April 13 coronavirus news

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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she has sent a Facebook message to Jenny McGee, one of the two nurses singled out by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson for their care while he was in hospital.

But Arden says she hasn’t yet had a response to her Facebook message.

"Nor would I expect to hear back from her necessarily at all. She’s obviously on the front line and I imagine will be very focused on her job," Arden told reporters today.

Arden said "nurse Jenny" is just one of the "many, many Kiwis" who work in health care around the world.

Parents "exceptionally proud": Speaking to TV New Zealand, Caroline and Mike McGee said that they were "exceptionally" proud of their daughter, saying that they found her commitment to her job "incredible."

“But she has told us these things over the years and it doesn’t matter what patient she’s looking after, this is what she does," Caroline McGee said.

An area of the arrival hall at Tokyo's Narita airport has been transformed into a cardboard box zone for international travelers who can't find a space in a nearby government-mandated hotel as they await their coronavirus test results.

The makeshift waiting area with dozens of cardboard bed boxes is for those whose friends and relatives can't pick them up immediately in a private car. Staff wearing protective gear provide snacks and water as travelers kill time.

In Japan, sturdy cardboard box beds are normally used during disasters. But the use of this space in Narita airport has drawn criticism on Japanese social media, with users commenting that the area could promote the spread of coronavirus rather than contain it.

"They don't do much testing in Japan, but many returnees from overseas are infected," tweeted Misachasu, who also wrote a post on the experience of his Vietnamese friend who spent a night in the cardboard box zone. "We consider this space a high risk of infection."

Japan has enacted a ban on travelers from over 70 countries and regions, with no scheduled end date. 

Stanley Chera, the prominent New York City real estate developer and Republican donor who co-founded Crown Acquisitions, has died of complications related to the novel coronavirus, a source close to Chera confirmed to CNN Sunday. He was in his late 70s.

The news was first reported by journalist Yashar Ali.

Chera's real estate career began when he started buying the retail buildings that held his family's chain of children's specialty stores, holdings that became Crown Acquisitions, according to the company's website. The company eventually divested from the retail stores to focus on real estate. Crown's holdings include several iconic New York City properties, such as The St. Regis New York and the Cartier Mansion.

Chera was also friends with President Donald Trump.

From 2016 to 2019, Chera donated a total of $402,800 to Donald J. Trump for President Inc. and Trump Victory, organizations dedicated to supporting Trump's presidency, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Read more here:

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New York real estate mogul and Trump friend Stanley Chera died of coronavirus complications

Kritchai Rojanapornsatit has lived in Phuket for most of his life.

Owner of a construction company, he's accustomed to the regular traffic jams on Thailand's most popular resort island, where large tour buses chug up and down its hilly roads as tourists weave around them on rented motorbikes, all heading for Phuket's many beaches, ports and attractions.

The scenes that greet him now, however, are like nothing he's ever witnessed in his 30 years of living here.

"There are no speed boats on the water, the streets and beaches are empty and there are very few tourists," he tells CNN Travel.

That's because authorities have taken extraordinary lockdown measures to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus in Phuket, which has emerged as the country's coronavirus hotspot.

With 170 confirmed cases of Covid-19 as of April 10, this island of 400,000 or so residents has the highest infection rate per capita out of all of Thailand's 77 provinces.

Read more here:

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By Karla Cripps, CNN

North Korea's legislature held its third session on Sunday in the absence of the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, according to state news agency KCNA.

At the session, the lawmakers approved a budget bill that focuses on economic growth, while increasing health expenditure by 7.4% compared to last year, KCNA said.

The session followed a Politburo meeting on Saturday, an annual event where major policy direction and yearly budget is decided. According to KCNA, the country's Politburo discussed the coronavirus pandemic, while cautioning that it can create "some obstacles to our struggle and progress."

The Politburo also vowed to step up efforts to combat the spread of the virus. 

North Korea has not officially reported any confirmed cases in the country, but has quarantined people returning from China since the outbreak began. Pyongyang reported it had tested more than 700 people for Covid-19 and over 500 people are in quarantine as of April 2, the World Health Organization told CNN on April 8.

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has personally thanked Luís Pitarma, one of the two nurses UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised as having saved his life.

In a video message released after being discharged from hospital on Sunday, Johnson paid tribute to the work of Pitarma and a New Zealand nurse named Jenny for their care "when things could have gone either way."

"The reason in the end my body did start to get enough oxygen was because for every second of the night they were watching and they were thinking and they were caring and making the interventions I needed," Johnson said.

A total of 25 new cases of the novel coronavirus were reported in South Korea today, the latest sign that the local epidemic is being kept under control by the government.

Imported infections accounted for 16 of the new cases, according to South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

Three new fatalities were reported, bringing the country's death toll to 217. Overall, 10,537 cases of the virus have been recorded in South Korea.

After China, South Korea has been Asia's most heavily-affected country by the pandemic, but strict containment measures have brought the virus under control in recent weeks.

An Indian policeman's hand was chopped off with a sword and six other officers were severely injured when they were attacked while enforcing coronavirus lockdown measures in northern Punjab state on Sunday morning.

The severed left hand of Harjit Singh, an assistant sub inspector for Punjab Police, was later reattached to his wrist following nearly eight hours of surgery.

The attack took place when a vehicle carrying seven men -- who belong to the minority Sikh warrior sect known as the Nihangs -- was stopped at a barricade outside a vegetable market in Patiala district, KBS Sidhu, a senior state government official, told CNN.

When police asked the men for valid travel passes, one of them took out a sword and cut off Singh's hand.

The injured officers, one with sword wounds to his back, were taken to the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh.

Following an hour-long operation at a local gurdwara (Sikh temple), police arrested the seven accused men. A further investigation is underway.

India is currently under a nationwide lockdown due to end April 14. Punjab, however, was one of the first states in the country to extend the measures until the end of the month. The state has reported a total of 151 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 11 deaths.