The central bank has not made an emergency move like this since late 2008. It was also a sign that global central banks are prepared to act to contain the economic fallout from the coronavirus. The move came after President Trump, in a tweet, called for a “big” interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve “to make up for China’s coronavirus situation and slowdown.”
The markets quickly rallied after the Federal Reserve announced the decision. The rebound came after a volatile morning, with futures pointing positive and then making a U-turn. The Dow Jones industrial average ended the day down 786 points, nearly 3 percent.
Meanwhile, South Korean President Moon Jae-in declared “war” on the coronavirus as government officials were placed on 24-hour alert and health tests expanded in virus-hit areas. The number of confirmed cases in South Korea tops 5,000, the most outside China. About 70 countries have reported incidences of the virus, with the number of cases in the United States topping 100 across 15 states.
China, the epicenter of the outbreak and still the worst-hit, announced its lowest number of new cases since late January — 125 in 24 hours — and 31 deaths, bringing its totals to 80,151 infections and 2,943 deaths. The country has pledged to help other nations hit by the outbreak, offering advice to Iran, which has reported 2,336 confirmed cases and 77 deaths.
- King County, which includes Seattle, has emerged as an epicenter for the virus outbreak with 27 confirmed cases, including nine deaths.
- The World Health Organization said that covid-19, the disease the virus causes, has killed about 3.4 percent of those diagnosed with the illness globally — higher than what has previously been estimated.
- The Department of Health and Human Services sent a memo Tuesday to members of Congress in response to questions about an HHS whistleblower report; however, some lawmakers said the memo was inadequate and did not address their concerns.
- New York state reported its second coronavirus case, a 50-year-old man in Westchester County, a suburb of New York. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) said he is pushing to provide paid sick leave and job protection for coronavirus patients.
- Chile and Argentina reported their first infections, as cases of the virus slowly start to increase in Latin America.
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China’s reported coronavirus cases continue to decline
China on Wednesday reported 119 new coronavirus cases and 38 new deaths in the past 24 hours. It marks the lowest number of new cases announced by China’s National Health Commission since Jan. 20. All of the deaths but one took place in the country’s Hubei province, the epicenter of the global epidemic.
Chinese officials have cited the country’s efforts to contain the outbreak in Hubei as a primary reason for the declining trend. Also on Wednesday, the health commission said 2,652 people were discharged from hospitals and 390 severe cases were downgraded.
South Korea announces emergency funds to offset economic hit from coronavirus
SEOUL — South Korea announced emergency funds of nearly $10 billion on Wednesday to offset the economic hit from the fast-spreading coronavirus.
South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 516 new cases of the virus on Wednesday, bringing up the national tally of the virus to 5,328, the most outside China.
Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said the stimulus package of 11.7 trillion won ($9.8 billion) seeks to “help repair virus damages and revive the economic momentum.”
The supplementary budget that is subject to parliamentary approval will inject money into medical institutions, funding for small-to-medium-size businesses and child-care support among others.
South Korea will issue treasury bonds of 10.3 trillion won to fund the proposed budget. Hong called the bond issuance “inevitable” in order to support the damaged economy despite concerns about financial stability.
Some face masks, but coronavirus did not appear to significantly limit Super Tuesday turnout
Coronavirus did not appear to significantly limit turnout around the country or cause problems at the polls, election observers said.
In California, officials in several counties took extra health precautions around the vote, such as distributing hand sanitizer, sterilizing voting machines and posting public health notices about the virus and how to prevent its spread. The state had nearly 50 cases of coronavirus as of Tuesday night.
“We saw a lot of poll workers wearing face masks and also some who were very vigorously wiping down every ballot-marking system after voters finished,” Kathay Feng, Common Cause’s Los Angeles-based national redistricting director, said on a conference call with reporters. “A few voters were nervous, asking if they [should] come out to vote. But given the long lines [in California] … there are a lot of voters who are still turning out.”
In Texas, in the region surrounding Austin, some election judges and poll workers were no-shows Tuesday morning, with a few citing concerns about the coronavirus. But Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir said all polling locations were functioning normally by 9 a.m.
“It was a little bigger problem than we usually have,” she said in an interview with The Post. “But we had business resumption within two hours. I’m really pretty pleased with how it worked out.”
Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said she was aware of only a few examples of poll workers not showing up for their assignments over potential coronavirus concerns.
“This has not been an issue that we’ve seen or heard about across the country today,” she told reporters on a conference call.
Orange County, Calif., health officials confirm two cases of novel coronavirus
Health officials in Orange County, Calif., confirmed two presumptive cases of the novel coronavirus Tuesday and said they expect to see more.
Both patients — a man in his 60s and a woman in her 30s — had recently traveled to countries with widespread coronavirus transmission, the county’s health agency said in a news release. Additional information about the patients was not immediately available.
“The more you look for something, the more likely you are to find it,” county health officer Nichole Quick said in a statement. “Now that our Public Health Laboratory is able to perform COVID-19 testing, we expect to see more cases here in Orange County."
The county’s health agency is following up with others who were in close contact with the two people who have the virus.
Amazon employee in Seattle tests positive for covid-19
Amazon notified employees Tuesday afternoon that a colleague who works in one of its downtown Seattle buildings has tested positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
The company said the employee went home feeling ill on Feb. 25 and had not returned to work at Amazon’s offices since, according to an email the company’s safety office sent to employees.
“We’re supporting the affected employee who is in quarantine,” Amazon spokeswoman Jaci Anderson said in an emailed statement. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Amazon has notified employees who were in close contact with the ill worker. The safety office email encouraged employees experiencing symptoms of the virus to stay home and seek medical attention. The company also updated its work-from-home guidelines Tuesday, giving employees the option to stay at home if they prefer.
King County, which includes Seattle, has emerged as an epicenter for the virus outbreak with 21 confirmed cases reported by public health officials, as well as eight virus-related deaths.
Brazilian police investigate evangelical church for promising spiritual immunization against coronavirus
By Heloisa Traiano
RIO DE JANEIRO — An evangelical church in southern Brazil is being investigated by Brazilian police for suspected charlatanism after it held a service Sunday that falsely purported to offer spiritual immunization against the coronavirus.
“The power of God against the coronavirus,” the Global Cathedral of Holy Spirit in Porto Alegre promised in its advertisement. “Because there will be anointing with consecrated oil … to immunize against any epidemic, virus or disease.”
Only two cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in Brazil — with 433 cases suspected — but widespread fear of the virus in Latin America’s largest country has increasingly made it a target of purveyors of scams. Fake news and purported homemade cures — such as drinking whiskey and honey or specific kinds of teas — are circulating, along with the international conspiracy theory that 5G cell service is linked to the virus.
“We’ve launched an investigation [into] whether or not there was a crime of charlatanism,” detective Laura Lopes told the Brazilian newspaper Folha.
Authorities are trying to determine whether the local pastors were exercising their religious freedom rights or exploiting fear and uncertainty for financial benefits.
Local journalists who attended the service Sunday reported that the epidemic was mentioned several times by the pastor who led the ritual, but not with the intensity necessary for there to be a crime. Police have also said no apparent crime was committed at the service.
The Brazilian government has now created a platform for people to ask questions about the coronavirus to help them discern fake news from real news about the epidemic.
Dispute over vaccine affordability delays emergency spending bill on Hill
An approximately $7.5 billion emergency spending bill to address the coronavirus outbreak in the United States is hung up in a dispute over vaccine affordability, lawmakers and aides in both parties said Tuesday.
Negotiations continued, with members on both sides of the aisle expressing optimism about finalizing the legislation quickly, hopefully in time to move it through the House and Senate by week’s end.
But hopes for releasing the bill Tuesday faded as negotiators squabbled over language Democrats want in the legislation that would ensure affordability of vaccines, such as by requiring reasonable prices and providing funding for the Health and Human Services Department to provide vaccines free, according to a House Democratic aide.
Some Republicans view the Democrats’ requests as price fixing and inflation caps outside the scope of precedent, which risks slowing development of drugs for vaccines and therapeutics, according to a House GOP aide.
Both aides spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations.
“We all believe we will have a bill passed and on the president’s desk by the end of this week,” Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters, while adding: “We believe that the vaccine should be very cost-effective and not be out of the reach of average folks, and that’s one of the arguments that’s still being disputed.”
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he was optimistic that “we’re going to come together on a bicameral, bipartisan basis with a package. … I think we’re on the way to getting it through the House this week and with cooperation could get it through the Senate as well.”
President Trump also sounded bullish as he spoke during a visit to the National Institutes of Health.
“We‘re doing very well in terms of getting the funding we need, the necessary funding. I asked for X, and they want to give us more than X, and that’s okay,” Trump said. The initial funding proposal from the White House sought $1.25 billion in new money to fight the virus, plus $1.25 billion in repurposed funds from other accounts.
Government scientists say it will take at least a year for a vaccine to be widely available.
First covid-19 case confirmed in Berkeley, Calif.
Berkeley, Calif., health officials on Tuesday announced that a resident had tested positive for the new coronavirus — the first confirmed case in the city.
Lisa Hernandez, the city’s health officer, said the resident had returned to Berkeley on Feb. 23 from “one of the growing numbers of countries with a covid-19 outbreak,” but did not specify where. She added that the resident had stayed at home under a voluntary quarantine due to concerns about being infected.
She added that Berkeley Public Health Division was investigating to see whether the person had come into contact with others. Additional information about the patient was not immediately available.
“While the risk of infection remains low, the expanded presence of the virus in our community is a reality we should all prepare for,” Hernandez said in a statement.
Health officials detail recent coronavirus deaths in Washington state
KIRKLAND, Wash. — In Washington’s King County, home to the city of Seattle, the death toll rose to eight people Tuesday. County public health officials said the total number of confirmed cases in the county is 21.
Officials confirmed three new deaths Tuesday, all residents of the Life Care Center of Kirkland, a nursing facility that has experienced an outbreak in this city northeast of Seattle.
Two of the deaths occurred on Feb. 26, county health officials said in a news release, including a woman in her 80s who died at home. A 54-year-old man also died that day at the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, two days after he was admitted directly from the nursing home, according to the hospital. The third patient, a woman in her 70s, died on Monday at the EvergreenHealth Medical Center in Kirkland, officials said.
King County is home to 2.2 million people, almost a third of the Washington state population of 7.5 million, according to census estimates.
“This is a very fluid, fast-moving situation as we aggressively respond to this outbreak,” Jeff Duchin, health officer for Public Health — Seattle & King County, said in a statement. “People with suspected or confirmed exposure to COVID-19 should reach out to their healthcare provider. As public health professionals we really appreciate clinicians on the front lines of patient care and they are critical to this response.”
Should I get tested for coronavirus? Here’s when to stay home or see a doctor.
By now, you may have memorized some of the most common symptoms of coronavirus: fever, cough and a runny nose. In other words, many of the same symptoms as the common cold or the flu.
But as the coronavirus outbreak progresses, experts say it’s increasingly likely that you might have the new illness.
“This is much more widely spread than people realize,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “The events in Washington state really show that this has established itself in our communities and will continue to do so.”
So how do you know if you have coronavirus, and when should you see a doctor?
Not only can you self-manage from the comfort of your couch if your symptoms are mild, but health officials want you to do so. You should stay home if your symptoms can be handled with over-the-counter cold and flu aids from your local drugstore.
Evidence from the more than 80,000 coronavirus cases that have been reported in China indicates that about 80 percent of illnesses are mild. If everyone with a cold floods their local emergency rooms, it will be harder for health-care workers to treat patients who are critically ill. Plus, you could pick up the virus in the hospital if you don’t already have it.
“If you feel well enough that if it weren’t for coronavirus you wouldn’t see a doctor, don’t see a doctor,” said Lauren Sauer, assistant professor of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
It’s a good idea, however, to call your primary care doctor if you have both fever and a cough, said Maria Raven, chief of emergency medicine at University of California at San Francisco. And if you have shortness of breath, unremitting fever, weakness or lethargy, it’s definitely time to get in touch with a health-care professional, according to Adalja. Those could be signs of pneumonia, which is common in severe cases of coronavirus.
Read more here.
India restricts drug and drug ingredient exports amid disrupted supply chains
India is restricting the export of more than two dozen pharmaceutical drugs and drug ingredients because of the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on supply chains. The medicines include antibiotics, progesterone and vitamin B12, Reuters reported.
India is one of the world’s leading suppliers of generic drugs but relies on China for many of its ingredients. In the United States, about a quarter of medicines come from India.
The commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that India “has restricted the export of 26 active pharmaceutical ingredients ... which represents about 10 percent of their export capacity.” Stephen Hahn, the commissioner, said his office is working to assess what these changes will mean for the U.S. drug supply.
Last week, Hahn said the United States was closely monitoring the pharmaceutical supply chain and doing “everything possible to mitigate the shortage.”
His office also reminded drug manufacturers of “legal requirements for notifying the FDA of any anticipated supply disruptions,” he said in a statement.
2nd coronavirus case in New Hampshire; 1st patient went to event after being told to self-quarantine, authorities say
A second person in New Hampshire has tested positive for the novel coronavirus after coming in close contact with the state’s first patient, who health officials said had attended an event after being told to self-isolate.
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday that the second patient is an adult male from Grafton County, in the state’s northwest. The man is isolated at home as officials seek out people with whom he had contact and “expect additional cases may be identified that are related to this investigation.”
Authorities also said that the state’s first covid-19 patient had, “despite having been directed to self-isolate, attended an invitation-only private event on Friday, February 28.” Health officials will contact other attendees who were in contact with the patient, who is an employee of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and had recently traveled to Italy, to recommend 14-day self-quarantine.
State officials said they are waiting for confirmation on the test results for both individuals by the CDC.
Santa Clara health officials announce two new coronavirus cases, raising county’s total to 11
Health officials in Santa Clara County, Calif., announced two new confirmed coronavirus cases Tuesday, bringing the county’s total to 11.
At a Tuesday afternoon news conference, the county’s health officer, Sara Cody, said officials had not determined how the two new patients became infected. She said area schools were considering their procedures, and warned county residents that the risk of severe illness associated with coronavirus increases with age.
“The people at greatest risk of severe sickness are those 80 and over,” she said. She reminded those listening that people with underlying medical conditions and those who with compromised immune systems face a greater risk.
First responders remain in quarantine after potential exposure at Wash. nursing home
KIRKLAND, Wash. — Kirkland, a city of 90,000 people northeast of Seattle that has been the epicenter of the outbreak, much of it linked to a nursing home, remained in emergency mode Tuesday.
Fire Chief Joseph Sanford said 26 firefighters and three police officers -— including one who was added to the group Monday night — remained in mandatory quarantine. Most are at home. A dozen of them were exhibiting mild flu-like symptoms.
City workers call them twice a day to check in and are urging them to take their temperatures often. For those holed up in a firehouse near the nursing home and in another undisclosed location, latex-gloved workers are ferrying them fruit, vegetables and “breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he said.
They are under quarantine mainly because of their exposure to the Life Care Center of Kirkland, the nursing facility in a tree-lined residential area just six minutes from Fire Station 21. The outbreak has taken a quarter of the Kirkland Fire Department offline, but officials said the department remains fully staffed. One firefighter is back on the job after completing a 14-day quarantine period.
Sanford, a 63-year-old who has been with the department since his early 20s, said it is accustomed to handling emergencies, such as the health-related calls that drew them often to the nursing home.
But he said it has been a new challenge to face so much uncertainty, when they are usually the ones helping. Kirkland is under the microscope because it is the first in the United States to experience a significant outbreak.
“Most of the time, the emergencies are a lot shorter. We can mitigate them in a short period of time,” he said. “This one’s just ongoing, day-to-day, and it’s changing.”
Google cancels developer event and halts international travel over coronavirus concerns
The day after Twitter said employees should work from home, and five days after Facebook canceled its annual developer event, Google is implementing its own precautions to protect employees and developers from coronavirus.
The company has canceled its I/O developer conference, which usually draws thousands of developers from around the world and was set to start May 12 in Mountain View, Calif., it announced Tuesday. All attendees will receive a full refund, the company said. Google also joined other tech companies and halted work-related international travel for its more than 118,000 employees, though domestic travel is still allowed.
Google and Facebook are based in Santa Clara County, and both of their events were to take place in the county, which has nine coronavirus cases.
Tech companies’ precautions are having an impact on other events as well. Both Facebook and Twitter have pulled out of the annual SXSW festival in Austin, with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey canceling a keynote talk. There’s increasing pressure on organizers to call off the event, including a growing Change.org petition, but as of Tuesday, they were still planning to carry on, though with more sanitizing products and soap.
Israeli officials in full protective gear tally votes cast by people in quarantine
Dressed in full protective gear and with a bottle of hand sanitizer at the ready, a group of workers pulls ballots out of a cardboard box and takes notes on a piece of paper, keeping a careful distance through layers of biohazard material.
This is vote-counting in the time of the coronavirus.
After cases were diagnosed in Israel, officials there had to take special measures to ensure Monday’s election did not further spread the virus. People quarantined over concerns that they may have come into contact with infected patients were allowed to vote only if they showed no symptoms and visited special polling places without taking public transport. There, they lined up in protective masks and gloves to cast their ballots.
On Tuesday, Israel’s Central Elections Committee released footage showing workers taking extra precautions to count those designated ballots. The batches were counted separately from those collected at other voting places.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc was holding a tentative lead Tuesday with nearly all the votes counted.
Chile confirms first case of virus
Chile announced its first confirmed case of coronavirus Tuesday, as cases continue to pop up around Latin America.
The health ministry said the patient is a 33-year-old male in Talca, a city south of the capital of Santiago who recently returned from travels through southeast Asia and Spain. The case was announced shortly after Argentina confirmed a case in a man who recently returned from Italy.
Trump to donate part of salary to HHS, says ‘looking’ at situation for coronavirus patients without insurance
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham announced on Twitter that Trump would donate a portion of his presidential salary to the Department of Health and Human Services to help fight the coronavirus.
“President @realDonaldTrump made a commitment to donate his salary while in office.
“Honoring that promise and to further protect the American people, he is donating his 2019 Q4 salary to @HHSGov to support the efforts being undertaken to confront, contain, and combat #coronavirus,” Grisham tweeted.
A bit later, on his way to the National Institutes of Health for a roundtable discussion, Trump took questions outside the White House on a range of coronavirus-related issues.
Asked what would happen to infected patients without insurance, Trump said his administration was looking into it.
“There are many people without insurance, and we are looking at that situation for those people,” he said.
Trump also said his administration is discussing whether to restrict travel from other countries. “We’re watching Italy very closely, South Korea very closely, Japan very closely, and we’ll make the right determination at the right time,” he said.
Asked if he regretted “downplaying” the threat of the coronavirus, Trump said he didn’t.
“No, not at all,’ he said. “We’re doing a great job. We are ahead of it.”
More than 120 Diamond Princess cruise-ship evacuees to be released from quarantine in Texas
More than 120 evacuees from the Diamond Princess cruise ship are scheduled to be released by federal officials from quarantine Tuesday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg confirmed.
Nirenberg told The Washington Post that he is “grateful for our state and local medical professionals, as well as the on-the-ground boots from CDC.” He said that he was satisfied with the plan for the evacuees’ release because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had changed its testing protocols.
Nirenberg’s reaction is an about-face from Monday, when San Antonio filed an emergency lawsuit attempting to prevent federal officials from releasing the former cruise-ship passengers over concerns they could endanger the public.
The city did so after learning that the CDC had released an evacuee from Wuhan who was also staying on the air base back into the community for about 12 hours, only to then return her to quarantine after test results came back that were positive for the coronavirus. (The woman had previously tested negative, leading to her release.)
U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez denied San Antonio’s request in a three-page order Monday, writing that he “has no authority to second-guess” the CDC. But he also expressed sympathy with the city, adding that “the Court also shares the concerns expressed by the plaintiffs.”
“The United States Government is, in effect, washing its own hands further of this quarantine,” Rodriguez wrote. “This is disappointing.”
U.S. stocks plummet as investors gird for more coronavirus fallout
U.S. stocks plummeted Tuesday after the Federal Reserve’s emergency rate cut failed to bring calm, extending the mayhem that has defined the markets for days over growing concerns the coronavirus will blunt economic growth.
The Dow Jones industrial average sank nearly 3 percent, or close to 800 points, and the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond — a foundation of global finance — briefly fell below 1 percent, before recovering slightly, as investors fled equities for the safety of bonds. Investors are worried that the spreading outbreak will upend the global economy and end the decade-long expansion.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq composite were off more than 3 percent by midafternoon. Ten of the 11 S&P stock market sectors were in negative territory, and so was nearly every one of the 30 Dow stocks.
Stocks twisted and turned most of the day, despite the central bank announcing that it would slash the benchmark U.S. interest rate by half a percentage point.
“The Fed went a little early,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner of Harris Financial Group. “Everybody knew the Fed was going to lower interest rates, but they left markets with a lot more questions than answers. That’s why the early-morning bounce was quickly sold.”
The Fed, whose leaders were unanimous in their decision to bring the rate to just below 1.25 percent, had not taken such an emergency step since 2008. The announcement came after the Group of Seven failed to offer a specific course to combat the economic fallout from the outbreak, which has upended global supply chains since the first cases emerged in Wuhan, China, in December.
Read more here.
Democratic senators confront Pence over coronavirus response
Democratic senators confronted Vice President Pence and other top officials Tuesday over the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, voicing deep frustrations afterward that their questions weren’t answered.
Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington state, which has had the only U.S. deaths so far from the virus, led the questioning in the closed-door lunch, multiple senators said.
They demanded to know when more test kits would become available. Murray said later that for now, many residents are simply being told to stay home if they feel unwell — an untenable approach for many.
“Testing, testing, testing. Be honest with people. Everybody hit on it. Tell us when the tests are going to be available,” Cantwell told reporters after the lunch. “People are calling their doctors, and they’re not being able to get a test, so let’s get crisper and clearer about what the process is for people to get testing and when the availability of those tests will be there for them."
“I spoke directly to Vice President Pence,” Murray said. “What I really feel strongly about is, we do not need [acting White House chief of staff] Mick Mulvaney telling people, ‘Don’t watch TV.’ We do not need the president to say, ‘This is fearmongering.’ No one here is doing that. And every time they do it, somebody here has to respond back, you know, and it sounds political. We cannot afford to have that right now.”
Inside the lunch, Pence listened but had few answers, senators said. The vice president did not respond to reporters’ questions on the way in or out of the meeting.
“Lots of questions, not a lot of answers,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), adding she and others are facing growing questions from their constituents, who want answers to questions the administration cannot answer.
North Carolina officials report first coronavirus case, say person was exposed at Wash. nursing home
North Carolina officials said Tuesday that the state has its first coronavirus case, which they linked to the outbreak at a long-term residential facility in Washington state.
The office of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said the presumptive positive test was conducted by a state laboratory and will still have to be confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a statement, Cooper’s office identified the person only as someone from Wake County who “traveled to the State of Washington and was exposed at a long-term care facility where there is currently a COVID-19 outbreak.” The Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., has dozens of residents and staff members reportedly ill with symptoms linked to the virus.
Cooper’s office described the North Carolina infection as “an isolated case” and said the person is “doing well” while isolated at home. They declined to release more details on the person, citing the individual’s privacy.
“I know that people are worried about this virus, and I want to assure North Carolinians our state is prepared,” Cooper said in the statement. “Our task force and state agencies are working closely with local health departments, health care providers and others to quickly identify and respond to cases that might occur.”
Two more deaths reported in Washington state
Sen. Patty Murray said Tuesday that there were two more confirmed deaths from the coronavirus in her home state of Washington.
“Just as we are standing here, I just was texted that two more people have confirmed fatalities in King County in Washington state,” Murray (D) told reporters on Capitol Hill.
She did not provide any other details. Vice President Pence and several other senior health officials briefed Democratic and Republicans senators Tuesday at their weekly policy luncheons about the U.S. response to the coronavirus. The briefing came against the backdrop of congressional negotiations on an aid package to deal with the crisis.
“We need facts, and the most important way to have that is to have tests available for everyone. … That is having a really huge impact,” Murray said. “We need masks, we need ventilators for our medical facilities, and we need it fast.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that Pence and the health officials answered many questions but that testing is an unresolved issue.
“When and where. We need an on-site test,” he said.
Schumer also said congressional negotiators were making progress on the legislation, though the cost of a vaccine — once it is developed — has not been determined.
How bad is the coronavirus outbreak likely to get in the United States?
The spreading coronavirus is shaping up as a pandemic of potentially historic proportions, possibly on the scale of the global outbreak of influenza in 1957 but unlikely to be as catastrophic as the Spanish Flu of 1918, according to projections by infectious disease experts who are still struggling to understand this novel pathogen.
Modeling new diseases is inherently uncertain, and scientists have at times overestimated the severity of epidemics, including in 2009, when the H1N1 flu turned out to be milder than expected, and in 2014, when the Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed far fewer people than projected early in that crisis.
The ultimate impact of the new virus, officially named SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease covid-19, depends on multiple factors that cannot be precisely calculated yet. They include how widely and quickly it spreads, its virulence (the degree to which is sickens and kills people), and the ability of health systems to handle illnesses.
Infectious disease experts in recent days have said the coronavirus could create a pandemic on a similar scale to, or even surpassing, the 1957 influenza contagion. That pandemic was caused by a virus related to one found in birds that entered the human population somewhere in Southeast Asia and sickened a quarter-billion people, killing more than a million, including 70,000 in the United States.
United Arab Emirates to close schools and universities for a month
CAIRO — The United Arab Emirates announced the closure of all schools and universities starting Sunday for a month to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
A program to sterilize educational facilities will be carried out in every school, and even school buses, the UAE’s Ministry of Education said Tuesday, adding that closures will affect both public and private schools.
The announcement came soon after six more cases of the coronavirus emerged in the country, according to the UAE’s health ministry. Two Russians, two Italians, a German and a Colombian citizen are said to be infected. The ministry said all six were in “stable condition” and receiving treatment.
All six had been in contact with two Italians participating in the UAE Tour, a cycling competition, who had tested positive for the virus. The final stages of the event were later canceled, and two hotels where cyclists and their teams stayed are under quarantine.
Medical center in Seattle says patient who died last week had coronavirus, others possibly exposed
A patient transferred from the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., to a medical center in Seattle reportedly tested positive for coronavirus before dying last week and possibly exposing staffers to the virus.
Harborview Medical Center said in a statement Tuesday that it had “received notice from Public Health — Seattle & King County that a presumptive positive coronavirus case has been detected” in a patient who was admitted Feb. 24 and died Feb. 26.
“This patient, with underlying medical conditions, had been transferred to Harborview from Life Care Center of Kirkland,” where a coronavirus outbreak had occurred, the statement continued. “In coordination with Public Health — Seattle & King County, we have determined that some staff may have been exposed while working in an intensive care unit where the patient had been treated. We don’t believe that other patients were potentially exposed.”
The death would be the seventh known death from the virus in Washington state.
Argentina reports first infection
Argentina has its first coronavirus case, a technician from the state laboratory that conducted the test told Reuters on Tuesday.
Flavio Vergara, a technician at the state-operated lab Malbran in Buenos Aires, confirmed the test result to Reuters by phone, the news agency reported.
The virus has appeared in at least 77 countries and territories since Chinese authorities first alerted about it at the end of December.
WHO estimates coronavirus death rate at 3.4 percent — higher than earlier estimates
The top official of the World Health Organization said Tuesday that the disease caused by the new coronavirus has killed about 3.4 percent of those diagnosed with the illness globally — higher than what has previously been estimated.
By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1 percent of those infected, said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Earlier estimates had put the coronavirus death rate in a range of about 2 percent, but officials have been hamstrung by the difficulty in getting an accurate count of those who may have had mild illnesses and not sought treatment.
Despite a total of 90,893 reported cases of covid-19 globally, including 3,110 deaths, containment is still possible — and necessary — to save lives, Tedros said. The biggest impediment to doing so, he said, is “the severe and increasing disruption to the global supply of personal protective equipment — caused by rising demand, hoarding and misuse.”
He called on governments and manufacturers to boost production and secure supplies for critically affected and at-risk countries.
Senators grill FDA commissioner over availability of tests
At a congressional hearing Tuesday, skeptical senators repeatedly grilled Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, about whether the supply of tests for the coronavirus will expand as rapidly as he had predicted earlier in the week, when he said 1 million tests would become available within days.
“One million tests does sound a little aggressive,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said to Hahn. “Tell us why you think by Friday we’ll have 1 million tests [available] when we have only had 3,000.”
Hahn, testifying before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee with three other senior federal health officials, replied that FDA officials “have been working very hard” to get more tests made and expand the number of labs that can perform them. He said officials have been working closely in recent days with a manufacturer he did not identify.
“We know them very well. They have estimated they will be able to scale up to 2,500” test kits, Hahn said, adding that number of kits translates into 1 million individual tests.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), whose state has recorded six coronavirus deaths and has the nation’s only known nursing-home-based outbreak, expressed particular frustration that the test had not been available before now.
“I am hearing from people who are sick, want to get tested and don’t know where to go,” Murray said. The few people who have gotten a test, she said, have had to wait a long time to get the results. “This is unacceptable,” Murray said.
Emirates airline asks staff to consider taking unpaid leave as business slows
Emirates airline said Tuesday that it is asking staffers to consider taking unpaid leave for up to a month at a time as flight cancellations increase globally.
Adel al-Redha, the company’s chief operating officer, said in a statement that due to the “availability of additional resources and the fact that many employees want to utilize their leave, we have provided our employees the option to avail leave or apply for voluntary leave for up to one month at a time,” the Reuters news agency reported.
On Sunday, Reuters reported that the Emirates Group asked staff to weigh taking leave, noting “a measurable slowdown in business” that merited “a need for flexibility in the way we work,” according to an internal email obtained by the news agency.
The Emirates Group, the state-owned holding company that owns the airline, had over 100,000 employees, among them more than 21,000 cabin crew and 4,000 pilots as of March 2019, Reuters reported.
The United Arab Emirates, which includes the city-states of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, is a major transit and business hub.
Moscow court backs use of facial-recognition technology to monitor quarantines
MOSCOW — Moscow will continue deploying a facial-recognition system to catch those disobeying coronavirus quarantines after a court dismissed a case alleging that the technology violates the privacy of citizens, the court’s media service told the Russian Interfax news agency.
Mayor Sergei Sobyanin previously wrote on his website that surveillance footage showed a woman who had returned from China, where the novel coronavirus is thought to have originated, leaving her apartment to meet friends. The authorities were able to track down the taxi driver who had taken her home from the airport thanks to the technology, he said.
Sobyanin announced Monday that 5,500 people in Moscow are “under surveillance” for suspected coronavirus infections, although the city has experienced just one case — a 29-year-old man who had recently returned from Italy. Russia has had six cases in total, three of which occurred on the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship.
Sobyanin said there will be random temperature checks at Moscow metro station entrances, while health officials will be examining schoolchildren and kindergartners. He suggested that employers carry out similar body-temperature checks at workplaces.
Trump says he told drug companies to speed up coronavirus vaccine
President Trump informed local government officials that he had asked drug company executives to do “him a favor” and “speed it up” on developing a coronavirus vaccine. He added, “And they will. They’re working really hard and quick.”
Trump made these comments Tuesday while addressing the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. The president remarked on how the coronavirus shows that in government, one never knows what will be a concern on any given day.
“Six weeks ago, eight weeks ago, you never heard of this. All of a sudden, it’s got the world aflutter,” Trump said. “But it’ll work out.”
Trump also assured the county officials that his administration is working with Congress to pass supplemental funding for the coronavirus response to ensure that “state and local health departments get everything they need.”
On Monday, the president had a coronavirus meeting with the heads of several pharmaceutical companies.
At the event, reported The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake, “Trump peppered drug companies with questions that were some variant of, ‘How fast can you get it done?’ But despite this having been a focal point in recent weeks, he still didn’t seem to process the fact that producing a vaccine means conducting months and months of trials before they can be deployed. He even at one point asked whether the flu vaccine could be used to combat coronavirus.”
House Democrats receive health expert briefings
House Democrats received health expert briefings Tuesday morning to review options for helping to stem the spread of the coronavirus and ensure the overall safety of the Capitol community.
The meeting ended with Democrats reiterating their faith in medical experts but also sounding alarms that Congress and the public at large need to prepare for serious disruptions to daily routines in the near future.
Brian Monahan, the attending physician of the Congress, participated in the weekly gathering of Democrats to discuss the possibility of exposure to the virus inside the crowded Capitol complex and at home when meeting constituents.
Monahan reminded lawmakers that they need to be “thoroughly washing our hands” and suggested that they “minimize contact” with the public, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Caucus, told reporters afterward.
Coming a day ahead of a more formal meeting of top congressional leaders, Tuesday’s discussion did not lead to any talk about limiting the general public’s ability to enter the Capitol — which receives at least 3 million visitors per year, with an estimated 60 percent of those arriving in March through July.
However, at the news conference after the meeting, Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) said the situation may soon force the cancellation of some large public gatherings and school days. In particular, Schrier suggested travel should be limited only to the most healthy.
“If you are sick, please don’t get on a plane. That keeps everybody safe,” said the pediatrician, who represents parts of King County, where the virus has killed six.
“We are dependent on everybody to do their part, and if you have a cough, it’s not a time to be on a plane,” Schrier said.
Other Democrats declined to go that far, suggesting that federal public health officials need to make those decisions and guide Congress in determining when or whether it needs to restrict access to the Capitol.
“We need to listen to the science. We need to listen to the medical professionals. We will be listening to what scientists and medical professionals and health experts tell — what is appropriate and what is not appropriate,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said at his weekly news conference.
Lack of paid sick leave will make the coronavirus worse
The United States is one of the few wealthy democracies in the world that does not mandate paid sick leave. As a result, roughly 25 percent of American workers have none, leaving many with little choice but to go into work while ill, transmitting infections to co-workers, customers and anyone they might meet on the street or in a crowded subway car.
As a nation, in other words, we are sicker than we need to be. That reality could make a widespread coronavirus outbreak here worse than it would be in a comparable country that takes sick leave seriously. But to find out just how much worse, a fascinating 2017 study offers some clues.
A paper by Stefan Pichler and Nicolas Robert Ziebarth examines what happened in cities that implemented mandatory paid sick leave in the 2000s. San Francisco was the first to do this, in 2007, followed by Washington, Seattle and New York. A number of states, such as Connecticut and California, also adopted policies.
To find out how these policies affected influenza rates, the researchers culled data from Google Flu trends, a now-shuttered project that tracked influenza-related searches. They first demonstrated that those searches closely tracked official flu rate numbers by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Then they used the search data to compare influenza rates in cities with and without mandatory paid leave, both before and after the policies were implemented.
Their main findings are shown in the chart above. Read more here:
Members of Congress say HHS response to whistleblower questions inadequate
The Department of Health and Human Services sent a memo Tuesday to members of Congress in response to questions about an HHS whistleblower report; however, some Congress members said the memo was inadequate and did not address their concerns.
News emerged late last week of an HHS whistleblower report alleging that more than a dozen HHS employees were sent to receive the first U.S. evacuees from Wuhan, China, without protective gear or adequate training. Members had asked HHS to answer questions about whether protocols were followed and whether employees had proper protective equipment and training.
In the memo, HHS said no employees were exposed to people who tested positive for the virus, adding that the 14-day incubation period for the virus had long since passed and no HHS employee had gotten sick. The memo said HHS would administer tests to any deployed employee who requested it.
Members said they felt HHS’s memo was an inadequate substitute for a briefing in which officials could answer questions in depth.
“The key to this is getting trustworthy, accurate information out of the public as soon as possible. This memo is not in the spirit of that communication. I feel it’s slick,” said Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.).
While Takano asked specifically for assurances that medical protocols had been followed regarding interactions with the quarantined travelers, the memo said only that there are “no positive cases of COVID-19” among the workers involved.
Also Tuesday morning, former Health and Human Services secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell briefed Democratic House members at their weekly caucus meeting on preparedness — discussing, among other things, how the Obama administration responded to the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the importance of testing.
Members present said that she did not overtly critique the Trump administration’s response.
“She gave very practical information,” said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.). “She wasn’t here to criticize anyone. She was here to explain what the virus is, what we need to do.”
House majority leader rejects Trump’s call for a coronavirus-related payroll tax cut
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday dismissed President Trump’s call for a payroll tax cut to combat any drag on the economy from the coronavirus outbreak.
“I don’t think tax cuts are the answer to every problem,” Hoyer said, about 12 hours after Trump floated “a very simple one year Payroll Tax cut” in a tweet.
But Hoyer left the door open to some sort of fiscal stimulus if the economy falls deeper into peril because of the spread of the virus.
“That may or may not be what we would do,” he said of a potential stimulus, saying Congress would remain “focused on … trying to keep the economy stable and growing and keep people employed, but I frankly think that [the call for a tax cut] was more politics than it was health, either the economy or of the people.”
Hoyer said the supplemental appropriation Congress plans to pass in the coming days would effectively amount to a small stimulus — albeit one, he noted, that paled in comparison “to the $1.5 or $2 trillion stimulus that we put into a stimulated economy,” a reference to the 2017 Republican tax bill.
“Right now, we’re focused on assuring that our scientific and health response is appropriate,” he said.
Worries about virus spreading at Iranian holy sites grow after viral videos
CAIRO — In Iran, the coronavirus outbreak has led to some bizarre actions.
Take the two men who decided to lick holy shrines in defiance of health warnings — and then were caught on video that was shared on social media. In one video, viewed more than half a million times according to the BBC, a man is seen at a shrine in the city of Qoms, saying, “I’m not scared of coronavirus.” Then he is seen licking and kissing the gates of the shrine.
In another video, taken at a shrine in Mashhad, a man said he had arrived to lick the shrine “so the disease can go inside my body and others can visit it with no anxiety,” according to a translation by the BBC.
The two men have been arrested. They now face up to two years in jail and being flogged as many as 74 times, according to lawmaker Hasan Nowroji.
“Those doing such unconventional acts are publishing fake and superstitious news against the officials in the country,” he told the BBC.
Iran on Tuesday confirmed 835 new cases of coronavirus, including 11 new deaths, bringing the total number of deaths to 77 and the infected to 2,336. Two weeks ago, there were only two confirmed cases. Iran has the highest number of deaths outside of China, where the virus originated.
Now, there are growing concerns that Iran’s holy shrines could become incubators of the coronavirus, leading to more deaths. Millions visit the shrines annually, spending hours praying near them or kissing and touching them. Some religious figures believe the shrines possess divine powers that can cure sicknesses.
While there have been some actions taken at the shrines, such as spraying of disinfectants, they remain open for visitors. Saudi Arabia, in contrast, declared last week that it was temporarily halting Muslim pilgrims from visiting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
On social media, criticism is growing about the Iranian authorities’ decision to keep the shrines open.
“While the city of Qom is the epicenter of #coronavirus in Iran, authorities refuse to close down religious shrines there,” tweeted Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad. “These pro-regime people are licking the shrines & encouraging people to visit them. Iran’s authorities are endangering lives of Iranians & the world.”
Trump’s baffling coronavirus vaccine event
As a private citizen and candidate for president, Donald Trump was a proponent of vaccine skepticism — ignoring the scientific consensus on stuff like how vaccines don’t cause autism. As president, he is now surrounded by experts on the subject, including Monday, when he held a coronavirus roundtable with his task force and the heads of several pharmaceutical companies.
Yet despite the increasingly scary situation involving the disease and preparations having been underway for weeks, he still appears rather clueless on the subject.
At the event Monday, Trump peppered drug companies with questions that were some variant of, “How fast can you get it done?” But despite this having been a focal point in recent weeks, he still didn’t seem to process the fact that producing a vaccine means conducting months and months of trials before they can be deployed. He even at one point asked whether the flu vaccine could be used to combat coronavirus.
Read more here.
New York governor pushes for paid sick leave and job protection for coronavirus patients
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Tuesday that he is amending a paid sick leave bill he recently proposed to the state legislator to include a requirement for employers to pay for sick time related to coronavirus.
“Those who have to be quarantined should be paid during that period and their jobs protected,” said Cuomo during a Tuesday news conference in which he announced the state’s second coronavirus case.
On Monday, Cuomo announced a new policy requiring New York health insurers to cover costs associated with covid-19 testing, including urgent care, medical consultations and emergency room visits. Cuomo added that New York residents on Medicaid will be exempt from paying a co-pay for any coronavirus-related tests, while the state is covering the costs of all tests conducted at the State’s Wadsworth Lab.
“We can’t let cost be a barrier to access to Covid-19 testing for any New Yorker,” he tweeted.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Cuomo cautioned that he expected more cases. “It is inevitable that it will continue to spread,” he said.
But he also sought to reassure the public, saying that “80 percent of the people” who contract the virus “will self-resolve and may not even know they had it.”
As The Post’s Nitasha Tiku previously reported, gig workers for companies such as Uber and DoorDash are particularly vulnerable if they catch the virus or need to be quarantined because they are contract workers and do not receive sick leave or health-care benefits.
Some songs to help you wash your hands for 20 seconds
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wash their hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds for full effect. According to Seattle-based freelance journalist Jen Monnier, that’s about the equivalent of singing “Happy Birthday” twice — and she’s getting tired of performing the refrain as she scrubs.
For those using this method who would prefer a change of pace, Monnier has compiled a list of songs with choruses that run for about 20 seconds.
There’s Beyoncé’s relationship ballad “Love on Top,” with its 21-second refrain: “Baby, it’s you. You’re the one I love. You’re the one I need. You’re the only one I see. C’mon, baby, it’s you. You’re the one that gives your all. You’re the one I can always call when I need to make everything stop. Finally, you put my love on top.”
Fleetwood Mac fans, meanwhile, can wash to the chorus of “Landslide,” Monnier reported. “Raspberry Beret” by Prince and “Jolene” by Dolly Parton also work.
Then there’s always Lizzo, whose song “Truth Hurts” has a 22-second chorus that is also a pertinent reminder to be good to yourself:
“Why men great till they got to be great? Don’t text me, tell it straight to my face. Best friend sat me down in the salon chair. Shampoo press, get you out of my hair. Fresh photos with the bomb lighting. New man on the Minnesota Vikings. Truth hurts means there’s something more exciting. Bom bom bi dom bi dum bum bay.”
Second resident of New York infected with coronavirus
A second resident of New York is ill with the coronavirus, state authorities confirmed Tuesday.
“Yesterday, a New York State resident with respiratory issues was diagnosed with the Coronavirus at a New York City hospital,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio wrote on Twitter. “The patient remains hospitalized in serious condition.”
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo provided further details in a news conference Tuesday, describing the patient as a 50-year-old man and an attorney from the New York suburb of Westchester County. He was at Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, before being transferred to a hospital in Manhattan, Cuomo said.
The man has no recent history of foreign travel. He had reportedly recently traveled to Miami before being contagious.
De Blasio said that city and state disease detectives are working to trace and identify with whom the patient may have come in contact and to take “appropriate next steps.”
One of the patient’s children is a student at SAR Academy in Riverdale in the Bronx. The modern orthodox Jewish day school temporarily closed Tuesday as a precaution, Cuomo said.
New York health officials reported the state’s first coronavirus patient over the weekend, after a woman who had recently been to Iran fell ill. She is in isolation in her Manhattan home.
In the Tuesday news conference, Cuomo described the new case as “inevitable.” He said that two families in Buffalo were also under self-imposed quarantine after traveling to a virus-hit part of Italy.
“We are seeing what we expected, what we anticipated, which is a continuing spread,” he said.
Key now, the governor added, was “increasing our testing capacity,” which he said the state is doing.
De Blasio said in a tweet that the New York City Public Health laboratory conducted the test for Tuesday’s patient on its first day of testing.
Stop touching my face? Why the easiest way to prevent coronavirus is so hard.
A 2015 study found that we touch our face an average of two dozen times an hour, and 44 percent of that touching involves contact with eyes, nose or mouth.
But that’s exactly what will make you sick.
People are more likely to get coronavirus by picking it up from a surface and touching their face, than they are to breathe in droplets directly from someone who is infected, said William Sawyer, a family doctor in Sharonville, Ohio.
“They will give it to themselves, not the person down the hall,” he said.
Not touching your facial mucous membranes, an area known as the “T-zone,” is perhaps the most important step you can take to prevent an infection, said Sawyer.
“It’s the one behavior that would be better than any vaccine ever created,” he said. “Just stop this simple behavior. Stop picking, licking, biting, rubbing — it’s the most effective way to prevent a pandemic.”
How do you stop? You have to “outsmart” your habit, said Elliot Berkman, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon who studies habits and behaviors.
One way to do that quickly is to change something in your environment, he said. Wear something on your hands or face (not a mask if you’re not sick) that can serve as a cue, an interruption to an automatic action.
Of course, sometimes you really need to scratch your face. If you get that urge, cover your finger with a tissue first, said Sawyer. Avoid touching your face with a bare hand, but also know that gloves can pick up germs just as easily.
Dow spikes after Fed issues emergency rate cut to stem coronavirus panic
U.S. stocks seesawed Tuesday, initially diving after Group of Seven leaders failed to reassure investors they would be taking action to offset the coronavirus’s economic fallout. But the markets quickly rallied after the Federal Reserve slashed the benchmark U.S. interest rate by half a percentage point at 10 a.m.
The Dow surged off the news, rising from its steep losses earlier in the morning. The Dow climbed as much as 300 points shortly after the news, and the S&P and Nasdaq composites shot up roughly .9 percent.
The rebound came after a volatile morning, with futures pointing positive and then staging a U-turn. On Tuesday morning, G-7 finance ministers and central bankers held a call to discuss how to respond. But a statement released after the call contained no specific actions, prompting the futures drop.
Fed cuts interest rate half a percentage point
The Federal Reserve slashed the benchmark U.S. interest rate by half a percentage point Tuesday, the biggest cut since the 2008 financial crisis and a sign that global central banks are prepared to act to contain the economic fallout from the coronavirus.
The U.S. central bank has not made an emergency cut like this since 2008. Fed leaders voted unanimously in favor of the rate reduction. The highly unusual move comes on the heels of other central banks around the world lowering rates and calls by President Trump for a “big” Fed rate cut.
“The coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity. In light of these risks and in support of achieving its maximum employment and price stability goals, the [Fed] decided today to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by ½ percentage point,” the Fed wrote in a statement.
The move would reduce the current interest rate to just below 1.25 percent, down from 1.75 percent.
Read more here.
Shanghai and Guangdong introduce 14-day quarantines for travelers from coronavirus-stricken countries
Chinese officials on Tuesday announced expanded restrictions on travelers from foreign coronavirus hot spots, with officials in Shanghai and the province of Guangdong saying they would enforce 14-day quarantines, according to Reuters.
The news agency quoted Xu Wei, a Shanghai official, as saying that the rule would apply to all travelers from countries with “relatively serious virus conditions.” The rules would be enforced regardless of nationality, Reuters reported.
In mid-February, Beijing had already imposed quarantine measures for travelers, threatening returnees from affected areas with punishments unless they complied with the order. At the time, the measure appeared primarily intended for domestic travelers, but the virus has since spread to many other parts of the world.
There are now more daily new cases outside of China than inside the country.
Four Chinese provinces decided to lower their emergency response levels on Monday, according to Reuters. Among them was Guangdong, the province that announced the new travel restrictions on Tuesday.
Washing your hands? Try humming ‘God Save the Queen’
LONDON — Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock has urged people to wash their hands for as long as it takes them to sing the national anthem or “Happy Birthday,” to protect themselves from the global coronavirus outbreak.
“God Save the Queen” trended on Twitter in Britain on Tuesday alongside the hashtag #coronavirusuk, in response to this advice on the most effective way for people to avoid contracting the infection.
In an interview with the BBC, Hancock said that people should wash their hands frequently with “soap and hot water, for at least 20 seconds.” He then went on to offer a useful trick to achieve that desired time period by singing “Happy Birthday” or “God Save The Queen” — advice, he admitted, that is generally reserved for children.
“Wash your hands to ‘God Save The Queen.’ Just the first verse. Nobody knows the second verse,” wrote one Twitter user. Another offered alternative soundtracks for the handwashing: “If you don’t want to sing Happy Birthday (twice, slowly = the recommended 20 seconds) or God Save The Queen, might I recommend the chorus of any of the following: Mambo No 5, Maniac 2000, Bat Out of Hell, Cher’s Believe,” tweeted reporter Nicky Ryan.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson shared Britain’s coronavirus plan and reiterated Hancock’s “Happy Birthday” handwashing advice, urging people to sing the song more than once. Johnson also revealed that he was “shaking hands continuously,” with people and would continue to do so. “I was at a hospital the other night where I think there are a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you’ll be pleased to know,” he said, before adding “our judgment is: wash.”
U.S. futures markets retreat after G-7 falls short on specifics to combat coronavirus impact
U.S. stock futures tumbled Tuesday as investors’ hopes faded for global stimulus, including from central banks, to ease the economic fallout from the coronavirus.
The three major American stock indexes staged an explosive rally on Monday, shaking off Wall Street’s worst week since the 2008 financial crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Nasdaq composite index all exited correction territory, and the Dow rose nearly 1,300 points, closing up 5.1 percent, its largest percentage gain since March 2009.
But Tuesday appeared to tell a different story. Dow futures were up roughly 250 points only to U-turn, diving more than 200 points. The S&P and Nasdaq also pulled back.
Investors had rallied around prospects that the Federal Reserve may act to cushion the economy from coronavirus’s economic consequences. On Tuesday morning, Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers held a call to discuss how to respond. But a statement released after the call contained no specific actions, prompting the futures drop.
Iran temporarily blocks Farsi-language edition of Wikipedia, report says
DUBAI — Iran blocked the Farsi-language edition of Wikipedia for 24 hours following a major outbreak of novel coronavirus that has claimed the life of a top regime adviser, an Internet observatory said Tuesday.
In its report, Netblocks said that its research and testing indicated the desktop version of the site was being purposefully blocked as of Monday. In an update, it stated that by Tuesday afternoon, local time, Wikipedia was once more available in the country with no explanation given.
The report noted that the beginning of the filtering came at the same time that the international media began reporting on the death of 71-year-old Mohammad Mirmohammadi, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The mobile version of the site was always reachable, the group said.
“Analytics data show that the restrictions are in effect nationwide, while technical testing confirms that the blocks are implemented with the same mechanism used to restrict access to popular social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook in Iran,” said the report before it was updated.
Iran, which has 2,336 cases of coronavirus, is experiencing one of the world’s worst outbreaks, with 77 fatalities, the highest death toll outside China.
The World Health Organization has sent a team to Iran to help in the fight against the virus as well as 7.5 tons of medical supplies.
Iranian authorities on Monday ordered the closure of educational and cultural institutions around the country.
Health Minister Saeed Namaki also announced house-to-house searches by 300,000 teams to seek out potential coronavirus cases starting Tuesday. Anyone diagnosed with covid-19 will be taken to special treatment centers, he said.
Global finance ministers pledge readiness, but no specifics, to address coronavirus fallout
Finance ministers from the Group of Seven leading economies vowed Tuesday morning that they were “ready to take actions” to rescue the global economy from the growing threat of the coronavirus, but they stopped short of announcing any specific measures — a disappointment to Wall Street.
President Trump and many Wall Street investors have been urging major action in the face of what many experts say is the biggest threat to the global economy since the financial crisis. In late-night tweets, Trump called for a “big” interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve and another tax cut.
“G7 finance ministers are ready to take actions, including fiscal measures where appropriate, to aid in the response to the virus and support the economy during this phase,” said a statement released after Tuesday’s call among G-7 finance ministers and central bankers. G-7 countries include the United States, Japan, Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Britain.
Sales of grim Camus classic ‘The Plague’ skyrocket in Europe
PARIS — As the number of coronavirus cases continued to rise in Europe, a groundswell of readers purchased copies of “The Plague,” the 1947 novel by Albert Camus about a mysterious plague that strikes the Algerian town of Oran under French colonial rule.
The book is a mainstay on course syllabuses on both sides of the Atlantic and wrestles with the deeper notion of humanity facing the absurd. Now apparently the story it tells — mystery, panic, confinement — is resonating with readers seeking to make sense of a disease that emerges in clusters in unlikely places with little explanation.
According to Edistat, the French agency that tracks book sales, purchases of “The Plague” have skyrocketed in France in the early weeks of 2020, as anxieties over the coronavirus were also on the rise.
In the fourth week of 2020, 1,700 copies of the novel were sold in France, according to Edistat. In the same week of 2019, the total was slightly over 400.
A similar phenomenon has been reported in Italy, the focal point of Europe’s coronavirus outbreak. According to the literary website ActuaLitté, sales of “The Plague” are up by 180 percent in Italy, where the book has entered the top 10 bestsellers on Amazon.
In France, looking to literature during times of crisis is nothing new: In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in November 2015, when Islamic State militants or sympathizers killed 130 people across Paris, copies of Ernest Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast” flew off the shelves. That novel depicts Paris in the heyday of the 1920s, the capital of bohemian glamour. In French, the book’s title is “Paris est une fête” — Paris is a party.
Iran confirms 835 new cases of coronavirus and 11 new deaths
Iran on Tuesday confirmed 835 new cases of coronavirus and 11 new fatalities, bringing the total number of deaths to 77 and the infected to 2,336, according to an announcement by Iran’s health minister on state television. Two weeks ago, there were only two confirmed cases.
Outside China, the epicenter of the virus, Iran has the highest number of deaths. The situation has become so grim in the country that a lawmaker told other parliamentarians on Tuesday to stop their contact with citizens, according to Iranian state television.
At least 23 cases of the coronavirus have been reported among members of parliament.
Meanwhile, semiofficial news agencies reported that the head of Iran’s emergency medical services has also been infected with the virus that causes the disease named covid-19.
The soaring death toll comes after officials in Iran claimed last week that the virus was under control.
Louvre museum remains closed as coronavirus concerns rise
PARIS — The Louvre Museum in Paris remained closed Tuesday in the midst of a coronavirus outbreak, with no sign as to when visitors will once again be able to tour the famous landmark.
The Louvre is the most visited art museum in the world, and it first closed over the weekend after the French government announced that indoor gatherings of more than 5,000 people would be banned in the midst of the outbreak.
The decision to shut the museum’s doors came when museum staff voted Saturday “almost unanimously” to close, a union representative told Agence France-Presse.
“The Louvre is a confined space which welcomes more than 5,000 people a day,” the official told AFP. “There is real concern on the part of staff.”
As the virus sent the tourism industry into free-fall, the fact that the Louvre remained closed — and indefinitely — was a sign of the concerns sweeping through France as it grapples with the worldwide coronavirus outbreak.
As of Tuesday, France had confirmed 191 cases of the virus and three deaths.
British government releases ‘battle plan’ to confront coronavirus
LONDON — The British government on Tuesday released its “battle plan” to confront the possible widespread transmission of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom — a possibility that Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the country was “highly likely.”
The government warned that its modeling of a “reasonable worst case scenario” suggested that a fifth of workers could be sick and absent from their jobs in the coming months. It envisioned possible school closings and bans on large public gatherings. The military will be placed on standby, and police will stop investigating lower-level crime in the event of broad contagion.
In such a scenario, to preserve its resilience, the National Health Service will delay non-urgent care to focus intensely on coronavirus cases among most vulnerable, the elderly and those with underlying health problems. Patients with the worst cases of covid-19 often need to be placed in intensive care units, where they are given supplemental oxygen, and in dire cases, put on ventilators.
Johnson said: “I do think this is a national challenge. The potential is that this is something our country has got to get through.”
As of Tuesday, Britain has 39 confirmed cases of coronavirus.
Speaking alongside Johnson at a news conference from 10 Downing Street, Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said: “Overall, probably around 1 percent of people who get this virus might end up dying based on the Chinese experience. Now to be clear, that therefore means that 99 percent of people will not. And if, as I think is entirely possible, a higher proportion than we currently are aware of get the infection without any symptoms, in fact that mortality rate will go down.”
The government’s response is now in the containment phase. If the illness spreads, officials want to try to delay the peak of the virus until the warmer spring and summer months, when hospitals are less busy with treating those suffering from the seasonal flu.
North Korea is holding at least 7,000 people under quarantine, South Korean news agency reports
SEOUL — North Korea is holding at least 7,000 people under quarantine to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, South Korea’s semiofficial Yonhap News Agency reported, citing an official briefed on the matter.
Lawmaker Lee Eun-jae was told by South Korea’s spy agency on Tuesday that the mass quarantine is being observed in the North Korea’s South Pyongan and Kangwon provinces, according the Yonhap report.
Since the virus outbreak in China, North Korea has maintained that the number of coronavirus cases in the country remains at zero.
“The National Intelligence Service has inferred that North Koreans who traveled before the closure of the Chinese border could have been infected, given the high volume of exchanges between the two countries,” Lee was quoted as saying in the Yonhap report.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported Monday that North Korea will let foreigners leave the country via a charter flight. The one-way flight to Vladivostok, Russia, will fly out diplomats and international agency staffers, according to CCTV.
India suspends entry to visitors from Italy, Iran, South Korea and Japan
NEW DELHI — India on Tuesday implemented sweeping new restrictions on visitors as it attempts to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus in this nation of more than 1.3 billion people.
The Indian government canceled all valid visas issued to citizens of Italy, Iran, South Korea and Japan who have not yet entered the country. It also suspended the visas of people of any nationality who have visited those four countries, plus China, since Feb. 1. India canceled the visas of Chinese citizens last month.
The move comes after India announced two new confirmed cases on Monday, one in the capital New Delhi and the other in the southern state of Telangana. India says its official total is at least five cases and that three of those patients have recovered. Experts worry, however, that the real figure could be higher.
The first three cases were students who had returned from Wuhan, China. The two more recent confirmed cases had travel history to Italy and Dubai and had interacted with friends and colleagues for days before their diagnosis.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday that he had conducted an extensive review of the country’s preparedness and “there was no need to panic.” He urged Indians to work together “to take small yet important measures to ensure self-protection.”
Lawmaker blasts CDC for removing public data on number of Americans tested for virus
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has abruptly stopped disclosing the number of Americans tested for the novel coronavirus, a move one lawmaker has called “unacceptable.”
In recent days, the agency has posted statistics to its website detailing the impact of the virus as it spreads across the United States. Figures include a breakdown of confirmed and presumed patients and the total number of deaths, cases and tests administered.
But as Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) noted Monday, one of those numbers suddenly vanished from the site.
“Americans are dying,” Pocan wrote in a letter to CDC director Robert R. Redfield. “We deserve to know how many people have been tested.”
This is unacceptable.
— Rep. Mark Pocan (@repmarkpocan) March 3, 2020
I just sent a letter to @CDCDirector demanding answers to why their website removed public data on the number of patients tested in the United States.
The American people deserve answers. https://t.co/fr50cDL7id pic.twitter.com/Sh6JRYBjRz
His letter cited comments Sunday by Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, who said the number of coronavirus cases in the United States could really be in the “hundreds or low thousands.”
Given this possibility, Pocan said, “knowing that CDC testing is keeping pace with the likely number of cases is imperative to maintaining public trust.”
Japan says Olympics postponement is technically possible under IOC contract
TOKYO — Japan’s contract with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would allow it to postpone the Games until the end of the year, Japan’s Olympics minister said Tuesday, amid speculation that the coronavirus epidemic could cause the event to be canceled entirely.
“The contract calls for the Games to be held within 2020. That could be interpreted as allowing a postponement,” Seiko Hashimoto said in response to a lawmaker’s question in parliament, Reuters reported.
Dick Pound, a long-standing IOC member, said last month that a postponement would be too complex to fit in with broadcasters’ demands and other sporting events. He said an outright cancellation was more likely if the virus was not under control by the summer.
The IOC tells candidate cities that the Summer Games must be scheduled between July 15 and Aug. 31, barring “exceptional circumstances.”
A major reason is that most of the IOC’s revenue comes from broadcast rights, with a huge portion paid by American broadcaster NBC, and U.S. sports broadcast schedules are filled with baseball and football in the fall, while the summer is much emptier.
But if the virus isn’t under control, organizers could face a tough choice — holding the Games in empty stadiums just for television audiences, canceling them outright or postponing them until the fall. The decision could set several competing interests against each other.
Washington state woman says she can’t get answers about her husband, who’s inside the facility experiencing possible outbreak
After Ken Holstad broke his hip during a fall, he checked into a long-term nursing facility in Kirkland, Wash. The 73-year-old already had Parkinson’s disease and dementia, and his family wanted to be sure that he was going to recover in a safe, enclosed environment.
Then came the coronavirus.
The suburban Seattle nursing home where Holstad has been staying, Life Care Center, has emerged at the center of the virus’s spread in the United States. Four of the nation’s six deaths to date have been linked to the facility, and more than 50 residents and staff will be tested after experiencing symptoms.
Yet amid a panic over the outbreak, Holstad’s wife Bonnie says she can’t get hold of him.
“I’m very worried for my husband,” she told CNN on Monday. “He’s one of the vulnerable people."
Outside the tree-lined facility on Monday, she stood with a sign alleging that no one at Life Care was answering the phones and that she could not reach the nursing station, either.
“He needs to be attended to," her sign said, noting that her husband had a cough. "What is his temperature?”
A staff member at the facility told The Post that Bonnie Holstad should be able to call and be connected to her husband via a phone in his room.
In a statement on Monday afternoon, the nursing home said that residents and staff would be “monitored closely” for symptoms such as a high temperature, cough and shortness of breath. The facility will not allow visits from families or volunteers and has stopped accepting new residents.
Although a nurse reportedly checked on her husband, Holstad still expressed frustration about the center’s handling of the outbreak, even while he doesn’t have a fever or other symptoms required for testing.
“I have real problems with how they’re handling the interface with family,” Bonnie Holstad told CNN. It felt as if it was “a movie about an epidemic in a little town, and they don’t know how to handle the situation.”
As South Korean cases exceed 5,000, leader says mask shortage is ‘absolutely grave’
SEOUL — South Korean President Moon Jae-in called for an urgent solution to the “absolutely grave” mask shortage in his country on Tuesday as the national tally of confirmed novel coronavirus cases jumped to over 5,000.
“I am very sorry about the failure to supply masks in a timely and sufficient manner, which caused troubles to our citizens,” President Moon said at a meeting with aides.
Moon said supply could not meet soaring demand as residents grow fearful of community transmissions.
South Korea reported nearly 1,000 additional cases of the virus on Tuesday, bringing the national tally to 5,186, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
South Korea’s semiofficial Yonhap News Agency reported that the country’s death toll has risen to 31 after two patients died in Daegu on Tuesday.
Moon called for more face masks to be produced as “strategic items” that can be stockpiled.
South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said on Tuesday that more than half of masks produced in the country would be sold through government-controlled outlets such as post offices and designated pharmacies, to help prevent hoarding and shortages.
Lee Eui-kyung, who heads the ministry, told a briefing that the government has secured more than 11 million masks, half of which have been released for public supplies.
In Daegu city, South Korea’s epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, long lines formed at local post offices that were designated as mask sales posts.
National broadcaster KBS reported on Monday that a man diagnosed with the virus was lining up to buy a mask. The virus patient was supposed to be under quarantine at home, according to KBS.
Pope Francis is said to test negative for coronavirus
Pope Francis has tested negative for the novel coronavirus, according to an Italian newspaper, following reports that he was feeling sick as the virus continues to spread across Italy.
After spending most of last Wednesday outdoors in St. Peter’s Square, the pope had reported a cough, fever, sore throat and chills — all symptoms of the disease caused by the highly contagious virus, which has already resulted in more than 2,000 cases in Italy and dozens of deaths.
The pope’s doctors almost immediately swabbed him to conduct tests, but early on Tuesday, results came back negative for the leader of the Catholic Church. “It’s only a slight indisposition," wrote Il Messaggero, a newspaper based in Rome.
The Vatican did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post.
The 83-year-old’s illness had forced the Pope to cancel his participation at a week-long spiritual retreat in the Roman countryside, according to the Associated Press, marking the the first time in his seven-year papacy he is missing the exercises for the beginning of Lenten season.
I ask you to remember me in your prayers and also the members of the Roman Curia, who this evening begin a week of Spiritual Exercises.
— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) March 1, 2020
Despite the pope’s negative test result, fears are still rampant about the coronavirus entering Vatican City, whose small and unusually old population is especially at risk of getting sick. The Holy See has taken additional measures to keep the outbreak outside its walls, even as concern from tourists have left its museums unusually empty to begin with.
According to Il Messaggero, officials have imposed strict restrictions on visits to the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, home to the 92-year-old pope emeritus, Benedict XVI. On Monday, the Vatican said it would be quarantining an employee believed to have come in contact with the illness, through a French priest who is currently hospitalized in Paris.
Late-night hosts roast global, U.S. responses to coronavirus outbreak
Trevor Noah, can of disinfectant in hand, wanted to talk about the coronavirus.
"According to WebMD, you already have it,” Noah quipped on his show Monday evening, before launching into a worldwide examination how the various countries had been handling the epidemic.
Indeed, increased attention — and panic — to the spreading virus provided plenty of fodder for several late-night hosts early this week, who used the opportunity to educate their viewers or simply to roast President Trump.
Noah’s first target was France, where the Comedy Central host poked fun at a government directive encouraging residents not to kiss each other. He pointed out that President Emmanuel Macron had followed his own instructions during a meeting with other foreign leaders.
“Italy’s got corona, and you’re kissing their prime minister?" Noah deadpanned into the camera. “And it’s not just one kiss, it’s three. That’s three chances to get sick!”
Moving closer to the source of the epidemic, Noah praised one response tactic in South Korea. Over 100,000 people have been screened for the virus in drive-through testing there, he noted, pointing out that it is “probably the only time people going through a drive-through are getting healthier."
On “Late Night with Seth Meyers," the NBC host honed in on the domestic response coming from Trump. His show mashed up clips of the president addressing the coronavirus over the past two months at press conferences and rallies, claiming that the illness "miraculously goes away” in April.
“Where did you get the idea that it just goes away in April?" Meyers asked, a grin plastered on his face. "Are you confusing it with Lent?”
He also skewered Trump’s allegations that Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. At a rally on Friday, Trump insisted the virus was “their new hoax” to try and take him down.
But Meyers didn’t seem to be convinced.
“A hoax? I think part of the problem here is Trump only knows five words, and hoax is one of them," the late-night host joked. “His brain is like a mad-lib with the same word written in for every sentence.”
The coronavirus took a more serious tone on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon," where MSNBC host Rachel Maddow answered Fallon’s questions about the virus while promoting her new book.
That didn’t keep Fallon from cracking a few jokes anyway.
“I saw somewhere they said, ‘Don’t sneeze or cough on people,'’ he said, to chuckles from the audience. “I go, were we doing that? Were people doing that? ... ‘I’ve got to stop coughing on people, I’m not getting invited back to parties.’”
Trump says Fed should ‘cut rate big’ amid coronavirus crisis
President Trump chided the U.S. Federal Reserve for not cutting interest rates, writing in an early morning tweet on Tuesday that Americans were “paying higher rates than many others, when we should be paying less,” as global financial policymakers weigh a response to the coronavirus crisis.
....paying higher rates than many others, when we should be paying less. Tough on our exporters and puts the USA at a competitive disadvantage. Must be the other way around. Should ease and cut rate big. Jerome Powell led Federal Reserve has called it wrong from day one. Sad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2020
Trump’s tweets came amid uncertainty for global markets as the novel coronavirus outbreak threatens widespread economic damage. Last week, as the outbreak spread rapidly across continents, stocks dived around the world. The Dow Jones industrial average suffered its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis and the 10-year Treasury yield hit a record low.
On Monday, as investors speculated about coordinated stimulus action by central banks, stocks recovered sharply, but on Tuesday there were more signs of trouble, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index dropping 1.2 percent by late afternoon.
In his tweets on Tuesday, Trump praised the decision of Australia’s central bank to cut interest rates to 0.5 percent, a new low. Sydney’s S&P/ASX200 index closed 0.7 percent higher, following a loss of over 10 percent in the previous seven trading days.
Traders are hoping that a coordinated response from governments could cushion the economy from the coronavirus impact, which has already hammered the airline and travel industry, shuttered a swath of China’s industrial capacity and dented consumer spending in parts of the world. The Federal Reserve, along with central banks in Japan, Britain and France, has hinted it would be ready to step in to encourage spending.
Officials from the Group of Seven major industrialized nations are drafting a statement on how the global economic community should handle the outbreak, with the group’s finance ministers and central bank governors scheduling a conference call Tuesday morning. However, Reuters reports that the draft text did not make specific calls for coordinated rate cuts. The U.S. is currently the chair of the G7.
Trump also used his tweet to criticize Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell. The president frequently takes aim at the central bank chief, whom he nominated in 2017, saying he wants to fire him and calling him a “bonehead" for not lowering rates.
The Fed chair has been cautious about lowering rates. Some economists think it would not be prudent to cut rates too low as it would give the U.S. economy little recourse if a recession takes hold.
Powell will be on Tuesday’s G7 call. The group is expected to release its statement on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Trump has tried to put a positive spin on the coronavirus, suggesting those who hyped the risk to the United States were hoping to harm him politically. The Washington Post reported Friday that Trump administration officials were holding preliminary conversations about economic responses, including a targeted tax cut package.
On Monday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development slashed its global predictions for growth for 2020 from 2.9 percent to 2.4 percent, warning that many countries would be at risk of recession.
China, epicenter of outbreak, reports import of new cases from Italy
As the novel coronavirus raged in Hubei province earlier this year, the Chinese government imposed strict measures designed to limit the spread of the virus throughout the country.
However, as the coronavirus spreads throughout the world, China is finding new problems arising from new epicenters outside its borders.
Local media reported Monday that all seven new cases confirmed in Zhejiang province had been imported from Italy, where there are now 2,036 cases and 52 deaths.
A coastal area in China’s east, Zhejiang had grown to become one of China’s wealthiest provinces. Some 30 million people live in the province and Xi Jinping, China’s president, was the province’s party secretary from 2002 until 2007.
The province, and in particular the port and industrial city of Wenzhou, has links with northern Italy. In 2016, China Daily reported that most of the 321,000 Chinese living in Italy were from Zhejiang, and one in five owns a business, with prominent figures such as Zhou Xiaoyan, owner of the communications company Milan Huaxia Group.
According to more recent accounts in Chinese media, there were about 200,000 Chinese citizens from Wenzhou and another county, Qingtian, living in Italy. Most worked in the restaurant industry, Zhejiang Daily reported.
The seven imported cases announced Tuesday were found in Qingtian, a county in the city of Lishui. Their discovery came two days after a 31-year-old woman from Lishui had tested positive for the outbreak on Sunday, two days after she had arrived from Italy.
All eight cases had worked at the same restaurant in Bergamo, Lombardy, Qingtian county announced in a statement. Italian authorities have identified a number of cases of novel coronavirus linked to the city, which lies in the greater Milan area.
None of the eight had been to Hubei, the statement said.
The shifting lines of transmission show how quickly the nature of the outbreak has changed. As the coronavirus had first spread across China and Zhejiang was placed on lockdown on Feb. 2, state media reported that Chinese citizens living in Italy had donated 10,000 masks, 300 protective suits and 240 goggles to Wenzhou.
But on Feb. 27, Qingtian county asked those living abroad to suspend China-bound trips unless there were exceptional circumstances, advising those who had to come that they would be placed under medical observation for 14 days.
Last Sunday, 2,600 surgical masks donated by Wenzhou Eyewear Industry Association were flown to Italy. A poster for the aid action reads “Wenzhou for Italy” in Chinese, Italian and English.
As the total number of new cases has declined, nine Chinese provinces have lowered their emergency response level as they push to return to economic activity after an extended lull due to coronavirus. Zhejiang, which has reported 155 cases and one death from the outbreak, lowered its level from the highest to second highest on Monday.
Taylor reported from Hong Kong and Yuan reported from Beijing. Liu Yang in Beijing also contributed to this report.
Four new deaths reported in Washington state Monday; U.S. cases top 100 across 15 states
Four deaths related to the novel coronavirus were announced Monday in Washington state, bringing the U.S. death toll for the rapidly spreading virus up to six as the number of cases tops 100 around the country.
The most serious outbreak has emerged in the Seattle area, where evidence suggests the virus may have spread undetected for weeks. Three of the deaths announced on Monday were linked to a nursing home in Kirkland, Wash., as officials there declared a state of emergency and hospitalized other residents in critical condition.
The fatalities announced Monday add to another two coronavirus deaths reported over the weekend, both also in Washington state: a man in his 50s with underlying health conditions, and a man in his 70s who was also a resident of the Kirkland nursing home.
Nationwide, health officials in 15 states have said they were treating patients with the virus or similar symptoms, including newly confirmed cases in Georgia and New Hampshire.
Of the more than 100 cases reported nationally, most were in California and Washington state. The total figure includes people who have contracted the virus locally and reported travel to “high-risk" countries, as well as dozens who had been on a cruise ship that had experienced an outbreak and who were now being treated within the U.S.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have used increasingly dire language, even as they sought to push back against panic and misinformation online.
“We know there will be more cases,” Vice President Mike Pence said at a White House news conference on Monday. “Now we’re focused on mitigation of the spread as well as treatment of people that are affected.”
At a rally in Charlotte, N.C. on Monday evening, President Trump boasted about his efforts to contain an outbreak in the United States and said a vaccine would be coming “relatively soon.”
But in Washington state, Gov. Jay Inslee (D) took on a more foreboding tone. People should consider avoiding large public events, he said Monday, and prepare for other disruptions in their daily lives as the coronavirus continues to spread there.
South Korean president declares ‘war’ on outbreak as confirmed cases near 5,000
SEOUL — South Korean President Moon Jae-in said his country had declared “war” against the novel coronavirus, with his government on a 24-hour full alert and plans to further expand the number of people tested in the worst-hit areas.
On Tuesday morning, South Korea reported 600 additional cases of the novel coronavirus. With the latest jump, the national tally rose to 4,812, more than two-thirds of which are in the southeastern city of Daegu, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
So far, 87 countries have imposed entry restrictions or quarantine procedures on visitors from South Korea, according to Seoul’s Foreign Ministry.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said late Tuesday that all passengers on direct flights from South Korea and Italy will be subject to “100 percent screening.” Pence said the rules will be up and running within 12 hours.
The number of confirmed virus cases in South Korea was expected to rise as 15,660 coronavirus tests were conducted the previous day, according to the KCDC.
South Korea has tested 121,039 people for the virus, far more than most countries.
Chinese government says Iran is working with its coronavirus advice
As the number of novel coronavirus cases in Iran soared past 1,500 on Monday, the Chinese government offered advice and suggested that Tehran was following Beijing’s lead on how to fight the outbreak.
“Like the Chinese people, the Iranian people are now fighting the novel coronavirus, in a race against time," the Chinese embassy in Tehran said in a statement to Weibo on Monday, adding that there had been 1,501 and 66 deaths in the country and that the human toll in the country was heavy.
“Iran is taking a series of measures to stop the spread of the epidemic as soon as possible: to translate China’s diagnosis and treatment plan into Persian and release it to the public, to close all schools across the country, to cancel all gatherings, including weddings and funerals, to test body temperature in public places, and to organize 300,000 teams to conduct nationwide door-to-door screenings,” the statement continued.
“We believe that as long as we work together with one heart and mind, we will definitely defeat the epidemic,” the embassy said.
A team of Chinese experts arrived in Tehran on Saturday, local news media reported.
China remains the epicenter of the outbreak, with the vast majority of confirmed cases and deaths from the novel coronavirus. However, official figures show cases in the country have been falling, even as hundreds or thousands emerge elsewhere, a trend that Chinese officials have attributed to their dramatic travel restrictions imposed in late January.
Iran remains an important business partner for China and some companies have continued to work with the country despite strict U.S. sanctions. Unlike numerous other countries in the Middle East, it did not immediately impose travel restrictions on China when the coronavirus first emerged as a major problem there earlier this year, though it eventually barred Chinese citizens from entry last week.
Iran has complained that U.S. sanctions have limited its ability to respond to the coronavirus outbreak,. Hesamodin Ashena, an adviser to President Hassan Rouhani, wrote on Twitter Monday that the U.S. financial measures had “ravaged Iran’s public health infrastructure" which in turn "torpedoed the virus to America.”
Taylor reported from Hong Kong and Liu reported from Beijing
China’s reported new cases drop to lowest in more than a month
HONG KONG — China said Tuesday it had confirmed 125 new cases in the previous 24 hours, with 31 new deaths. All of the deaths and 114 of the infections were in Hubei province.
The number of new cases reported each day has been declining over the past week; the figures released Tuesday were the lowest announced by China’s National Health Commission since Jan. 20.
Chinese officials have lauded their success in restricting the outbreak to Hubei and have begun to close hastily constructed hospitals in Wuhan, the city worst hit by the crisis, as patients are discharged or moved.
But the vast majority of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus around the world remain in China — where there have been 80,151 confirmed cases with 2,943 deaths — and health experts remain cautious about whether the outbreak is fully under control.