Trump declares coronavirus outbreak a national emergency

The White House is turning to Google to build a new screening website for anyone wanting information on how to get tested for the coronavirus, President Trump said on Friday. However, there are some discrepancies between the White House and Google versions of what the site will be able to do, where it will do it, and when.

The site will actually be built by Verily, the life sciences division of Google parent company Alphabet that focuses on research and development around health issues, the company confirmed.

Restaurant traffic has taken a dive in the past week, according to data from the reservation service OpenTable, with seated diners down 31 percent globally and 32 percent nationally Thursday compared with a year ago.

In the United States, the data shows, restaurants started seeing a downturn on March 3. The decline became more dramatic this week, with Thursday the worst day yet.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is making many of us stay home and our community of nearly 60,000 restaurants is facing a severe reduction in diners,” OpenTable chief operating officer Andrea Johnston wrote on a company blog, noting that “things seem to be getting worse quickly.”

As concerns about the effects on the supply chain during the coronavirus pandemic mount, Patagonia has become the first major retailer to bow out — closing its stores and shutting down its website.

The outdoor outfitter said it will stop business on Friday, reassess and give an update on March 27. All Patagonia employees will receive their regular pay during the closure, CEO Rose Marcario wrote in a statement.

“The scale of impact is still unknown, and we want to do our part to protect our community especially while testing availability is unknown,” Marcario said.

A Rhode Island elementary school student was infected with the novel coronavirus by an NBA player while getting an autograph during a Utah Jazz-Boston Celtics game on March 6, Westerly Police confirmed in a news conference on Friday.

Jazz center Rudy Gobert and shooting guard Donovan Mitchell tested positive. While Police Chief Shawn Lacey didn’t specify during the news conference which player signed the student’s autograph, he later told Boston.com that the child’s parents told him it was Gobert.

The State Department summoned China’s ambassador to the United States on Friday morning after a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the U.S. military of starting the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

Ambassador Cui Tiankai refused to comment on his conversation with David Stilwell, the assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, as Cui was leaving the State Department about 11 a.m. He ignored questions shouted by three reporters who followed him as he walked from the building’s front door and got into the back of a car.

Trump announced Friday that the government is partnering with private companies to set up drive-through coronavirus testing sites after a week of unrelenting criticism from lawmakers and frustrated Americans unable to find out whether they might be infected.

At a Rose Garden news conference, the president said the push to let people get tested from their vehicles would involve a new Google website to advise consumers about whether they should get tested and where, and big-box companies and drugstores that would host drive-through testing sites in their store parking lots. State and federal health workers would staff the sites and perform the testing, officials said.

The Interior Department decided Friday evening to end tours at the Washington Monument, according to a senior administration official, making it the first National Park Service site in the country to shutter part of its operations because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt visited the monument Thursday and Friday with the Interior Department’s chief medical officer to evaluate the potential risk of virus exposure for tourists and employees there, according to two federal officials. To ascend to the top of the monument, visitors ride an elevator in relatively cramped quarters.

President Trump on Friday praised the battered cruise industry — and shut it down in the United States for a month.

In a tweet late Friday, he said major operators Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and MSC had agreed to his request that they halt outbound sailings from the United States for 30 days, effective at midnight Friday night.

The Cruise Lines International Association confirmed the tweet soon after, saying oceangoing lines would be “voluntarily and temporarily suspending cruise ship operations from and to U.S. ports of call.”