Major weekend events celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago have been postponed due concerns over the novel coronavirus. To date, 25 people have tested positive for the virus in Illinois.

Expressing alarm both about mounting infections and inadequate government responses, the World Health Organization declared Wednesday that the global coronavirus crisis is now a pandemic but added that it’s not too late for countries to act.

A coalition of health care institutions and professionals awarded dozens of businesses on the city’s West Side $500,000 in small business grants last year, doubling the goal it had set to achieve by 2021.

Concerns about the coronavirus have caused many people to change their plans – even to cancel vacations. This includes some local Muslims, who were supposed to go to Saudi Arabia over spring break.

State and local health officials reported the first cases of the novel coronavirus outside of Cook County as they announced eight more people have tested positive for the virus.

No additional students or faculty members at Vaughn Occupational High School have tested positive for COVID-19 after one staffer was found to have contracted the virus last week.

There are currently no vaccines or drugs to treat or prevent COVID-19, yet some companies are selling products purporting to do just that. “The FDA considers the sale and promotion of fraudulent COVID-19 products to be a threat to the public health,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen M. Hahn.

An Indiana University student landed in O’Hare International Airport after a trip to Italy. She took a train to a St. Louis station shared by Amtrak and the Greyhound bus service. Her father failed to heed a self-quarantine warning. 

In Illinois, 11 people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to state and local health officials. “I want folks to understand this is going to affect your daily life,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at a Monday news conference.

There have been no reports of COVID-19 inside U.S. jails or prisons. But more people are incarcerated per capita here than in any other country in the world and prisons have become hot spots in other nations touched by the outbreak.

From Miami to Seattle, nursing homes and other facilities for the elderly are stockpiling masks and thermometers, preparing for staff shortages and screening visitors to protect a particularly vulnerable population from the coronavirus.

A Chicago woman in her 50s who works at Chicago Public Schools in the city’s Portage Park neighborhood has tested positive for COVID-19. 

Who should be wearing masks? Is the virus seasonal? A local infectious disease physician answers these questions and others about COVID-19.

Starbucks said it is “pausing” the use of personal cups in its stores as a precautionary response to the coronavirus epidemic.

A team of doctors and researchers based in Chicago has discovered that a protein in the coronavirus could be treated with drugs that had been in development for SARS. We get an update on their work.

A man in his 20s has tested positive for COVID-19 after traveling to Italy, marking the fifth case of the virus in Illinois. The patient is hospitalized in isolation at Rush University Medical Center, where he’s reported to be in stable condition.