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The U.S. Justice Department on Sunday said it cracked down on a website that was fraudulently offering to sell vaccines for warding off the deadly coronavirus.

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Sunday that the social media company has donated its emergency reserve of 720,000 masks to provide health workers with more protective gear.

Facebook will downgrade video streaming quality on its platform and on Instagram in Europe, the latest U.S. tech giant to respond to an EU call to stave off internet gridlock as thousands work from home due to the coronavirus outbreak.

China reported 46 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, while the city of Wuhan, the pandemic's ground zero, announced it would be loosening a two-month lockdown by gradually resuming public transportation and allowing healthy people to resume work.

More African nations confirmed their first cases of the coronavirus and shut borders amid fears of the disease's impact on fragile health systems, as Chinese billionaire and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma pledged to donate over 1 million testing kits to the continent.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that U.S. automakers Ford Motor Co, General Motors Co and Tesla Inc had been given the green light to produce ventilators and other items needed during the coronavirus outbreak.

Countries can't simply lock down their societies to defeat coronavirus, the World Health Organization's top emergency expert said on Sunday, adding that public health measures are needed to avoid a resurgence of the virus later on.

Nearly 1 in 4 Americans were under orders to close up shop and stay at home on Saturday, as lawmakers in Washington neared a deal that could pump a record $1 trillion into the economy to limit the economic damage from the coronavirus.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first rapid coronavirus diagnostic test, with a detection time of about 45 minutes, as the United States struggles to meet the demand for coronavirus testing.

The coronavirus economic relief bill being finalized by the U.S. Congress will include a one-time $3,000 payment for families and allow the Federal Reserve to leverage up to $4 trillion of liquidity to support the nation's economy, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday.

Communist-run Cuba said it dispatched a brigade of doctors and nurses to Italy for the first time this weekend to help in the fight against the novel coronavirus at the request of the worst-affected region Lombardy.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Saturday that all Italian businesses must close until April 3, with the exception of those essential to maintaining the country's supply chain, in the latest desperate effort to halt the coronavirus epidemic.

Italy recorded a jump in deaths from coronavirus of almost 800 on Saturday, taking the toll in the world's hardest-hit country to almost 5,000.

The five U.S. states where governors have closed or have said they will soon be closing non-essential businesses account for about 31% of the world's biggest economy.

Coronavirus cases ballooned in Europe, prompting more lockdown measures to try to slow the spread. New Jersey's governor followed four other U.S. states that have imposed unprecedented restrictions. Australia announced it was shutting a large array of businesses from Monday.

The world's richest nations poured unprecedented aid into the global economy on Thursday as coronavirus cases ballooned in the new epicentre Europe, with the number of deaths in Italy outstripping those in mainland China, where the virus originated.

Hundreds of millions of Indians stayed at home on Sunday, heeding the prime minister's appeal for people to self-isolate to contain the coronavirus as confirmed cases in South Asia surged to 1,144 with 10 deaths reported.

Britain's National Health Service (NHS) could be "overwhelmed" by the coronavirus like the Italian health system in just two weeks, Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned on Sunday in the face of rising numbers of deaths.

Members of a South Korean church scuffled with police on Sunday, media reported, as government restrictions on religious services and other gatherings due to the spread of the coronavirus took effect.

Japan's Oita prefecture confirmed two new coronavirus infections at a medical center on Sunday, bringing the total at the facility to 14 and making it a suspected cluster, Kyodo newswire said.