Live Updates On The Coronavirus Pandemic
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Live Updates On The Coronavirus Pandemic |
walks along the Las Vegas Strip devoid of the usual crowds after casinos were ordered to shut down due to the coronavirus on Wednesday.
As coronavirus quarantines and lockdowns force much of the United States and Europe to hunker down and workers face pay disruptions, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic took dramatic new steps to try to reassure worried households and investors.
The European Central Bank announced an $820 billion emergency bond-buying program as President Trump and congressional leaders planned a $1 trillion stimulus package, including special assistance for small businesses and airlines. Trump also signed into a law a bill to ensure paid leave benefits for many Americans. The measures come as some employers cut staff, amid predictions the pandemic could plunge the U.S. Economy into its most severe downturn since the Great Depression.
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The virus continued to spread globally, with Italy reporting a record 475 deaths in a single day. But new numbers out of China on Thursday may offer a glimmer of hope: The country reported no new locally transmitted cases the previous day for the first time since the deadly outbreak began late last year.
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Bing COVID-19 tracker: Latest numbers by country and state
Here are some significant developments:
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3:31 AM: Australia, New Zealand ban entry to non-citizens, non-residents
EFE/REX/Shutterstock Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks at a news conference in Canberra, Australia on Friday.
Leaders in Australia and New Zealand said they will shut their borders to nearly all foreigners, as both countries try to contain the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent economic fallout.
The sweeping measures, which go into effect Friday night, mark another instance of how the global pandemic has prompted a nearly unprecedented clampdown on international travel.
The orders do not apply to citizens or residents of either country and their families, but will keep some foreign visa holders from entering. Australia and New Zealand were both already requiring travelers coming from abroad to quarantine themselves for two weeks.
Yet Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that with most covid-19 cases being imported from overseas, more extreme measures were necessary to keep the virus out.
On Thursday, the Reserve Bank of Australia also cut interest rates to a record-low 0.25%, a move aimed at warding off what would be the country’s first recession in almost three decades. Australia’s benchmark stock index sank to a new four-year low on Thursday.
The central bank will also buy government bonds for its first-ever quantitative easing program, and Morrison said he was working to roll out a second economic relief package. A stimulus plan he announced last week included spending initiatives and payments to low-income individuals and small businesses.
Announcing similar measures in New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the potential risks of the outbreak justify “extraordinary" steps.
“At no time in New Zealand’s history has a power like this been used," she said. “But we have to make decisions in best interests of the health of those who live here.”
By: Teo Armus
2:53 AM: Hedge-fund manager apologizes after video shows him wiping saliva on Hong Kong train handrail
HONG KONG — A man filmed licking his finger and touching a handrail on a Hong Kong subway train publicly apologized on Thursday, after the footage circulated widely online and featured prominently in local media.
“I made light of the covid-19 situation in a parody video that was only intended for a handful of friends,” Joel Werner, who Reuters identified as a hedge fund manager, wrote in a post on Facebook. “But I now realize that I shouldn’t have done that. A global pandemic is no laughing matter.”
Werner said that he used hand sanitizer immediately before and after licking his finger, and also said he applied the gel to the part of the rail that he touched. A second clip showed appeared to show him wiping liquid on his hands and the handrail.
He also said he called Hong Kong police and subway officials “to explain the video and personally apologize for any distress caused.”
Fears have mounted in Hong Kong in recent days over a growing number of cases imported from abroad. Hong Kong has largely contained the virus, recording fewer than 200 cases since the outbreak began.
By: Siobhán O'Grady
1:30 AM: With steep jumps in cases, health officials prepare for the worst
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The new coronavirus continues to infect hundreds of Americans by the day and prompts growing layoffs, forcing health workers and government officials in the United States to brace for the worst.
Doctors are making difficult decisions about daily life, cash-strapped hospitals are struggling to order ventilators, and authorities nationwide are turning to lockdowns, mass closures and bans on large gatherings as they try to “flatten the curve."
But a chilling new U.K. Study raises the question of whether it may be enough. The study, reportedly being examined by the White House’s coronavirus task force, suggested that only trying to slow the spread of the virus could nonetheless overwhelm hospital beds and lead to upwards of a million deaths in the United States.
As of late Wednesday, more than 8,700 cases had been reported across the United States, including more than 130 deaths. Two members of Congress, Reps. Ben McAdams (D-Utah) and Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), said Wednesday they had tested positive.
New York in particular announced a steep climb of 1,008 new cases since Tuesday, through Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) attributed the increase to expanded testing. The state now has more confirmed cases than all but 10 countries in the world.
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Also on Wednesday, White House officials announced several measures to tighten the United States’s land borders: Authorities would immediately send migrants who cross the southern border illegally back to Mexico, they said, while closing the northern border to nonessential traffic.
The outbreak and its dramatic impact on the economy appear to be redefining Donald Trump’s presidency, with more than half of Americans saying he has downplayed the virus too much, according to a new survey.
Throughout the day on Wednesday, Trump ramped up his attempts to rebrand the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus," brushing aside concerns that is unscientific and could incite racial attacks.
“It’s not racist at all,” he said Wednesday. “It comes from China, that’s why.”
By: Teo Armus
1:26 AM: European Central Bank launches $820 billion emergency bond-buying program
The European Central Bank announced emergency measures to try to deflect the massive economic downturn caused by the coronavirus, including an $820 billion emergency bond-buying program as business grinds to a halt across Europe.
“Extraordinary times require extraordinary action,” said Christine Lagarde, president of the bank. “There are no limits to our commitment to the euro. We are determined to use the full potential of our tools, within our mandate.”
The bank said the measures to try to stave off economic turmoil would continue through the “crisis phase” of the outbreak.
Policy makers globally have been stepping up their response to the economic turmoil sparked by the pandemic. With businesses shuttered across a swath of Europe and households fearful of an extended downturn, the bond-buying program aims to push down borrowing costs and calm volatile markets.
By: Siobhán O'Grady
12:35 AM: Negotiations intensify on Capitol Hill over massive stimulus legislation
The Trump administration and congressional leaders rushed on Wednesday to assemble a massive stimulus package aimed at preventing the U.S. Economy from plummeting into its worst collapse since the Great Depression, as fears about the coronavirus pandemic brought much of American life to a standstill.
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The administration’s $1 trillion proposed rescue plan, which forms the basis for fast-moving negotiations on Capitol Hill, includes sending two large checks to many Americans and devoting $300 billion toward helping small businesses avoid mass layoffs. Priorities laid out in a two-page Treasury Department document also include $50 billion to help rescue the airline industry and $150 billion to prop up other sectors, which could include hotels.
The White House is vetting these proposals with Senate GOP leaders before engaging more fully with Democrats, so the package is certain to evolve in coming days. Democrats, meanwhile, are eyeing their own priorities, largely aiming to shore up safety-net programs and the public health infrastructure, as well as send money directly to American taxpayers, while shunning corporate bailouts. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) proposed on Wednesday having the Federal Reserve send $2,000 to every American adult and $1,000 to every American child until the crisis ends.
Slideshow by photo services
Meanwhile, President Trump has signed into law a bill to ensure paid leave benefits to many Americans as part of the broader proposed stimulus.
The emerging government stimulus package could be unprecedented in its size and velocity, dwarfing the $800 billion stimulus law passed during the Obama administration and the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program enacted during the Bush administration. All told, between several legislative packages advanced on Capitol Hill and other actions the government has taken, the White House is pushing an economic plan that is “over $2 trillion and counting” to try and arrest the coronavirus’s economic wrecking ball, a senior administration officials said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal details of the planning.
Read more here.
By: Erica Werner, Jeff Stein and Mike DeBonis
12:33 AM: While coronavirus ravages Iran, U.S. Sanctions squeeze it
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Live Updates On The Coronavirus Pandemic |
A firefighter uses a fog machine to disinfect an office inside the city hall building following the outbreak of coronavirus in Tehran on Wednesday.
Iran has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus, and things may get far worse. On Tuesday, a state television reporter who is also a medical doctor warned that the death toll could be in the “millions” as worshipers forced their way into two Shiite shrines closed by the outbreak.
That’s not idle speculation. The death toll in Iran from covid-19 infections passed 1,000 on Wednesday after the largest single-day rise in the number of deaths since Iran’s outbreak began. Deutsche Welle reported this week that researchers at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran created a computer simulator to analyze scenarios.
Under current circumstances, the researchers said, infections would not peak until late May. The death toll could be as high as 3.5 million.
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Mask for coronavirus
That figure might seem enough to stop anyone in their tracks. But this week, the United States announced that it would be expanding its sanctions on Iran, as well as on entities that aided the Iranian government in its trade in petrochemicals and other restricted activities. It’s a strategy that worries allies and enemies alike.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Britain was privately pressing the United States to ease sanctions on Iran amid the crisis, while China has publicly called on the United States to lift its Iran sanctions.
But the United States, which reimposed sanctions on Iran after President Trump unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear agreement with Iran and other nations in 2018, has refused; on Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for Iran to release U.S. Citizens being held in the country “as a humanitarian gesture, given the risk that is posed” by the coronavirus pandemic.
Read more here.
By: Adam Taylor
12:32 AM: While the world grinds to a halt, Apple pumps out a new iPad Pro and MacBook Air
Agostini/Invision/AP An Apple store on New York's Fifth Avenue is closed due to coronavirus concerns on Wednesday.
Apple on Wednesday announced two new computers and a new iPad, a test of how well it can manufacture, ship and sell products during the coronavirus outbreak.
Like companies across the United States, the consumer electronics giant has been disrupted by the virus. Its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters are in the middle of a shelter-in-place zone, it moved its June WWDC developers conference online, and it shut down its hundreds of retail stores outside of “greater China” until at least March 27.
But Apple is trying to leverage its size, power and cash reserves to continue to ship and sell products during the outbreak. Some of the new devices it announced Wednesday will be available to ship as early as next week.
Manufacturing experts say the new products were likely impacted less severely than products scheduled for release later in the year. That’s because the early stages of designing and manufacturing the product probably took place many months before the coronavirus outbreak.
Apple declined to comment.
Read more here.
By: Reed Albergotti and Heather Kelly
12:32 AM: GOP senator says only small percentage of population might die of coronavirus
ISen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), speaks to reporters in Washington on Jan. 27.
As President Trump cast the nation’s battle against the coronavirus as war, one high-ranking Republican senator seemed to play down the gravity of the pandemic, saying the number of Americans who might die would be 3.4 percent of the population at most.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, called covid-19 a “nasty disease” that is devastating to those who contract it.
“Getting coronavirus is not a death sentence except for maybe no more than 3.4 percent of our population . . . Probably far less,” Johnson said in an interview with his home-state newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, published Wednesday. “We don’t shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways.”
If 3.4 percent of the U.S. Population perished, that would mean millions of fatalities and would be 10 times the U.S. Deaths in every war that the United States has fought.
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