The world shuts down: Map shows how a third of the global population – 3 BILLION people – are now under coronavirus lockdown

‘Three billion people – more than a third of the world’s 2.6billion population – are now thought to be under some kind of coronavirus lockdown in an attempt to control the spread of the disease.

Cases of the highly-infectious virus have now been reported on every continent except Antarctica and in virtually every country as the number of confirmed global infections barrelled towards half a million on Wednesday.

World health authorities have warned that America and Europe are now the epicentres of the virus after it emerged in China towards the end of last year and swept from East to West across the globe.

But different countries have taken vastly different approaches – from India locking down all 1.3billion people to Donald Trump saying the USA will be back open for business by Easter.

China has also started loosening restrictions around the ground-zero province of Hubei, providing some hope that an end to the crisis is in sight.

Here, MailOnline has analysed the different measures being taken and complied a picture gallery showing how different countries are dealing with a new reality caused by the disease.’

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