Madison Square Garden Company Executive Chairman and CEO Jim Dolan has tested positive for coronavirus.

Dolan is the owner both the New York Knicks and New York Rangers sports teams. He also operates the famed Manhattan arena, Madison Square Garden.

The 64-year-old has been in self-isolation and is experiencing little to no symptoms, according to a tweet from the Knicks Saturday night.

The rate of spread of the novel coronavirus in Australia has halved in recent days, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday as he announced an additional 1.1 billion Australian dollars (about $680 million) to expand telemedicine care and other health services.

The daily increase in cases in recent days was at about 13 percent-15 percent, down from 25 percent-30 percent seen a week ago, showing social distancing measures were working, Morrison said. He acknowledged, however, that these were still strong rates of increase.

As such, Morrison said that public gatherings should not exceed two people, and stressed Australians should go out only when necessary. There are nearly 4,000 confirmed cases in Australia on Sunday and 16 deaths, health officials said.

Also on Sunday, neighboring New Zealand saw its first death related to the virus, with cases rising to 514 confirmed infections.

Spain has reached a daily record for virus deaths with 838 fatalities in the last 24 hours, according to the country's Ministry of Health. This brings the total number to 6,528, the world’s second-highest country behind Italy.

Sunday’s number is slightly up from Saturday when 832 people were reported to have died from the virus. The number of confirmed infections rose by more than 6,500 from Saturday to 78,797 cases on Sunday, the Ministry of Health said.  

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in a press conference on Saturday that all non-essential workers in Spain are ordered to stay home for two additional weeks of lockdown from Monday until April 9. He added that workers will receive their usual salaries but would have to make up lost hours at a later date.

Sánchez also said the Spanish Ministry of Health has bought healthcare supplies from China, including 659 million face masks. He called the outbreak, “the worst crisis in Europe since World War II.”

ROME — “Chiuso.” Italy is closed.

Usually a trip to Rome is a dream assignment. But not when your flight lands and you learn that the prime minister has just declared all of Italy a “Zona Rosa,” or a red zone.

The minute we touched down last week, camera operator Angela Neil and I received alerts on our phones announcing that the rules that had been in place for northern Italy were now the law of the entire land: Only leave your house for essential business; restaurants must close at 6 p.m.; all public gatherings are canceled.

The first sign that things were going to be different on this trip came when we passed through a completely empty customs hall after having our body temperatures checked by security staff wearing masks and gloves.

Read the rest here.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the nation’s poor for forgiveness on Sunday, as the economic and human toll from his 21-day nationwide lockdown deepens and criticism mounts about a lack of adequate planning ahead of the decision.

Modi on Tuesday announced a three week-lockdown to curb the spread of the virus that has particularly stung millions of India’s poor, leaving many hungry and forcing tens of thousands of jobless migrant laborers to walk hundreds of kilometers from cities back to their native villages.

“I would firstly like to seek forgiveness from all my countrymen,” Modi said in a nationwide radio address.

While he acknowledged the poor “would definitely be thinking what kind of prime minister is this, who has put us into so much trouble,” he urged people to understand there was no other option. 

Modi — whose government on Thursday announced a $22.6 billion economic stimulus plan to provide direct cash transfers and food handouts to India’s poor — however, did not offer any clarity on future plans.

In the Outer Hebrides, a remote island chain off the west coast of Scotland, there has yet to be a confirmed case of the coronavirus. But local leaders are worried.

An image shared by lawmaker Angus MacNeil paints a bleak picture of preparedness there: a primitive row of camp beds, each with a thin red blanket and blue pillow, sitting empty in a village hall. No ventilators, no testing kits.

MacNeil’s message, and that of officials across Scotland’s typically tourist-friendly Highlands and Islands region, is clear: Do not come.

But people have not been listening. Last weekend saw a spike in arrivals at northern Scotland’s world-renowned sites of natural beauty. Mountain trails were bustling, campsites full, and mobile-home parks at capacity.

Read the rest here.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has written to every household in Britain urging people to stay indoors and save lives during the outbreak. 

Sent out to around 30 million households in the country in the coming days — the letter implores citizens follow the new set of rules and affirms that the government will work to mitigate the coming financial impact, saying it will “do whatever it takes to help you...put food on the table.”

News of the letter being sent to U.K. households comes as the country surpassed 1,000 confirmed deaths. On Saturday, the national medical director of the NHS said that the U.K. will have done well "if it comes through the coronavirus crisis with fewer than 20,000 deaths."

"We know things will get worse before they get better," Johnson's letter said. The prime minister himself has recently tested positive for the virus. On Sunday, senior minister Michael Gove told the BBC that Britons should be prepared for a significant period in lockdown.

The Chinese city where coronavirus originated has reopened subways and long-distance train service in another step toward ending restrictions that confined millions of people to their homes.

Subway passengers were still required to wear masks and be checked for fever after service resumed Saturday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It said signs posted in subway cars tell passengers to sit with empty seats between them.

While most access to Wuhan — a city of 11 million people — was suspended Jan. 23, restrictions have gradually been relaxed. The last controls that block residents of Wuhan from leaving Hubei are due to be lifted April 8.

As of Sunday, China reported five new deaths and 45 new confirmed virus cases. While all the deaths were in Hubei province, all but one of the new cases were people who were infected abroad, according to the National Health Commission.

The global death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 30,000 deaths on Sunday, according to John Hopkins University. More than 10,000 of those occurred in Italy.  

The disease has now infected over 660,000 people around the world, according to statistics compiled by the university.

The United States has more confirmed cases than anywhere in the world with more than 124,000 cases confirmed as of Sunday. Italy has the second most with 92,472 and China follows with 82,061 cases.