MOSCOW, March 10. /TASS, Rustam Sharafutdinov/. The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) keeps up with its plans on the organization of the 2019/2020 Europa League’s final match in Poland’s Gdansk despite the local authorities’ ban on holding mass events over continuous reports on the novel coronavirus spread, the UEFA press service said in a statement to TASS.
The authorities of Poland announced earlier on Tuesday a blanket ban for all public mass events in the country as part of its preventive measures against the worldwide spread of the novel coronavirus. The final match of the 2019/2020 UEFA Europa League is scheduled to be played on May 27, 2020 in Poland’s Gdansk.
"The UEFA Europa League Final will be played in Gdansk on 27 May 2020," the statement from the European governing football body reads. "The issue will be kept under constant scrutiny."
"UEFA takes the situation linked to the coronavirus very seriously," according to the statement. "We are closely monitoring the situation and are in contact with the World Health Organization and national authorities regarding Covid-19 and its development."
Poland announced its first coronavirus case on March 1. It was diagnosed in a person, who arrived from Germany. The country has officially announced 18 confirmed novel coronavirus cases, while 467 people are hospitalized with the suspected infection and over 1,000 are currently under quarantine at home.
On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities reported to the World Health Organization about an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, an economic and industrial megalopolis with a population of 11 million.
The virus was identified on January 7 as 2019-nCoV. As of today, 115 countries and territories, including Russia, have reported confirmed coronavirus cases.
The World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, characterizing it as an epidemic with multiple locations. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated on February 11 that the organization gave the novel coronavirus an official name of COVID-19.
According to the latest reports, over 116,050 cases of patients infected with the novel coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide. The virus’ death toll has reached 4,080, yet more than 64,630 patients have recovered from the disease.