By Helen Regan, Steve George, Angela Dewan and Ivana Kottasová, CNN
From CNN’s Livia Borghese in Civitavecchia, Italy
Two cruise ship passengers suspected of having coronavirus do not have the virus, the Italian Ministry of Health said Thursday night.
The 6,000 passenger ship had been forced into quarantine near Rome because of fears the passengers might have the virus.
The ministry said the patients instead had the H1N2 virus.
It is not clear when the ship will be allowed to depart.
From CNN's Samantha Beech & Steven Jiang
The total number of people infected with the Wuhan coronavirus in mainland China alone has surpassed those infected with SARS worldwide during the 2002-2003 epidemic.
SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, infected 8,098 people worldwide with approximately 774 official SARS-related deaths.
As of Thursday, there have been 8,137 confirmed cases of Wuhan coronavirus in mainland China, including 171 deaths.
From CNN Business' Daniela Sirtori-Cortina
The impact of the new coronavirus outbreak on stock markets is spreading. The latest sector to be hit: cruise companies.
Shares of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Royal Caribbean Cruises and Carnival Corporation tumbled in morning trading in New York amid revelations that 7,000 people had been held on a cruise ship in Italy after a passenger showed symptoms of a fever.
A school district in Ontario, Canada is asking parents to not stoke fear and anxiety over the Coronavirus that could lead to racism and xenophobia.
The district wrote the message to their community after becoming aware of a petition -- which thousands of parents signed -- asking the school district to keep students home from school for 17 days if they had family who visited China, according to CNN partner CBC.
The York Region District School board chair Juanita Nathan and education director Louise Sirisko said: “individuals who make assumptions, even with positive intentions of safety, about the risk of others, request or demand quarantine can be seen as demonstrating bias and racism.”
The board told CNN that the statement was “not written in reaction to any one source of misinformation,” but rather because they want to ensure all students feel safe and welcome at school.
From CNN's Julia Hollingsworth, Yuli Yang and Natalie Thomas
All Shi Muying wanted was to spend one last Lunar New Year holiday with her terminally ill mother. She flew back from the United Kingdom, where she lives and works, to spend the festive season in her hometown, Wuhan, a sprawling metropolis in central China.
For 24 hours a day, Shi -- who is in her mid-30s -- sat by her mother's bedside in hospital, taking care of her. Around her, more and more people were getting sick from a newly identified coronavirus. But Shi wasn't too worried.
After all, Chinese authorities were saying that the outbreak was "preventable and controllable."
Now, three weeks after Shi arrived in China, it's clear the outbreak is not under control. The virus has spread to every Chinese province and region, across Asia and as far away as Europe and the United States. It has infected more than 7,700 people and killed at least 170. Wuhan has been placed on an effective lockdown, almost entirely sealed off from the outside world.
On Monday, preliminary results showed Shi could also be infected with the virus.
A suspected patient of coronavirus at a community health station in Wuhan, China.
But she is more worried for her family -- for her 67-year-old father who also appears to have the virus too, and for her mother who has been uprooted to what she describes as an older, inferior hospital building, to make way for the rush of coronavirus patients.
Shi, and others like her, have become victims of a public health care crisis. Over the past few days, CNN has spoken to patients, medical staff and experts who have told of delays in testing for the virus, in telling the public the true nature of the virus' spread, and of an already overburdened health system creaking under the enormous weight of a rapidly expanding outbreak.
Read the full story here.
As Americans digest the news that the first US case of person-to-person transmission of the Wuhan virus has been confirmed, a reminder that authorities believe there was a case of person-to-person transmission in Germany several days ago.
Health experts believe the first such case in Europe happened last week, when a 33-year-old German man contracted the virus in a business meeting with a Chinese national.
The Chinese staff member is originally from Shanghai and has since flown back to China. She felt ill on the flight back and tested positive for the coronavirus after her return to Shanghai.
The case was significant because most people diagnosed with the virus outside of China have recently travelled to the country. However, the German man who fell ill did not.
From CNN Health’s Jamie Gumbrecht and Jacqueline Howard
The United States reported its first confirmed case of person-to-person spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Thursday. This is the second case of the virus in Illinois.
This second person is a Chicago resident and the spouse of the first confirmed travel-associated case in the state. The second patient did not travel to China.
From CNN's Steven Jiang in Beijing
Mainland China now has a total of 8,137 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, including 171 deaths. This is from the provincial health authorities reported as of 11:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.
A breakdown of cases per province:
Hubei (including Wuhan): 4,903, including 162 deaths
Zhejiang: 428
Guangdong: 354
Henan: 278, including 2 deaths
Hunan: 277
Anhui: 200
Chongqing: 182
Jiangxi: 162
Shandong: 158
Sichuan: 142, including 1 death
Jiangsu: 129
Beijing: 121, including 1 death
Shanghai: 112, including 1 death
Fujian: 101
Guangxi: 78
Yunnan: 76
Hebei: 65, including 1 death
Shaanxi: 63
Hainan: 46, including 1 death
Heilongjiang: 44, including 2 death
Liaoning: 41
Shanxi: 35
Tianjin: 31
Gansu: 26
Inner Mongolia: 19
Ningxia: 17
Jilin: 14
Xinjiang: 14
Guizhou: 12
Qinghai: 8
Tibet: 1
Scenes from big cities across China, including Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, show usually bustling urban centers looking like ghost towns.
