France confirms first novel coronavirus death in Europe

An 80-year-old Chinese man has died of novel coronavirus pneumonia at a hospital in France, marking the first fatality from the disease in Europe and the first outside of Asia. 

The man, a tourist from China, had been battling the virus, which is also called COVID-19, for three weeks at a hospital in Paris before succumbing to a lung infection, the French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn confirmed on Saturday.

Prior to the death in France, there had been three deaths outside of the Chinese mainland - one in Hong Kong, one in Japan, and one in the Philippines.