European Council to hold emergency summit over coronavirus

European Council president Charles Michel said he had called a video conference of EU leaders on Tuesday to discuss the coronavirus and the bloc's response.

"I have decided to call a video conference with the European Council members on Tuesday 17 March to follow up on our EUCO (European Council) actions on COVID-19," Michel, who chairs summits of EU leaders, said on Twitter on Monday.

"Containing the spread of the virus, providing sufficient medical equipment, boosting research and limiting the economic fallout is key," he continued.

It has to be reminded that COVID-19 first emerged in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019 and was recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020. As of 16 March, over 173,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in more than 150 countries and territories, with major outbreaks in mainland China, Europe, Iran, and South Korea, among others. More than 6,600 people have died from the disease, and over 77,000 have recovered.

Countries closed borders, schools suspended classes, and hundreds of millions of people closed their doors to one another as the authorities took ever more drastic steps to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.