South Korea hopes to have 'passed the peak' of the coronavirus outbreak

New cases continue to emerge in countries around the world

South Korea hopes to have “passed the peak” of its coronavirus outbreak after new daily infections declined in recent days.

On Monday, the country's number of patients reached 7,478, the highest outside mainland China, the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Earlier in the day, South Korean President Moon Jae-in expressed guarded hope that a downward trend in new infections, which fell to their lowest level in 11 days, could lead to a “phase of stability”.

New cases of infection also subsided in China on Monday, with 40 new cases, the lowest number since January 20.

Many of the country’s white-collar workers have been able to return to their jobs and more than three quarters of the country’s surviving patients have been released from treatment.

A return to normality, though, remains a long way off.

“Our business is one fifth of what it was before,” Cheng Sheng, who helps to run a stand in Beijing that sells sausages and noodles, told AP.

“There’s much less foot traffic. There are no people."

In other hotpots, governments are imposing ever more rigid measures to contain the spread.

In Italy, where the entire northern region has been under lockdown since Sunday, up to 16 million people now require permission to travel outside quarantine zones.

The country, which has reported 366 deaths from the disease, is the worst-hit outside China.

Italian Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte said the government would increase spending in a “massive shock therapy” to offset the financial impact of the outbreak.

On Monday, containment measures prompted more than two dozen riots in Italian prisons.

This followed a protest incident in Modena on Sunday when six inmates broke into the institution's infirmary and died after overdosing on methadone.

Donato Capece, secretary general of the penitentiary police union, said the government had failed to provide sufficient measures to prevent the spread of the virus among inmates, leaving guards to deal with the angry prisoners.

“The administration is completely absent,” Mr Capece told AP. “They have left the penitentiary police in jeopardy.”

More than half of the world’s countries have now reported infections of Covid-19, which emerged at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, China.

More than 109,000 people have tested positive for the disease and more than 3,800 people with the virus have died, while 62,000 people have already recovered.

In the US, new cases have emerged rapidly over the past week, with 500 infections reported, at least 21 of which are on the Grand Princess cruise ship, which is due to dock in California amid extensive containment measures.

More than 2,000 passengers will be taken to military bases or their home countries for a two-week quarantine.

Several countries, including Albania and Brunei, reported their first cases of Covid-19, while the president of the Philippines declared a public health emergency after the country recorded its first case of community transmission.

All government agencies have been asked to "undertake critical, urgent and appropriate response and measures in a timely manner to curtail and eliminate the Covid-19 threat," said Bong Go, chairman of the Senate committee on health.

On Monday, a special North Korean flight carrying diplomats and foreigners arrived in Russia.

The country has not publicly confirmed any cases of coronavirus but state media has reported that thousands have been quarantined.

In Britain, a fourth person has now died from the disease.

"Here in the UK, as of this morning, there were 319 confirmed cases. Very sadly this now includes four confirmed deaths," Health Minister Matt Hancock told Parliament on Monday.