According to the Global Times, an English-language Chinese news paper, a man died of Hantavirus in the Chinese Yunnan province. The corresponding tweet made by the newspaper, tagged #Hantavirus, gained a high number of retweets and comments due to the fear of a pandemic parallel to COVID-19. According to the CDC these fears are unnecessary since the Hantavirus can only be transmitted directly from rodents and cannot be transmitted from one person to another.

In a televised address to the nation on monday evening, prime minister Boris Johnson informed the public of a lockdown starting monday night. Public spaces will be closed and people will only be allowed to leave their homes for grocery shopping, one form of exercise per day and if travel to work can´t be avoided. The lockdown will last for at least three weeks, after which the government will reexamine the situation.

According to IOC member Richard Pound the committee has decided to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games to 2021 and will announce its decision soon. Neither IOC nor the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee has announced a decision or replied to Pounds comment.

According to the National Coronavirus Command Council extensive measures against the current pandemic will be taken in South Africa over the next days. This features a nationwide lockdown that will be in place from Thursday 26th of March until midnight on Thursday 16th of April and will be compulsory for all citizens except for these working in the selected fields, such as healthcare. Further measures include the establishment of a centralized patient management system, travel-restrictions and financial assistance for businesses and low-income households.

According to Reuters, H&M has agreed to supply the EU with protective gear for hospitals with an emphasis on face masks. After an initial offer by H&M the company and EU representatives had agreed on using the companies global network of suppliers, mainly located in China, India, Bangladesh and Vietnam, to curb the evergrowing demand after protective gear for hospitals. This will in the initial phase come in the form of a donation by the company. Inditex, owner of the brand Zara and a main competitor of H&M, had before made a similiar offer to the country of Spain.

According to AFP News Brazil announced on Thursday they would close down all land borders and prohibit people from European and many Pacific Asian countries who are not citizens of Brazil from entering the country.

According to an analysis by the Kaiser Health Foundation, more than half of US counties are not equipped with ICU beds. In the highly endangered group of citizens 60 and above, around 4.5 million live in counties that have hospitals but no ICU and an additional 2.7 million reside in counties with no hospital at all. Even in the top 10% counties for ICU bed count there might be as many as 450 older people per bed. While the United States have more than three times the amount of beds as Italy, this doesn't say much about the amount of ventilators available and the distribution over all counties.

According to Dr Owen Tsang Tak-yin, director of Infectious Disease Centre at Princess Margaret Hospital, Hong Kong, follow-up appointments of COVID-19 patients after recovery revealed that some patients showed a reduction in lung function of around 20 to 30 percent. Long-term outcome was still unclear and patients could do cardiovascular exercise to increase their lung function.

According to Associated Press the first COVID-19 vaccine was tested at the Kaiser Permanente research facility in Seattle, Washington. The vaccine was developed by the biotechnology company Moderna Therapeutics and contains a harmless part of the COVID-19 viral genome. The NHS-funded trial was fast-tracked, skipping animal experiments. According to the researchers, results may take many months.