How dangerous is the virus?
There are three parameters to understand in order to assess the magnitude of the risk posed by this novel coronavirus:
The attack rate or transmissibility (how rapidly the disease spreads) of a virus is indicated by its reproductive number (Ro, pronounced R-nought or r-zero), which represents the average number of people to which a single infected person will transmit the virus.
WHO's estimated (on Jan. 23) Ro to be between 1.4 and 2.5. [13]
Other studies have estimated a Ro between 3.6 and 4.0, and between 2.24 to 3.58. [23].
Preliminary studies had estimated Ro to be between 1.5 and 3.5. [5][6][7]
An outbreak with a reproductive number of below 1 will gradually disappear.
For comparison, the Ro for the common flu is 1.3 and for SARS it was 2.0.
See full details: Coronavirus Fatality Rate
The novel coronavirus' case fatality rate has been estimated at around 2%, in the WHO press conference held on January 29, 2020 [16] . However, it noted that, without knowing how many were infected, it was too early to be able to put a percentage on the mortality rate figure.
A prior estimate [9] had put that number at 3%.
Fatality rate can change as a virus can mutate, according to epidemiologists.
For comparison, the case fatality rate for SARS was 10%, and for MERS 34%.
See full details: COVID-19 Coronavirus Incubation Period
Symptoms of COVID-19 may appear in as few as 2 days or as long as 14 (estimated ranges vary from 2-10 days, 2-14 days, and 10-14 days, see details), during which the virus is contagious but the patient does not display any symptom (asymptomatic transmission).
See latest findings: Age, Sex, Demographics of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths
According to early estimates by China's National Health Commission (NHC), about 80% of those who died were over the age of 60 and 75% of them hadpre-existing health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases anddiabetes.[24]
According to the WHO Situation Report no. 7 issued on Jan. 27:
A study of 138 hospitalized patients with NCIP found that the median age was 56 years (interquartile range, 42-68; range, 22-92 years) and 75 (54.3%) were men.[25]
The WHO, in its Myth busters FAQs, addresses the question: "Does the new coronavirus affect older people, or are younger people also susceptible?" by answering that:
As of Jan. 29, according to French authorities, the conditions of the two earliest Paris cases had worsened and the patients were being treated in intensive care, according to French authorities. The patients have been described as a young couple aged 30 and 31 years old, both Chinese citizens from Wuhan who were asymptomatic when they arrived in Paris on January 18 [19].
The NHC reported the details of the first 17 deaths up to 24 pm on January 22, 2020. The deaths included 13 males and 4 females. The median age of the deaths was 75 (range 48-89) years.[21]
See full details: WHO coronavirus updates
On January 30, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a Global Public Health Emergency.
For more information from the WHO regarding novel coronavirus: WHO page on Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
U.S. surpasses Italy in the total number of confirmed deaths.
The United States on Saturday surpassed Italy in the total number of confirmed deaths from the coronavirus, reaching its deadliest day on Friday with 2,057 deaths. As of Saturday afternoon, the total stood at 20,229.
Already the pandemic has put more than 16 million out of work, forcing President Trump into the difficult choice of reopening the country as it reels economically from the pandemic.
Deaths in the United States per capita remained lower than in Italy, though some experts have warned that geography and population density have helped cushion the United States so far. To date, the virus has killed 19,468 in Italy, or 32 individuals per 100,000 people. In the United States, the number of deaths per 100,000 people was six.
The countrys death toll, which has more than doubled over the past week, is now increasing by nearly 2,000 most days.
As Mr. Trump grapples simultaneously with the most devastating public health and economic crises of a lifetime, he finds himself pulled in opposite directions. Bankers, corporate executives and industrialists are pleading with him to reopen the country as soon as possible, while medical experts beg for more time to curb the coronavirus.
Tens of thousands more people could die. Millions more could lose their jobs. And his handling of the crisis appears to be hurting his political support in the run-up to Novembers election.
In a Saturday night interview with Jeanine Pirro on Fox News, Mr. Trump said the decision on whether to reopen the country is the toughest he has ever faced, but he intends to make it fairly soon with input from political, business and medical leaders.
Its going to be based on a lot of facts and on instinct also, Mr. Trump said. Whether we like it or not, there is a certain instinct to it. But we have to get our country back. People want to get back. They want to get back to work.
But the decision on when and how to reopen is not entirely his. The stay-at-home edicts keeping most Americans indoors were issued by governors state by state.
The president did issue nonbinding guidelines urging a pause in daily life through the end of the month. And if he were to issue new guidance outlining a path toward reopening, many states would probably follow or feel pressure from businesses and constituents to ease restrictions.
But the central question is how long it will be until the country is fully back up and running.
The governors of Texas and Florida, both Republicans, have started talking about reopening businesses and schools in their states, echoing signals from Mr. Trump.
But the leaders of California and New York, both Democrats, are sounding more cautious notes about how quickly things can get back to normal.
Californias curve is flattening, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Twitter on Friday. But that progress will only hold if we continue to STAY HOME and practice physical distancing. And Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said that widespread testing for coronavirus antibodies would be required before his state could consider reopening nonessential businesses.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said on Friday that he wanted the states businesses to reopen sooner than later, insisting that the coronavirus had slowed its spread in some areas, and that it was not as prevalent in Texas as it was in New York, California and other hard-hit states.
Mr. Abbott said he would issue an executive order this week laying out the timetable and standards for reopening Texas businesses. We want to open up, but we want to open up safely, Mr. Abbott told reporters on Friday.
In Texas, the governors announcement came as the state has yet to hit its peak in coronavirus cases; more than 12,000 Texans have tested positive, with 253 deaths. And it came just 10 days after he issued what is effectively a statewide stay-at-home order on March 31, long after most other states had done so.
The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, said officials in his state were exploring reopening schools in May. But at the same time on Thursday, he made headlines by telling educators that he did not believe anyone under the age of 25 had died of the coronavirus. At least three children have.
A Times examination reveals the extent of President Trumps slow response as the virus spread.
Throughout January, as President Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government including top White House advisers and experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.
Dozens of interviews and a review of emails and other records by The New York Times revealed many previously unreported details of the roots and extent of his halting response:
The National Security Council office responsible for tracking pandemics received intelligence reports in early January predicting the spread of the virus, and within weeks raised options like keeping Americans home from work and shutting down large cities.
Despite Mr. Trumps denial, he was told at the time about a Jan. 29 memo produced by his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, laying out in striking detail the potential risks of a coronavirus pandemic.
The health and human services secretary directly warned Mr. Trump of the possibility of a pandemic during a call on Jan. 30, the second warning he delivered to the president about the virus. The president said he was being alarmist.
The health secretary publicly announced in February that the government was establishing a surveillance system in five American cities to measure the spread of the virus. It was delayed for weeks, leaving administration officials with almost no insight into how rapidly the virus was spreading.
For the first time, all 50 states are now under a federal disaster declaration for the same event.
President Trump approved a major disaster declaration for Wyoming on Saturday, the last state to receive the designation in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
It is the first time the government has declared all 50 states a major disaster for the same event, an agency spokesman said. The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the Virgin Islands have also received the declaration, which provides access to billions in disaster relief funds.
FEMA has obligated more than $5.2 billion of the $60.5 billion allocated for major disasters in what is known as the Disaster Relief Fund, the spokesman said.
Wyoming, which has more than 250 reported cases of the coronavirus, will now have access to federal emergency aid to assist the states recovery efforts. The first coronavirus case in Wyoming was reported on March 11, but no deaths have been recorded.
There are two types of disaster declarations that fall under the Stafford Act, which authorizes federal disaster aid: emergency and major disaster. Requests for both types of declarations are made by state governors and approved by the president, but they offer access to separate buckets of money.
Abortion providers ask Supreme Court to let clinics continue to perform some procedures.
Abortion providers in Texas asked the Supreme Court on Saturday to let their clinics continue to perform some procedures after a federal appeals court upheld orders from state officials prohibiting most abortions.
In their Supreme Court filing, lawyers from Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights said the Texas health crisis did not justify severe restrictions on the constitutional right to abortion.
Three weeks ago, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, ordered a halt to all surgeries and procedures that are not immediately medically necessary. That included abortions not medically necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother, Ken Paxton, the states attorney general, said in a news release. Other abortions, he said, must be postponed to preserve protective gear and other resources to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
Abortion providers promptly challenged the orders as unconstitutional, and the case has twice reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which both times overturned temporary restraining orders issued by Judge Lee Yeakel, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.
The latest ruling from the appeals court, on Friday, allowed almost all of the governors order to stay in place, quoting earlier decisions in saying that a state may implement emergency measures that curtail constitutional rights so long as the measures have at least some real or substantial relation to the public health crisis and are not beyond all question, a plain, palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law.
Judge Yeakel had allowed exceptions to the governors order, which is scheduled to expire April 21 but may be renewed, for abortions performed using drugs and for women whose pregnancies were in their later stages.
A divided three-judge panel of the appeals court stayed Judge Yeakels latest temporary restraining order, making an exception only for any patient who, based on the treating physicians medical judgment, would be past the legal limit for an abortion in Texas, which is 22 weeks from the last menstrual period, on April 22.
The judges in the majority were Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, appointed by President Trump, and Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, appointed by Mr. Bush. Judge James L. Dennis, appointed by President Bill Clinton, dissented, saying he would have upheld Judge Yeakels order.
Several other states, including Alabama, Ohio and Oklahoma, have also sought to limit abortions as part of their response to the pandemic, and those efforts have been challenged in court. The Texas case is the first to reach the Supreme Court.
The Pentagon said it would use special powers to ramp up production of millions of N95 masks.
The Defense Department announced on Saturday that it would use a Korean War-era law in an attempt to increase American production of badly needed N95 masks by 39 million over the next three months.
The law, the Defense Production Act, allows the government to take extraordinary measures to procure supplies and materials deemed necessary for the nations defense and security.
President Trump invoked the law last month, but its use so far has been limited, even as states and medical facilities sound alarms about the shortage of personal protective equipment, including masks, in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.
Pentagon officials said they had received signoff from the White House late Friday to use the authorities under the law to award $133 million in contracts for the masks, which they anticipate would be delivered in the next 90 days. It was the first time the department had used the authorities related to the virus, though the White House has already taken other steps allowed under the law to try to increase American mask supplies.
The increased production will ensure the U.S. government gets dedicated long term industrial capacity to meet the needs of the nation, Lt. Col. Mike Andrews, a Pentagon, spokesman, said in a statement on Saturday.
The department did not announce which companies had received the contracts. Defense Production Act authorities include the ability for the government to issue loans to expand production capacity for a given company, to compel companies to prioritize its orders over other clients and to control the distribution of a companys products.
A Trump ally, who the president said had the coronavirus, died from complications.
Stanley Chera, the New York real-estate developer and friend of President Trump whom the president described during a White House briefing as suffering from the coronavirus, has died from complications related to the disease, three people familiar with his death said on Saturday.
Mr. Chera, 78, who was being treated at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, died there, according to the people familiar with what took place.
Mr. Chera had left New York City for Deal, N.J., in early March, as a number of wealthier city residents fled the city, one of the centers of the outbreak, to avoid the virus. It was unclear where Mr. Chera contracted it.
The president repeatedly referred to Mr. Cheras illness while speaking to reporters at the White House. He did not name him, but people close to the president said it was Mr. Chera he had been describing.
At the end of March, as Mr. Trump extended the social-distancing guidelines through April 30, he told reporters of a friend who had suddenly found himself ill.
Hes sort of a tough guy, Mr. Trump said. A little older, a little heavier than hed like to be, frankly. And you call up the next day: Hows he doing? And hes in a coma.
Federal prison chief defends response as infection and unrest spread behind bars.
Jails, prisons and detention centers have emerged as major spreaders of the coronavirus in the United States. At the Cook County Jail in Chicago, at least 492 inmates and employees had tested positive by Saturday, making it the top-known source of U.S. infections. A state prison in Michigan had 194 confirmed cases. And New York Citys jails have been hard hit, with hundreds of inmates and corrections staff contracting the virus.
In the federal system, which holds about 174,000 people across the country, at least 481 inmates and prison workers have tested positive for the virus, according to New York Times tracking data, and at least nine federal inmates have died, mainly in Louisiana. The Times has spoken with dozens of workers and inmates who say the federal Bureau of Prisons was ill-prepared for the outbreak.
On Friday, the director of the federal prison system defended his agencys response in an interview on CNN, saying the pandemic was an overwhelming challenge that no one expected. I dont think anybody was ready for this Covid, so were dealing with it just as well as anybody else, and Id be proud to say were doing pretty good, said Michael Carvajal, who took over as the head of the Bureau of Prisons less than two months ago.
Six of the federal prisoners who died were being held in Oakdale, La., where nearly 1,000 people are incarcerated, and where there have been reports of a revolt among inmates.
Attorney General William P. Barr last week ordered the Bureau of Prisons to release more people from federal custody and to focus on three prisons that have been hardest hit by the coronavirus, including the Federal Correctional Institution Oakdale.
State prisons and jails, which hold the vast majority of the people incarcerated in the United States, have also faced unrest in recent days. More than 100 men at a Washington State prison demonstrated in response to positive tests at the facility. Police officers fired pepper spray and sting balls, which eject rubber pellets, to quell the demonstration. In Kansas, inmates at the Lansing Correctional Facility, where at least 28 people have tested positive, set small fires and broke windows in a demonstration that lasted for nearly 12 hours. Two inmates suffered injuries. In Pennsylvania, families of inmates at the Franklin County jail told The PA Post, a local news website, that the inmates were staging a hunger strike.
And in Texas, the state prison system will no longer take new inmates from county jails starting on Monday, according to the states Department of Criminal Justice. In a letter sent to county sheriffs on Saturday, Bryan Collier, the departments executive director, said the decision put additional strain on counties but was necessary to fight the spread of the virus.
Immigrants held at the Otay Mesa detention center in San Diego, Calif., said in phone calls recorded by their lawyers that guards had pepper-sprayed them on Friday after they demanded masks and began to make their own out of clothing and plastic bags. They also said they were asked to sign liability waivers absolving CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates the facility, from responsibility for any coronavirus-related illnesses.
Amanda Gilchrist, a spokeswoman for CoreCivic, described the document that detainees were asked to sign as an educational document explaining that masks were not entirely protective against the virus. She said the company dropped the requirement after the protest and denied that pepper spray was used. At least 16 detainees at the facility have tested positive, according to local news reports.
New York City schools will be closed through the end of the academic year, the mayor says. Not so fast, Cuomo responds.
New York Citys public schools would remain closed through the end of the academic year, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Saturday, confirming that more than three months of regular schooling for 1.1 million children will be lost because of the spread of the coronavirus.
But soon after the mayor ended his news conference on Saturday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo at his own news briefing said there had been no decision on closing schools in the state or city. He described the mayors announcement as Mr. de Blasios opinion. The governor and mayor have been political rivals for years.
It makes no sense for one locality to take an action thats not coordinated with the others, Mr. Cuomo said.
Though New York City is the center of the nations coronavirus outbreak, more than a dozen states and many more local school districts have already announced that their public schools would remain closed through the end of the school year, including California, Pennsylvania and Washington.
But in California, there is one lonely exception: In a rural San Joaquin Valley community where many adults work in citrus and walnut groves, students can still attend kindergarten through eighth grade at Outside Creek Elementary.
Derrick Bravo, the schools principal, superintendent and eighth-grade teacher, said he had leaned on advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which suggested that some small schools outside dangerous areas could remain open.
Last week, 21 students about a quarter the schools normal attendance showed up for classes.
Coronavirus is ravaging nursing homes around New York, as Washington State grapples with its losses.
At Crown Heights Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Brooklyn, workers said they had to convert a room into a makeshift morgue after more than 15 residents died of the coronavirus, and funeral homes could not handle all the bodies.
At Elizabeth Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in New Jersey, 19 deaths have been linked to the virus; of the 54 residents who remain, 44 are sick.
The coronavirus has snatched lives in every part of society, but has perhaps been cruelest at nursing homes and other facilities for older people, where an aging or frail population, chronic understaffing, shortages of protective gear and constant physical contact has hastened its spread.
In all, around 2,000 residents of nursing homes have died in the outbreak in the New York region, and thousands of other residents are sick. But the crisis in nursing homes is also occurring in virus hot spots elsewhere in the country, with infections growing in places like Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
In Washington State, the daughter of a woman who died at a Seattle-area nursing home linked to dozens of deaths has filed what appears to be the first coronavirus-related lawsuit against the facility, accusing the company that runs it of fraud.
Debbie de los Angeles said in her lawsuit that Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., concealed information to hide the ongoing danger and threat at the facility, which is linked to 43 deaths. Her mother, Twilla Morin, died there on March 4. The facility had started noticing an outbreak of respiratory illness in the weeks before Ms. Morins death, but the company has said workers did not realize it was the coronavirus until later.
Guam is the center of the Navys coronavirus outbreak.
Strapped by the same problems facing health care workers around the world, including a limited supply of personal protective equipment, hospital beds and ventilators, Guams government is contending with how it can protect its own people and simultaneously help the crew of infected sailors on the Theodore Roosevelt carrier, which arrived in Guam on March 27. The outbreak on the ship ended up creating a moral crisis for the military.
As an American territory roughly 7,200 miles from the continental United States, Guam in many ways represents the edge of the United States empire, one that happens to be on the front lines of the American deterrence strategy against China.
The island, at 212 square miles, is home to Joint Region Marianas, a military command made up of Andersen Air Force Base on the northern part of the island that supports stealth-bomber rotations, and Naval Base Guam to the south, where four attack submarines are stationed to counter Chinese military expansion in the South China Sea.
Theyre the ones that are out there, protecting our waters, said Lourdes Leon Guerrero, the islands governor, of the Navy. With about two dozen Guam residents serving aboard the carrier, finding space was the least we could do.
In interviews with The New York Times, local residents, and Theodore Roosevelt sailors and their loved ones, described a complicated situation in which the island is providing logistical support to the Navy while also trying to protect the local population from the coronavirus, which could quickly overwhelm Guams fragile health care system.
The first Americans to recover from the virus have emerged.
Elizabeth Schneider hated to appear to be violating rules that were meant to protect others, and that she knew relied on collective determination to enforce.
But the state health department said people who had tested positive for the coronavirus were allowed to leave self-isolation seven days after their first symptom and three days after their last fever. By those metrics, she was free to fly to Tucson, Ariz., to visit her parents.
She would be more useful there, she had reasoned, as her familys designated grocery shopper. Especially since her mother has asthma.
But re-entry to a society that is largely shut down can also come with a new sense of isolation, Ms. Schneider found.
I thought to myself, Should I mention to them that I had it? she said of her fellow passengers on her mostly empty flight. Ultimately I chickened out.
As recently as mid-March, fewer than 5,000 people in the United States had tested positive for the new coronavirus. Some are still coughing, or tethered to oxygen tanks. Many have died. But the first large wave of Covid-19 survivors, likely to be endowed with a power known to infectious disease specialists as adaptive immunity, is emerging.
Republicans press for $250 billion to replenish small-business program as governors push for more aid.
Top Republican congressional leaders said on Saturday that they would continue to push for a stand-alone infusion of $250 billion to replenish a fast-depleting loan program for distressed small businesses, rebuffing their Democratic counterparts who demanded conditions on the new money and additional funds for hospitals, state and local governments and food aid.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, said in a joint statement on Saturday that their lawmakers reject Democrats reckless threat to continue blocking job-saving funding unless we renegotiate unrelated programs which are not in similar peril.
The administration requested quick action to approve the money to bolster a loan program created last month by the $2 trillion stimulus law for small businesses, . But Democrats blocked an effort by Republicans to push it through the Senate on Thursday with their demand to place conditions on the new funds.
The National Governors Association on Saturday called on lawmakers to allocate at least an additional $500 billion for states and territories to address budgetary shortfalls that have resulted from this unprecedented public health crisis.
That amount is more than double what Democrats had proposed adding to the package, which was to be an interim step as lawmakers look toward a far larger package expected to top $1 trillion to build on the stimulus law.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Children wave to a person dressed as the Easter Bunny during a neighborhood parade in Haverford, Pennsylvania, on April 10. The neighborhood parades were organized by a local photography studio and have traveled throughout Delaware County.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Health workers cry during a memorial for their co-worker who died of the coronavirus in Leganes, Spain, on April 10.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Members of a volunteer organization spray disinfectant in an alley at the Santa Marta favela in Rio de Janeiro on April 10.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A drone photo taken on April 9 shows bodies being buried on New York's Hart Island, where the city's Department of Correction is dealing with burials amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A healthcare staff member holds the hand of a coronavirus patient as he is being moved at the Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge near Barcelona, Spain, on April 9.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Emergency service boats spray water to show support for healthcare workers near the Houses of Parliament in London, England, on April 9.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Employees of Hyundai Card, a credit card company, sit behind protective screens as they eat in a cafeteria at their offices in Seoul, South Korea, on April 9.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
People wait in their cars for the San Antonio Food Bank to begin food distribution at Traders Village on April 9, in San Antonio, Texas.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A worker disinfects a carved cross at the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquira, Colombia, on Wednesday, April 8.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A cake shop employee in Athens, Greece, prepares chocolate Easter bunnies with face masks on April 8.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Californians Sarah and Aaron Sanders, along with their children, use video conferencing to celebrate a Passover Seder with other family members on April 8.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Cars in Wuhan line up to leave at a highway toll station.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Rabbi Yaakov Kotlarsky places Passover Seder to-go packages into a car trunk in Arlington Heights, Illinois, on Tuesday, April 7.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A man is sprayed with disinfectant prior to going to a market in Tirana, Albania, on Monday, April 6.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Izzie, left, and Tippi wear ventilated dog masks in Philadelphia on April 6.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Police detain a doctor in Quetta, Pakistan, who was among dozens of health-care workers protesting a lack of personal protective equipment on April 6.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A Catholic priest sprinkles holy water on devotees during Palm Sunday celebrations in Quezon City, Philippines, on Sunday, April 5.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Paramilitary members unload provisions in Kampala, Uganda, on Saturday, April 4. It was the first day of government food distribution for people affected by the nation's lockdown.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A police officer wearing a coronavirus-themed outfit walks in a market in Chennai, India, to raise awareness about social distancing.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A woman in Moscow cooks while watching Russian President Vladimir Putin address the nation over the coronavirus pandemic.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The hashtag "stayhome" is projected onto the Matterhorn mountain that straddles Switzerland and Italy on April 1. The mountain was illuminated by Swiss artist Gerry Hofstetter, who is transforming buildings, monuments and landscapes all over the world to raise awareness during the pandemic.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Volunteers load food bags on a truck to deliver them to low-income families in Panama City, Panama, on April 1.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Designer Friederike Jorzig adjusts a mannequin wearing a wedding dress and a face mask at her store in Berlin on March 31.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
People pray next to the grave of musician Robson de Souza Lopes after his burial in Manaus, Brazil, on March 31. According to authorities at the Amazonas Health Secretary, the 43-year-old died after being diagnosed with the novel coronavirus.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Chris Lyndberg hands out a free lunch to a truck driver at a rest area along Interstate 10 in Sacaton, Arizona, on March 31. The Arizona Trucking Association was giving away 500 Dilly's Deli lunches to show its appreciation for truck drivers who have been delivering medical supplies, food and other necessities during the coronavirus pandemic.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Farmers deliver vegetables to a customer in Saint-Georges-sur-Cher, France, on March 29.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
People listen from their homes as priests conduct Sunday mass from a church roof in Rome on March 29.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A worker fixes partitions at a quarantine center in Guwahati, India, on March 28.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Devices used in diagnosing the coronavirus are inspected in Cheongju, South Korea, on March 27. The devices were being prepared for testing kits at the bio-diagnostic company SD Biosensor.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A student does homework in Bratislava, Slovakia, on March 27. Schools have been shut down across the world, and many children have been receiving their lessons online.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A National Guard truck sprays disinfectant in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 27.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Pope Francis prays in an empty St. Peter's Square on March 27.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Coffins carrying coronavirus victims are stored in a warehouse in Ponte San Pietro, Italy, on March 26. They would be transported to another area for cremation.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard prepare to take part in disinfecting the city of Tehran on March 25.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Lydia Hassebroek attends a ballet class from her home in New York on March 25.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
People visit the Beijing Zoo on March 25 after it reopened its outdoor exhibits to the public.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A woman suspected of having coronavirus is helped from her home by emergency medical technicians Robert Sabia, left, and Mike Pareja, in Paterson, New Jersey, on March 24.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
People practice social distancing as they wait for takeout food at a shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, on March 24.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak
People arrive at the South Municipal Cemetery in Madrid to attend the burial of a man who died from the coronavirus.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Passengers arrive at Hong Kong International Airport on March 23.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Giuseppe Corbari holds Sunday Mass in front of photographs sent in by his congregation members in Giussano, Italy, on March 22. Many religious services are being streamed online so that people can worship while still maintaining their distance from others.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
People clap from balconies to show their appreciation for health care workers in Mumbai, India.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
A woman attends a Sunday service at the Nairobi Baptist Church in Nairobi, Kenya, on March 22. The service was streamed live on the internet.
The novel coronavirus outbreak
Special Report: Coronavirus The Week's Best from NPR News
A sign of the times, reminding joggers and dog walkers on Boston's Charles River Esplanade to stay six feet apart to avoid transmitting the coronavirus. Steven Senne/AP hide caption
A sign of the times, reminding joggers and dog walkers on Boston's Charles River Esplanade to stay six feet apart to avoid transmitting the coronavirus.
It's been nearly 12 weeks since the first case of the novel coronavirus was confirmed in Washington state, and it's unclear when the wave of infections may subside.
One of the biggest questions for officials who are managing the government response is whether the country has reached the peak. In this Special Report, NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro wraps up the week's best reporting on all of these angles and more. Click "Listen" at the top of the page.
The Trump administration is looking at a variety of scientific modeling to try to figure that out. Projections of the death toll vary by the tens of thousands.
"We're nearing the peak of the outbreak," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told NPR this week. He added that he expects "to see the curve begin to go down."
But some governors say their states are still struggling to get needed supplies. And critics like retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who helped coordinate military relief in response to Hurricane Katrina, say the federal government can still be more aggressive in centralizing the distribution of resources.
Meantime, as Americans settle into wearing masks in public to avoid transmitting the coronavirus, they also need to look after their emotional well-being. A Kaiser Family Foundation Health tracking poll found that an increasing share of Americans about half now, up from a third say their mental health has been affected by the coronavirus crisis.
People have understood for a long time that surviving an acute infection provides immunity, said Michael Oldstone, an emeritus professor of virology and immunology at Scripps Research Institute, and author of the book Viruses, Plagues and History.
That history, though, does not quell all the questions now in the heads of those convalescing from the new coronavirus. On Facebook groups like Survivor Corps, on their doctors voice mail, in messages to reporters, they ask questions that have no easy answers.
When is it safe to go out? What does it mean that the fever is gone but taste and smell have not returned? Is it OK to hug ones grandmother? Does a positive antibody test guarantee immunity?
Some of the confusion has been exacerbated by a continued shortage of testing. And some of the urgency is fueled by the stigma now associated with being out and about. Walter Lamkin, 69, general counsel for a company in St. Louis, Mo., tested positive in March and was cleared by the St. Louis County public health department in early April.
I cant infect anyone and I cant be infected, he said.
But as the designated grocery shopper for his extended family, people are judging me, Mr. Lamkin said, and wondering whether he should be out. Unless I get a negative test, I cant answer that question.
But he has been told that he cannot get retested to confirm that he no longer has the virus because tests are reserved for people with symptoms.
OK, but if no one will test you, what are you supposed to do? he asked.
The thing to do, the thing that throngs of Covid-19 survivors are uniformly eager to do, it seems, is participate in antibody studies.
Strapped by the same problems facing health care workers around the world, including a limited supply of personal protective equipment, hospital beds and ventilators, Guams government now had to contend with how it would protect its own people and simultaneously support the Navy. Theyre the ones that are out there, protecting our waters, Leon Guerrero said. With about two dozen Guam residents serving aboard the carrier, finding space was the least we could do.
When the Theodore Roosevelt arrived at Naval Base Guam, it brought not only a ship full of sick crew members, but a brewing political scandal. The ships commander, Capt. Brett E. Crozier, emailed a letter dated March 30 to at least 20 Navy officials about the Navys failures to support the aircraft carriers efforts to contain the outbreak, and it quickly leaked to the press. The controversy led to the swift removal of Crozier from command, followed by an impromptu trip to the Theodore Roosevelt by acting Navy secretary Thomas B. Modly, who gave a 15-minute speech to the ships crew during which he referred to Crozier as nave or stupid. By the end of the week, Modly had resigned after his remarks prompted backlash from lawmakers, retired military leaders and the rank and file.
All the while, the carriers reported coronavirus cases have continued to climb. As of Friday, there were 447 infected sailors, one of whom is Crozier himself. A sailor who had been in isolation was admitted to intensive care at the base hospital on Thursday after he was found unresponsive.
If the number of sailors who require hospitalization grows, the base could quickly run out of space to provide proper treatment. Naval Hospital Guam has six I.C.U. beds and at least 15 ventilators, according to the Navy. An additional 12 acute care beds and six critical care beds with ventilators were added in the past two weeks. On base, the elementary and secondary schools, the gym, the Navy Lodge and some older barracks have been converted to housing for sick sailors. About 230 sailors and Marines from a Japan-based medical battalion arrived on the island earlier this week to help the Navys medical staff test and treat sailors.
The Navy is in the process of testing every sailor on board, with results taking up to 96 hours. On Friday, a 20-year-old sailor who had been tested a few days earlier was still awaiting her results. For now, she spends part of her day cleaning the ship, a task for which she is issued gloves and a mask. With so many members of the crew off the boat, social distancing is easier. But her worries about her own test results are compounded by the concern she has for her family in New York, the current epicenter of the virus, and for her shipmates, including her former captain, who has become a symbol of strength for the crew.
Im angry, tired, exhausted, she told The Times. I just wanna give up. Im hurting for myself, my friends, family, shipmates. I want the world to know how strong the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt is.
Since early March, when coronavirus began to appear in Texas, weve been checking in with Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher who lately has become a familiar bow-tied presence on national cable news channels.
Hes a professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and co-director of the Texas Childrens Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.
His lab developed a vaccine to protect against SARS, a deadly strain of coronavirus, but in 2016 wasnt able to get money to test it in humans. Now theyre racing to create a vaccine to protect against the new coronavirus thats wreaking global havoc.
Earlier this week, on Twitter, he wrote:
There's a misunderstanding out there that America just hunkers down for a year, then a #vaccine magically appears, and everyone goes out to have a nice picnic on the National Mall. It would be nice, it's not impossible, our lab working 24/7, but I think a low probability scenario.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Could you talk about those tweets and the expectation that we'll have a coronavirus vaccine within the next year to 18 months?
That's certainly the aspirational goal. That was the charge from Dr. Anthony Fauci, whos advising the president. And that's what we're all working toward. Our scientists are in the lab day and night trying to make this happen and trying to accelerate it, but it's a tough goal.
Sometimes people forget how long it really does take to make a vaccine. Dr. Fauci knows this as well as anybody: He's devoted his life to the HIV AIDS vaccine the development of which has taken 30 years and counting.
Most vaccines take 10 to 25 years. That's the timeframe. My colleague Paul Offi points out that the record is probably four years from start to finish in terms of developmental licensure. That was for the mumps vaccine.
The time horizons are huge for vaccines. So then you say, Okay, well, how do you stack that up against a year to 18 months?
It's going to be very tough. We're clearly putting a lot of resources into it. A lot of smart people are thinking in innovative ways about how we could do more things in parallel. But we have to also set some realistic expectations that we might not have that vaccine in a year or 18 months and maybe not for two or three or four years.
So how do we manage? How do we manage expectations and what our country looks like during that time?
Do you have any idea where that goal of a year to 18 months comes from?
I don't know. There's a new international organization called CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, that's been charged to fix the long timelines of vaccines and to come up with new ways to accelerate. And there are some theoretical reasons to say we can do more things in parallel. The regulatory agencies are all looking at this.
So we're all going to try, but the the history says that's not a high probability. I'm listening to some of the cable news networks saying, Well, we just got to hunker down for a year and then we'll have the vaccine.
That's not a wise strategy. Or maybe we can have that as one strategy, but don't put all of our eggs in that basket. Let's have another strategy with a more realistic timeframe for vaccines.
This disease may come in waves, like the flu pandemic of 1918. That came in several waves between the beginning of 1918 and the end of 1920. That was a three-year pandemic, and that's a possibility for us as well.
Figuring out a plan for the country in the event that we don't have a vaccine is going to be very important for us. Some people are not happy that I said that because it sounds so pessimistic. It isn't.
I do think we will have other technologies coming out. We've already got the convalescing the antibody therapy. We've got some new drugs that will come online.
But let's consider a realistic timeframe too, in case the vaccines are not out, and figuring out if this virus comes in waves.
MORE Q&AS: Disaster expert Angela Blanchard on COVID-19 and the Houston economy
What would that look like in terms of getting people to back to work? How would we manage that? That includes mental health aspects. Will people have PTSD in terms of going back to work?
Well also have governors from some states unwilling to go back to social distancing once we're off that first hook. Even in this month, when things are so dire in the country, you've got about a third of the governors who are pushing back against aggressive social distancing.
What's it going to be a year from now if we're off social distancing, then we have to go back on?
And who organizes it? Who organizes the response? Who charts the plan for us?
How do we figure this out as a nation? How do we look at all the models and say, what's a realistic model? And and if this virus does show a waxing and waning course, how do we deal with that, working with governments, working with businesses, and working with health systems? This is going to be a very complicated situation.
Right now we're going mainly state by state, and looking at things like closing state borders or at least requiring self-quarantine for people traveling to Texas from Louisiana. How do you think that works?
It doesn't reflect the reality of the situation. COVID-19 is in every state in the country right now.
Travel restrictions sound appealing because they make it seem like, Well, it's over. We just shut that travel down, and that will prevent the virus from coming in. The president has said that he slowed things down by closing down travel with China. But we have reports now, based on the genetic sequence of the virus, that the virus in New York came in from Europe.
At this point, we have to recognize that the virus is probably everywhere. There's a diminishing return at this point of cutting down traffic between states.
I've seen estimates that we are maybe two weeks away from the peak here in Houston or maybe I should say, our first peak.
Thats according to the IHME model from the University of Washington.
So what should Houstonians be doing right now?
Now it's crunch time. Now's the time when you're at greatest risk of contracting the virus by being in crowds or being with people outside your home. We're trying to do everything we can to minimize the number of people that have to be brought into the hospital, who need ICUS.
Its really important now that we aggressively pursue social distancing, especially to prevent a surge on Texas Medical Center. Even though the leaders of the TMC been meeting daily, we need to do our part as citizens of Houston to minimize the number of people that go into the hospital.
It's easier for some than others. Weve talked before about the poor neighborhoods in Houston, and how social distancing is more complicated in areas of poverty and crowding, or for families where lots of people live in one house or one apartment.
Its one thing to say, Okay, everybody now has to social distance. I don't know how we do that easily in Fifth Ward or in Acres Home or in northeast Houston.
I know the mayor's worried about it, and so is the county judge and our congressional delegation from Texas. Everyone's trying to think hard how to deal with this problem.
Right now, without a vaccine, we unfortunately have to use a 14th-century approach. Thats quarantine.
Assuming that its a long time until we get a vaccine, what sorts of things do you see happening? Between waves of the virus, could we begin loosening restrictions and starting the economy up again?
The models say, as we move through the month of May, the number of transmissions will go way down. Maybe at that point we could begin opening things up.
I don't know, though. At what point do we risk the disease immediately coming back if we do that? We're starting to hear that from Singapore and elsewhere.
MORE Q&AS: Texas A&M pandemic expert: Coronavirus will have 5 stages. Were in stage 2.
We're going to need outside help here in Houston, getting advice about that. Hopefully the federal government will provide some support.
Then let's say the levels of transmission continue to stay down for the next few months. When are the predictions this virus might return? Is in the fall of this year? Is it January of next year? April next year? Getting guidance about that will be really helpful.
Other questions are, who goes back into the workforce? Is that only people that have been infected and have antibodies that make them resistant to infection? Or is it or is it everyone?
I certainly don't have the answers to that. We're going to have to have some meaningful dialogue and convene some of the best minds in the country. I suggested on CNN that bringing in the National Academy of Sciences, or a similar organization, would be very helpful. We need some of the best scientists in the country around the table, looking at the models and charting a path.
Adding to the problem is the fact that we're in an election year. Things will be so heated politically that decisions made both on the Republican side and the Democratic side may put political expediency over public health. How do you deal with that?
It's really hard. Im hearing from people who look at the relatively low number of people hospitalized in Houston, or the small number of deaths here. Theyre asking whether the cost of social distancing has been worth it, and whether we should continue staying at home. What would you say to them?
First of all, I don't know that we really know the number of people in ICUS or of deaths. And remember, we still have another two weeks before we reach our peak. So we're certainly not out of the woods by any means.
If it turns out that the data are not as high as we thought then the question always comes: Did that happen because of what we did? Or in spite of what we did?
We had this discussion before about Zika. I met with Houstons mayor and strongly recommended cleaning up the tires that breed Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes in places like the Fifth Ward. He did it.
Then we didn't have Zika. Was that because of my recommendation? We have no idea. You cant prove a negative.
But based on the experience we're seeing elsewhere, we know social distancing is really important for the next few weeks.
What else is on your mind these days? What are you watching?
Im really scratching my head figuring out what the next two and three years look like. That's a big one.
We've also now heard a lot about health, about COVID-19 as a health disparity among the African American and Hispanic communities in the southern parts of the U.S. I put that out there about almost three weeks ago: This is going to be a concern. And thats turning out to be the case, unfortunately. Fighting that in Houston is going to be really important .
How are you doing personally?
Oh, we're hanging in there. I'm spending a lot of time writing papers, and documents related to getting our vaccine off the ground, and writing some thought papers also about what the ideal characteristics are for the vaccine and how we advance the Global Health vaccine.
Im also trying to raise the funding to make it happen. Vaccine developments are expensive.
And Im also talking to people like you, to get the word out, so we get good accurate science messaging. I'm going on CNN or MSNBC and Fox News, and sometimes I'm not telling people good news.
I've been getting a bit of pushback from people I've known for years, people who are not happy that I'm not painting a very rosy picture of things.
Its taken me time to figure out how to tell real information without alarming people. I veer a little too much on the rosy. Sometimes I veer a little too much on the dark side. The best critic of all is my wife, who lets me know about it.
How is she doing?
I think good. She sees how stressed I am.
It's not just me it's our whole group, and Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, my science partner for 20 years. I'll text her at 4 a.m. when I wake up, and find out that she's already texted me at 3:30 a.m. when she's woken up. It's crazy. I'll wake up in the middle of the night and send a text, not expecting an answer to the next morning, and she's responding right away.
We're all kind of sleepless.
lisa.gray@chron.com, @LisaGray_HouTX
The first type of antibody to appear is called immunoglobulin M or IgM, and its levels spike within a few days of infection. But IgM is a generic fighter. To target and destroy a specific virus, the body refines it into a second type of antibody, called immunoglobulin G, or IgG, that can recognize that virus.
As IgG levels rise, IgM levels drop; IgG levels peak around 28 days after the onset of infection.
There is a third type of antibody, called IgA, that is present in mucosal tissues like the inner lining of the lung. IgA is known to be important for fighting respiratory infections such as influenza, and is likely to be central in coronavirus infection, too.
Many of the tests being developed look for levels of all three antibodies; some look for just IgM and IgG, and still others test for only one type.
What can these tests tell us? And what cant they?
Lets begin with what they cant tell us. Because the antibodies come up so late, these tests are not helpful for diagnosing an early infection. For that they are useless, said Dr. Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
The tests are more effective at detecting the presence of antibody responses across large numbers of people, not just to determine who is immune but how widely the virus has spread in the population.
From 25 to 50 percent of people who become infected may never develop symptoms, and some may become only mildly ill. Others may have known they were sick, but could not get tested. Serology tests would be able to identify these people and help scientists better estimate the death rate of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
We dont currently have good numbers for the numbers of people who are infected now, much less people who were infected before who were never tested, said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York. So its really important from an epidemiological perspective to do these types of serology assays.
Smith, who is predominantly treating Covid-19 patients at a hospital in New York City, revealed the tragic last words of a dying man he was about to place on a ventilator: "Who's going to pay for it?" the coronavirus patient asked Smith in between labored breaths.
"They were last words I'll never forget," Smith told CNN.
"(This patient) was in severe respiratory distress, had difficulty speaking, and yet still his main concern was who could pay for a procedure that would his extend his life but statistically he doesn't have a good likelihood of survival."
Knowing that the patient was most likely not going to recover once he was intubated, Smith and his colleagues called the man's wife to give them what may have been their last chance to say goodbye.
Smith called the incident "by far the worst thing" he has witnessed in his 12 years of critical care and anesthesia and said the moment shed light on a health care system that he says has been and still is failing its people.
"I was very sad and honestly, a little horrified. This demonstrates that we have a profound failure when one has to worry about their finances when they're dealing with much bigger issues that have to do with life or death."
Looking at the bigger picture
Smith did not have an answer to his patient's question and instead turned the conversation to getting the man to talk to his spouse one last time. Despite the tragic circumstances, the question was a valid concern.
"The pandemic has highlighted a lot of structural inadequacies in our country, not only the response to the pandemic itself, but our approach to health care coverage," Smith said.
For now-unemployed Americans who get their health insurance benefits from their jobs, this is yet another major crisis.
"This can only get worse if we don't improve equitable access to health care," Smith said.
"As a result of the many job losses related to the pandemic, the uninsured population will only increase, and it will still remain a challenge for those who do retain private health insurance. The last analysis I saw projected up to a 40% increase in insurance premiums by next year so that's going to be an even bigger burden we need to talk about."
CNN's Tami Luhby contributed to this report.
MOSCOW The authorities in Moscow said on Friday that coronavirus cases are increasing rapidly here and have already pushed the citys health care system to its limit.
Warning that the outbreak in the Russian capital was far from reaching its peak, Anastasia Rakova, a deputy mayor responsible for health, said that the number of people hospitalized with the illness related to the virus in Moscow had more than doubled over the past week to 6,500. Nearly half of those infected are under the age of 45.
The citys mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, sounded a further alarm, saying that the virus is gaining momentum and that the situation is becoming increasingly problematic.
A flurry of bad news on Friday about the outbreak indicated that Russia, relatively spared until now from the ravages of the virus, has started on the same harrowing path taken weeks ago by hard hit countries like Italy and now the United States. This has dashed hopes in the Kremlin that its decision in late January to close Russias long border with China, the original source of the virus, and then limit travel from Europe had contained the outbreak.
President Vladimir V. Putin, who usually takes the lead with great fanfare in times of crisis, has mostly stayed in the background. He has retreated to his country residence outside Moscow, leaving Mr. Sobyanin, the mayor, and Russias prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, to take the heat for a health crisis that now looks set to get far worse.
Ms. Rakova, the Moscow official, warned that the capitals ambulance service and hospitals were now stretched to the limit. The virus has also started to wreak havoc in Russias vast hinterland, where the ramshackle health system seems to be contributing to the spread of the pathogen.
Hospitals in at least two regions are already overwhelmed by infected patients. In Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi oil-producing region northeast of Moscow, the main hospital has more than 200 infected people, while scores of medical personnel and more than a thousand patients at a hospital in Ufa, 700 miles east of Moscow, have been ordered not to leave the premises after 170 people there tested positive.
Deviating from previous official assurances that Russia is well prepared for a possible crush of patients, the health minister, Mikhail Murashko, on Friday warned that the countrys health care services were now experiencing stress regarding supplies, including the supply of personal protection equipment and ventilators.
And with Mr. Putin having scored a propaganda coup recently by sending planeloads of such medical supplies to a variety of countries, including the United States, the reports of shortages could become a sore point.
With little good news to celebrate on earth, Mr. Putin on Friday spoke with Russian and American astronauts on board the international space station, congratulating them on their safe arrival in space aboard a Russian rocket launched on Thursday. Keeping his distance from the coronavirus crisis, Mr. Putin also chaired a teleconference about Russias aerospace industry.
Moscow reported 1,124 new cases of confirmed coronavirus infections on Friday, bringing the total in the city to 7,822, compared with more than 80,000 in New York City. The authorities in the Russian capital, which accounts for two-thirds of all cases in the country, last week ordered residents to stay at home except to buy food and medicine and to walk their dogs within 100 yards of their residence. But eager to avoid too much disruption to the economy, they have done little to enforce the restrictions.
Police cars drive around the city broadcasting a message appealing to dear citizens to stay indoors, and the mayor, Mr. Sobyanin, has made increasingly insistent calls for Muscovites to follow self-quarantine rules. On Friday, he warned that Moscow was still somewhere at the base of the peak and needed to prepare for a serious test ahead.
After weeks of debate about the accuracy of official figures, an official letter to Moscow hospital directors leaked online and seemed to support allegations by Kremlin critics that Russias relatively low coronavirus figures were not true. The letter, signed by the head of Moscows health department, Aleksei Khripun, acknowledged that testing had been compromised by a very high number of false results that masked the true extent of Covid-19.
Anastasia Vasilieva, the head of an independent doctors union, has accused the government of downplaying the number of cases by deliberately misclassifying Covid-19 as pneumonia. She was detained last week in what was seen as punishment for puncturing an official narrative that everything is under control.
But Russias health minister, Mr. Murashko, has himself since come close to acknowledging widespread misclassification. In an interview on state television, he said that patients with pneumonia will from now on be treated in the same way as those confirmed as having coronavirus.
