Category: Corona Virus

The sudden and prolonged shutdown of New York Citys museums and its iconic Broadway theaters. Restaurants and bars also closed except for take out and delivery. Hotels struggling to stay open in the face of a wave of canceled reservations. Movie theaters shuttered. The evaporation of nearly all business and leisure travel to the city.

The coronavirus pandemic is all but bringing life to a halt in the nations largest city, slamming the brakes on what had been a robust economy and leaving New York, which has more than 25,000 restaurants and 120,000 hotel rooms, confronting a dire threat that experts say will surely lead to sweeping layoffs and business failures.

The fallout could be more widespread than the economic damage from either of the past two crises the city had faced the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 or the 2008 financial crisis said Ronnie Lowenstein, director of the citys Independent Budget Office. Economic activity slows and time stops, she said. Everything gets affected.

Both of those events caused significant harm to the citys financial health, Ms. Lowenstein said, but in both cases the city was rescued by huge infusions of federal aid.

But the coronavirus is spreading from coast to coast, leaving New Yorks city and state officials pleading for help in a large crowd of their counterparts, she said.

If it was one city under siege like 9/11, thats one thing, Ms. Lowenstein said. But the coronavirus pandemic is going to be disastrous for a lot of economies across the country, she added.

New York is also particularly exposed because of its heavy dependence on domestic and foreign visitors who come to the city to watch shows, visit museums and take advantage of its vibrant night life.

The city is likely to lose as many as 500,000 jobs in businesses that cater to tourists and people moving about the city, said James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policies at the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School. In one month, their lost wages amount to $1 billion, he added.

Mr. Parrott said that those industries included hotels, restaurants, museums, movie and television production and ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft. Some of those businesses rely so heavily on tourists and business travelers that they probably will close and lay off most or all of their workers, as all 19 restaurants run by Danny Meyers company, Union Square Hospitality Group, did on Friday.

The owners of Chelsea Piers, a large sports and recreation complex on the West Side of Manhattan, decided on Thursday morning to close the location, as well as two smaller centers, in Brooklyn and Stamford, Conn., for the rest of March, said David Tewksbury, one of the owners.

He said that their 1,500 employees were furloughed and given two weeks pay but that he expected them to apply for unemployment benefits.

Mr. Tewksbury said he was unaware if any of those employees or any of the more than 25,000 members of the three locations had tested positive for the coronavirus.

But the decision to close, he added, was based on a concern for the health and safety of the workers and of members, and a social responsibility to be a leader as opposed to a follower.

Much like it was before the coronavirus swept across the country, the citys economy was relatively healthy before the Sept. 11 attacks. But, Mr. Parrott said, after 9/11, people woke up and realized that we were in a recession.

In the wake of that shock, the New York Stock Exchange and other financial markets shut down for a few days and air travel was disrupted for weeks.

But the city began to recover quickly, buoyed by support from Washington, which provided billions of dollars in disaster relief. Theaters reopened, ballgames resumed and elected officials urged New Yorkers to go out, spend money and get back to work.

The 2008 financial crisis was centered on Wall Street, where some major investment banks failed and others survived only through a massive federal bailout.

Now, with no certainty about when life might return to normal, the full effect on the citys economy is impossible to project, Ms. Lowenstein, director of the citys Independent Budget Office, said. But Mr. Parrott said the city would almost surely fall into a recession that would end its longest period of expansion and job growth on record more than 10 years.

This week, the state labor department said that New York Citys unemployment rate fell to an all-time low of 3.5 percent in January, compared with highs of about 8.5 percent in the aftermath of Sept. 11, and 10 percent during the financial crisis.

The ranks of the citys unemployed peaked between 340,000 and 400,000 in those downturns, about two and a half times the current official count.

The prospects for the citys economy has changed so abruptly as so many venues have shut down that its tourism agency, NYC & Company, has shelved its forecast for the year, said Fred Dixon, its chief executive.

As recently as two weeks ago, the city projected a slight increase in visitors in 2020. But that was before travel from most of Europe was banned. For now, Mr. Dixon said, the flow of international travelers has virtually dried up and it is not clear when it may resume.

Without tourists or business travelers, hotels in New York are struggling to continue operating and grappling with how many workers they can retain, said Fred Grapstein, chairman of the Hotel Association of New York City.

What youre seeing, unfortunately, is the layoff of all personnel both union and management, Mr. Grapstein said.

Hotel owners, he added, were negotiating with the Hotel Trades Council, the powerful union that represents 40,000 workers, including room cleaners, desk clerks, waiters and bartenders. The layoffs that were talking about are truly temporary, and we hope that business will pick up again soon, Mr. Grapstein said.

Peter Ward, the unions president, said, The union is working diligently with management to mitigate the consequences of this unprecedented crisis on our members and their families.

Mr. Grapstein said that there has been a lot of discussion about hotels making sure they are financially viable. Many of them routinely lose money in the slower months of January and February but start turning profits as tourism picks up in the spring, he said.

February was kind of bandaged together but things have fallen apart, Mr. Grapstein continued. Some hotels saw their occupancy rates fall from 70 percent to 30 percent, he said, and even lower as the news about the spread of the coronavirus became bleaker and spurred a cascade cancellations.

The sudden closing last week of Broadway theaters a keystone of New Yorks tourism industry as well as museums and other cultural institutions, dealt a blow to restaurants, too.

Before the order to close restaurants, some, like Rosa Mexicano, which has restaurants on the East Side of Manhattan and on the West Side near Lincoln Center, had been trying to stay open as long as they could though with half as many seats.

Rosa Mexicano removed tables and chairs from its dining rooms to comply with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomos order that smaller public spaces reduce their capacity by 50 percent, said Chris Westcott, the chief executive of the company that operates them.

Even without the new rule, diners had already been staying away.

Quite frankly, there wasnt enough business to fill a lot of those tables, Mr. Westcott said.

He said that on Thursday night, business was down about 60 percent at the Lincoln Center location and about 40 percent on the East Side, a more residential neighborhood.

Still, the company has not yet laid off any workers, opting instead to cut their hours and to try to continue providing customers with an atmosphere honed over 35 years: the same menu, guacamole prepared tableside.

Everybody still has a job, Mr. Westcott said. I think they all want to work more, but were not in a position to keep people whole.

Mr. Westcott, who worked for a different company in 2001, said the current situation made it more difficult to plan than in the days after Sept. 11. With 9/11, we hit bottom almost immediately, he said. Now, were still waiting to hit bottom.

The citys Chinatowns, in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, have been reeling for weeks with many customers staying away after the coronavirus started to break out in China.

Jing Fong, a large and popular dim sum restaurant in Manhattan closed temporarily its owners said and laid off its entire staff of 180 employees.

Ming Lam, whose family owns Jing Fong, said business had dropped by 80 percent over the past six weeks.

Qing Chen, 59, a waiter at the restaurant, said he had applied for unemployment but was worried about when he could start collecting benefits and, more important, when he could go back to work. We live in a very confusing and worrying time, he said.

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N.Y.C.s Economy Could be Ravaged by Coronavirus Outbreak - The New York Times

The new coronavirus is a serious threat to the elderly, as federal officials have been at pains to note recently. But they have stepped gingerly around advice for another group of Americans also at special risk from the infection: those with chronic health conditions.

It is not a small group. An estimated 60 percent of all Americans have at least one chronic health condition, and 40 percent have more than one. (The figures include the elderly.) Heart disease, cancer, diabetes all of these can exacerbate a coronavirus infection, studies show, increasing the odds of severe disease and death.

Federal health officials have urged those in their 80s and older to sharply curtail their activities to reduce exposing themselves to infection. But beyond general advice to wash hands frequently and to avoid crowds, officials have said little about those who are younger and cope with chronic illnesses.

Now some experts are encouraging this broader swath of the population to take immediate action to protect themselves.

All you folks older than 60 and those who have underlying illnesses, you ought to do personal mitigation starting now, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.

The risk of dying if one contracts the infection begins to rise at a younger age than federal officials have acknowledged, suggesting the coronavirus may cut deeply into the fabric of a society in which many older adults continue to lead active, engaged lives.

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In the largest study to date, conducted in China, the greatest risk of death from Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, was found among patients in their 80s or older, 15 percent of whom died. But while just 1.3 percent of patients in their 50s died, the death rate rose with each additional decade of life, increasing to 3.6 percent for patients in their 60s and to 8 percent for patients in their 70s.

The virus has killed younger people: Dr. Li Wenliang, the physician who died after raising the alarm about the mysterious new illness, was only 34. But children have been affected in very small numbers, and younger adults have displayed greater resilience.

The chronic health conditions that cause complications following infection with the coronavirus are certainly more common in older people. But they are also commonly found in Americans under 65.

High blood pressure affects nearly one in three adults in the United States, including one-third of adults in their 40s and 50s. More than one in 10 adults have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, including 17 percent of adults aged 45 to 64. At least 16 million Americans struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

A study of 1,590 patients, also in China, found that people infected with the coronavirus who were already coping with a chronic condition were 1.8 times more likely to have a poor outcome, such as being put on a ventilator or dying, than those with no underlying conditions.

But those with two chronic conditions were at 2.6 greater risk, compared to individuals with none. Nearly 20 percent of the patients who had at least one chronic condition had a poor outcome, compared with 4.5 percent of those without any chronic ailments, the study found.

Dr. Schaffner and other public health experts outlined a series of steps individuals can take to minimize their risk of exposure.

Its imperative that the population understand that now is the time to get serious about avoiding group events, and to become a bit of a hermit, Dr. Schaffner said.

If Im older, and have underlying illnesses, then Im the kind of person that this virus makes more seriously and even gravely ill.

Among the recommendations were: refraining from recreational group activities and face-to-face work meetings. Canceling travel. Staying home from religious services and other social and celebratory events even family get-togethers that bring together large groups.

Go shopping at off hours, when stores are less frequented, Dr. Schaffner suggested. Watch the game on TV, not live. And no hugging.

Im not trying to put everyone in a plastic enclosure, but to reduce the risk, Dr. Schaffner said. And every little thing you can do to reduce the risk helps.

Smoking An estimated 34 million Americans smoke, and 16 million live with a disease caused by smoking.

Covid-19 is a respiratory ailment. Longtime smokers with damaged lungs will be more vulnerable and should quit now, said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard University.

Diabetes If you have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, exercising very strict control over blood sugar levels can help boost immunity, said Dr. Sandra Weber, president of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.

We know that if you do not have good glucose control, youre at high risk for infection, including viruses and presumably this one as well, Dr. Weber said.

Even improving glucose control over the next one to two weeks would put you in a situation where you would have better immune function, she said.

People with Type 1 diabetes are more likely to have severe disease if they become infected. When they experience viral symptoms like nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, they are more likely to develop a serious complication called life-threatening ketoacidosis.

Lung disease Dr. Albert Rizzo, chief medical officer of the American Lung Association, urged patients with chronic lung conditions like asthma or C.O.P.D. to talk to their doctors by phone and to think twice about going anywhere that might expose them to the virus.

Heart disease A respiratory illness like Covid-19 is risky for anyone who has heart disease, because it increases metabolic demand, forcing the heart to work harder to pump blood, said Orly Vardeny, who studies influenza and heart disease at the University of Minnesota.

That extra stress leads to worsening of their underlying heart disease, she said. Its not going to be limited to fever, cough, pneumonia its also going to affect whatever their underlying condition is and make it worse.

Immunocompromised People with compromised immune systems are especially vulnerable to respiratory infections. That group includes those who have autoimmune disorders such as lupus and arthritis, those who have had organ transplants, patients undergoing chemotherapy and other cancer treatments, and anyone who is taking steroids as treatment.

People with H.I.V. are not on the list as yet, however. With powerful antiretroviral drugs, many now have immune systems strong enough to stave off infections, said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

There is some very preliminary evidence that certain H.I.V. drugs in wide use may help slow the coronavirus.

Cancer Chemotherapy or radiation, two common treatments, weaken the immune system, noted Dr. Cardinale Smith, director of quality for cancer survivors at the Mount Sinai Health System.

Cancer patients who have been in treatment should avoid contact with anyone who is sick and stay indoors as much as possible. Its really just erring on the side of caution while we ride this out, Dr. Smith said.

Seniors Even healthy older people who are active and vigorous need to take precautions, said Dr. Richard Baron, an internist and geriatrician who heads the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Our organs have a lot of reserves, but its in the nature of getting older that you progressively lose that reserve, Dr. Baron said. You can get into trouble really quickly.

Those who dont get sick often should not feel overly confident. The coronavirus is a new pathogen that wont be recognized by the immune system, said Dr. Charlotte Yeh, chief medical officer at AARP. The body will not have built up its defenses, she added: Your prior exposures wont necessarily help you.

Now that the virus is embedded in communities, individuals must act to protect themselves, said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

At least 1,400 Americans are known to have the coronavirus, though the real prevalence in the United States is unknown, as testing has been scarce. At least 38 have died of the infection.

People should understand they need to take control of their own life, Dr. Osterholm said.

You cant assume anymore that people are not capable of infecting you. In many cases they wont even know theyre infected.

Those who are older or who have chronic health conditions have to kind of assume the rest of the world is a coronavirus soup, he added. If I dont want to end up swimming in that bowl, I need to find another place on the plate.

Reporting was contributed by Apoorva Mandavilli.

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Coronavirus Threatens Americans With Underlying Conditions - The New York Times

Florida deaths are the East Coasts first, as U.S. caseload rises past 300.

Authorities across the United States reported 307 cases of coronavirus and 17 deaths as of Friday, with Florida reporting the first deaths on the East Coast. The number of infections does not count the 21 people who have tested positive aboard a cruise ship off California.

Florida officials on Friday night said there had been two deaths in the state related to the coronavirus. Both of the people who died had traveled internationally, they said.

Hawaii reported its first confirmed infection, a person who had been on the cruise ship, the Grand Princess.

The West Coast has borne the brunt of the toll in the United States. Washington State has recorded the most coronavirus cases, more than 80, and the highest number of deaths, 14. Most of the fatal cases emerged from a Seattle-area nursing home. Officials in King County, Wash., said 15 residents of the facility, Life Care Center, had been taken to hospitals over the past 24 hours.

Two residents of other Seattle-area complexes that largely serve elderly people have now also been hospitalized and tested positive, officials said, identifying them as Issaquah Nursing & Rehabilitation Center and Ida Culver House Ravenna.

Starbucks reported Friday night that one of its employees in downtown Seattle had tested positive. The company said the store has been closed for cleaning.

Also in the Seattle area, two Microsoft employees were being treated for the coronavirus, a company spokesman said. Microsoft did not close its campus, but it had already advised employees to work from home if possible.

The University of Washington, with 50,000 students, said that it would cancel in-person classes from Monday through at least March 20, and have students take classes and final exams remotely. Seattle University, with about 7,300 students, also said it would move to online classes for the rest of the winter quarter, and Northeastern University in Boston will do the same for students on its Seattle campus.

The chief federal judge in Seattle ordered the cancellation of all in-person federal court hearings in western Washington State.

California has treated 70 people for the virus, one of whom has died, and new cases continue to emerge at a worrying rate. An employee of the F.B.I.s San Francisco division tested positive, the first confirmed case at the bureau.

The virus has been reported in 20 other states, though most have few cases and none have reported fatalities. They are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

Everyone on the Grand Princess cruise ship will be tested, after 21 tested positive.

All of the 3,533 people aboard a cruise ship idling off San Francisco will be tested for the coronavirus, after 19 crew members and two passengers tested positive, Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday.

The ship, the Grand Princess, had been halted off the coast on Wednesday, until passengers with possible coronavirus symptoms or exposure could be tested. On Thursday, a Coast Guard helicopter flew testing kits to the ship and flew samples for 46 people back to shore.

Twenty-one of those on the ship tested positive for the coronavirus, 24 tested negative and one test was inconclusive, Mr. Pence said at a White House news briefing blindsiding the passengers and the ships operators.

We have developed a plan which will be implemented this weekend to bring the ship into a noncommercial port, he added. All passengers and crew will be tested for the coronavirus. Those that need to be quarantined will be quarantined. Those that require additional medical attention will receive it.

Mr. Pence said the Defense Department was working to locate a California military base where passengers on the ship could be tested. Two air bases in the state have been used to house quarantined Americans repatriated from Asia.

Shortly after Mr. Pences briefing, the ship captain came over the loudspeaker and apologized that passengers were getting updates from television news rather than him. The captain said that he had not received any advance notice about the news briefing and that the ship would notify individuals of their test results as soon as possible.

The Princess cruise line said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials had told the doctor on board of the results as Mr. Pence was speaking.

President Trump, speaking at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said he would have preferred not to let the passengers disembark onto American soil. I dont need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasnt our fault, he said. And it wasnt the fault of the people on the ship either. Okay? It wasnt their fault either. And they are mostly Americans.

He added that, after all, he had authorized federal health officials to make the decision.

South by Southwest leads long list of canceled events.

The 34th annual edition of South by Southwest, the annual festival of music, film and technology in Austin that has become a global draw, was ordered canceled on Friday by local officials over fears about the spread of coronavirus.

Festival organizers and government officials had come under intense pressure in recent days to pull the plug, with more than 50,000 people signing an online petition and a growing list of tech companies among them Apple, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok announcing their withdrawal.

The festival was to have run from March 13-22, with events spread across bars and party spaces in Austin, in addition to the main conference activities.

The cancellation is perhaps the largest collateral damage of the virus so far on the international cultural calendar. Last year, South by Southwests various events had a combined attendance of 417,000, including 159,000 who came to the music portion, according to festival figures.

Two other large-scale, multi-day gatherings were also called off or pushed back on Friday: Emerald City Comic Con, a convention that draws thousands of people to Seattle each year, was postponed until the summer; and the Ultra Music Festival, an electronic dance music event held annually in Miami, where city officials blocked the event from going on.

As the coronavirus spreads in the United States, theaters, museums and concert halls are wary that their establishments could become petri dishes for a virus that is spread person-to-person through respiratory droplets.

Mariah Carey postponed her concert in Hawaii. The new James Bond movie, No Time to Die, was delayed, a move that prompted many in the film industry to guess that studios would do the same with other films. But thus far, no other release date changes have been announced in the United States.

New York City pleads for more tests.

New York City officials pleaded in a letter to the federal government on Friday to send more test kits for the new coronavirus, saying that the citys limited capacity to test for the virus had impeded our ability to beat back this epidemic.

As of noon on Friday, fewer than 100 people had been tested for the coronavirus in New York City over the past month, according to the citys Department of Health, even as concerns grew that the virus was circulating largely undetected.

State officials said on Friday that so far 44 people in the state had tested positive for the illness the majority in New Rochelle, just north of New York City. Officials conceded there were likely far more.

I think its fair to say we have no idea how many New Yorkers have been infected with this virus without knowing it, a New York City councilman, Mark Levine, who heads the City Councils Health Committee, said.

Demetre Daskalakis, a deputy commissioner in the Department of Health, said on Thursday afternoon that New York City presently only had enough supply for around a thousand people before running out.

The citys letter on Friday to top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that the limited number of tests was already undermining the citys efforts, citing slow federal action.

Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said on Friday that the C.D.C. had sent enough tests to public health labs across the country for 75,000 people, and that efforts were underway to help the private sector and hospitals start testing for the virus.

A spokeswoman for the Association of Public Health Laboratories, Michelle Forman, said there were about 72 public health laboratories that are presently testing for the new coronavirus. We are not aware of any widespread testing shortages, she said.

Americans have struggled to make sense of conflicting information from official authorities, including President Trump and members of his own cabinet. Vice President Mike Pence, who previously vowed that any American could be tested, conceded on Thursday that we dont have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward.

The lack of testing around the country is affecting nursing homes in an unexpected way.

An executive with the American Health Care Association, a trade group representing most of the nations 15,700 nursing homes, warned that staff members were far more likely to use protective gear with patients showing any sign of respiratory illness even as the public is buying masks and the supply chain from China has dwindled.

Nursing homes everywhere around the country had begun complaining about shortages of masks and gowns, the executive, David Gifford, said.

Global markets extend their decline.

Stocks fell again on Friday, and investors rushed to the safety of government bonds, as Wall Street was gripped by another wave of panic over the coronavirus.

The most dramatic move in financial markets on Friday was a sharp drop in yields on government bonds. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note sank briefly below 0.7 percent for the first time. Yields move inversely to bond prices, and their slide has come as investors have fled risky investments and put their money into low-interest but safe Treasury bonds.

The S&P 500 stock index was down 4 percent in late afternoon, before making up some ground to close down 1.7 percent.

A strong report on the American job market on Friday did not change the direction of the markets. The U.S. government said that employers added 273,000 jobs in February, but the data was a snapshot of a point in time when the prevailing sentiment was that the United States would remain relatively unaffected by the coronavirus.

Oil prices also sank on Friday as major producers gathered for a critical meeting to try to agree on production cuts to try to manage the falling demand for crude as concerns about coronavirus spread across the globe.

The Chinese province where the virus first appeared reaches a milestone.

Hubei, the Chinese province at the center of the coronavirus outbreak, reported on Friday that the province had no new infections outside its capital, Wuhan, confirming that Chinas new cases and deaths are increasingly concentrated in that city, while the rest of the province and the rest of the country are largely spared.

Hubei recorded 74 new infections, all in Wuhan. China also recorded 24 cases in people who had arrived from abroad, including 17 in Gansu, a northwest Chinese province. Excluding the infections in Wuhan and among arrivals from abroad, there was only one other new infection in the rest of China on Friday.

China also reported 28 deaths among those with the virus, all in Hubei Province. That was fewer than in Italy, where there were 49 deaths on Friday.

[Read: Italys coronavirus victims face death alone, with funerals postponed.]

The downward trend in China is a result of an all-out effort by the government to contain the spread of the disease. Since January, the government has enacted nationwide quarantine and travel restrictions and placed Hubei under a strict lockdown, effectively penning in 56 million people.

The new numbers reflect a steep decline from just a few weeks earlier. At one point in early February, Hubei reported more than 1,400 new cases outside Wuhan in one day.

One of the government-appointed Chinese researchers working to control the outbreak told the state-run newspaper Peoples Daily on Thursday that, based on the data, he expected Wuhan to hit zero new infections later this month.

But the harsh restrictions have also frustrated ordinary Chinese people, especially in Wuhan, the city at the center of the outbreak. Residents of one apartment compound in Wuhan who have been confined to their homes for weeks heckled a visiting vice premier Thursday, with some shouting from their windows: Fake! Everything is fake!

The epidemic grew at an alarming rate in Europe.

The number of infections climbed past 7,300 in Europe on Friday more than doubling in just three days.

France, Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy and others each recorded their biggest one-day increases in cases. More than 30 European countries now have cases; 10 of them have at least 100 each.

[Analysis: Coronavirus tests Europes cohesion, alliances, and even democracy.]

A member of the French Parliament tested positive for the virus. Doctors in Britain warned that the already-strained health care system there could be overwhelmed as the outbreak grows, and the country had its second coronavirus death.

Pope Francis has had a cold for over a week, and on Thursday, a Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said that the pontiffs illness was running its due course.

He also told reporters that the Vatican was studying measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, that could affect coming activities involving the pope.

Germany, France and Spain, with the next-largest outbreaks in Europe, reported more than 1,700 cases combined, up from fewer than 1,200 on Thursday. In Switzerland, the confirmed caseload doubled, to more than 200.

Outside Europe, in Irans outbreak, one of the worlds largest, the government reported more than 4,700 infections, an increase of more than 1,200 from the day before.

Edouard Philippe, the French prime minister, announced a 15-day school closure in two regions, Oise and Haut-Rhin.

Heres what to do if you think youre sick.

The president is to travel to Atlanta after a visit to the site of a deadly tornado in Nashville and then head to Florida, where he is to headline campaign fund-raising events. He is expected to spend the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Russia, with few confirmed cases, announces aggressive action to reassure a jittery public.

Russia, if official figures are to be believed, has waged one of the worlds most successful campaigns to halt the spread of the coronavirus, reporting just 10 cases across a vast country with 11 time zones and a border with China more than 2,600 miles long.

So it came as a surprise this week when the city authorities in Moscow suddenly announced a raft of sweeping precautionary measures.

In a decree published late Wednesday, the capitals mayor, Sergei S. Sobyanin, ordered all residents who visit China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, South Korea or other unspecified states with an unfavorable coronavirus situation to report to the municipal government upon their return to Moscow and to self-isolate for two weeks. The United States has now been added to the list.

Mr. Sobyanins decree, which declared a regime of heightened readiness for the capital, created uncertainty and dismay rather than reassurance, raising questions about why a city with just five officially reported cases had suddenly instituted such stringent controls.

The moves in Moscow follow an alarm this week in St Petersburg, Russias second-biggest city, after an Italian exchange student who returned to Russia on Feb. 29 tested positive for the virus. Fellow students in the Italians dormitory at the North-Western State Medical University said that they had been ordered not to leave the building.

Officials denied that the dormitory, which houses around 700 students, had been placed under quarantine, saying that its residents were simply under medical supervision.

The Times is publishing many articles daily on the coronavirus, which help inform this briefing. Here is a listing of the newsrooms articles from the last day.

Florida Lobster Got a Break on China Tariffs. Then Came Coronavirus.

Climate:

Coronavirus Could Slow Efforts to Cut Airlines Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Culture:

South by Southwest Is Canceled as Coronavirus Fears Scuttle Festival

From Coughing Fits to Closings, Cultural World Girds for Coronavirus

TEFAF Art Fair Carries on. But Business Isnt Usual.

Lifestyle:

The Handshake Is on Hold

Coronavirus Puts a Wrinkle in Wedding Industry

How to:

How to Help Protect a Family Member in a Nursing Home

How to Quarantine Yourself

Reporting was contributed by Peter Baker, Andrew Higgins, Declan Walsh, Michael Gold, Matt Richtel, Alan Yuhas, Adeel Hassan, Aurelien Breeden, David Halbfinger, Mohammed Najib, Marc Santora, Benjamin Mueller, Mitch Smith, Michael Levenson, Russell Goldman, Amy Qin, Elaine Yu, Javier C. Hernndez, Max Fisher, Ben Dooley, Mike Isaac, David Yaffe-Bellany, Raillan Brooks and Karen Weise.

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In the U.S., More Than 300 Coronavirus Cases Are Confirmed - The New York Times

President Donald Trump shakes hands before a dinner with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla on March 7, 2020.

Credit: Alex Brandon/AP

In Fox News studios in both New York and Washington, producers, reporters and on-air talent paid rapt attention to this story, in large part because Bolsonaro and his entourage including a close aide who had already manifested symptoms and tested positive had met days earlier at Mar-a-Lago with President Donald Trump, key Trump aides (including Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump), and Fox News prime-time anchor Tucker Carlson.

But Foxwas unwilling to report something as significant as a positive coronavirus test for the Brazilian president without further confirmation. As a result, according toemployees inside Fox News with first-hand knowledge of the episode but who are unauthorized to speak publicly about the matter, they decided they needed first-hand confirmation from either Bolsonaro or one of his three politician-sons. To obtain it, they quickly reached out to Alex Phares, the son of Trump confidant and Fox News analyst Walid Phares.

The younger Phares has become well-known in conservative circles for arranging media and other appearances for Bolsonaros youngestpolitical son, the So Paulo Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, including booking him on three separate panels at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held the week prior to the Trump/Bolsonaro Mar-a-Lago meeting. CPAC itself was the site for several now-confirmed coronavirus cases, including the leader of Spains far-right Vox PartySantiago Abascal, whom Eduardo boasted of meeting there (meeting and shaking hands with Abascal is what led Texas Senator Ted Cruz to self-isolate for the second time):

At roughly 10:00 a.m. ET on Friday morning roughly 40 minutes after the O Dia column appeared Phares, first by text and then by voice, confirmed to Fox News that Eduardo, that morning, had told him thathis fathers first testhad indeed returned positive. But Fox was still unwilling to report this without speaking to one of the Bolsonaros directly. They asked Phraes if he could arrange both a telephone and on-air interview with Eduardo.

Roughly thirty minutes later, Fox spoke directly to Eduardo, who, Fox sources insist, stated unequivocally that his father had received the results of his first coronavirus test and it was positive; the presidents son said that they were awaiting the results of a second test.Eduardo and Fox agreed that he would be interviewed about the coronavirus test on-air via Skype at 11:30 a.m. EsT.

Shortly before the interview, Eduardo again confirmed that his fathers first test was positive for the presence of coronavirus. Hearing two separate, definitive confirmations from Eduardo, as well as from Phares, Fox had the confidence it needed to have its White House correspondent, John Roberts, announce on Twitter that President Bolsonaro had tested positive for the coronavirus, and Fox shortly thereafter published a print article online and a broadcast report with the same news. All of that reporting made clear that their source was Eduardo.

The Brazilian media had exercised the same caution as Fox, unwilling to report something so momentous based solely on an anonymously-sourced report in O Dia. But once Fox News had reported the news based on Eduardos confirmation, they naturally began noting Foxs report. News of the presidents positive coronavirus test spread quickly online.

As soon as that happened, Eduardo went on the offensive with a standard Bolsonaro family tactic: accusing the Brazilian media of maliciously fabricating Fake News against his father, a particularly inflammatory accusation where it involved reports of his fathers positive coronavirus test. But when Brazilian media outlets united to make clear that the report was not theirs but Fox News a network beloved by the Bolsonaros and their movement and that the named source for the story was Eduardo himself, Eduardo had two choices: he could either admit that Fox was telling the truth and that he had confirmed the positive test to them, or he could start accusing Fox News of lying. He chose the latter.

In a series of increasingly unhinged tweets that extended into Saturday morning, Eduardo insisted that he had never told any reporter including one at Fox that his father had tested positive for the coronavirus. Sitting in front of photos of a machine gun and a Revolutionary American flag, Eduardo then recorded videos in both Portuguese and English (see below) in which he insisted (caps in original) THIS IS ALL A LIE:

Then, in a bizarre on-air mid-Friday interview on Fox News by which point President Bolsonaro himself had claimed that his test result, which he has still yet to show the public, was negative Eduardo told the visibly baffled and frustrated Fox anchor Sandra Smith that he was not aware of the results of any first coronavirus test for his father, and continually tried to shift the interview back to his fathers claim that the ultimate test was negative.

In response to Eduardos false accusations that Fox had fabricated their conversations with him, Fox News issued an avalanche of clear and emphatic denunciations. Fox sources told the Intercept that they were shocked and indignant and still are as they watched Eduardo repeatedly lie and brazenly deny that he told the network that his fathers test was positive, even though he had done exactly that twice. And they hardly disguised their anger.

Their public responses included an article headlined: Brazil President Bolsonaros son claims father tested negative for coronavirus despite earlier reports that made clear at the beginning that Eduardo was lying:

Reports out of Brazil had initially indicated Bolsonaro had tested positive, and his son appeared to confirm this to Fox News earlier Friday, adding that further testing was being done to confirm the diagnosis and the second set of testing was expected later in the day.

However, in a subsequent appearance on Americas Newsroom, Eduardo denied his father had ever tested positive.

Fox then released the text messages between its journalists and Phares to Globos flagship news program, Jornal Nacional, in which Phares confirmed to Fox that he had just spoken to Eduardo about the presidents positive test.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, Foxs John Roberts explicitly stated as Eduardo was denying it that the presidents son had told Fox that his father had a preliminary POSITIVE test for coronavirus.

Roberts then went on the air on Fox and, standing in front of the White House, emphasized that Eduardo was lying in his denials:

Another Fox reporter, Chris Irvine, similarly made clear that Eduardo was lying, tweeting on Friday:Earlier today, Eduardo Bolsonaro confirmed reports that his father had tested positive for coronavirus to FOX News and said they were waiting for further testing. He later appeared on FOX News and claimed his father had tested negative for coronavirus.

From the start, the Bolsonaros behavior has been extremely strange regarding the question of whether the Brazilian President does or not have the coronavirus. Indeed, when a widely respected reporter from Brazils largest newspaper, Monica Bergamo of Folha, reported that Bolsonaros Communications chief Fabio Wajngarten had returned from the U.S. with classic COVID-19 symptoms and was being tested, Wajngarten attacked her on Twitter and implied she had made it up only for his positive test to be confirmed the next day.

Now that nine members of Bolsonaros entourage have tested positive, the mystery has less clarity than ever. Almost immediately after claiming that his test was negative just hours after his son told Fox that it was positive Bolsonaro refused to release the results of the test itself or have any doctor vouch for them, and then, without explanation, the presidents office announced that Bolsonaro would remain in isolation for fourteen more days and would undergo another test.

But then yesterday, during nationwide anti-democracy protests originally encouraged by Bolsonaroaimed at the Congressand Supreme Court, but which Bolsonaro ultimately discouraged on the grounds that it would be dangerous in a pandemic, the Brazilian President shocked everyone by leaving the palace and the medical isolation he was supposed to be in to join a crowd of supporters. He proceeded to touch at least 272 of them, including shaking hands, fist bumping and taking their telephones to snap selfies before handing them back. Prior to that on Twitter, Bolsonaro had implicitly encouraged his supporters to attend the mass street gatherings in direct contradiction of the urgings of his own Health Minister by posting photos of the protests invarious cities.

That President Bolsonaro who has mocked the pandemic from the start as a fantasy and a media exaggeration and whose key evangelical allies are now calling it a hoax would leave his medical isolation and risk the health of his own supporters by physically interacting with them outraged much of the country, particularly as it appeared to send exactly the opposite message about social distancing that healths officials in Brazil, where huge numbers of poor people live in extreme density in favelas and where the health system is already utterly dysfunctional, are desperate to convey.

But the question of Bolsonaros healthremains shrouded in mystery. And that mystery is now fueled by his son inadvertently starting a war with a news outlet they trained their followers to worship: Fox News. Eduardo Bolsonaro essentially forced Fox News to prove that the Bolsonaros are liars by accusing the network of fabricating conversations they had with him in which he clearly confirmed his fathers positive test.

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How Jair Bolsonaro's Son, Eduardo, Confirmed His Father's Positive Coronavirus Test to Fox News, Then Lied About It - The Intercept

For most of last week, as Mayor Bill de Blasio continued to urge New Yorkers to mostly go about their daily lives sending their children to school, frequenting the citys businesses some of his top aides were furiously trying to change the mayors approach to the coronavirus outbreak.

There had been arguments and shouting matches between the mayor and some of his advisers; some top health officials had even threatened to resign if he refused to accept the need to close schools and businesses, according to several people familiar with the internal discussions.

Teachers were threatening not to show up to school on Monday. A growing number of public health experts and politicians were calling for much of the city to be shut down to curb the spread of the virus.

On Sunday, the mayor was shown a graph depicting the sharp upward trajectory of the coronavirus epidemic curve, and another showing the capacity of the citys health systems to handle the influx.

The information painted a disastrous picture of the days and weeks to come unless the mayor took immediate action.

We all realized from the public health outcomes and political reality this needed to happen, said a person familiar with the mayors deliberations who spoke under the condition of anonymity. He just had to process it himself.

A few hours later, Mr. de Blasio announced a plan for schools to close starting Monday until at least April 20. Later that evening, the mayor announced a plan to close bars and restaurants.

Clearly the city moved in a completely different direction yesterday, not just on the school system, but everything else, said Michael Mulgrew, the president of the citys teachers union, who was among those trying to persuade the mayor to shift his position. All the policy. It was sudden.

As fears over the coronavirus outbreak rose with each new reported case in New York City, Mr. de Blasio has tried to do his best to project a sense of calm. He stressed that the vast majority of people who contracted the virus in New York would recover after a mild illness.

He also continued to travel from Gracie Mansion in Manhattan to work out at a Y.M.C.A. in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a longstanding routine that has garnered intense criticism.

Even on Monday, hours before all gyms in New York had to close, the mayor was seen getting one last workout in at the Y attracting a new furious round of criticism.

No current or former staff member should be asked to defend this, Rebecca Katz, a former adviser to Mr. de Blasio, wrote on Twitter. Jonathan Rosen, once one of Mr. de Blasios closest advisers, agreed with Ms. Katz on Twitter, calling the mayors gym visit pathetic, self-involved, inexcusable.

In a subsequent interview, Ms. Katz said, Staffers are working 24 hours to put together plans for the city. Thats not the right message to send right now.

The mayors press secretary, Freddi Goldstein, said that the Y.M.C.A. was a huge part of his and his familys life, adding, Its clear thats about to change, and before that, the mayor wanted to visit a place that keeps him grounded one last time.

Mr. Cuomos order does not take effect until 8 p.m. on Monday, at which point all gyms, casinos and movie theaters in the state will be closed, and bars and restaurants will be limited to takeout and delivery.

In many ways, the mayors visit to the gym on Monday captured his reluctance to completely embrace the need for radical changes. Even after declaring a state of emergency on Thursday, Mr. de Blasio continued to suggest that more drastic actions were not yet needed.

The mayors stance derived from a two-part strategy to deal with the coronavirus: containment and mitigation.

City health officials said that the goal is not to necessarily reduce the overall number of cases, but to slow its spread and stretch it out over time. Doing so would lower the number of cases at any given time, which health officials say is of critical importance.

What youre doing is blunting the height so you never have the day when there is 5,000 people, 10,000, or 20,000 people looking for health care and theyre so overcapacity that grandma cant get chemotherapy, Dr. Demetre C. Daskalakis, the deputy commissioner for disease control at New York Citys Department of Health, explained in a speech last week to doctors and medical students at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Capacity of health care that is what this is all about.

Mitigation calls for social-distancing measures, such as reducing crowds by banning large-scale events like sporting events and concerts, and closing schools.

Mr. de Blasio had been resistant to embracing shutdowns, saying he was worried about how they would affect the citys sense of normalcy and what impact they would have on the most vulnerable New Yorkers.

People close to the mayor said that as the virus spread, he knew that the city would need to shut more things down; the debate was over the timing.

We need people to have their livelihoods, Mr. de Blasio said on Friday, the day after he signed the declaration of emergency. We need folks to show up at work.

In his first six years in office, the mayor has received praise for leading the city through multiple global health epidemics such as a Legionnaires disease outbreak in 2015 that killed at least a dozen people.

When an Ebola scare ripped through the city during his first year as mayor, Mr. de Blasio hugged an Ebola patient and ate at a restaurant where that man had dined, part of a strategy to reduce panic and to urge New Yorkers to mostly go about their lives.

The mayor has said that he was trying to strike a balance between public health and affecting peoples livelihoods.

But as more New Yorkers tested positive for the coronavirus, it was clear that more decisive action was needed.

The turning point came over the weekend, as numerous advisers met with Mr. de Blasio and showed him the charts of the disease trajectory and the citys ability to handle the cases.

Mr. de Blasio acknowledged on Sunday that seeing the latest models and talking thorough the ramifications helped change his mind.

Another person close to the deliberations described the mayor as an intelligent over-processor. He doesnt trust experts in the field until he has processed it himself, the person said.

Michael Gold contributed reporting.

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De Blasio Resisted on Coronavirus. Then Aides Said Theyd Quit. - The New York Times

Trump Is Tested for Coronavirus, and Experts Ask: What Took So Long?  The New York Times

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Trump Is Tested for Coronavirus, and Experts Ask: What Took So Long? - The New York Times

Spain and France announced drastic, countrywide restrictions on Saturday to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Spain ordered all citizens to confine themselves to their homes and to leave only to buy food, go to work, seek medical care or assist the elderly and others in need.

Officials in Spain reported 1,500 new cases, the largest daily increase in the country so far, pushing its total to 5,753. The government ordered all schools, restaurants and bars to close, extending measures that various regional authorities, including in Madrid and in Catalonia, had taken on Friday.

Also on Saturday, Spanish authorities said the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Snchez, Begoa Gmez, had tested positive for the virus.

France announced the closing of all non-indispensable businesses as of midnight, including restaurants, bars, and movie theaters, after a sharp uptick in the assault from the coronavirus. French cases doubled over the last 72 hours to about 4,500. There have been 91 deaths, and 300 coronavirus patients are in critical condition half of them under 60 years of age.

The measures in both countries follow similar moves in Italy, the hardest hit country in Europe. Italy has been locked down since early in the week, with only groceries, pharmacies and banks allowed to operate. On Saturday, the country reported 175 new deaths, with a total of 1,441, and 2,795 new cases, with the total crossing 21,000.

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Live Coronavirus Updates and Coverage - The New York Times

Senate Democrats on Thursday sought assurances from Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that his department would not interfere with undocumented immigrants seeking medical attention.

This is a public health and safety issue that, if anything else, puts all of our communities at risk, Senator Jacky Rosen, Democrat of Nevada, said. Will the department refrain from apprehending individuals based solely on their immigration status while theyre seeking care?

Mr. Cuccinelli said ICE does not conduct enforcement at health care facilities absent single case exigent circumstances.

But immigrant advocates say that stepped-up enforcement could deter people from seeking medical care.

On Wednesday, nine Democratic senators wrote a letter to President Trump and members of his coronavirus task force urging the agency to halt civil immigration enforcement in or around health care facilities.

The senators also requested that Homeland Security publicly state that the administrations new wealth test, known as the public charge rule, would not penalize immigrants who receive treatment for coronavirus symptoms by labeling them public charges, thus barring their paths to green cards.

We cannot allow the fear this ill-considered rule creates to scare families away from getting the help that they may need if they come into contact with people, with the coronavirus, the Democrats said in the letter.

Reporting was contributed by Mike Baker, Rick Gladstone, Katie Robertson, Vindu Goel, Melissa Eddy, Michael Wolgelenter, Marc Santora, Niki Kitsantonis, Mitch Smith, Sarah Mervosh, Davey Alba, Tiffany May, Claire Fu, Elaine Yu, Farah Stockman, Ed Shanahan, Neil Vigdor, Lauretta Charlton, James Gorman, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Matt Richtel, Mitch Smith, Amy Harmon, Michael Gold, Ben Dooley, Richard Prez-Pea, Azi Paybarah, Joseph Goldstein and Kirk Johnson.

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Coronavirus Cases Surge in U.S. and Europe - The New York Times

SEATTLE Two emergency medicine doctors, in New Jersey and Washington State, are in critical condition as a result of coronavirus, reinforcing concerns that the nations front-line medical workers are becoming especially vulnerable to the virus, the American College of Emergency Physicians said.

A lot of us think that despite everything we do, we will probably be exposed, said Dr. William Jaquis, the chair of the group. Still, he said, The first reported case certainly sends a shock wave through the community.

Emergency rooms represent a busy intake point for hospitals, where patients come in with symptoms but no diagnosis. As the coronavirus spreads during the typical flu season, emergency physicians are triaging large numbers of patients around the country with symptoms that could be the virus.

As compared to anyone else at a hospital, you are operating with the most incomplete information, said Dr. Angela Fusaro, an emergency doctor in Atlanta.

One of the ill physicians, a man in his 40s, is a doctor at EvergreenHealth Medical Center in Kirkland, Wash., a hospital near Seattle which has seen one of the largest concentrations of cases in the United States.

EvergreenHealth is providing care for one of our physicians who has a confirmed case of Covid-19. He is in critical condition but stable, the hospital said in a statement.

Dr. Jaquis said it appeared that the doctor had access to adequate protective equipment. This was an area with an outbreak, so they were expecting and prepared. That obviously makes us more nervous.

The other physician, a doctor in his 70s in Paterson, N.J., was also in isolation in intensive care. The doctor led his institutions emergency preparedness and was admitted to the hospital several days ago with upper respiratory problems, the physicians group said.

The nationwide shortage of N-95 protective masks has been concerning to doctors, who increasingly feel the need to use them in more situations to stay safe, Dr. Jaquis said.

Some emergency departments are adapting their facilities to minimize the risk to health care providers and other patients, opening tents to triage patients outside their buildings and creating separate entrances for patients and doctors, who do not typically wear protective gear as they come and go.

Emergency doctors at times must tend to patients before their virus risk is assessed, and may have a need, such as a major injury, that needs urgent attention, Dr. Fusaro said. Things that might be necessary to stabilize their life are pretty intimate, she said. If you have to put in a breathing tube, you are going to be right up against them. You cant practice that type of medicine from afar.

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Two Emergency Room Doctors Are in Critical Condition With Coronavirus - The New York Times

"Bottom line, it's going to get worse," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States. Fauci testified Wednesday at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Patrick Semansky/AP hide caption

"Bottom line, it's going to get worse," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States. Fauci testified Wednesday at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

Updated at 3:50 p.m. ET

The coronavirus outbreak has now infected more than 1,000 people in nearly 40 U.S. states and the country's top authority on infectious diseases says things will only get worse.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warns that the number of cases of the COVID-19 viral disease will continue to grow because containment measures and contact tracing have failed to prevent community spread of the virus.

"Is the worst yet to come, Dr. Fauci?" Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, asked Fauci on Wednesday.

"Yes, it is," Fauci replied.

While this coronavirus is being contained in some respects, he testified, the U.S. is seeing more cases emerge through community spread as well as international travel.

"I can say we will see more cases, and things will get worse than they are right now," Fauci said. "How much worse we'll get will depend on our ability to do two things: to contain the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside, and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country."

He added: "Bottom line, it's going to get worse."

Any potential vaccines for the virus are still at least a year or a year and a half away, Fauci said.

Health officials are now working to bolster coronavirus testing in the U.S., Fauci said: "We need to know how many people ... are infected, as we say, under the radar screen."

Local and state health officials, desperate to stop the coronavirus from spreading in hard-hit areas, are enacting bans on public gatherings, closing schools and encouraging people to avoid close contact with others. Their goal is to slow down the virus as they work concurrently to contain it.

A few areas are also widening the availability of COVID-19 testing including offering drive-up service. Until this week, several U.S. states did not have labs that could test for the virus. Federal officials say the role of local agencies will become only more important.

"As we experience the growing community spread in the United States, the burden of confronting this outbreak is shifting to states and local health professionals on the front lines," the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, said during Wednesday's committee hearing.

The U.S. public health system currently has the capacity to test up to 75,000 people, Redfield said.

The country's hot spots remain Washington state (273 cases as of Wednesday morning), New York (176 cases) and California (157 cases). The coronavirus has killed at least 31 people in the U.S. most of them in Washington. Deaths have also been reported in California, Florida, New Jersey and South Dakota.

Those COVID-19 numbers come from a dashboard created by Johns Hopkins University's Whiting School of Engineering, which tracks the data nearly in real time. Those figures have been more up to date than the public tally kept by the CDC, which updates its national map at noon ET each day using numbers from 4 p.m. the previous afternoon.

The CDC maintains a separate count for the nearly 50 infected Americans who were repatriated to the U.S. from Wuhan, China, and Yokohama, Japan.

Coronavirus symptoms and prevention

To prevent the coronavirus from spreading, the CDC recommends washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or using a hand sanitizer if a sink isn't available. The World Health Organization says people should wear face masks only if they're sick or caring for someone who is.

"For most people, COVID-19 infection will cause mild illness; however, it can make some people very ill and, in some people, it can be fatal," the WHO says. "Older people, and those with pre-existing medical conditions (such as cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease or diabetes) are at risk for severe disease."

The most common symptoms of COVID-19, according to a recent WHO report that draws on more than 70,000 cases in China, are the following: fever (in 88% of cases), dry cough (68%), fatigue (38%) and sputum/phlegm production (33%).

Shortness of breath occurred in nearly 20% of cases, and about 13% had a sore throat or headache, the WHO said.

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Coronavirus: Over 1000 Cases Now In U.S., And 'It's Going To Get Worse,' Fauci Says - NPR