The adult patient, whose age and gender were not disclosed, is at Kaiser Permanente Westside Medical Center in Hillsboro, officials said.
Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen said the case is considered “presumptive” while the state awaits confirmation of test results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The patient was recently at a local elementary school, Allen said.
Earlier Friday, health officials in Santa Clara County, Calif., said a 65-year-old resident also had a case of coronavirus with unknown origin — becoming the second U.S. case of community transmission. The nation’s first community-transmission patient was a woman in Solano County, about 90 miles away.
The World Health Organization on Friday raised its risk assessment of the coronavirus to “very high,” citing the risk of spread and impact. WHO officials said their assessment — the highest level short of declaring a global pandemic — doesn’t change the approach countries should take to combat the virus but should serve as a “wake up” and “reality check” for countries to hurry their preparations.
The U.S. stock market fell for the seventh straight day amid fears of global economic damage from the escalating outbreak, and the Federal Reserve took the unusual step of issuing a statement to reassure Americans.
“The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong. However, the coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity,” Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell said. “The Fed is closely monitoring developments and their implications for the economic outlook. We will use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy.”
Here are the latest developments:
- The Trump administration pushed back on criticism of its handling of its coronavirus response, playing down the threat the disease poses even as more news emerged about the spread of the virus both abroad and at home.
- A Department of Homeland Security employee who returned from travel to China was told by her supervisor to report to her workplace in early February in apparent violation of a mandatory 14-day coronavirus quarantine period, according to complaints filed Friday by the union that represents the woman’s co-workers.
- Japan’s Hokkaido island — where Olympic marathons are due to take place this summer — declared a state of emergency as the country reported its 10th death. France and Germany reported upticks in infections, while South Korea’s tally surpassed 2,300, as more events were canceled and airlines said they would cut flights.
- The U.S. government on Friday recommended avoiding nonessential travel to Italy as the number of coronavirus cases in the country surged to 800 and the death toll hit 21. Saudi Arabia said it was temporarily suspending entry to the country for the purposes of umrah and visiting Muhammad’s mosque. It is unclear when the restrictions will be lifted or how they could affect hajj.
- The virus is now reaching into the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, home to some of the world’s largest technology companies — including Google, Apple and Tesla.
- Fears that a possible coronavirus pandemic could tip the world economy into recession drove stocks to their worst weekly loss since the 2008 financial crisis.
Mapping the spread of the coronavirus | What we know about the virus | How to prepare for coronavirus in the U.S. (Spoiler: Not sick? No need to wear a mask.) | What do you want to know about coronavirus? Submit your questions for an online Q&A with The Post.
Canada confirms 16th case of coronavirus in man who traveled to Egypt
TORONTO — An Ontario man who recently traveled to Egypt tested positive for the novel coronavirus, public health officials said Friday, bringing the total number of cases in Canada to 16.
The man, who is in his 80s, arrived in Toronto from Egypt on Feb. 20 and went to the emergency department of a hospital, said David Williams, the provincial medical officer of health. The man was discharged and is in isolation at home.
“Throughout his travels, the man wore a mask,” said a statement from Ontario’s Health Ministry. “Toronto Public Health is actively engaged in contact tracing and case management.”
This is the first case in Canada in a patient who has not traveled to either China or Iran or had contact with someone who had traveled there and tested positive for the virus.
Earlier Friday, officials announced another case of the novel coronavirus in Ontario in a man in his 50s who arrived in Toronto from Iran this week.
Williams said the novel coronavirus is “not circulating locally, however given the global circumstances, Ontario is actively working with city and health partners to plan for the potential of local spread.”
There are eight cases of the novel coronavirus in Ontario, seven in British Columbia and one in Quebec. Officials say the risk the virus poses to Canadians is low.
Washington state reports two presumptive coronavirus cases in Seattle area, one of unknown origin
SEATTLE — Two presumptive cases of covid-19 emerged in the Seattle area, and one may be the result of community transmission, meaning the patient did not contract the illness while traveling abroad.
The Washington State Department of Health said late Friday a high school student in Snohomish County, just north of Seattle, with no history of traveling recently to areas where the disease has spread, tested positive and is currently in home isolation. The result of the test is pending confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The student would add to a list of two Californians and one Oregonian who have contracted the disease without known contact or travel.
The other patient, a woman in her 50s in King County where Seattle is located, had traveled to Daegu, South Korea. She is also in home isolation.
“Given the extent of global spread, we expect to identify more individuals with COVID-19 in Washington,” State Health Officer Kathy Lofy said in a statement.
The minor who tested positive for the disease attended Jackson High School, according to a news release from Everett Public Schools. The student was not in school most of this week, but was on campus briefly Friday morning, according to the district. The students who were in contact with the patient have been notified and will remain home for 14 days and have their symptoms monitored by health authorities. Everett Public Schools will close Jackson High School on Monday for three days of what it calls “deep disinfecting.”
The fourth West Coast case brings the total number of covid-19 cases detected through the U.S. public health system to 19, according to the CDC.
Northern California county identifies new resident with coronavirus of known origin
Solano County, the Northern California area where the first case of community-spread coronavirus in the United States was identified this week, announced Friday it has another resident who has tested positive for the virus.
However, the case was the result of exposure while traveling — the person was originally a passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship and evacuated from Japan to Travis Air Force Base, which is also in Solano County. A second resident, also evacuated from Japan, is also under observation and is awaiting the results of a coronavirus test from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Because the new case was clearly traced back to its origin and the person was closely monitored, it’s not seen as alarming as the three U.S. cases of coronavirus in which the source remains unknown. Those incidents raise the possibility that the virus is spreading wider in the United States through community contact. The three cases are in Solano County and Santa Clara County, Calif., and Washington County, Ore.
Feds scrap plan to move coronavirus patients from military base to Southern California mental health center
The federal government has dropped plans to send dozens of coronavirus patients to a mental health center in Southern California after local officials went to federal court to block the move.
“The Federal Defendants have decided not to move forward with the challenged proposal,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Beck wrote in a filing late Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. “As a result, the Court should dissolve the temporary restraining order and dismiss this action.”
The government initially sought to move between 30 and 50 of people who contracted the coronavirus aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship from a quarantine site at Travis Air Force Base to Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa, Calif. Government attorneys later agreed that just 10 people would need to be moved for the time being, but declined to say whether that number would increase.
The city of Costa Mesa immediately asked a federal judge to scuttle the plan, arguing that it was sprung on local leaders without warning or consultation, and was soon joined in the legal action by other local governments. U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton earlier this week put a temporary hold on the proposal while the parties negotiated another solution. A hearing was scheduled for Monday.
“This is a victory for the citizens of Costa Mesa and Orange County,” Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley said in a statement to the Associated Press. “But the government has not promised not to place future infected persons there, so the battle is not over. We will continue to ask the court to prohibit the government from using this completely inappropriate facility for housing people infected with a highly communicable and potentially fatal disease.”
According to the government’s filings, officials have made other arrangements for the patients.
Passengers from the Diamond Princess are nearing the end of a mandatory 14-day quarantine. All the patients the government wanted to send to Fairview had tested positive for the virus but were not showing symptoms.
Oregon officials say they don’t know how resident contracted coronavirus
Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen told reporters Friday that the Washington County resident diagnosed with coronavirus had no known exposure to the illness via travel or contact with an infected person.
“We don’t know how this person became infected with covid-19,” Allen said, referring to the disease the virus causes.
Officials said the patient recently visited Forest Hills Elementary School in Lake Oswego, a Portland suburb, but they did not say in what capacity the person was there.
Allen said officials’ “top priority” is trying to determine the number of close contacts the patient had, to help determine the potential spread of the disease. He said he would alert the public if the state became aware of any other confirmed coronavirus cases.
The patient began experiencing symptoms Feb. 19, and officials said the Oregon State Public Health Laboratory tested a sample Friday with a test kit it received from the CDC two days earlier.
“Our state and local authorities are responding quickly to the case,” Gov. Kate Brown (D) said. “They are professionally trained to handle the situation. Oregonians should know we are taking this very seriously.”
Kim Jong Un warns of ‘serious consequences’ if virus reaches North Korea
TOKYO — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has warned of “serious consequences” if coronavirus reaches his country, the state-run Korea Central News Agency reported Saturday.
Kim convened a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Politburo, where the battle against the virus was called a “crucial state affair for the defense of the people” that required maximum discipline.
The politiburo also vowed stricter enforcement of “top-class anti-epidemic steps,” KCNA reported.
“In case the infectious disease spreading beyond control finds its way into our country, it will entail serious consequences,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
North Korea says it does not have any confirmed cases of the coronavirus, although news services with contacts in the country have reported suspected cases in cities bordering China.
State media says a month-long quarantine period had been imposed for people showing symptoms. North Korea has banned all tourists, stopped all flights and trains from coming and going, shut down almost all border trade and placed foreign diplomats under virtual house arrest in a bid to prevent the virus entering from China.
DHS employee told to report to work in Newark after China travel, in violation of coronavirus quarantine
A Department of Homeland Security employee who returned from travel to China was told by her supervisor to report to her workplace in early February in apparent violation of a mandatory 14-day coronavirus quarantine period, according to complaints filed Friday by the union that represents the woman’s co-workers.
The DHS employee, who was not identified, works for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Newark, according to the complaint. After arriving from China, she called a supervisor to ask if she should remain at home under quarantine but she was told to report to work Feb. 10, according to Ward Morrow, an attorney for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents USCIS employees.
Neither the woman nor any of her co-workers have shown symptoms of coronavirus infection, but Morrow said the union has filed a labor grievance and a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The incident raises concerns about adherence to CDC guidance for federal employees returning from China and other areas with known coronavirus transmission, Morrow said.
Morrow said DHS is “supposed to play a leading role in protecting us but isn’t able to enforce its own policies with its managers, putting employees and the communities where they live at severe risk.”
Sarah Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for USCIS, said the agency is fully complying with CDC guidelines that instruct federal employees who return from China to remain at home for 14 days.
“U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services continues to monitor the coronavirus situation in close coordination with the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and various public health organizations,” Rodriguez said. “DHS has issued guidance mandating that employees returning from China adhere to a quarantine protocol.”
Read more here.
China reports 427 new cases and 47 deaths
Chinese health officials on Saturday reported 427 new cases of coronavirus infections on the country’s mainland, almost all of which were in Hubei province, where the virus broke out. The total number of cases in China stands at 79,251.
Officials also reported 47 new deaths on the Chinese mainland to reach a total of 2,835 people there who have died of the virus. Of the new deaths, 45 were in Hubei.
There have been 94 cases of the virus and two deaths in Hong Kong, 10 cases in Macao, and 34 cases and one death on the self-governing island of Taiwan.
Officials release details of second community transmission case in the U.S.
Officials in Santa Clara County, Calif., said Friday that an older woman who had not recently traveled and had no known contact with infected individuals is the most distinct case of covid-19 contracted in their jurisdiction.
County health officer Sara Cody said at a news conference that an infectious-disease physician known to public-health officials called their office Wednesday night to report she had been caring for a patient with symptoms compatible with coronavirus.
The county opened its public-health laboratory the same day and got a specimen from the ill woman, Cody said. The test came back positive late Thursday.
The woman is being treated at the El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. Her case has not been linked to any others in California.
“It’s time to shift how we respond,” Cody said. “Now we need to add other public health tools. The virus is here, present at some level.”
The county asked state and federal health officials to help with the resource-intensive process of retracing the woman’s steps, identifying the people most at risk of having been exposed, developing a timeline and exploring the potential source of transmission. Cody said officials had already identified health care workers who had contact with the patient.
People who had prolonged contact with the woman, such as members of her household, will have to undergo quarantine for 14 days in accordance with protocol across the state. Cody said officials will keep track of every person who may have been exposed and is placed in isolation.
Also on Friday, California health officials announced they had opened nine public-health labs in the Santa Clara area and in Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties to help the state test specimens more quickly.
South Korea reports 594 new cases, bringing total to 2,931
The total number of coronavirus cases in South Korea rose to 2,931 on Saturday when the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 594 new cases.
Of those, 476 were in the southern city of Daegu, where the virus appears to have spread widely among members of a regional branch of the secretive Shincheonji Church of Jesus. The fringe church has been temporarily shut down due to the surge of infections.
South Korea has reported 16 deaths from the coronavirus, and at least 70 countries have banned or restricted entry of visitors from South Korea during the outbreak.
Min Joo Kim contributed to this report.
Trump calls coronavirus a ‘hoax’ and uses it to justify border wall
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — At a political rally here, President Trump called coronavirus the Democrats’ “new hoax," likening it to the Russia investigation and the impeachment inquiry.
But Trump also said his administration was “preparing for the worst.”
“My administration has taken the most aggressive action in modern history to prevent the spread of this illness in the United States,” he said.
Trump said although he was criticized for barring foreign nationals traveling from China from entering the United States, now “everybody’s complimenting me, saying, ‘Thank you very much. You are 100 percent correct.’”
Trump also used coronavirus to justify building his border wall with Mexico. There have been no reports of the virus being spread by someone coming across the border.
“The Democrat policy of open borders is a direct threat to the health and well-being of all Americans,” Trump said. “Now you see it with the coronavirus, you see it, you know, you see that when you have this virus or any other virus or any other problem coming in.“
U.S. lawmakers demand answers about HHS workers sent to coronavirus quarantine zones
U.S. lawmakers demanded answers from administration officials Friday about the whistleblower who said workers from the Department of Health and Human Services without proper training or protective gear were sent to receive the first Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. The workers were deployed to March and Travis military bases in California.
The whistleblower’s complaint alleges the workers had face-to-face contact with returning passengers in an airplane hangar and when they helped distribute keys for room assignments and hand out colored ribbons for identification purposes. The workers did not show symptoms of infection and were not tested for the virus, according to lawyers for the whistleblower, a senior HHS official based in Washington who oversees workers at the Administration for Children and Families, a unit within HHS.
The whistleblower is seeking federal protection, alleging she was unfairly and improperly reassigned after raising concerns about the safety of these workers to HHS officials, including those within Secretary Alex Azar’s office. She was told that if she does not accept her new position by March 5, she would be terminated.
After House Democrats had a closed-door briefing Friday morning, they said they were not satisfied by the answers they received and asked for a follow-up briefing from HHS. They were initially told they could expect such a briefing Friday afternoon, but that second briefing never came through.
Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who represents March Air Reserve Base, told reporters: “The question I asked was, ‘What assurances do we have that proper protocols were followed during the federal quarantine?’ And it was not as responsive as I would have liked.”
Takano said Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, had agreed to meet with him and other California lawmakers to follow up. As of Friday afternoon, that follow-up was not scheduled.
“I think those of us who represent these bases, you know, deserve and merit this extra attention,” Takano said. “But this, the possibility that procedures weren’t followed, proper protocols weren’t followed, and proper training was not in place is really concerning.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to Azar on Friday saying the whistleblower’s complaint showed that “mismanagement on the part of HHS placed these human services staff at risk.”
Wyden has asked Azar to describe in detail why the person was reassigned and details about the department’s protocols for deploying medical and agency personnel to health emergency locations, training and what steps HHS has taken to quarantine, monitor or test the ACF employees after their assignments.
HHS officials have said they take all whistleblower complaints very seriously, are providing the person “all appropriate protections under the Whistleblower Protection Act” and are evaluating the complaint.
Nurses union says UC-Davis coronavirus case shows vulnerability of nation’s hospitals
A major nurses union asserted Friday that a recent case of covid-19 at UC-Davis Medical Center shows U.S. hospitals are unprepared for an epidemic and that federal health officials’ guidelines are insufficient.
A coronavirus patient admitted to the Sacramento hospital on Feb. 19 caused at least 124 health-care workers — 36 nurses and 88 other workers — to self-isolate at home, National Nurses United said in a statement. California health officials, however, have said the number of people from the state’s hospitals who are self-isolating is less than 100.
Nurses and other health-care workers have been “sidelined” during the coronavirus outbreak, the union said.
“Lack of preparedness will create an unsustainable national health care staffing crisis,” the union wrote in its statement. “Nurses view the handling of this COVID-19 case as a system failure and not a success.”
The union said it requested increased staffing, equipment and supplies from University of California medical system leaders.
Game Developers Conference postponed amid coronavirus fears, exhibitor withdrawals
SAN FRANCISCO — Following withdrawals from high-profile exhibitors, including Microsoft, Epic Games, Sony and Kojima Productions, organizers for the Game Developers Conference announced Friday that the event would be postponed. The annual conference draws tens of thousands of game developers and industry stakeholders from around the world.
“After close consultation with our partners in the game development industry and community around the world, we’ve made the difficult decision to postpone the Game Developers Conference this March,” the event organizers said in a statement. “Having spent the past year preparing for the show with our advisory boards, speakers, exhibitors, and event partners, we’re genuinely upset and disappointed not to be able to host you at this time.”
The organizers said they intended to “host a GDC event later in the summer.”
On Feb. 20, Facebook and PlayStation were among the first to announce they would be canceling their appearances at the event due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. Over the following week, other exhibitors followed suit — a steady drip of cancellations.
Amid the pullback, a number of companies, including Facebook and Microsoft, announced they would replace their physical presence at the event with online presentations. Ultimately, the event could not go on as planned.
GDC is far from the only event to be hobbled by the coronavirus. PlayStation withdrew from PAX East in Boston on Feb. 19. In the esports world, the Overwatch League’s ambitious international event schedule was severely curtailed by the spread of the virus, prompting travel changes and canceled matches.
The Intel Extreme Masters Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament, scheduled to take place this weekend in Katowice, Poland, will be played in an empty arena, with fans barred from attending.
UC-Davis students cautious amid reports of possible coronavirus infection
DAVIS, Calif. — Brittany Clary went to the hospital near her college campus here earlier this week complaining of nausea, a pounding headache and a temperature of 99 degrees.
When she entered Sutter Hospital, about two miles from the University of California at Davis, the freshman’s book bag and campus swipe cards were taken and quarantined. Doctors, nurses and hospital staff wore gloves, and some had face masks. Extra security staff was stationed inside.
“It was freaky,” said Clary, 18, a genetics major from San Luis Obispo, who was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday and was shocked when a security guard was placed just outside her door. “I couldn’t believe this could be happening in Davis.”
Clary’s strength eventually returned, and she was released Thursday — the same day her college campus came under suspicion of possibly being host to a student with coronavirus.
University officials confirmed Friday that one student is “under investigation” and is being tested after exhibiting symptoms similar to those associated with the now-global virus. Two other students in the same dorm room were placed in campus apartments the university reserves for emergency housing. Neither student, school officials confirmed, is showing any symptoms.
Yolo County health officer Ron Chapman said it is unclear how or when the three students could have been exposed to someone with the virus in the community. He declined to say whether the three had any ties to the Solano County woman who was hospitalized as the U.S. transmission of the virus.
Chapman said there is no local capacity to test for the virus in the Northern California community, so anyone who went to a hospital locally with coronavirus symptoms and did not meet the CDC’s strict criteria for testing would not have been tested. Health officials are awaiting results from the tests of the three students, who remain isolated.
Read more here.
New NOAA Hurricane Dorian emails show how fickle scientific credibility is in the Trump era
New emails released from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show how much concern there was within the agency, and how much questioning and anger from the outside, regarding the credibility of its lifesaving hurricane forecasts as a result of actions taken during Hurricane Dorian last fall.
The emails, released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Post and other media outlets, demonstrate the tenuous state of scientific credibility in the Trump era even at a federal agency with decades of service — NOAA dates back to 1970, while its National Weather Service has its roots in the 19th century.
Yet all it took was a six-day period featuring a few tweets from President Trump, a Sharpie-modified hurricane forecast map in the Oval Office, followed by a politically motivated statement about the storm’s path to cause some citizens to regard the agency’s work as tainted by political interference.
The insight that credibility can be swiftly damaged when dealing with the collision between science and politics is particularly relevant today, as agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health face the coronavirus outbreak.
As was reported Thursday, government health experts have been directed to clear any public comments first through Vice President Pence’s office, which is a highly unusual directive during a disease outbreak and has raised concerns about political interference in public health communication.
In past disease outbreaks, such as the West Africa Ebola outbreak and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the CDC and experts from other federal science agencies dealt directly with the media.
Read more here.
Thousands of Muslims may not be able to visit holy sites in Saudi Arabia because of coronavirus
It took several years for Hina Baig to save up thousands of dollars for her family’s special pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. They were supposed to leave next week. On Wednesday, she learned the trip was canceled, after the country suspended entry for the purposes of certain pilgrimages called umrah and visits to the prophet Muhammad’s mosque, a holy site.
Baig, 40, shed tears. The washed and folded clothes prepared for the trip are still laid out around the bedroom of her home near Houston, and she doesn’t know what will happen to the $7,000 her family spent.
“Hopefully, we don’t lose that money because then it’ll take me another 20 years to go,” she said.
Baig is among millions of Muslims across the country and around the globe who were planning to make the umrah, visiting Mecca and walking in the steps of the prophet. These trips are especially popular during the month of Ramadan, which starts in April.
“I remember when you’re a kid and you finally get to go Disney, and it’s sort of like that,” Baig said. “But it’s so spiritual.”
The announcement from Saudi Arabia that it was temporarily suspending entry to the country for the purposes of umrah and visiting Muhammad’s mosque caused a lot of confusion among Muslims who have had plans to visit the region. Many are finalizing plans for the major hajj pilgrimage, which begins at the end of July.
It is unclear when the country’s restrictions will be lifted or how they could affect hajj, during which millions of Muslims mingle in tight quarters for several days and sleep in tents. Saudi Arabia has yet to report any cases of coronavirus. But its neighbor, Iran, has documented more than 200 cases.
Read more here.
State Department and CDC raise travel advisories for Italy
The U.S. government heightened travel advisories for Italy to a Level 3 on Friday as the number of coronavirus cases in the country surged to 800 and the death toll hit 21.
The State Department urged citizens to “reconsider travel” to Italy, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instructed people to “avoid nonessential travel” due to the widespread transmission of the coronavirus. Older adults and people with chronic medical conditions could be at increased risk of serious illness, the CDC said.
The CDC’s warning noted that access to adequate medical care in some affected areas of Italy is limited.
County with first U.S. case of community transmission to take health precautions during Super Tuesday voting
The Northern California community at the center of a coronavirus investigation will take extra health precautions as voters cast ballots during next week’s presidential primaries, a local election official said in an interview.
John Gardner, assistant registrar of voters in Solano County, said that polling places will have disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer, and that poll workers will be instructed to use both as often as possible. The county will also provide gloves for poll workers who wish to use them and will increase the number of drop-off locations where voters can hand in ballots without physically entering a polling place.
The plans were part of wider efforts to support voting in the region where infectious-disease specialists are investigating the first U.S. case of community transmission of coronavirus — a Solano County woman who officials say was in the community showing symptoms of the disease before she was admitted to a hospital Feb. 15.
Election officials said they have not heard concerns from the public that suggest fears about coronavirus could depress turnout Tuesday, in a pivotal contest in the Democratic primaries.
“I’m receiving lots of calls about ‘Where do I go vote?’ … or ‘I need to correct my ballot,’ ” Gardner said. “This doesn’t seem to be any deterrent for the public from voting.”
Still, Gardner said the county was preparing for the possibility that some people might not feel comfortable serving as poll workers. He said officials were discussing how to find replacements and communicate with the public.
Neighboring Sacramento County will also have hand and equipment sanitizer at polling places, though that is standard practice, county spokesperson Janna Haynes said.
“We just encourage healthy practices in general for everyone and hope it doesn’t dissuade them from participating in the election process,” Haynes said.
Several other counties, including Yolo, Marin and San Francisco, plan to offer hand sanitizer at polling places.
Amazon curtails U.S. travel for employees
Amazon is restricting employee travel within the United States after the discovery that the coronavirus spread to a second patient in California who appears to have been infected despite having no known link to others with the illness.
The e-commerce giant notified employees Friday to curtail travel within the United States, just a month after the company barred nonapproved business travel to and from China.
“We’re asking employees to defer nonessential travel during this time,” Amazon spokesperson Jaci Anderson said in an emailed statement. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Amazon expects the new domestic travel policy to remain in place until the end of April, when it thinks the government will have a better handle on the spread of the virus.
Trump touts administration’s response to coronavirus, says investors are worried about the ‘unknown’
President Trump on Friday praised his administration’s efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak and criticized the media and Democrats for overhyping the health threat before heading to South Carolina for an evening rally.
“A lot of people are getting better, very much better,” he told reporters about U.S. residents with coronavirus.
He downplayed the massive stock market sell-off this week as the result of investors being spooked by the “unknown” surrounding the virus. He also claimed the market is worried one of his Democratic opponents could win the presidency, although there has been no evidence that is playing a role in the decline of markets around the world.
“It’s the unknown, you know, they look at it and they say, ‘How long will this last?’ ” he said. “I think they’re not very happy with the Democrat candidates when they see them and I think that has an impact.”
Trump also said again that he is not getting enough credit for his decision to restrict flights from China, the epicenter of the outbreak, and that restrictions regarding other countries could still be imposed.
“Some people are giving us credit for that and some people aren’t,” he said. “The only people that aren’t, it’s politics.”
United States offers aid to Iran amid public health crisis
The United States on Friday offered to send health-related aid to Iran, which has confirmed 388 cases of coronavirus and 34 deaths since the outbreak began. The State Department said Switzerland’s government, which represents U.S. interests in Iran, relayed to Iranian leaders the United States’s willingness to help.
“The United States calls on Iran to cooperate fully and transparently with international aid and health organizations,” the State Department said in a statement. “We will continue to work closely with countries in the region to help address unmet needs in response to the virus.”
Certain donations to Iran that are meant to relieve human suffering, including medicine, are exempt from sanctions, the State Department said. The commercial export of food, medicine, medical devices and agricultural products to Iran are also exempt.
Carol Morello contributed to this report.
Washington-area response to coronavirus: Prepare but don’t panic, say hospitals and schools
Amid the rapidly changing global health threat of coronavirus, Washington-area hospitals, schools and government agencies say they are relying on time-tested strategies for infectious disease control: wash your hands, cover your cough and stay home if you’re sick.
It may not sound exciting. But experts say the boring mainstays of public health and practicing good hygiene are the best defenses against the respiratory disease formally known as covid-19. They note that they are also the best ways to thwart a particularly virulent strain of the flu circulating this winter.
No cases of coronavirus have been diagnosed in Washington, Maryland or Virginia. Yet elected officials and experts are following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to prepare for the possibility of the spread of the coronavirus in the region, while working overtime to quell panic.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said Thursday he will request an additional $10 million for emergency preparations.
“While we are hoping for the best, we are also actively planning for the worst,” he said from the state’s emergency management headquarters in Reisterstown.
Three Maryland residents are being tested for the virus, the Maryland Department of Health said Friday.
In Virginia, two residents are awaiting test results, while six others tested negative for the coronavirus. As of Friday, the state health department had monitored 279 individuals, up from 179 on Thursday.
D.C. officials said Friday that five District residents tested negative for the virus, and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s office on Thursday issued a reminder that viruses do not target specific racial or ethnic groups.
Read more here.
Trump officials discuss tax cuts, other emergency measures in hopes of tackling coronavirus fallout
Trump administration officials are holding preliminary conversations about economic responses to the coronavirus, as the stock market fell sharply again Friday amid international fears about the outbreak, according to five people with knowledge of the planning.
Among the options being considered are pursuing a targeted tax cut package, these people said. They have also discussed whether the White House should lean even harder on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, though the central bank on Friday afternoon said it would step in if necessary.
The White House has not made any decisions on these options, and officials stressed conversations remained preliminary and extremely fluid. Vice President Pence’s office is involved in the discussion of possible responses, two people said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.
Read more here.
Greece tightens borders, citing coronavirus fears, as Syrian refugees push for entry
Greece tightened its borders Thursday in what it said was an effort to prevent coronavirus from reaching the Aegean islands, where thousands of migrants and asylum seekers are caught in legal limbo after making the dangerous trek to Europe.
On Friday, the spread of coronavirus further coincided with another set of wartime circumstances: Some refugees in Turkey, mostly from Syria, began making a desperate push west after a Turkish official said the country would no longer abide by an agreement with the European Union to stem the flow of migration to Europe in light of escalating violence in Syria’s Idlib province.
A Syrian airstrike Thursday killed 33 Turkish soldiers in Idlib.
While international attention is focused on the coronavirus epidemic, the war in Syria continues to rage. Around 1 million Syrians, roughly half of them children, have been displaced in Idlib. Aid organizations have warned that the worst humanitarian crisis of the nine-year Syrian war is unfolding.
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Amazon has removed more than 1 million products over coronavirus-related misinformation and price manipulation
Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has removed more than 1 million products from its online market to prevent misinformation and price gauging, Reuters reported. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Prices for protective gear and emergency essentials such as face masks and hand sanitizers have skyrocketed in the United States as panicked buyers seek to stock up ahead of a potential domestic outbreak. A spate of new products have also promised to fend off the coronavirus, as unscrupulous sellers look to profit from public fears.
Amazon and social media giants such as Facebook have pledged to crack down on misinformation and price manipulation around the virus. Some governments are not convinced these companies are doing enough. Earlier this week, a lawmaker in Italy launched a probe into Amazon over price-gouging in its store.
Guests start to leave Canary Islands hotel after four days of lockdown
Guests under lockdown at a hotel in Spain’s Canary Islands began leaving confinement Friday, as groups were systematically screened for and cleared of the coronavirus.
About 130 guests were cleared to leave out of the 700 people isolated at the H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel in Tenerife this week at the request of Spanish health authorities.
Fears had arisen in Tenerife after four vacationers there tested positive earlier this week.
The hotel asked guests to self-isolate four days ago, after an Italian doctor, his wife and two of their friends staying there reported coronavirus infections. No hotel guests or workers have since tested positive.
Vacationers still stuck inside the hotel shared videos of the chosen guests boarding vans to depart.
Hotels have become a focal point in global coronavirus containment. Abu Dhabi announced on Friday that it had quarantined some guests at two hotels in the capital of the United Arab Emirates following reports the day before that two Italian cyclists there might have the virus, Reuters reported.
The Italians were in town for a UAE cycling competition, the last leg of which authorities canceled on Thursday. Some of the world’s leading riders had been in the UAE for the event, including British four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome.
Union Cycliste Internationale, the world cycling governing body, told Reuters that “while waiting for the results of tests and their communication, [authorities] … took the decision to interrupt this event in the interests of the health of riders and their staff, and to avoid the virus spreading.”
WHO sidesteps Chinese arguments that virus may not have originated in China
In recent weeks, as evidence has mounted that China had silenced whistleblowers and undercounted cases, the World Health Organization has continued to heap praise on Beijing.
In the latest show of deference, WHO officials on Friday sidestepped a theory floated by Chinese officials that the new coronavirus may not have originated in China.
Earlier this week, China’s leading expert on the virus, Zhong Nanshan, said that given how outbreaks have now emerged in other countries, the coronavirus might not have originated in China even though the first infections were reported there.
That China is the epicenter and origin for the virus is not disputed by most epidemiologists. And global health and communication experts have criticized this assertion and the lack of transparency by China in recent months, noting the importance of truth and trust amid public health crises.
In response to questions about Zhong’s comments at a Friday briefing, WHO officials declined to say definitively that the virus originated in China. WHO official Maria Van Kerkhove answered by avoiding any mention of geography and focusing on the fact that experts have still not identified the animal that first transmitted the disease to humans.
“Disease can emerge anywhere. It’s an unlucky accident of history or nature,” added Michael Ryan, WHO director for health emergencies. “It’s important that we don’t ascribe blame. … The language of stigma and origin and who is to blame … is not helpful."
Mara Pillinger, an associate in global health policy and governance at Georgetown’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, said China’s recent interactions with the WHO show it is trying to cooperate with the WHO just enough to stave off accusations that it is not cooperating.
“This partial collaboration makes it politically tricky for WHO to publicly contradict or go around the Chinese government,” Pillinger said, “because WHO needs to do everything it can to encourage stronger cooperation from China.”
China is also the second largest funder of WHO.
Coronavirus could mean billions in losses for the global business travel industry
A survey released this week by the Global Business Travel Association estimated that the virus could potentially cost the industry $46.6 billion per month. That number translates to $559.7 billion annually — roughly 37 percent of what the industry was projected to spend in 2020.
A snap poll of association members this week found that the virus has had a major impact on business travel to Asia, with 95 percent of companies reporting cancellations or suspensions of all business travel to China. More than half of the companies have updated travel safety and security policies because of the outbreak.
In January, all three major U.S. carriers announced that they were halting all fights to China and to Hong Kong. This week, United announced that it was halting some flights to Japan. United, Hawaiian Airlines and Delta have also canceled or reduced service to South Korea. The cancellations are likely to extend through the end of April.
About one-fourth of those surveyed said they’ve also canceled or suspended travel to Europe.
“It is clear that the coronavirus is having a significant — and potentially very costly — effect on our members, their companies and on the overall business travel industry,” said Scott Solombrino, GBTA’s chief operating officer. “It is fundamentally affecting the way many companies are now doing business. If this turns into a global pandemic, the industry may well lose billions of dollars — an impact that will have negative ramifications for the entire global economy.”
Dominican Republic turns away cruise ship over flulike cases
Another cruise ship is stuck at sea. This time it’s the MS Breamar, which the Dominican Republic turned away over reports of several flulike cases aboard. Guests were scheduled to disembark at Port of La Romana on Wednesday, but authorities there refused them entry, reportedly because of “a small number of influenza-like cases on board,” Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, which runs the ship, said in a statement Friday.
The company insisted that all of the guests in question were feeling better and that “no guests or crew are, or have been, displaying symptoms that are considered to be consistent with those of Coronavirus.”
The MS Breamar is in talks with other Caribbean Islands about where else it could land.
“We are in discussions with the relevant authorities on nearby Caribbean islands, as well as a number of airlines, to enable our guests to disembark and secure onward travel for them to return home, and are awaiting advice on the next steps,” the statement said.
Cruise ships have faced heightened scrutiny after Japanese authorities quarantined more than 3,000 people on the Diamond Princess liner. A few reported coronavirus cases on the ship ballooned into an outbreak that sickened hundreds.
Another ship, the MS Westerdam, was subsequently turned away by five countries over coronavirus fears, before finally docking in Cambodia. On Thursday, the MSC Meraviglia said the Mexican government had given it a “clean bill of health,” after Jamaica and the Cayman Islands turned it away over a case of “common seasonal flu,” not coronavirus, according to the cruise liner.
United, other airlines cut flights to Japan, South Korea
Airlines are reducing service and offering fee waivers to travelers headed to Asia and other parts of the world where coronavirus cases are growing.
On Friday, United Airlines announced it would cancel some flights to Japan, Singapore and South Korea. The airline also said it would extend cancellations of flights between the United States and China through the end of April. American and Delta Air Lines have already suspended China service though the end of April.
“We will stay in close contact with the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] CDC and other health organizations as we continue to evaluate our schedule,” United said in a statement.
The announcement came as the World Health Organization raised its assessment of the coronavirus to “very high,” citing the risk of spread and impact.
Delta Air Lines this week also suspended service between its hub in Minneapolis/St. Paul and South Korea beginning Saturday through the end of April. It is reducing flights to and from South Korea from Atlanta, Detroit and Seattle through April 30 and delaying the launch of service between Incheon and Manila. Those flights, set to launch March 29, will now begin May 1, the airline said.
Earlier this week, Hawaiian Airlines suspended nonstop service between Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International and Seoul’s Incheon International airports starting Monday through the end of April. The airline is also offering to waive change fees for travel between Honolulu and South Korea through May 1.
United, American and Delta also have extended travel waivers for flights to and from Northern Italy, which has seen a significant uptick in the number of cases.
The moves come amid concerns about the virus, which has continued to spread worldwide. The coronavirus, once centered in China, has spread worldwide with the number of new cases in other countries outpacing that in China.
South Korea, which said the number of people infected is more than 2,300, has been among the hardest hit, but Italy, too, is working to contain an outbreak in the northern region of the country. On Friday, France and Germany reported increases in the number of infections.
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Coronavirus and Corona beer are not linked, but millions of dollars in revenue have been lost
The coronavirus outbreak has nothing to do with Corona beer, a top-selling Mexican lager, but people are steering clear of the drink anyway — especially in China.
Global beverage giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, the brewer behind Corona beer and others such as Budweiser and Stella Artois, announced this week that fears concerning the virus had resulted in a sharp loss in revenue during the start of the year.
“For the first two months of 2020, we estimate that the outbreak has resulted in lost revenue of approximately $285 million,” the company said in a statement emailed to The Washington Post on Friday. “The impact of the COVID-19 virus outbreak on our business continues to evolve. The outbreak has led to a significant decline in demand in China in both on-premise and in-home channels.”
The Belgium-based brewer also noted that demand for the beer during the period of Chinese New year was “lower than in previous years” and that this was due to the fact that the festival coincided with the beginning of the outbreak that continues to sweep the globe.
The company recently confirmed that more than half of its breweries in China had reopened — apart from the one in Wuhan, where the epidemic began.
Carlos Brito, CEO of AB InBev, told CNBC on Thursday: “Our business is all about going to restaurants, to nightlife, going out with friends, it’s really about to go back to normal, we’re preparing for the surge when things return to normal.”
Nigeria’s experience containing Ebola may help with coronavirus response, expert says
When Ebola swept across West Africa in 2014, killing more than 11,300 people, Nigeria managed to contain its outbreak rapidly: Only 20 people were diagnosed with the virus in Africa’s most populous country, eight of whom died.
Now the country is facing sub-Saharan Africa’s first confirmed case of coronavirus, after an Italian citizen who recently arrived in Nigeria was confirmed Thursday in Lagos to be infected with the virus. Officials there hope their experience stopping Ebola will help them this time around. But Gerardo Chowell, a professor of epidemiology at Georgia State University who researched Nigeria’s Ebola outbreak, cautioned that officials must act swiftly and acknowledge key differences between the two outbreaks to successfully contain coronavirus.
Nigeria’s first known Ebola patient landed in Lagos in July 2014, already exhibiting clear symptoms of the deadly virus. He had left a hospital in the Liberian capital, Monrovia — one of the epicenters of the outbreak — against doctors’ advice before flying to Nigeria, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later reported. Upon arrival in Nigeria, he was rapidly transferred to a hospital in Lagos where he exposed several health workers to the virus. He died a few days later. The timing — and Nigerian medical professionals’ rapid intervention — were key in keeping the patient from spreading the contagious virus throughout the city.
“If he had arrived during the latent period, which could be anywhere from one to five days, he would have been within the community,” Chowell said. The fact he was moved so quickly into medical care “reduced the potential of further spread.”
In the coronavirus case, the Italian citizen who tested positive had already traveled within the country, potentially exposing a large number of people to the virus. Officials are considering placing under quarantine workers at a cement factory he visited on a business trip.
Chowell said stringent measures such as quarantines and contact tracing, especially from his flight, will put Nigerian officials in control of the virus.
To know they have a patient with the virus puts them in “a good situation,” he said. “They caught it now, and so they could have things under control if they react properly.”
WHO explains why it is unlikely to declare coronavirus a pandemic
World Health Organization leaders gave their most expansive explanation to date on why they’re not yet declaring the coronavirus a pandemic. And from the reasons they gave, there appears to be a good chance WHO may never officially declare it a pandemic, even though many experts think the virus may have already reached that level.
WHO officials said in a Friday briefing that declaring a pandemic would be tantamount to throwing in the towel on containing the virus and signaling to governments that they should focus instead on mitigating its effects. WHO officials said they want countries to pursue containment and mitigation simultaneously, which is the main reason they are not declaring a pandemic.
“To accept that mitigation is the only option is to accept that the virus cannot be stopped,” said Michael Ryan, WHO director for health emergencies. “And we’ve seen evidence from China that this virus can be significantly curbed in its spread if robust measures are taken.”
As the virus has spread from China to Europe and the Middle East and beyond, there are clear instances where containment has failed. But WHO officials said there are also examples where containment has succeeded and they don’t want countries to stop trying. They pointed to countries such as China and Singapore, where new cases have declined, and other countries that detected only one or two cases and have not reported any since.
Public health officials define containment as steps to interrupt transmission, like tracing patient contacts, isolation and quarantine. Mitigation is when you accept that you cannot prevent the virus from spreading, and instead focus on treating patients, vaccines and reducing the strain on health systems and society.
WHO officials said that even if containment efforts in some places fail, they are slowing down the virus and giving countries much-needed time to prepare.
“We need to keep this virus slowed down because health systems around the world, and I mean north and south, are just not ready,” Ryan said. He added: “And we need to maybe stop asking ourselves the question, 'Is it a pandemic or is it not Is it containment? Is it mitigation? … What it is is time to act.”
Dow plunges in morning trading, then trims some losses
The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 1,000 points in morning trading, before paring its losses.
By noon, the Dow was down 700 points, or nearly 2.7 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index and Nasdaq composite were down 2 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively. The 10-year Treasury yield also hit a record low Friday, a sign that investors are fleeing equities for the safety of bonds.
The losses feed into an already blistering week on Wall Street: On Thursday, all three indexes dropped into correction territory, which signals a 10 percent reversal from recent highs, and the Dow dropped nearly 1,200 points, capping its worst four days since the Great Recession. All 11 S&P 500 stock market sectors are in a correction.
U.S. lawmakers moving ‘as quickly as possible’ to finalize coronavirus emergency spending bill
Lawmakers and aides said Friday they intend to work through the weekend to get agreement on an emergency spending bill to fight the coronavirus. A vote in the House could come as soon as next week.
“We need to move as quickly as possible,” said Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee.
Negotiators are circling around a $6 billion to $8 billion commitment, with some officials involved saying they anticipate ending up at the higher end of that range. The final figure will dwarf the $2.5 billion spending plan the White House proposed earlier this week. Also, the White House plan included only $1.25 billion in new funding, while taking more than $500 million from an Ebola response fund and other sums from the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere. The congressional spending bill is expected to be all new money.
“We’re not going to take money from Ebola, we’re not going to take money from NIH and other places for an emergency supplemental,” DeLauro said. The bulk of the spending will be directed to the Health and Human Services Department, which houses NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. DeLauro cited a litany of needs, including vaccine development, test kits, and reimbursement to state and local governments.
White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland told reporters Friday, “We’ve got great interaction with folks here on the Hill, and we’re hopeful they can land a pretty good and responsible package by early next week.”
Ueland declined to comment on specific figures under consideration but said, “There’s also the need to make sure the funding goes into the proper accounts for the proper needs.”
‘People are getting a little crazy’: Life in Italy’s coronavirus red-zone
SANTO STEFANO LODIGIANO, Italy — Outside a small bar on the edge of northern Italy’s coronavirus “red zone,” patrons watch as paramedics head-to-toe in protective suits, gloves and face masks attend a house call across the street.
One of the figures in white describes the patient’s cough to a colleague over the phone. The bar flies with rumors. “We’re all going to get it,” said 22-year-old Claudia Ghidoni, sitting at a plastic table with two friends, the first time she said she’s been out of the house since Italian cases of the coronavirus dramatically jumped last week.
Since then, life in parts of northern Italy have taken on a surreal air. Just across the furrowed fields from the bar in Santo Stefano Lodigiano, 40 miles southeast of Milan, more than 50,000 people live under lockdown in a quarantine area that stretches across 11 villages and towns. A network of dozens of roadblocks staffed by the police and army keep residents in and visitors out, with those breaching the quarantine zone threatened with fines and jail time.
The number of cases in the country surged to 800 this week, with 21 deaths recorded. The Italian government has stressed the restrictions only cover a tiny patch of Italy — just 0.1 percent of the population — as it tries to present an image of business as usual. But for those who live past the army trucks and traffic cones that show the lengths this country is willing to go in an attempt to contain the virus, life is far from usual.
Wales confirms first case of coronavirus, bringing total cases in U.K. to 19
LONDON — Wales confirmed its first coronavirus case Monday, and England confirmed two new ones, bringing the total number of cases in the United Kingdom to 19. Northern Ireland reported its first case of the infection Thursday.
In a statement, Public Health Wales said the patient in question had returned to Wales after visiting northern Italy and has been transferred to London for treatment.
“Public Health Wales is working hard to identify close contacts, and we are taking all appropriate actions to reduce any risk to the public’s health,” the agency said in a statement. “The public can be assured that Wales and the whole of the UK is well prepared for these types of incidents. Working with our partners in Wales and the UK, we have implemented our planned response, with robust infection control measures in place to protect the health of the public.”
On social media, the agency urged those experiencing symptoms of the virus to remain at home and call the national helpline, instead of using public transportation to seek medical advice. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to chair an emergency meeting regarding the outbreak Monday but has received some criticism on British soil for waiting that long.
Fauci denies being ‘gagged’ in coronavirus response
Anthony Fauci, a key leader in the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus, told members of Congress on Friday that he was not being “gagged” or “muzzled” in what he can say about the epidemic.
However, Fauci said he had to cancel some Sunday TV appearances after Vice President Pence was named to lead the coronavirus response.
He said this was because such appearances must always be cleared, and the clearance process restarted after Pence was named Wednesday to head the response.
The question arose in a closed-door briefing with House members amid reports that Pence’s office is vetting administration responses on the virus outbreak. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained the situation with the Sunday shows and went on to insist he was not being gagged, according to multiple lawmakers present.
“He said it’s interpreted as a gag, and he said ‘I’ve been serving and doing this work since Ronald Reagan, and I have not been gagged,’ ” said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.). “He told the story, and I trust him.”
Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) also recounted the exchange. “Look, he said to everybody: ‘I am not being muzzled. I want to clear that up.’ But that when the vice president took over, he was already booked. They said: ‘Look, stop. We want to just reevaluate everything. So don’t go on those programs yet.’ … It is a quote from him that ‘I’m not being muzzled, and I want to explain what was going on.’ ”
According to Rep. H. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), “Fauci was irritated about it, saying there is absolutely no gag order on me whatsoever. He said, ‘I couldn’t make some TV shows because I had to go back in and get re-cleared on something . . . but nobody has ever gagged me; nobody has ever tried to gag me.’”
Eric Ueland, White House legislative affairs director, also attended the meeting and said on the way out that Pence’s office is not vetting what people say: “Nobody is being shut down.”
Pence heads to Florida for fundraiser and meeting with Gov. DeSantis
On his second full day in charge of the administration’s response to the coronavirus, Vice President Pence is heading to Florida, where he will address the conservative Club for Growth’s Annual Economic Conference before attending a fundraiser for congressional Republicans in Longboat Key.
In between, he plans to meet with Gov. Ron Desantis (R) for 45 minutes to discuss the government’s response to the growing coronavirus health threat, according to his daily schedule. A senior administration official said Thursday that Pence plans to continue his heavy campaign schedule, which has often included trips to two battleground states each week, while serving as the government’s point person on the coronavirus.
Pence announced Thursday that while he is in charge of the administration’s response, Ambassador Debbie Birx will serve as White House response coordinator for the virus and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will continue to serve as chairman of the existing task force focused on containing its spread.
The Tampa Bay Times reported that it will cost $2,500 to attend the fundraiser, $5,000 to take a picture with Pence and $25,000 to attend dinner with the vice president.
Mulvaney plays down threat of coronavirus in U.S.
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney sought Friday to downplay the threat of the coronavirus to the United States but acknowledged it could lead to school closures and other disruptions. He made the comments during an appearance in which he also accused the media of hyping coverage to “bring down the president.”
“Is it real? It absolutely is real,” Mulvaney said at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. “But you saw the president the other day — the flu is real. . . . Are you going to see some schools shut down? Probably. May you see impacts on public transportation? Sure. We know how to handle this.”
Mulvaney also accused the media of ignoring the administration’s early planning efforts because they were focused on Trump’s impeachment trial.
“We took extraordinary steps four or five weeks ago. Why didn’t we hear about it? What was going on four or five weeks ago? Impeachment,” Mulvaney said. “And that’s all the press wanted to talk about. So while real news was happening . . . we were dealing with it in a way, I think, that you would be extraordinarily proud of.”
He said the media covered the impeachment process intently because “they thought . . . it would bring down the president.”
“The reason they are paying so much attention to [the coronavirus] today is that they think this is going to bring down the president. That’s what this is all about,” Mulvaney added.
He said a reporter emailed him to ask what the president planned to do to “calm the markets.”
“Turn off your televisions for 24 hours,” Mulvaney said.
Greatest enemy now is not coronavirus but fear, WHO officials say
At a daily briefing, World Health Organization officials said the coronavirus outbreak remains a series of linked epidemics in several countries and has not reached the level of a global pandemic.
“Our greatest enemy right now is not the virus itself. It’s fear, rumors and stigma,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Most cases can still be traced to known contacts or clusters of cases. We do not see evidence as yet that the virus is spreading freely in communities. As long as that’s the case, we still have a chance at containing this virus.”
Since Thursday, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Nigeria have all reported their first cases. All those cases have links to Italy, WHO officials said. Italy and Iran have been notable drivers of the virus’s spread, they said, with 24 cases exported from Italy to 14 countries, and 97 cases exported from Iran to 11 countries. Tedros said that more than 20 vaccines are in development globally, and several antiviral drugs are in clinical trials. Health officials expect the first results in a few weeks.
Nigerian officials weigh new measures after first reported coronavirus infection in sub-Saharan Africa
DAKAR, Senegal — Officials are weighing whether to place a cement factory in southwestern Nigeria under quarantine after an Italian man diagnosed with the virus made a business visit this week, said Chikwe Ihekweazu, chief executive officer of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control.
The man, who works as a consultant in Ogun state, was staying at a guesthouse in the Ewekoro area when he developed a fever and was rushed to Lagos by ambulance, officials said Friday.
The case, diagnosed in four hours, marked the arrival of covid-19 to sub-Saharan Africa and sparked concerns on Nigerian social media about the government’s ability to thwart an outbreak.
Health officials expressed confidence, however, as they interviewed people who had come in contact with the patient, who arrived on a full Turkish airlines flight from Milan. The man in his 30s provided a “detailed itinerary” of everywhere he had gone, Ihekweazu said.
“Nigeria is the most populous country, and Lagos is definitely the most populous city, but we also are the most resourced,” he added.
Dow plunges more than 900 points shortly after market opening
Coronavirus panic tightened its grip on global markets Friday as the escalating outbreak sent stocks careening toward one of their worst weeks since the financial crisis.
The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 900 points shortly after the open. The Standard & Poor’s and Nasdaq composites dove 3.9 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield also hit a record low Friday morning.
The losses feed into an already blistering week on Wall Street: On Thursday, all three indexes dropped into correction territory, which signals a 10 percent reversal from their recent highs. The Dow plunged nearly 1,200 points, capping its worst four days since the 2008 Great Recession.
Meanwhile, global markets flashed red across the board. In Japan, the Nikkei tumbled 3.7 percent as officials declared a state of emergency in the northern island of Hokkaido and doubts were cast about this summer’s Tokyo Olympics. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dived 2.5 percent, and the Shanghai composite skidded 3.7 percent. In Europe, where markets also slid into correction territory Thursday, Britain’s FTSE fell 3.6 percent, and Germany’s DAX plunged 4.1 percent. The Pan-European Stoxx index was down 3.1 percent.
The travel sector was particularly hard hit: British Airways owner IAG tumbled more than 9 percent after it said it would cancel some flights to coronavirus-hit countries such as Italy and South Korea.
Oil prices also took a dive. Early Friday, Brent crude, the global benchmark, was down 2.5 percent, and gold, a safe haven for investors in times of turmoil, sank 0.9 percent.
Popular pandemic simulation game removed from China App Store, its maker says
Plague Inc., one of the most popular iPhone games, has been removed from Apple’s China App Store after the country’s Cyberspace Administration determined “it includes content that is illegal in China.”
Ndemic Creations, the maker of the game, in which users take the role of an infectious disease with the goal of wiping out the world’s population, announced the news Thursday. In its statement, Ndemic said it is unsure whether the move is related to the ongoing spread of coronavirus.
“We have a huge amount of respect for our Chinese players and are devastated that they are no longer able to access and play Plague Inc.,” the company wrote in a statement on its website.
“Plague Inc.’s educational importance has been repeatedly recognised by organisations like the CDC and we are currently working with major global health organisations to determine how we can best support their efforts to contain and control COVID-19,” the Britain-based company said.
Ndemic Creations did not reply to requests for additional comment.
The game has had more than 130 million players since its 2012 release, according to its maker, and has regularly been one of the App Store’s top downloads. According to a BBC report, it was the best-selling app in China at one time in January.
The removal of apps from the China App Store has been an ongoing issue and one that has earned Apple some criticism for allowing governments to remove apps they consider objectionable. According to a tally by Apple from Jan. 1 to June 30 of 2019, 217 apps had been removed from App Stores serving particular countries or regions, with 194 of them removed from the China App Store. Those removals stemmed from government requests due to legal violations.
An additional 94 apps were removed after government requests related to “platform violations” or conflicts with Apple’s own policies, many related to gambling, according to CNBC.
Analysts warn that traditional methods for stopping investor panic might be no match for coronavirus
The coronavirus panic that sent stock markets tumbling this week has triggered calls for the federal government to intervene, relying on traditional playbooks that the Federal Reserve, Congress and the White House have used in numerous previous crises.
This time, though, the usual approach might not work.
“Central banks don’t make vaccines,” said David Kotok, chairman of Cumberland Advisors.
China stands as a cautionary tale. The Chinese government’s aggressive measures to fight the crisis, which included imposing quarantines over an area that is home to perhaps 60 million people, chilled both supply and demand.
China’s virus-fighting campaign prevented employees from leaving their homes and working on assembly lines, thus depressing the supply of goods. And it kept people from patronizing restaurants, movies or retail stores, thereby cutting demand.
If the United States suffers a serious outbreak and people stay home fearing possible contagion, cutting interest rates would probably do little to convince them to return to work or go out to shop or dine. “This is a very tough one for the Fed to deal with,” said Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Kenya announces drastic preventive measures after outcry over China flights
NAIROBI — Days after reinstating flights between Kenya and China, the East African country’s president and judiciary bowed to public pressure Friday and announced a raft of far-reaching measures aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
A ban on flights between Kenya and China, its biggest trading partner, was ordered back into place by high court judges, who also requested that all 239 passengers who arrived in Nairobi on a China Southern Airlines flight from Guangzhou on Wednesday be tracked down and quarantined at a Kenyan military facility. The flight ban would last 10 days but would probably take effect only after another hearing Tuesday.
China Southern discontinued its flights to Nairobi on Friday due to business considerations, according to the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi.
At a news conference earlier this week, a Kenyan Health Ministry official said that only roughly a dozen patients could be cared for in one isolation ward in Nairobi but that a larger one would be built in a month. On Friday, President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered officials to complete that expansion within a week instead and to get other wards around the country ready in two weeks.
The first confirmed case of the coronavirus in Africa south of the Sahara was reported late Thursday in Lagos, which is both Nigeria’s and Africa’s most populous city, with more than 20 million people. The patient, an Italian man who works in Nigeria and had just returned from Milan, was not thought to be highly contagious, according to a Nigerian health official who spoke to the press on Friday.
To date, 26 African countries have reported suspected coronavirus cases, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to Nigeria, the North African nations of Egypt and Algeria have confirmed cases on the continent.
Rael Ombuor in Nairobi and Danielle Paquette in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.
Mexico confirms its first case of coronavirus
MEXICO CITY — Mexico has confirmed its first case of coronavirus, a 35-year-old man who apparently was infected while visiting Italy, authorities said.
Hugo López-Gatell, a senior Health Ministry official, said the man was in stable condition and had symptoms similar to those of a cold.
He was in isolation at the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases in Mexico City.
A likely second case has also been identified in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, where a 41-year-old man was found to have the coronavirus, López-Gatell said. He added that authorities were doing a second test to confirm the results.
British man, former passenger from Diamond Princess, dies in Japan
TOKYO — A British man who had been a passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship has died in Japan, the Japanese health ministry confirmed Friday.
It is the sixth death of a former passenger of the cruise ship, and the 11th death from covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, in Japan. The man’s death will once again raise questions about the decision to quarantine passengers on board the ship, in far from ideal conditions to prevent the spread of the virus or to provide medical care.
More than 700 passengers and crew members from the ship contracted the virus, while more than 200 other people within Japan have also tested positive for coronavirus.
U.S. public health experts worried by police issuing joke warnings of meth tainted with coronavirus
Tongue-in-cheek “warnings” by several police departments nationwide that methamphetamine supplies may be contaminated with the coronavirus are drawing criticism from public health experts who worry that such hoaxes may undermine the credibility of real warnings about the outbreak’s gravity.
“WARNING: If you have recently purchased Meth, it may be contaminated with the Corona Virus,” the Merrill Police Department in Merrill, Wis., wrote Wednesday in a Facebook post. “If you’re not comfortable going into an office setting, please request any officer and they’ll test your Meth in the privacy of your home.” Several police departments nationwide also disseminated the hoax, apparently in pursuit of laughs and possibly even the rare arrest.
The fake warnings — at a time when nearly 3,000 people worldwide have died and the United States is preparing for an outbreak — have generated mixed reactions, with some seeing them as funny, others as deplorable.
“I would rather not see police departments making ‘jokes’ like this online or posting false information about a pandemic that is already being treated cavalierly by the executive branch,” one woman said in a comment.
Public health experts who spoke with The Washington Post said they envisioned health agencies in these communities reading the posts with raised eyebrows.
“That’s pretty extraordinary,” Stefano M. Bertozzi, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Public Health, said of the viral police joke.
“This is a time when people need to be taking public health authorities very seriously,” he added. “They’re undermining their credibility that will be very much needed if and when an epidemic comes to their community.”
Geneva International Motor Show canceled, as cases in Europe surge and governments rush to respond
Swiss authorities on Friday banned all events with more than 1,000 participants until mid-March, forcing the cancellation of the Geneva International Motor Show, which was scheduled to open next week.
It was the first such nationwide ban prompted by a public health crisis in the country’s recent history, Switzerland’s public broadcaster reported.
“We regret this situation [to cancel the Geneva International Motor Show], but the health of all participants is our and our exhibitors’ top priority,” said Maurice Turrettini, chairman of the Palexpo Foundation Board, according to a news release.
The financial fallout, the release added, would be significant “for all those involved in the event” and “will need to be assessed over the coming weeks.” Purchased tickets are expected to be refunded.
Switzerland confirmed its first case of coronavirus on Tuesday. Since then, at least 14 more cases have been reported.
The number of coronavirus cases also continued to climb in neighboring Italy and Germany.
German authorities said the total number of reported infections rose to almost 60, according to Reuters. Cases began to be confirmed in the federal state of Bavaria one month ago, all tied to a cluster at one company.
The more recent cases, however, have alarmed public health officials because they have appeared over a wide geographical area. Many of the new infections were linked to northern Italy — still Europe’s most impacted region.
In Italy, authorities have confirmed 650 cases of the virus.
Iran announces another big jump in infections, with death toll rising to 34
BEIRUT — Iran’s Health Ministry announced another big jump in the number of coronavirus cases Friday, saying that 34 people are now known to have died and 388 people are infected, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. The ministry had confirmed 245 cases and 26 deaths the previous day.
Iran is rapidly emerging as a new hot spot of the outbreak, with cases linked to Iran reported across the Middle East and other parts of the world. Authorities canceled Friday prayers and have urged residents to stay home, as the realization grows that there could be many more infections in Iran than currently known.
Among those infected are prominent figures, including four members of parliament, a vice president for women and family affairs and the deputy health minister. It is still not known how the virus spread to Iran.
Cases of coronavirus appear in countries near Iran
MOSCOW — Cases of coronavirus originating from Iran appeared in nearby states Friday, as the global spread of the virus shook financial markets.
Azerbaijan recorded its first case, involving a Russian citizen who had traveled there from Iran. Earlier, Belarus also announced its first case, involving an Iranian student, one day after Georgia announced the infection of a 50-year-old Georgian citizen. He had returned from Iran via the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.
A Georgian official said a number of people have been placed in quarantine in the past 24 hours, and it was possible that more cases of the coronavirus would emerge in coming days.
Georgia on Friday also announced a second case in its territory. The infected patient had recently traveled from northern Italy, the site of the largest European outbreak of the virus. Amiran Gamkrelidze, general director of the National Disease Control Center, told a news conference Friday that health authorities were working hard to trace the patient’s contacts.
Japan’s Abe faces criticism over virus response as country’s death toll rises to 10
TOKYO — In Japan, it’s been a case of see no virus, hear no virus, speak no virus.
Or more to the point, don’t test people for the novel coronavirus, and perhaps the Olympics can still go ahead as planned.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is facing mounting anger over his government’s handling of the epidemic, fueled this week by a sudden decision to ask schools to close in March.
But there is also frustration and unease that doctors simply can’t get patients tested for the virus, a problem that may be causing a vast underreporting in cases of the illness and could become a global concern.
The tension comes as Japan announced its 10th death from the outbreak. It is also the fifth death related to the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was placed under quarantine by Japanese authorities.
Philippine Airlines to cut 300 staff members amid losses from coronavirus outbreak
MANILA — Philippine Airlines is laying off 300 employees, as the company seeks to curb losses aggravated by the global coronavirus outbreak.
The flag carrier said ground-based administrative and management personnel would be affected, according to local reports. They are expected to receive separation benefits, additional trip pass privileges and assistance through career counseling.
Philippine Airlines lays off 300 ground-based administrative and management workers; cites losses due to ongoing flight suspensions affected by #COVID19. Here’s the statement. | via @jacquemanabat pic.twitter.com/uM8pgc6JyL
— ABS-CBN News Channel (@ANCALERTS) February 28, 2020
The air travel industry has been hard hit by the outbreak as governments impose travel restrictions to try to curb the its spread. The restructuring is meant to “increase revenues and reduce costs” amid travel bans and flight suspensions, Philippine Airlines noted.
The Philippines has banned arrivals from China and has imposed partial travel restrictions on Hong Kong, Macao and South Korea. It also imposed — and later lifted — a ban on arrivals from Taiwan.
France confirms 20 new coronavirus cases; Charles de Gaulle airport considered potential source
PARIS — French health officials have reported a significant uptick in novel coronavirus infections, with 20 new cases confirmed since Wednesday.
French Health Minister Olivier Véran announced late Thursday that the total number of cases in France had risen from 18 to 38 in the past 24 hours.
Most of the new cases appear clustered in the Oise region north of Paris, the same region where a smaller number of patients tested positive for the virus earlier this week. Authorities frantically struggled to identify the source of that outbreak, with particular attention paid to a French military base in Creil. Details have yet to be confirmed, and officials were pursuing a number of hypotheses, French media reported.
But according to France’s Le Monde newspaper, some officials suspect the “orbit” of Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, one of the busiest passenger airports in Europe that also happens to be near the Oise region. Investigators have discovered “exchanges” between soldiers who work at the military base in Creil and personnel who work at the airport but who may live in or commute through Oise, Le Monde reported.
On a Thursday visit to a Paris hospital — where a 60-year-old patient had died of covid-19 — President Emmanuel Macron said an epidemic was inevitable in France. “We have a crisis before us,” Macron said. “An epidemic is on its way.”
Coronavirus cases reported in Belarus, other former Soviet states
MOSCOW — As the novel coronavirus spread across the world, former Soviet states reported cases associated with outbreaks in Iran, northern Italy and on the cruise ship Diamond Princess.
Belarus on Friday reported its first case of the virus, a day after Georgia reported its first.
The Belarus case involved an Iranian student who arrived by plane Saturday from Baku, the Azeri capital, health officials said. The student and those who had been in contact with him were placed in quarantine.
A 50-year-old Georgian who arrived from Iran via Baku also tested positive for the virus in Georgia.
Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia said Thursday there was no reason to panic and the situation was under control.
“We made a decision to suspend direct flights with China and the same measures were later taken in respect of Iran, and yesterday we also decided to put on hold all land [transport] services for those traveling from Iran. It is these steps that give us a guarantee that we can manage this process,” Gakharia said.
Five Ukrainians have also been infected, none of them in Ukraine. According to Ukraine’s health ministry, four of the infected Ukrainians were crew members on the Diamond Princess and a fifth Ukrainian – a woman in Naples – had contracted the virus.
Russia on Friday imposed a temporary ban on arrivals from Iran and South Korea in addition to its ban on arrivals from China.
States on China’s western border, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, have been hit hard economically by the decline in cross-border trade with China as a result of the virus.
Kazakhstan Prime Minister Askar Mamin told a business forum Friday that the Kazakh economy faced a major downturn as a result of the outbreak.
Japan’s Hokkaido prefecture declares state of emergency over virus
TOKYO — The governor of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido declared a state of emergency in response to the spread of coronavirus there, news agencies reported.
Speaking at a news conference with his face covered by a medical mask, Gov. Naomichi Suzuki also called on residents to refrain from going out this weekend.
Hokkaido, home to more than 5 million people, has reported at least 66 cases of the new coronavirus, the highest for any prefecture around the country. Officials say they suspect a cluster of infections took place at a trade fair two weeks ago.
Japan as a whole has recorded more than 200 cases, not including more than 700 people who caught the virus on board the Diamond Princess cruise liner.
European stocks dive as global market rout continues
European stocks fell sharply Friday, compounding losses amid fears that the coronavirus outbreak could usher in a global recession.
Both London’s FTSE 100 index and the pan-Europe Stoxx 600 index fell more than 3 percent in early trading, as investors continued to fret over the rising number of coronavirus cases in Europe and the fallout from an extended period of economic disruption.
Some of the worst-hit stocks were in the travel sector: British Airways owner IAG tumbled almost 7 percent after it said it would cancel some flights to coronavirus-hit countries such as Italy and South Korea.
The declines in Europe followed another rough day in Asian markets, with Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index seeing the worst falls and closing down 3.7 percent. On Thursday, U.S. markets fell into correction territory, with the Dow Jones industrial average dropping a record 1,200 points, roughly 4.4 percent.
Fears that a pandemic could tip the world economy into recession prompted some analysts to predict an interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve.
U.S. stock futures pointed to further losses on Wall Street on Friday, while U.S. oil futures were last down about 2.5 percent.
South Korean cases rise again to 2,337
SEOUL — South Korea announced 315 new coronavirus cases late Friday, bringing the number of new cases announced throughout the day to 571 as the nation ramps up its testing.
The total number of confirmed cases announced by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now stands at 2,337, the largest number outside of China, which has 78,824 confirmed cases. Thirteen people have died from the outbreak in South Korea.
The U.S. ally is rapidly trying to test a large number of people, including more than 200,000 people who are members of a church in Daegu where the virus appears to have spread widely.
Health authorities said they tested 9,912 additional people Friday through 4 p.m. local time. Of the new confirmed cases announced by the KCDC, 265 out of the 315 latest cases were in Daegu.
Taylor reported from Hong Kong
Mongolian president under 14-day quarantine after traveling to China for one day
Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga is under a two-week quarantine after returning from a trip to China, where he met with President Xi Jinping and gifted the Chinese leader 30,000 sheep during a brief one-day visit.
Battulga had visited Beijing on Thursday as a show of support to Mongolia’s larger neighbor amid the coronavirus outbreak. China’s Foreign Ministry noted that Battulga was the first foreign head of state to visit the country since the outbreak began in the city of Wuhan.
#BREAKING #Exclusive 🇨🇳🇲🇳On behalf of Mongolian people’s support to his Chinese neighbor amid the #COVID19, the President of #Mongolia Khaltmaa Battulga @BattulgaKh handed over a donation of 30,000 sheep to #China as President Xi welcomes him in Beijing.
— Shen Shiwei沈诗伟 (@shen_shiwei) February 27, 2020
This is too impressive! pic.twitter.com/Ks84avkiCe
State news agency Montsame reported Friday that Battulga and other members of his delegation that went to China had been placed under an immediate 14-day quarantine. A number of high-ranking officials were in the delegation, including the country’s foreign minister and the head of the national emergency management agency
The top-ranking officials, including the president, are being held at a government hospital in Ulaanbaatar, AKIpress news agency reported.
Asian stocks sink, oil slides as investors run for cover
Asian stocks extended their losses on Friday amid continued concern about the spread of the novel coronavirus outbreak, with Japan’s Nikkei down over 1,000 points, or 4.6 percent, by midafternoon before recovering a little.
Substantial falls were also recorded on Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index, which dropped 2.8 percent; China’s Shanghai Composite index, which fell 3.4 percent; and India’s BSE Sensex, which fell 2.7 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 ended the day down 3.3 per cent as the country’s commodity-linked currency, closely tied to China’s economy, fell to its weakest level against the U.S. dollar since 2009. U.S. stock futures were down about 1.8 percent.
The moves came the day after a record fall on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones industrial index losing 1,200 points and all major indexes in correction territory, down more than 10 percent from market highs.
Fears about the outbreak "have become full-blown across the globe as cases outside China climb,” market analysts Chang Wei Liang and Eugene Leow of DBS said in a report.
There is widespread speculation that the turmoil may prompt the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. “With financial conditions deteriorating rapidly and downside risks to the economy materializing, we suspect that the Fed may have to act sooner than anticipated,” Chang and Leow wrote.
Oil prices also fell sharply, with U.S. crude futures down over 3 percent to $45.50. Market participants say oil-producing nations appear likely to agree to slash output when officials from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meet in Vienna next week.
Tokyo Disneyland to close over coronavirus as Japan enters partial shutdown
TOKYO – The Disney theme parks in Tokyo will close until March 15, its operators said Friday, the latest in a long line of events and attractions that have fallen victim to the new coronavirus.
Already a whole host of sporting events and pop concerts have been canceled or postponed and museums have shut their doors on government advice for organizers to reconsider anything that involves large public gatherings for at least the next two weeks.
Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea will close from Saturday, but the reopening date could change depending on further advice, the operator said, according to public broadcaster NHK.
On Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe asked schools around the country to close until the start of the new school year in April. And on Friday, Japan’s infrastructure minister said public works projects would be suspended until March 15 to prevent the further spread of the new illness. Kazuyoshi Akaba said the state will shoulder costs incurred during the suspension period, NHK reported.
Japan to announce plans next week for scaled-back Olympic torch relay
TOKYO — Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizers will announce “at some point” next week how they are planning to a hold the torch relay amid the coronavirus outbreak, the spokesman for the organizing committee said Friday, according to Reuters.
On Wednesday, the chief executive of the organizing committee said the Olympic torch relay, due to start in Fukushima prefecture on March 26, could be scaled back or downsized to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.
“Bringing spectators together in large numbers increases the risk of infection. Downsizing is among the approaches we can consider,” CEO Toshiro Muto told reporters. Muto, however, rejected any suggestion that the relay might be canceled, Kyodo reported.
On Thursday, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said the IOC is fully committed to ensuring the Games go ahead on schedule.
Coronavirus epidemic reveals a world in political crisis
From the United States to Italy, Iran to South Korea, the coronavirus epidemic is getting worse. The virus spread to its sixth continent this week and continued to send markets whipsawing, with the Dow set for its worst single week since the financial crash of 2008. Governments have issued new rounds of travel bans: Saudi Arabia said Thursday it would temporarily suspend travel to the holiest sites in Islam, months ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage. The number of cases in South Korea rose to 2,022 on Friday, the highest figure for a single country outside China. Japan announced the closures of all of its schools until early April. And Coca-Cola, along with other multinational companies, said outbreak-linked supply chain disruptions could lead to shortages.
“There is every indication that the world will soon enter a pandemic phase,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose country has confirmed at least 23 cases of coronavirus, told reporters in Canberra. The emergence of a new sort of coronavirus case in the United States, unrelated to foreign travel or contact with someone already known to be infected, suggested the virus had defied efforts to contain it. President Trump attempted to play down the scale of the threat, even as U.S. officials warned Americans to prepare for a crisis.
Europe is feeling the jitters, too. So far, the largest cluster of cases on the continent has been in northern Italy. “If the virus spreads, and it will spread, I think any local or national politician would have to take very drastic action, and that will virtually halt the economy,” Roberto Perotti, an economist at Milan’s Bocconi University, told my colleagues. “For how long, we don’t know. Can you imagine a [car] factory if there is one case in the factory? Can you imagine it not shutting down? I doubt it.”
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New Zealand confirms first case of coronavirus
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Friday that the country has recorded its first case of the novel coronavirus, adding that officials were rolling out a plan to cope with a pandemic.
“A pandemic plan always exists in New Zealand. We’ve been well prepared," Ardern said during a visit to Sydney. "We are rolling out all of the protocols as we would expect.”
The patient, aged in their 60s, had returned from a trip to Iran on Wednesday, New Zealand’s Health Ministry said in a statement. The person displayed symptoms and was taken by family members to Auckland City Hospital on Thursday, where they were tested three times for coronavirus.
Though two tests came back negative, a third used a more specific sample and came back positive, the Health Ministry statement said.
The person is being held in isolation at the hospital and their immediate contacts are also being put in isolation. New Zealand’s government is now seeking anyone who was on the final leg of the person’s return journey, from Bali to Auckland.
At a news conference Friday, Health Minister David Clark said travelers coming from Iran would face temporary restrictions. He added that New Zealand would not allow exemptions for overseas students from China to enter the country.
At least 48 countries have confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus.
As South Korea cases top 2,000, country tries to reassure foreigners
SEOUL — South Korea is taking steps to reassure foreigners about its safety, as the number of novel coronavirus cases in the country surged past 2,000.
On Friday, the country held its first English-language briefing on the outbreak. The same day, Korean Air announced that it would check the temperature of passengers traveling to the United States and refuse travel to any who had a fever.
The country reported 256 additional cases of novel coronavirus on Friday, bringing its total to 2,022. The jump was expected as health authorities have expanded coronavirus testing in recent days.
More than 12,000 people had been tested since the previous day, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which added that more than two-thirds of the latest cases were in southern city of Daegu.
South Korea’s government has designated Daegu city and surrounding North Gyeongsang province as “special care zones” where virus support will be concentrated. All but one of South Korea’s 13 coronavirus deaths were in Daegu and North Gyeongsang.
Oh Myoung-don of Seoul National University, who leads a panel of South Korean experts on the infectious disease, told a briefing Wednesday that the infection in the country could continue growing for another month.
More than 50 countries have banned or restricted entry of visitors from South Korea as of Friday.
Five Chinese provinces have mandated 14 days of quarantine for people arriving from South Korea, according to data compiled by Seoul’s Foreign Ministry.
Taylor reported from Hong Kong
China reports 327 new cases, 44 deaths, from novel coronavirus
HONG KONG — China’s National Health Commission said Friday that there had been 327 new confirmed infections from the novel coronavirus outbreak throughout the country, along with 44 deaths.
In total, China has reported 78,824 confirmed cases and 2,788 deaths in the mainland since the outbreak started.
The number released Friday showed, again, a decline in the number of new cases in China. Most of the new cases, 318, were found in Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak. Forty-one deaths were recorded in Hubei, along with two in Beijing and one in Xinjiang.
Some Chinese officials have suggested that the declining numbers show China has gotten the outbreak under control, despite international skepticism about the reliability of official statistics in the autocratic society and uncertainty about the nature of the novel coronavirus.
Prominent Chinese pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan told reporters Thursday he believed China could “basically control” the coronavirus by the end of April and questioned whether the pathogen originated from China at all.
“Foreign countries should consider China’s model of early detection, early quarantine,” Zhong said. “This is humanity’s disease, not China’s disease.”
Lyric Li and Gerry Shih in Beijing contributed to this report.
Chinese parents and students ask: When will schools reopen?
BEIJING — In China, parents and students alike are beginning to wonder: When will schools reopen?
The subject of the reopening of schools, shut across the country for weeks already due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, trended on social media on Friday after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged universities, schools, and kindergartens to further postpone the spring semester in a bid to prevent infections among children.
“In principle, universities, schools, and kindergartens should continue to postpone campus reopening,” the premier said at a Thursday meeting in Beijing, adding that a strengthened protection of children and elderly people is in line with Communist Party central instructions to introduce more targeted epidemic-control measures.
Asked whether college entrance exams would be delayed, China’s Vice Minister of Education Weng Tiehui said at a Friday briefing that they are “keeping close watch on students’ and parents’ concerns” and would announce relevant work arrangements after “careful and cautious research.”
More than 10 million students are expected to sit this year’s college entrance exams, which usually fall on June 7-8.
Few local governments in China have set concrete timeframes for resuming regular classes. Guizhou, a province in China’s mountainous southwest, announced on Thursday that Grade 9 and Grade 12 students will be allowed to return March 16 to revise for graduation exams or college-entrance exams. A more general school reopening would be announced later after further “scientific evaluation,” it said.
Most provinces have encouraged online learning for students, focused on revision and non-academic subjects — music, fine arts, indoor exercises, education on epidemic control and personal hygiene — out of concerns of poor remote education quality and inequality for kids with no tech help and adult supervision.
On social media, some parents worried about the strain home-schooling would put on families. “It’s a headache for working-class parents because we cannot handle work and children at the same time," one mother wrote on Weibo. "Kids will be left home by their own. So work resumption should be delayed like school openings.”
Some students weren’t happy either. “Personally I don’t care about school that much, but online learning is just killing me: so much homework and so much reading to do!" a college student wrote. "It is worse than going to school.”