While there are positive signs in the slowing rate of infections in China and South Korea elsewhere, it's speeding up.

Iran recorded a dramatic rise of 1000 new cases in the 24 hours since Thursday, with the authorities said to be preparing travel restrictions between cities, toe add to widespread school closures and bands on public gatherings.

The World Health Organization said rapidly rising numbers are a sign of amore efficient government response.

Any country in the face of an epidemic when it looks for cases will find them on.

If we call that a bad thing, it is, it's It's a sad thing for the people who have the disease, but it's much better that we understand the extent of the problem, so we commend to move towards more aggressive targeted surveillance on.

We hope that that will lead to the kind of control measures that can help push this virus back Among the more than 3300 lives lost around the world so far, most have been among the elderly who's less efficient immune systems make it hard to fight off the virus.

In France, where new infections jumped by 200 on Friday, President Emmanuel Macron visited a retirement facility.

I'm asking all fellow citizens to act responsibly to make this sacrifice.

I know it is sometimes heartbreaking, but we must avoid visiting our elders as much as possible.

The European Union, with its open borders, is proving a haven for the spread of Corona virus.

Italy remains the worst affected country, but Germany is catching up across Europe.

Tiny Vatican City has reported its first case, as has Serbia.

And in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a $50 million investment into vaccine research and faster testing methods.

Early signs of the virus continued to spring up in Africa and the Middle East.

Cameroon and Senegal joined Nigeria and South Africa in registering their first cases this week that as the head of the U.

N.

World Food Program, sounded a stark warning.

If Corona virus continues to create panic around the world, it is an economic downturn.

I've been telling the European leaders and leaders around the world you don't have enough money set aside to address the needs in Africa, East Africa, West Africa and the Middle East.

Right now, if there's an economic downturn on top of the economic downturn that exists now in Syria and Lebanon, it absolutely could be a catastrophe.

I mean, absolute devastation.

And there was more bad news for the airline industry already operating on tight margins, with losses across the industry from travel restrictions and canceled bookings estimated to top $100 billion the German carrier Lufthansa announced plans to scale back up to 50% of its service is worldwide.

Others may soon follow suit.

Jonah joins me live now, and Italy is the hardest hit country here in Europe, isn't it, Jonah?

Tell us more about how the country and people have been coping with this very much.

Still the hot spot in Europe, Italy.

That death toll has jumped 197 nearly 50 and 24 hours.

That's an enormous jump, a total figure of 4636 and all of that in just over two weeks since the first cases were detected.

Now, the government acted very aggressively, pretty much from the start, quarantining whole communities in the north of the country to try and slow slow the spread.

It didn't work.

It went countrywide.

This week, a raft of emergency decrees were passed by the Cabinet.

Pretty extraordinary measures in the European context.

But most of these things have been tried to a greater or lesser extent in Asia.

In China, in South Korea, where, incidentally, infection rates slowing now.

So you've got schools closed, universities closed.

You've got places of public gathering shut down.

That means cinemas and museums.

You've got sports fixtures being played to empty stadiums, even famously this week, Italians being asked not to kiss each other in greeting, if you can imagine that.

But still the spread continues.

The death toll continues to rise, in part perhaps because of a large number of elderly, a very aging population in Italy.

There particularly vulnerable, of course, but I suspect as much as anything, this is a sign for other Europeans watching a foretaste of your lack of things to come exactly, because Germany Franz are all catching up in terms of the number of infections.

But within Italy itself, as you say, it's caused this incredible paralysis of everyday life, with towns being quarantined and tourism, I suppose, grinding to a halt.

Do they have the resources to deal with this?

Is there an expectation that it will get much worse, but then possibly situational get better?

I mean, in terms of resources, if you're talking about money, they've asked the U the Italian government to lift their budget ceiling, and they'll basically throw as much money as they can on the problem.

There are widespread shortages of basic equipment all over Europe.

Down around the world.

Masks, goggles, gloves, that sort of thing in terms of the epidemiology, the way that this disease works.

The World Health Organization thinks that it sort of works in a peak in a trough, and that seems to be what's happened in China.

It hits a big peak for several weeks, 68 weeks, perhaps, and then sort of runs out of steam.

That's probably what we're looking at in Europe in the coming weeks.

These countries, big countries Britain, Germany, France, Spain almost nowhere will be spared will hit a peak at some point.

Either the warmer weather of the summer will slow the spread of the disease.

They simply don't know whether that will happen or not, or it will dissipate naturally in its own time on DDE.

What about advice?

Or are we hearing from health ministries from governments?

How you know what measures?

And should people be taking tea?

Protect themselves?

Well, again, this is being done on a country by country basis.

At the moment, the U 27 members is trying to come up with a cool, coordinated response that hasn't happened yet.

But on a country by country basis, different countries are experiencing different levels of infection rate, different levels off the disease.

And they're doing different things and at different times and in a different pace.

But initially it starts with personal hygiene.

Of course, the big advice is to wash your hands and wash your hands often once it gets beyond that sort of containment stage, where a few cases can be contact traced.

But more and more cases can't any longer, and it moves to community transmission.

Well, that's the time when you've got to start distancing the public from one another.

That's the time when big events start being canceled, possibly school closures, university closures, town closures, city closures.

In a worst case scenario, as we've seen in China, thank you very much, Jonah.

Staying across that story for us.

Thank you.