Covid-19 corona virus updates 2020/03/04
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Saudi Arabia suspends pilgrimages for citizens and residents
The authorities in Saudi Arabia have announced the temporary suspension of the lesser Muslim pilgrimage, or Umra, for Saudi citizens and residents of the Gulf kingdom as a precaution against the spread of the new coronavirus disease, state media report.
Last week, they took the unprecedented step of barring foreigners from performing pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina.
The Umra is an extra, optional pilgrimage. Although it includes some of the rituals of the most important pilgrimage, the Hajj, they are shortened and there are fewer of them.
On Monday, Saudi Arabia reported its first case of Covid-19 – a Saudi man who had travelled to Iran, the centre of the outbreak in the Middle East.
France closes schools near Paris
France has closed about 120 schools in areas with the largest numbers of coronavirus infection.
Both primary and secondary schools have been shut in an area north of Paris where the main cluster of French cases has emerged and where two people who have died of the virus lived.
The closures affect about 35,000 pupils, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer told LCI television.
