Nearly one billion people confined to homes globally to curb virus

People taking pictures of the cherry blossoms at Ueno park in Tokyo on Saturday (March 21). Like many other countries, Japan is also going through many issues because of the Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak which has affected close to 1 billion people in the world. - AFP

NEW YORK: Close to one billion people worldwide were confined to their homes on Saturday (March 1) as the global Covid-19 (coronavirus) death toll shot past 11,000 and US states rolled out lockdown measures already imposed across swathes of Europe.

The pandemic has completely upended lives across the planet, restricting movement, shutting schools and forcing millions to work from home.