele-schooling if the building needs to close due to the virus.

'[Parents should] ask schools, are there plans for teleschool? You should think what you would do for daycare if schools close?' Dr Messonier said.

However, other health experts have advised parents not to overreact and pull their children out of school.

They cite that the number of infections among children are low and that when symptoms do appear, they're mild.  

'The literature is only reporting about 100 or so pediatric cases,' Dr Terri Lynn Stillwell, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan, told NPR.

Worldwide, more than 80,000 people have been infected with coronavirus and more than 2,700 people have died - mostly older patients with pre-existing conditions.

The White House has requested $2.5 billion to fund better tracking of the virus, treatment development. Pictured: Medical personnel work in the ICU of a hospital designated for coronavirus patients in Wuhan, February 24

President Donald Trump said in a press conference in India on Tuesday (pictured) that be believes coronavirus is 'a problem that's going to go away'

During the media call, Dr Messonier also gave an update on test kits, some of which were flawed, that were sent to state and local health departments.   

Currently, 12 'states and localities' have working test kits, but it's unclear which states and cities have them.

'I am frustrated, like I know many of you are, that we have had issues with our test,' she said.

'I want to assure you that we are working to modify the kit and hope to send out a new version to state and local jurisdictions soon.'

She added that 400 samples were tested at the CDC on Monday night and that there is currently no backlog despite the defective tests.

Dr Messonier was also asked about President Donald Trump's comment on Tuesday at a press conference in India, in which he said: 'I think [coronavirus is] a problem that's going to go away.'

This contradicts statements made by top health agencies including the CDC, the World Health Organization and the US Department of Health and Human Services. 

She said that she and her colleagues are 'hopeful' that the virus could be a seasonal illness that is more virulent in the fall and winter, but there is no way of knowing right now.    

President Trump also stressed that the situation 'is very well under control' in the US and patients diagnosed with the virus were recovering.

'We've had very few people with it. The people that have it,' he said the press conference in New Delhi.

'The people are getting better - they're all getting better. There's a very good chance you're not going to die [if you are infected].' 

Meanwhile, the White House has requested $2.5 billion to fund better tracking of the virus, treatment development, and ramped-up production of a stockpile of 300 million facemasks and protective gear for US health care workers. 

'I'm deeply concerned we're way behind the eight ball on this,' said Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, during a Tuesday Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing. 

US LAWMAKERS PROBE HEALTH OFFICIALS OVER SECRET MEETINGS CORONAVIRUS MEETINGS 

US health officials have been conducting secret meetings with lawmakers, senators revealed at a Tuesday Appropriations Subcommittee meeting. 

Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire criticized the secrecy of a briefing that had taken place earlier that morning, and said that her constituents were 'concerned' that they weren't getting all the information that they needed about the outbreak. 

During that closed-door meeting, lawmakers were told 'there is a very strong chance of an extremely serious outbreak of the coronavirus here in the US,' Senatory Patty Murry, a Democrat from Washington said during the hearing. 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar admitted that Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr had designated the meeting 'top secret' but claimed that ultimately nothing had come out in the briefing that hasn't been shared with the public. 

Azar was testifying in part to defend the $2.5 billion emergency budget request that the White House submitted to Congress Monday night to address the coronavirus outbreak, but the dubious committee suggested the funding is too little, too late.  

'I'm deeply concerned we're way behind the eight ball on this,' said Senator Murray.  

She was among Senators from both sides of the aisle to criticize the US response to the coronavirus outbreak for being insufficient and the funding request for being too vague. 

HHS Secretary Alex Azar (pictured) fielded criticism that health officials have not been transparent and are requesting too little money too late to address the coronavirus outbreak from both sides of the aisle in a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee meeting Tuesday

The HHS has requested more money to better track the spread of the virus in the US - which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday was inevitable - develop treatments for the killer infection and to ramp up production of 300 million masks and other protective gear to stockpile for healthcare workers.  

Some Sentators used the outbreak and budget request as a vehicle to critique the Trump administrations prior health initiatives and funding cuts to the very programs that are being employed to combat the outbreak in the US. 

Azar, however, insisted that the funding request was carefully timed, would more than cover the US's needs for combating the outbreak, and announced that phase I clinical trials for an antiviral treatment are beginning at the University of Nebraska. 

He also admitted the US 'will likely see more cases' of the coronavirus that has now infected 57 Americans and more than 80,000 people worldwide. 

Azar said that the whopping $2.5 billion was necessary to cover the development of therapeutics like the one entering clinical trials in Nebraska and vaccines as well as for protective gear for healthcare workers and better surveillance of the virus. 

He said that surveillance - the CDC's data collection process, which helps officials track the spread of diseases - for coronavirus 'needs to be comparable to flu surveillance.' 

Azar's testimony comes after US experts speculated that the highly contagious virus that emerged in Wuhan, China in December, might become a regular seasonal occurrence, as the flu is. 

So far, it has proven less fatal but perhaps more contagious than other viruses of the same family, infection risk to the general public is still low in the US, but officials' tone has shifted to suggest that it won't stay that way and the virus will spread. 

In an attempt to brace for hat possibility, the HHS is seeking funds to prepare hospitals that are already stretched thin by a particularly bad flu season to handle a potential surge in coronavirus cases. 

Some of the $2.5 billion emergency funds - although the department has not yet determined how much - will go to increasing manufacturing capacity for stockpiles of protective gear for hospital workers, especially masks. 

Such manufacturing capabilities 'do not exist yet,' said Azar, who thinks the US needs about 300 million N95 masks. 

Senator Murray questioned whether stockpiles already exist. 

'Of course not, or we wouldn't be asking for a supplemental [appropriations budget],' Azar snapped back. 

'This is an unprecedented severe health challenge, potentially globally.' 

Senators were skeptical over the vagueness of the budget request, which Azar broke down into five broad categories.  

In addition to expanded surveillance he said 'we need more money to support contact tracing and communication with impacted individuals and lab testing, research, development and preucurment of vaccines and therapeutics, [and we] need to support the procurement of [personal protective equipment], especially masks into the national stockpile.' 

The first human clinical trials of an antiviral treatment for the coronavirus that's sickened more than 80,000 people worldwide are set to begin in Nebraska, US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday.  

Meanwhile, the drugmaker, Moderna, announced its candidate coronavirus vaccine has been shipped to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to begin phase 1 clinical trials in humans. 

Still, the lawmakers are dubious that the $2.5 billion isn't enough to pay for measures that the HHS isn't even sharing with full transparency for addressing the outbreak that seems to be approaching a tipping point into pandemic levels. 

'If a pandemic is coming and we're disregarding scientific evidence and we're relying on tweets and an emergency supplemental [sic] without details...I just think this is not enough,' said Senator Murray. 

'If you low-ball something like this, you'll pay for it later,' warned Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican.