Category: Corona Virus

The fight against Covid-19 is a full-on war. China seems to have won the first battle. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Japan have also chalked up visible successes in mitigating the outbreak, no doubt owing to their experiences in dealing with the 2003 Sars epidemic. Europe and the US, on the other hand, are only just awakening from their illusions of invulnerability. As a result, the epidemic is now raging across the west.

The hardest-hit western country so far is Italy, which has particularly strong economic ties to China. Northern Italy is the new Wuhan (the Chinese megacity where the coronavirus first emerged). With its health system overwhelmed, the Italian government has slammed on the brakes, shutting down the retail economy and quarantining the entire country. All shops except pharmacies and grocery stores are closed. People have been instructed to stay at home and may enter public places only for necessary shopping or commuting to work. Many public and private debt obligations (such as housing rents and interest payments) have been suspended. Italy is attempting to slow down the economic clock until the coronavirus dies out.

Meanwhile, although Germany has had very few coronavirus deaths so far, the number of infections is now skyrocketing as quickly as anywhere else. In response to the crisis, the German government has introduced a short-time work allowance and granted generous credit assistance, guarantees or tax deferrals for distressed companies. Public events across the country have been cancelledand schoolchildren have been told to stay at home. And Austria, for its part, has long since closed its border with Italy. Austrian schools, universities and most shops have also been closed. Initially, France pursued a more relaxed approach, but it has now also shuttered its schools, restaurants and shops, as has Spain. Denmark, Poland and the Czech Republic have closed their borders with Germany.

The US president, Donald Trump, has declared a national state of emergency. Congress has approved an $8.3bn (6.7bn) emergency programme to fund efforts to contain the epidemic. Even larger sums are awaiting passage through the Senate. The federal government has also barred foreign travellers, first from China and Iran, and now from Europe.

Globally, not all responses to the crisis have been well targeted, and others have not been strong enough. Most worryingly, some governments have convinced themselves that they can merely slow down the spread of the virus, rather than taking the steps needed to halt it entirely. The predictable overcrowding of hospitals in many heavily affected areas has already exposed the folly of such complacency.

On the economic front, a severe recession can no longer be avoided, and some economists are already calling for governments to introduce measures to shore up aggregate demand. But that recommendation is inadequate, given that the global economy is suffering from an unprecedented supply shock. People are not at work because they are sick or quarantined. In such a situation, demand stimulus will merely boost inflation, potentially leading to stagflation (weak or falling GDP growth alongside rising prices), as happened during the 1970s oil crisis, when another important production input was in short supply.

Worse, measures targeting the demand side could even be counterproductive, because they would encourage interpersonal contact, thus undermining the effort to limit transmission of the virus. What good would it do to give Italians money for shopping trips, when the government closes the shops and forces everyone to stay at home?

The same arguments apply to liquidity support. The world is already awash in liquidity, with nominal interest rates close to or below zero nearly everywhere. More interest-rate cuts into deep-red territory might help stock markets, but they also could trigger a run on cash.

The brutal decline in economic activities that epidemiologists say is required make crashing stock markets inevitable, given that central banks policy of excessively cheap money and pooled liabilities caused an unsustainable bubble. Because they used up their ammunition at inopportune moments, central banks bear responsibility for the bubble that has now burst.

What is really needed are fiscal measures to save companies and banks from bankruptcy, so that they can recover quickly once the pandemic is over. Policymakers should be considering various forms of tax relief and public guarantees to help firms borrow if necessary. But the most promising option is a short-time work allowance. This approach, which has been tried and tested in Germany, compensates for the underemployment of the workforce through the same channels that are already used for unemployment insurance. Better yet, it costs hardly anything, because it prevents the losses that would follow from increased real unemployment. All countries should be replicating this part of Germanys policy to prevent job losses.

But, most important, all governments need to follow China in taking direct action against Covid-19. Nobody on the frontlines should be constrained by a lack of funds. Hospital intensive-care units must be expanded; temporary hospitals must be built; and respirators, protective gear and masks must be mass-produced and made available to all who need them. Beyond that, public health authorities must be given the resources and funds they need to disinfect factories and other public spaces. Hygiene is the order of the day. Large-scale testing of the population is particularly important. The identification of each case can save multiple lives. Surrendering to the pandemic simply is not an option.

Hans-Werner Sinn is professor of economics at Munich University. He was president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research and serves on the German economy ministrys dvisory ouncil.

Project Syndicate

More here:

How best to fight the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic - The Guardian

Nearly everyone in the US will be affected in some way by the COVID-19 pandemic, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus by stress and anxiety, event closures, or the illness itself. Theres cause for concern: the disease can be deadly, and the outbreak in the US is likely to continue to get worse.

Theres still a lot that scientists and doctors dont know about the new coronavirus and the illness it causes. With three months of data, though, it appears that around 80 percent of people who are infected have a mild or moderate illness, around 15 percent have severe disease (which requires hospitalization), and around 5 percent are critical (and go into respiratory or organ failure). Around 3 percent of people with confirmed cases of the infection in China died, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Different groups of people, though, are more likely to fall into the severe or critical categories than others:

The elderly: People who are over the age of 60 are at a higher risk of developing a severe case of COVID-19, according to data collected by the WHO. The highest death rate is in people above the age of 80. Around 15 percent of people in that age group died from the disease in one set of Chinese patients. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that people who are older stay away from crowds and avoid nonessential travel.

Children: Children, on the other hand, dont appear to get as sick. Very few develop the disease in the first place, and if they do, only a small group develop severe or critical disease. No young children have died from the virus in China.

Researchers are still trying to figure out why thats the case. It may be that childrens lungs are less susceptible to infection or that their immune systems are stronger. Children might carry the virus around, though, and pass it between each other and then to their parents and caregivers. Thats why kids should still wash their hands as much as adults. Its also one of the reasons why areas where the virus is spreading are closing down schools.

People with chronic conditions: People who have underlying health conditions like high blood pressure, kidney disease, cancer, or diabetes are also more likely to get very sick or die from COVID-19. Around 9 percent of people with diabetes who contracted the virus died, for example, as did around 8 percent of people with high blood pressure. The CDC also recommends that people in this group avoid crowds, stick close to home, and stock up on medication for their condition if theyre able to.

Everyone else: Most people who are young or healthy and who contract the virus dont get severely ill. But if you have the virus, even if you dont get that sick, you might come into contact with people who are more at risk and pass the virus to them. Thats why its so important to stay home if youre not feeling well. Minimizing the number of people each sick person infects is low-tech, but its the best way to slow the spread of a disease like COVID-19. Its the goal of policies like school closures and event cancellations and why people who might have been exposed to the illness are asked to isolate themselves.

Not everyone can work from home, stop taking public transportation, or skip large gatherings, though. If you can do those things even though they may seem silly and even if there have not been many cases identified in your area you can help blunt the impact of the pandemic.

Follow this link:

Heres whos most at risk from the novel coronavirus - The Verge

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Its Monday. Because of the coronavirus outbreak, officials are urging a reduction in gatherings. As such, we are temporarily suspending our event listings.

Weather: Bright in the morning, then building clouds; high in the mid-40s.

Alternate-side parking: In effect until April 9 (Holy Thursday).

New York Citys public schools will begin shutting down this week, Governor Cuomo announced yesterday afternoon, in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Hours later, Mayor de Blasio announced that he would soon order all bars and restaurants to close, limiting them to takeout and delivery.

Mr. de Blasio said that the schools would be closed today for all students and staff, but that teachers would be asked to report to work later in the week for training on remote learning. By March 23, the city will move to remote learning, and the school system will be closed except for several dozen buildings that will be used as learning centers to support the children of essential city workers like health care employees.

Schools will be closed until at least April 20, but could stay closed for longer, Mr. de Blasio said.

City school buildings will remain open this week for children to pick up food, and then the city will find alternative sites for students who need food to receive it. Students who do not have computers at home will be lent laptops, and the city will work on helping students who do not have internet access get online.

[Read more on the decision to close the citys schools, and find the latest coverage on nytimes.com.]

Around 10 p.m., Mr. de Blasio issued a statement saying that he was closing restaurants and bars, effective Tuesday at 9 a.m. He said his executive order would limit restaurants, bars and cafes to takeout and delivery. Nightclubs, movie theaters, small theater houses and concert venues must all close.

This is not a decision I make lightly, he said. These places are part of the heart and soul of our city. They are part of what it means to be a New Yorker. But our city is facing an unprecedented threat, and we must respond with a wartime mentality.

[Everything is a black hole: Mounting dread in the age of coronavirus.]

Mr. Cuomo called yesterday for private businesses to voluntarily close and have their employees work from home. And Mr. de Blasio ordered hospitals in the city to cancel all elective surgery, postponed an election for the Queens borough president and closed city senior centers.

The states presidential primary election could be moved from April 28 to June 23, the date of another scheduled statewide vote, officials said yesterday.

State courts will postpone many criminal cases indefinitely and stop performing all but the most essential functions to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, officials said.

In addition, all eviction proceedings and pending eviction orders have been suspended statewide until further notice.

New York State had 732 confirmed coronavirus cases officials said. The largest concentration of cases was in New York City, where 329 people had tested positive. Of the six deaths in the state from the virus, five were in the city.

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Want more news? Check out our full coverage.

The Mini Crossword: Here is todays puzzle.

Orders to marijuana delivery services have reportedly seen a sharp increase since the coronavirus outbreak. [Complex]

Amazon is buying the former Lord & Taylor flagship building in Midtown for $1.15 billion. [The Street]

A Brooklyn man was reunited with two police officers who saved his life as an infant nearly 30 years ago. [New York Post]

The Timess Rebecca Halleck writes:

In the 17th century, Brooklyn was Breuckelen. Harlem was Haarlem. And Wall Street was an actual wall to keep the English from marching south on the Dutch colony of New Netherland.

Before the Treaty of Westminster in 1674, Britain and the Netherlands had spent two decades locked in a global game of capture the colony. As part of the pacts terms, the Dutch surrendered Manhattan to the English and in exchange legitimized their control of several islands and other territories around the world, including the sugar-rich Suriname.

Several readers recently asked The Times what inspired the Dutch to trade Manhattan for Suriname and if there were remnants of Dutch history remaining in New York City today. Their questions are part of a project from The Times that invites readers to join in our reporting process.

Though it may seem like there was a simple swap of land, that would be an oversimplification, according to Charles Gehring, the director of the New Netherland Research Center in Albany.

The English had controlled Manhattan for nine years, and mostly left alone a Dutch settlement on the southern tip of the island, before the summer of 1673. Then, 600 Dutch marines sailed into New York Harbor, emboldening Dutch settlers to take up arms against English troops.

The Dutch emerged victorious, renaming the whole island New Netherland. They signed it away 14 months later.

The Dutch probably saw the writing on the wall, Mr. Gehring said. They were basically surrounded by the English colonies in the North and the tobacco farms in the South.

But there were also economic factors at play: The supply of beaver fur that initially brought the Dutch to the Hudson Valley was dwindling, while the demand for sugar, a crop grown in tropical climates like Surinames, had skyrocketed.

Centuries later, here are four places you can see traces of New Netherland:

The Lovelace Tavern on Pearl Street: It was accidentally discovered by excavators searching for Stadt Huys, New Netherlands City Hall, which was built in 1641.

The Schenck Houses at the Brooklyn Museum: The older of the pair was built by Jan Martense Schenck around 1675, and it survived in its original location for 275 years before being disassembled and reconstructed inside the museum in 1952.

Wyckoff House in Brooklyn: The one-room house was constructed in 1652 and is thought to be the oldest building in the city. It has a packed-dirt floor and was the home of Pieter and Grietje Claesen and their 11 children.

The Dyckman farmhouse: The house was built in 1784, after the original farmstead was destroyed during the Revolutionary War. The site was once the centerpiece of a farm covering 250 acres of Upper Manhattan.

Its Monday know your history.

Dear Diary:

I was on my way to meet some friends for lunch. I was wearing my green dress with white polka dots. A young woman stopped me as I left the subway station.

That is a great dress, she said.

I was out to dinner one night at a local restaurant. I was wearing the polka dot dress again. When the waitress brought the check, there was a note at the bottom.

Best dress of the day, it said.

Another time, two men complimented me on my polka dots as I was leaving church one Sunday.

I bought a new red dress with white polka dots. I was wearing it one night while waiting for the light to change on West End Avenue. A car that was turning slowed down, and the window rolled down.

Love the dress, the woman who was driving shouted as she passed by.

That was when I realized that polka dots rule.

Catherine Henihan

New York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com.

Were experimenting with the format of New York Today. What would you like to see more (or less) of? Post a comment or email us: nytoday@nytimes.com.

See more here:

Closing Down the Schools Over Coronavirus - The New York Times

Since inflation is a composite indicator of many prices, the few items that are going up because of supply bottlenecks and rising demand (including medical supplies and food, because of stockpiling) are not sufficiently significant to push up the overall inflation numbers, which will remain subdued. We could be heading for deflation, but if the government gives working people a tax cut and provides transfers to those losing their gig and other incomes, as it should do, that would sustain demand.

Justin Le, Mountain View, Calif.: How will this affect Generations Y and Z? Millennials are scarred by years of economic downturn, job insecurity and financial instability. Were just now recovering from losing money and opportunity as a result of the Great Recession. My fear is that this coming recession will cause permanent damage to our finances and spending power. And that Generation Z will suffer, as younger millennials did, with high student-loan balances while they enter a hostile and competitive job market.

I.G.: You are right to be concerned about this. The elderly are becoming a larger share of the population and the vote. The median age in the country is rising about two years every decade, because of increasing life expectancy and falling fertility. Given the rising costs of retirement and health care, this causes growing strains on family, state and other budgets. There will be less money to transfer to children, and as life expectancy increases, children will be older and older before they inherit anything from their parents, if indeed they are lucky enough to have parents who have sufficient wealth and savings. Economic crises exacerbate these tendencies, as do pandemics.

Lincoln Shlensky, Victoria, British Columbia: Is this epidemic a product of our times in some unique way, or is it just that the botched response to it is characteristic of the new political landscape you mention in your piece?

I.G.: The pandemic is a product of our times in the speed and intensity of its rapid spread. The super spreaders of the good aspects of globalization, such as major airports, which facilitate business and leisure travel, are also the super spreaders of the bads, like disease. The rapid growth of cities and rising incomes in many places is also relatively recent, so more people live in concentrated centers close to major hubs.

There have been pandemics before, and the Spanish flu of 1918 is estimated to have infected around a third of the worlds population and led to the death of more than 50 million people. This time is different in terms of how quickly and how far the pandemic can spread quickly. This is a feature of the growing complexity and interdependence of the world, but it also reflects the failure of politics to understand how the systems have developed and how to respond. The failure of politicians to understand and act on this, even after the financial crisis of 2008 and the growing evidence of climate change and other risks, is what worries me most, as I discuss in my books The Butterfly Defect, which looks at systemic risk, and Age of Discovery, which compares current challenges with previous ones.

Thomas Marini, Aptos, Calif.: I was mesmerized by a Times animated graphic of airline flights over a map of China. As the effects of the virus on air travel kicked in, the red swarm of flights dwindled into a scattering of individual red airplanes. It occurred to me that the coronavirus pandemic could inadvertently have a large impact on carbon emissions. Does the coronavirus, with its collateral damage to the world economy and corresponding reduction in worldwide carbon emissions, give us a model for the kind of tremendous dislocation and change that will be necessary to save us from climate catastrophe?

Original post:

The U.S. Economy Cant Withstand the Coronavirus by Itself - The New York Times

Coronavirus testing data has been spotty and not easily available, especially in the United States. Based on official government sources, heres how testing efforts in the United States compare with those in Italy and South Korea.

Delays in testing in the United States have set back the nations response to the pandemic, even though its first case was discovered around the same time that South Koreas was. But part of the problem in the United States has also been gaps created by the way the state and federal agencies report the data.

An internet community effort, called the COVID Tracking Project, is attempting to provide a fuller picture of testing in the United States. According to the tracker which collects information directly from state health departments, local news reports and live news conferences at least 41,000 people have been tested in the United States, much higher than official C.D.C. figures.

It has been difficult to track reliable testing data in the United States for a number of reasons. Data from the Centers for Disease Control, which lags several days, reports the number of specimens tested, not the number of people multiple specimens can be tested from each person. And some states report only positive results, not negative ones, making it hard to know the total number tested.

The COVID Tracking Projects data, however, lays bare just how behind the United States has been in responding to the pandemic, which by Monday night had sickened more than 178,000 people worldwide, according to official accounts.

Recent data shows that about 125 people per million have been tested in the United States far fewer than most other countries where data is available.

Through intensive testing and monitoring, South Korea has managed to slow the growth of new cases. Health officials there tracked down people with symptoms and even set up drive-through testing, allowing at least 10,000 people to be tested per day. Government websites and mobile apps disclosed how many people had been tested and where.

Italy has also tested aggressively for the virus, which could help explain why its total confirmed cases are higher than every other country in Europe. Health officials in Lombardy Italys hardest-hit region initially carried out swab tests on those who were sick as well as those who came into contact with infected people, even if they had no symptoms.

Until now, testing in the United States has been done manually, with individual labs performing only 40 to 60 tests a day. Testing has ramped up in recent days on Monday, the COVID Tracking Projects count of reported tests rose by 13,000, suggesting a surge in the nations testing.

Also on Monday, federal officials said they were moving ahead with plans to set up more drive-through testing centers around the country and to speed the processing of tests by commercial labs. By the end of the week, officials said that 1.9 million tests should be available.

Read more from the original source:

U.S. Lags in Coronavirus Testing After Slow Response to Outbreak - The New York Times

Coronavirus science and news

Updated March 14 with new vaccine information.

COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, has spread to every continent except Antarctica. Not too long after the virus was first discovered at the end of December, labs turned their sights toward treatment.

Currently, however, there is no cure for this coronavirus, and treatments are based on the kind of care given for influenza (seasonal flu) and other severe respiratory illnesses, known as "supportive care," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These treatments essentially treat the symptoms, which often in the case of COVID-19 involve fever, cough and shortness of breath. In mild cases, this might simply mean rest and fever-reducing medications such as acetaminophen (Tylenol) for comfort.

In hospitals, doctors and nurses are sometimes treating COVID-19 patients with the antiviral drug oseltamivir, or Tamiflu, which seems to suppress the virus' reproduction in at least some cases. This is somewhat surprising, Michigan Tech virologist Ebenezer Tumban told Live Science, as Tamiflu was designed to target an enzyme on the influenza virus, not on coronaviruses. The National Institutes of Health has begun a clinical trial at the University of Nebraska Medical Center to test the antiviral remdesivir for COVID-19, the agency announced Feb. 25. In China, doctors are also testing an array of other antivirals originally designed to treat Ebola and HIV, Nature Biotechnology reported.

In cases in which pneumonia inhibits breathing, treatment involves ventilation with oxygen. Ventilators blow air into the lungs through a mask or a tube inserted directly into the windpipe. A New England Journal of Medicine study of 1,099 hospitalized patients with the coronavirus in China found that 41.3% needed supplemental oxygen and 2.3% needed invasive mechanical ventilation. Glucocorticoids were given to 18.6% of patients, a treatment often used to reduce inflammation and help open airways during respiratory disease.

There is no vaccine for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Scientists are working to develop one, Hilary Marston, a medical officer and policy advisor at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said in a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health webcast on Monday (March 2).

As of March 14, doctors in Seattle are recruiting volunteers to participate in a clinical trial for an experimental vaccine for COVID-19 that's being developed by the biotechnology company Moderna Therapeutics. However, biomedical ethicists are concerned that a critical step in vaccine development was skipped. In order to fast-track the vaccine, the researchers didnt first show that it triggered an immune response in animals, a step that is normally required before human testing, Live Science previously reported.

The researchers did begin testing the experimental vaccine on lab mice on the same day they started recruiting people for the clinical trial, Stat News reported. The mice did show an immune response that was similar to the one triggered by an experimental vaccine for a related coronavirus MERS-CoV. (Vaccines work by priming your immune system to recognize a virus like SARS-CoV-2 as an enemy and put up an attack against it.)

Related: How this experimental vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 would work

Even so, doctors aren't sure how much this "fast-tracking" will speed up the time it takes to develop and bring such a vaccine to market.

Before this experimental vaccine was in the works, Marston had said not to expect a vaccine in the near term. "If everything moves as quickly as possible, the soonest that it could possibly be is about one-and-a-half to two years. That still might be very optimistic," Marston said.

The novel coronavirus, now called SARS-CoV-2, causes the disease COVID-19. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31, 2019, though it seems to have been spreading well before that date. Since then, it has spread to every continent except Antarctica. The death rate appears to be higher than that of the seasonal flu, but it also varies by location as well as a person's age, underlying health conditions, among other factors. For instance, in Hubei Province, the epicenter of the outbreak, the death rate reached 2.9%, whereas it was just 0.4% in other provinces in China, according to a study published Feb. 18 in the China CDC Weekly.

Scientists aren't certain where the virus originated, though they know that coronaviruses (which also include SARS and MERS) are passed between animals and humans. Research comparing the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 with a viral database suggests it originated in bats. Since no bats were sold at the seafood market in Wuhan at the diseases epicenter, researchers suggest an intermediate animal, possibly the pangolin (an endangered mammal) is responsible for the transmission to humans. There are currently no treatments for the disease, but labs are working on various types of treatments, including a vaccine.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Is there a cure for the new coronavirus? - Livescience.com

SACRAMENTO Across California, as the coronavirus marches through communities, life as everyone understands it in the Golden State is changing dramatically, hour by hour, minute by minute.

The state has begun enacting extreme measures to halt the coronavirus outbreak. On Monday, seven counties around Silicon Valley, one of the hardest-hit areas in the nation, announced a shelter-at-home order that begins Tuesday, which Mayor Sam Liccardo of San Jose said was the strongest directive yet in the United States. Residents, including those living in San Francisco, were told not to go out for three weeks except to meet essential needs.

A day earlier, Gov. Gavin Newsom had told all residents older than 65 to stay in their homes. He called for the closure of bars, nightclubs and wineries, and restrictions on restaurants. He banned visits to hospitals and nursing homes unless patients were on the edge of death. He announced plans to buy hotels to house some of the states 150,000 homeless people.

For days, the virus has consumed the states leaders. In the capital, Mr. Newsom huddled around a conference table with his advisers, scrambling to sort out how 6 million public school children would do if they were not in class.

In the heart of Silicon Valley, Mr. Liccardo raced down the 101 freeway dialing technology executives, begging them to contribute to a fund to prevent people from falling into homelessness.

And in the fields of the Central Valley, the nations breadbasket, Miguel Arias, Fresnos City Council president, inspected the tight living quarters of farmworkers mattresses stacked up in a garage and recoiled at the thought of what would happen if, or more likely when, the virus spreads there.

California, Americas most populous state, with an economy bigger than the United Kingdoms, has been remarkably resilient since the Great Recession, powered by technology, agriculture and Hollywood. No one knows how far the mounting toll from the virus will climb, but California is already one of the hardest-hit states, and stands as one of the places with the most to lose.

The shelter-in-place order announced on Monday, which goes into effect on Tuesday, is expected to disrupt life for millions of residents in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties. The city of Berkeley also issued the same order.

This is not the moment for half-measures, and history wont forgive us for waiting an hour more, Mr. Liccardo said.

Residents are being ordered to stay home except for essential reasons, which include buying food; people can also leave for outdoor activities including walking, hiking or running and caring for a pet.

Mayor Joe Goethals of San Mateo put it this way: Im asking people to go home with their families and to stay there until they are told otherwise.

Mayor London Breed of San Francisco said necessary government offices and essential stores would be allowed to remain open. The order, she said in a Twitter post, would be effective at midnight.

In a state very familiar with disasters, from wildfires to earthquakes, the leaders of California found themselves in recent days confronting something altogether different, with no playbook to lean on.

[Want to get our daily newsletter California Today by email? Heres the sign-up.]

The state that has pioneered the technology that allows people to connect remotely is quickly realizing how much human contact is important not only for the economy but also for the well-being of its residents.

In the time it takes for an email to drop in an inbox, or a news alert to flash across an iPhone screen, school districts, one after another, were closing. Movie productions were shutting down, premieres canceled. At the ports, terminals were shuttered, as fewer ships, loaded with consumer goods and parts for American factories, set sail from China. And exports, poultry and oranges, were piling up on the docks.

Even Disneyland was closing its gates, and the ski lifts stopped running at resorts.

With the sense of crisis growing by the minute, the governors office was confronting a dizzying number of problems.

One moment it was how to prevent renters from being evicted and homeowners from being foreclosed on.

Another, how to expand the states capacity to test for the virus.

And the school closings, designed to enforce social distancing and halt the spread of the virus, raised a number of difficult questions.

In shirt sleeves, and as aides came in and out of the room with news updates, the governor considered how to feed low-income children who rely on free or reduced-price lunches. What about child care for parents who cannot work from home, especially health care workers who are needed at hospitals to treat sick patients?

This is real, Mr. Newsom said while managing the many crises. This is raw.

Mr. Newsom has said he expected the economic damage from the crisis to be worse than the aftermath of 9/11 but not as bad as the financial crisis of 2008, but those assessments are changing by the day. Yet with a $21 billion budget surplus, plus a rainy-day fund of close to $16 billion, Mr. Newsom said he was confident the state could manage the economic fallout from the crisis. We are well positioned from a cash perspective to get through this, he said. More perhaps than any other state.

But at the ground level, the pain is coming fast. Drivers have been laid off and forced to sell their trucks. Those who are still working are putting off oil changes and maintenance to stay afloat.

Were picking and choosing which bills to pay, said Gio Marz, 30, a truck driver who hauls containers from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to warehouses in Southern California.

Restaurants are closing, and real estate agents say buyers are pulling their offers because sagging stock portfolios have left them spooked and shriveled the amount of cash they have for down payments.

Even the most optimistic economists are forecasting a recession. This is the first time in 10 years that Ive thought, OK, this is the thing that could finally tip us into recession, said Chris Thornberg, founding partner of Beacon Economics, a consulting firm.

Fallout from the coronavirus has been swift across the state.

At one of Mayor Liccardos favorite Chinese restaurants, Hunan Taste, in San Jose, only two of the 15 tables had customers at a time when the restaurant would normally be overflowing with city hall workers, lawyers and sheriffs deputies. The owner had already laid off two kitchen workers. At an empty Mexican restaurant Mr. Liccardo visited, the head of a local Latino business organization told him business owners were weeks away from shutting down. A nearby fitness studio was empty, and classes were canceled.

This is grim, Mr. Liccardo said. This looks worse than 2008.

Later, in a nearly empty City Hall, he met with three aides, all sitting several feet apart in accordance with the countys social distancing guidelines, and discussed converting school gymnasiums and the hulking city convention center into isolation centers for the sick.

The mayor estimates that 8 percent of city revenues have vanished, blowing up plans for a balanced budget and raising the likelihood of cuts to city programs.

Miles away, in the farming community of Mendota in the Central Valley, Maria Martinezs home, a single-story ranch with brick and stucco siding and solar panels on the roof, would seem an ideal place to hunker down and keep a safe distance from others.

But peek inside, and several single mattresses sit in the garage. Like many of her neighbors, Ms. Martinez, a 57-year-old immigrant from El Salvador, rents out beds for $300 a month to the farmworkers who cycle through town. She crams them in wherever she can find space sometimes there are 20 renters living in 1,100 square feet.

Mr. Arias, the Fresno official who was visiting her, worried the cramped living environment, pervasive around town, would fuel a spread of the coronavirus if it reaches the community.

Theyre living on top of each other, he said. Theres no way that they can honor the six-foot social distance. Thats the most dangerous part.

At La Nayarit, a grocery store and wire transfer operation just outside Mendotas main commercial district, the owners use Clorox wipes on all their counters and door handles at least once every two hours. One of the owners, Baudelia Fuentes, 73, microwaved dollar bills on a recent afternoon, hoping that would disinfect them.

The most anxiety-provoking question around town is, what happens if the virus spreads among farmworkers?

Oh, were done, said Rolando Castro, the mayor of Mendota.

It would threaten not only farm operations, but also the economy of a town with five dollar stores and where 42 percent of families live in poverty. There will not be money to spend in the local pool hall, or at the taco truck across the street. Or at the auto mechanic shop that Mr. Castro owns.

As a sense of crisis convulsed California and the nation, tourists in Southern California enjoyed their last few hours at Disneyland, which was closed as of Saturday. The park has closed only twice before at times of national crisis: after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The weather was overcast, and crowds were noticeably smaller than usual. The line for the popular Space Mountain ride was just over an hour, and the wait for the Matterhorn ride was about 30 minutes. On a normal spring weekday, waits for those rides can be twice as long.

If Im going to get corona, I might as well get it at Disneyland instead of work, said Sami Nielsen while strolling down the parks main street. She traveled to California from Arizona with friends to celebrate her 27th birthday.

After a series of meetings late Friday, Mr. Newsom signed an executive order requiring the state to continue to send money to local districts to pay for distance learning and school meals and to help supervise children while they are out of school.

I am deeply concerned about the capacity of these communities that are shutting down the schools already to meet the needs of their children and parents, he said.

The terrifying backdrop to all of this is the steadily growing number of confirmed infections over the weekend the number of infections in California reached 380 and the certainty they will rise sharply as testing becomes more widespread.

Tests are going to substantially increase, the governor said. Positive rates will substantially increase. The anxiety and concern about anticipating the publics reaction knowing that will heighten anxiety is something we are all trying to manage.

Tim Arango reported from Sacramento, Thomas Fuller from San Jose, John Eligon from Mendota, and Conor Dougherty from Oakland. Louis Keene contributed from Anaheim, and Joe Purtell from Elk Grove.

Continued here:

Shelter in Place: Some Residents in Bay Area Ordered to Stay Home - The New York Times

California called for all people 65 and older to shelter in their homes. Massachusetts moved to ban dining in at bars and restaurants beginning Tuesday, effectively closing Bostons bars for St. Patricks Day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended no gatherings with 50 people or more be held for the next eight weeks. And Puerto Rico set some of the strictest measures in the United States, imposing a 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew and closing nonessential businesses.

As the number of coronavirus cases in the United States climbed to over 3,100 across 49 states on Sunday, and after weeks of conflicting signals from the federal government, state and local officials across the nation began enacting stricter measures to try to slow the viruss spread.

Massachusetts said that beginning on Tuesday bars and restaurants would be able to offer takeout and delivery only. The state also banned gatherings of more than 25 people and ordered all public and private schools to close Tuesday.

I realize these measures are unprecedented, Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts said Sunday night, but were asking our residents to take a deep breath and understand the rationale behind this guidance.

The state of Ohio ordered restaurants and bars to close as of 9 p.m. Sunday, but said it would allow food to be carried out and delivered. Marylands governor ordered casinos, racetracks and betting facilities to close indefinitely.

Even as public health experts were publicly urging social distancing, Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, went on Fox News and encouraged healthy people to dine out at restaurants. Likely you can get in easily, he said. Lets not hurt the working people in this country that are relying on wages and tips to keep their small business going.

And Oklahomas governor was criticized on social media after sharing a selfie on Twitter on Saturday of him with his children having dinner at a packed food hall in the heart of Oklahoma City. In the since-deleted tweet, he captioned the photo with, Eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans at the @CollectiveOKC. Its packed tonight! #supportlocal #OklaProud.

The scope of the public health crisis became even clearer over the weekend as officials in Louisiana, New York and Virginia reported their first deaths tied to the coronavirus. Only West Virginia was without a single diagnosis.

In the Omaha, Neb., area, officials reported the first known instance of community spread. In Illinois, a nursing facility where a woman tested positive was placed on lockdown. And in Pittsburgh, where the first local cases were announced on Saturday, city leaders urged bars to limit the number of people they allowed inside.

New York City officials advised all members of the United Nations diplomatic community that they should assume they have been exposed to the coronavirus, should practice the maximum-possible social distancing and should not expect any special accommodations if they are sickened, according to a memo of a teleconference briefing shared by diplomats.

Two American emergency-room doctors one in Washington State and one in New Jersey were in critical condition with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, the American College of Emergency Physicians said on Saturday. Dr. William Jaquis, the organizations president, said it was unclear whether the doctor in Washington, who is in his 40s, had contracted the virus at the hospital. The physician in Paterson, N.J., who is 70, had been leading his hospitals emergency preparedness.

The authorities in Texas began preparing judges for the possibility that they may have to be ready to order the quarantine of coronavirus patients who refuse to isolate themselves.

Despite the clearing out of grocery-store shelves in recent days, the nations biggest retailers, dairy farmers and meat producers said the food supply chain remains intact and has been ramping up to meet the stockpiling brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

At a news conference on Sunday afternoon, President Trump said he had had a phone call with the chief executives of several food suppliers, who said they were committed to staying open through the pandemic. He said the call was very reassuring and said there was no need to hoard essential food supplies.

You dont have to buy so much, take it easy, just relax, Mr. Trump said. Were doing great, it all will pass.

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Tracking the Impact of the Coronavirus on the U.S. - The New York Times

The coronavirus is raising a lot of questions for parents, like what does it mean to work from home while parenting young children? Westend61/ Getty Images hide caption

The coronavirus is raising a lot of questions for parents, like what does it mean to work from home while parenting young children?

Updated on March 16 at 1 p.m. ET to reflect new guidance on play dates during school closures. This is an evolving story and guidance from health authorities is evolving quickly.

We are education reporters by day and parents by night (and day). But, in recent weeks, our two worlds have collided, with parents and educators equally concerned about the spread of COVID-19. So here's a quick rundown of some of the great questions we've heard from listeners and readers and the answers we've been able to explore in our reporting. For even more, you can listen to this new episode of NPR's Life Kit podcast.

Q. What's the single most important thing we can do to protect our kids?

Make sure they understand that hand-washing isn't optional. And that means showing them how to do it properly: using soap, warm water and time. Washing should take 20 seconds, which means you may need to help them find a song they can sing (in their heads, maybe twice) like the ABCs or "Happy Birthday" songs. Be sure they wash whenever they come in from outside, before eating, after coughing or sneezing or blowing their nose and, of course, after using the bathroom.

For younger kids, it can't hurt to remind them that nose-picking is a no-go, and that they should cough into their elbows. If you're feeling ambitious, clip their fingernails frequently, as they provide a sneaky hiding spot for viruses. Hand lotion keeps skin comfy and unbroken, which also helps prevent the spread of infection.

A few more ideas: Try laundering things like coats, backpacks and reusable shopping bags more frequently and take off shoes when you come inside. For cleaning the house, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says "diluted household bleach solutions, alcohol solutions with at least 70% alcohol, and most common EPA-registered household disinfectants should be effective."

Q. How do I get my kids to STOP TOUCHING THEIR FACES?

Sorry. This is one of the few questions to which we have no good answer. Because I (Cory) have not yet figured out how to stop touching my own face.

As an experiment, maybe try making them wear scratchy mittens. Or do what I (Anya) did and paint your child's face so you can catch them red-handed, though this could also lead to unwanted faceprints on walls and windows.

Q. This health crisis can be scary. How should we talk about it with kids?

Keep it simple, age-appropriate and fact-based. For example, don't tell your child they won't get COVID-19; you don't know that. Instead, the CDC suggests telling children that, from what doctors have seen so far, most kids aren't getting very sick. In fact, most people who've gotten COVID-19 haven't gotten very sick. Only a small group have had serious problems. And, channeling the great Mr. Rogers: Look for the Helpers. Assure your kids, if they (or someone they love) do get sick, the world is full of grown-ups who will help. And be sure to check out this incredible comic by our colleague, Malaka Gharib. She made it specifically for kids who may be scared or confused about coronavirus.

Q. With racist incidents toward Asians and Asian Americans, is this a teaching moment for social justice?

Absolutely. We must remind the children in our lives that viruses can make anyone sick, regardless of a person's race or ethnicity. No matter where scientists first documented COVID-19, this outbreak isn't anyone's fault. Similarly, just because someone looks different or talks differently, doesn't mean they are at a higher risk of getting the coronavirus or spreading it. And let children know that if they hear language in school or on the playground that suggests otherwise, they should be sure to let you know.

Q. Why is/isn't my school being closed?

Closing schools is a complicated decision. Many school leaders and public health officials seem to be waiting for an infection or potential infection in their immediate school community before closing. While the science suggests closing schools earlier is more effective at slowing the spread of disease, it's important to understand why so many school leaders are so reluctant to close schools.

For one thing, parents should understand that for many kids in the United States, being sent home from school is also a public health risk. Many children may not have parents who can take off work, or work from home, if school is canceled. They may also live in unsafe neighborhoods. Millions of U.S. children rely on schools for free or reduced-price meals, too, and 1.5 million schoolchildren nationwide are housing-insecure. For many of these kids, having to miss several weeks of school could be incredibly destabilizing.

One more thing: Rest assured that the decision to close schools is not being taken lightly and is being made in conjunction with local public health officials. Emphasis on local this decision is being made school by school, district by district.

Q. What do we do if school is canceled?

Many parents and caregivers will have to scramble for child care, especially low-wage workers who may not have vacation or sick leave. If you're not one of those parents, try to do something to help those who are. School closure can last two weeks or more; flexibility and empathy will help us all through this.

For parents who can stay home, many are wondering: What exactly is "social distancing?" Can my children still go on play dates? Or is it screen time, all the time?

The idea with closing schools is to limit the number of social contacts. That is what is going to be most effective in slowing the spread of this disease.

The guidance on this point from public health authorities is evolving quickly, and typically towards being more strict about this rather than less.

NPR spoke to Marco Ajelli and Maria Litvinova, two scholars who have published several papers on school closures in epidemics. Litvinova had this to say:

"If the school is closed for a certain amount of time, even if it's long and difficult for parents to organize the care, it's important that they do not regroup children again because the effect of the school closure will be much less."

She says new research looking at the origins of the coronavirus outbreak in Hubei Province in China, as well as her own work looking at school closures due to flu outbreaks in Russia, suggests that limiting contacts to the size of the household, plus at most one other person, is ideal.

Ajelli echoed Litvinova: "To limit contact to two to three persons per day probably is enough to stop the epidemic to spread substantially." So depending on the size of your family, that could be it.

Families across the country are getting very creative with virtual play dates using video chat as well as platforms like Roblox, which allows kids to chat while playing a video game together.

Some public health authorities have suggested that for older children who can respect social distancing, outdoor meetups in open spaces might be permissible. But this hasn't been specifically studied, our sources say.

Q. What does it mean to work from home and parent young (preschool and elementary) kids that are home as a result of school closures at the same time? Disney+ all day everyday???

Common Sense Media is a great resource for quality screen-time recommendations both free and paid, educational and purely recreational including privacy tips. I (Anya) like Duolingo for language learning, Tynker for coding and Khan Academy for academic subjects. Epic is a subscription service with endless books and comics for tablets, searchable by age.

As we said, you can also get creative with video chat. In addition to checking in with grandparents, try setting up a remote play date for your kids. Some long-distance families stay connected with a Zoom or Google hangout portal that just stays open. Try playing hide-and-seek by carrying a laptop around the house!

Also, if school's been canceled, think about using video chat to continue learning opportunities: piano lessons, tutoring or Sunday school with your child's regular teacher. A company called Outschool does live online classes for kids.

There are even physical screen-time options. GoNoodle offers both physical dance/movement and meditation videos, and this is a great time for everyone in the family to learn TikTok dances like the Renegade.

Special note on teens and screens: Online spaces are their social spaces and it's good to respect that. Take this as an opportunity to learn more about their online worlds. Help them bust rumors and disinformation. (Check out this free online module to become an expert detector of coronavirus hoaxes.) Check in with their mental health. Be a media mentor.

Q. What about non-screen activities?

Yes! Getting outside isn't just a good idea, it's good for your physical and mental health. Go for a walk, a bike ride or, if possible, a family hike.

And here's a wild card: While everyone's home, try giving the kids more responsibility around the house, including cooking a meal or doing the laundry. And cleaning there's going to be a lot of cleaning to do!

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8 Things Parents Should Know About The Coronavirus: Life Kit - NPR

MADRID The scene is becoming all too familiar, and now it has gripped Spain: Streets are empty, shops are shuttered, families are cloistered at home and the numbers of those infected with the coronavirus, and those who have died, are growing.

Spain like Italy and France to varying degrees is now on lockdown, struggling to contain a virus that already seems out of control, with about 8,000 people infected and almost 300 dead. In the center of Madrid, police patrolled the streets, with few cars passing along its main artery, the Castellana. In Barcelona, the Gothic Quarter was empty, and private security kept anyone from entering the cathedral.

Spains prime minister, Pedro Snchez, said he was imposing drastic measures to fight the coronavirus, forcing people to stay indoors, with exemptions only for so-called exceptional circumstances.

The situation is no joke, said Sergio Gonzlez, 26, as he walked his dog in Barcelona, a mask covering his face.

Spains 47 million citizens had another concern, too, one that has echoed across the West: how to balance democratic values and practices while trying to change peoples behavior to safeguard their health.

That debate, which has surfaced in countries from Israel to France, has special resonance for the Spanish, after a transition to democracy only in the late 1970s. It has also exasperated tensions between the central government, which is imposing strict measures of social control, and some regional governments that have long bristled at Madrids interference in their affairs.

For the Spanish, the coronavirus has also highlighted their fractured political scene. A left-wing minority government came to power promising to curtail the authority of the police to control public gatherings which increased under a 2015 law introduced by a previous, conservative administration only to step up police powers.

The majority of the Spanish population wants to overcome this virus as soon as possible, so Im convinced the majority will comply with the stay-at-home rules, said Prime Minister Snchez when he declared a state of emergency on Saturday.

For the moment, at least, it looked like Spaniards had accepted the limits on civil liberties in order to defeat the coronavirus.

While bakeries and small supermarkets remained open, as providers of essential food supplies, some shopkeepers said they initially did not know what to do.

Is jamn a primary need? asked Pol Aranda, a seller of Spanish ham at a gourmet store near Barcelonas City Hall, who was ordered by the police to close on Sunday.

As he rolled down the shops curtain at midday, Mr. Aranda tried to end on a light note.

All the regional officials and public employees working nearby came to stockpile a lot of food yesterday, so it looks like for some, its definitely essential, he said.

Since its return to democracy after the 1975 death of Gen. Francisco Franco, the Spanish government has had a state of emergency only once, in 2010, when air traffic controllers held a wildcat strike. Military intervention swiftly reopened the countrys airports.

This time, the main opposition party agreed on the need to take such measures, lambasting Mr. Snchez as having acted too late but saying it would probably approve an extension after the order expires in 15 days.

Still, there was concern about enforcement as regional tensions rose to the surface.

Politicians in the Catalan and Basque regions where there have been strong independence movements have insisted that the state of emergency should not be used to take over their specific regional powers, which include running their own police forces and managing hospitals.

On Sunday, the local news media were already reporting some law-and-order contradictions. While police officers in Madrid let off some cyclists with a warning for taking an illegal leisure ride, Catalan officers fined cyclists instead.

Many locals were struggling to understand Spains new order, with many questions left unanswered and a lack of clarity over who would be punished for breaking rules.

An Uber driver in Madrid said she was afraid to take clients and wondered if drivers would also be held responsible if the police decided a passenger should not have been out.

Jorge Muoz, a bank employee in Madrid, said he was unsure how much the lockdown would impact his joint custody agreement for his son.

I would normally take him to school on Monday, but the school is, of course, shut, he said. Im not sure if Im going to get stopped by police for driving him to his mothers instead.

One of the immediate challenges for police officers on Sunday was to persuade tourists to abide by the new rules. Some seemed to see the measures as another major blow to the principles of the European Union, built on the idea of removing borders on the Continent.

We are so used to free movement in Europe that the only way authorities can make us follow an order seems to be by putting the police out in the streets, said Leonie Missfeldt, a 24-year-old German student who was taking a last walk by the beach in Barcelona before heading home on Monday.

Marika Shinozuka and Kazuki Hayashi, both from Japan, said they wanted to squeeze in more sightseeing before leaving Barcelona on Monday, earlier than planned.

Were wearing our masks and being careful, Ms. Shinozuka said as she posed in front of a mural depicting Uncle Sam and the message I Want You To Stay Home! We are all in the same boat now.

Raphael Minder reported from Madrid, and Elian Peltier from Barcelona.

Link:

Spain, on Lockdown, Weighs Liberties Against Containing Coronavirus - The New York Times