MOSCOW, March 12. /TASS/. The schedule of activity of the UN General Assembly from March to April has been revised due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.
"Many international events have been canceled or postponed, or the schedule of these events is changed. In particular, just yesterday the Russian side received a message from the president of the UN General Assembly concerning additional measures and changes in the program of activity of the General Assembly from March until April of this year," the diplomat said.
The message "proposes to limit the number of diplomats visiting the UN headquarters for sessions of the General Assembly, as well as to refrain from inviting the participants who live outside the state and New York City," Zakharova said. "Besides, "there is also a suggestion to cancel parallel events and restrict celebrations marking certain dates, such as national days," Zakharova said.
According to the diplomat, apart from the Foreign Ministry’s taking part in the activity of the national coronavirus task force, the ministry set up its own task force led by Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov. "Of course, all this affects the work of diplomats in the central office, as well as staff of the embassies, permanent missions and consulates general," Zakharova added.
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.