VIENNA, March 12. The first death of coronavirus in Austrian was reported in the capital city of Vienna on Thursday, the press service of the city administration has said in a statement.
It was a 69-year-old patient who had earlier visited Italy. When he was infected with the novel coronavirus, the patient was already suffering from other diseases. "A 69-year-old man returning from Italy and suffering from other diseases died last night at Kaiser Franz Josef Hospital," the statement said.
A total of 302 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Austria, in all nine regions of the country.
On March 10, the country banned major public gatherings until the end of March, including open-air events involving more than 500 people and closed-door events with the participation of more than 100 people. Universities, schools and kindergartens will move to online learning from March 16. The organizers of cultural and sports events, conferences and exhibitions, the administrations of museums and clubs have declared suspension of work until the end of March under the orders from the government.
In late December 2019, a pneumonia outbreak caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus (previously known as 2019-nCoV) was reported in China’s city of Wuhan, an economic and industrial megacity with a population of 12 million. Outside China, the worst affected countries are Italy, South Korea and Iran. Overall, more than 100 other countries have reported confirmed coronavirus cases. Russia had 28 coronavirus cases as of Wednesday.
The World Health Organization says that the novel coronavirus cases across the globe have exceeded 118,000, with about 4,300 deaths. The WHO has officially described the situation with the novel coronavirus as a pandemic.