AP: World battles virus epidemic as cases multiply outside China
“Crews scrubbed everything from money to buses, military bases were on high alert, and quarantines were enforced Wednesday from a beachfront resort in the Atlantic to a remote island in the Pacific, as the world worked to halt the fast-spreading virus that for the first time counted more new cases outside China than inside the country, where the epidemic originated. … The World Health Organization, meanwhile, reported that the number of new cases outside China on Tuesday exceeded the number of new infections inside the country for the first time. The number in China was 412, while the tally in the rest of the world was 459…” (Tong-Hyung et al., 2/27).

NPR: Coronavirus: More New Cases Are Now Reported Outside China Than Inside
“… ‘Outside China, there are now 2,790 cases in 37 countries, and 44 deaths,’ WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing in Geneva. … Tedros is urging the international community to have ‘hope, courage, and confidence’ that the new respiratory virus can be contained, citing 14 countries that haven’t reported a new case in more than a week…” (Chappell, 2/26).

Reuters: U.N. asks world to fight virus-spawned discrimination
“United Nations human rights guardian Michelle Bachelet urged the global community on Thursday to show solidarity with people of ethnic Asian origin subject to discrimination amid an outbreak of a novel coronavirus that started in China…” (Shields, 2/27).

U.N. News: COVID-19: More new virus cases outside China than in, ‘no time for complacency,’ says U.N. health agency
“… ‘The sudden increases of cases in Italy, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Republic of Korea are deeply concerning,’ WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing in Geneva on Wednesday. He stated that there are now cases linked to Iran in Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, and Oman and to Italy in Algeria, Austria, Croatia, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland…” (2/26).

Additional coverage of the global spread of COVID-19 and response is available from AFP, AP, Foreign Policy, The Hill, New Humanitarian, PRI, Reuters (2) (3), TIME, and Washington Post.