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Governments step up fiscal interventions as the virus disrupts daily life for millions.
The effort to stem the economic fallout of the coronavirus took on new urgency around the world on Wednesday as ever more sweeping restrictions on the free movement of people threatened to upend daily life in more than 100 countries dealing with the public health crisis.
The Trump administration is considering extending the tax filing deadline from all Americans beyond April 15, while lawmakers are discussing a stimulus package.
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, the chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, cut short a hearing on the virus when her main witnesses said they could not attend.
She said the White House had summoned the witnesses, the administration’s top health officials, for an emergency meeting at noon.
“We don’t know the details, just that it is extremely urgent,” Ms. Maloney added.
Administration officials said it was a routine meeting.
Stocks on Wall Street tumbled on Wednesday and the volatile trading across global markets signaled that investors remained concerned about how governments would deal with the economic consequences of coronavirus.
Beyond the economic fallout, the rhythms of daily life continued to stutter as more countries announced school closings, employers urged people to work from home and high-profile events were canceled or curtailed.
Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister of Italy, told the Times that the sacrifices being made in his country, which entered its second day on lockdown, would serve all of Europe.
“Today, the red zone is Italy,” he said. But in 10 days, he warned, it will be Madrid, Paris and Berlin. Italy needs to show how to stop it, Mr. Renzi said. If it fails, “the red zone will be Europe.”
Much can change in 10 days.
It was 10 days ago when New York announced its first confirmed case of the virus. On Wednesday morning, the National Guard was moving into the suburb of New Rochelle to help put the nation’s first “containment area” in place. Churches, schools and synagogues within a one-square-mile area were closed and people’s movements restricted in an effort to head off further spread of the virus, which has infected at least 170 people in the state.
In Washington State, Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to announce a prohibition on community gatherings of 250 or more people in the Seattle area, as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases approached 300 — the most in the country — and the number of deaths has reached 24.
The speed at which the virus has spread has compounded the consequences of a series of missed chances by the federal government to ensure more widespread testing during the early days of the outbreak, when containment would have been easier.
Germany warns that the worst is yet to come.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday that the coronavirus was likely to infect about two-thirds of the German population.
“Given a virus for which there is no immunity and no immunization, we have to understand that many people will be infected. The consensus among experts is that 60 to 70 percent of the population will be infected,” she said.
In her first public appearance to address the epidemic, which has already infected more than 1,200 people in Germany, Ms. Merkel said that her government was following the advice of medical experts. She urged citizens to do the same.
“We are at the start of a development that we cannot yet see the end of,” Ms. Merkel told reporters. “But we as a country will do whatever is necessary to do, working within the European bloc.”
That readiness includes flexibility on spending, to help especially the small and midsize enterprises that are losing business, she said.
“This is an exceptional situation, and we will do whatever is needed,” Ms. Merkel said. “We won’t ask every day, ’What does this mean for our deficit?’”
The chancellor urged Germans to accept that it was important to stay home whenever possible and take precautions, to ensure that the health system would be able to withstand the high number of people who could fall seriously ill.
Major events, including all large cultural performances in Berlin, Munich and elsewhere, such as many soccer games, have either been canceled or will take place without spectators. “How we respond matters,” Ms. Merkel said. “We are playing for time.”
Stocks drop again, as investors wait for Trump to act.
Stocks on Wall Street tumbled on Wednesday, as topsy-turvy trading across global markets signaled continued investor concern about how governments would deal with the coronavirus fallout.
In Europe, major indexes in Frankfurt, London and Paris fell, giving up early gains that had come after the Bank of England said it would cut interest rates to help British businesses. Shares in Asia also fell.
Investors are vacillating between the threat that the coronavirus poses to the global economy and the hopes that governments will unveil a series of measures to help businesses.
President Trump has signaled that he will consider ways to stimulate the economy. Options include cutting payroll taxes and extending the American tax filing deadline past April 15. But so far, the White House has yet to announce any specific measures, and most experts say a payroll tax cut is not an effective way to combat the problems facing the economy.
The S&P 500 fell more than 2 percent in early trading on Wednesday. Stocks tumbled nearly 8 percent on Monday, and rose nearly 5 percent on Tuesday.
Other markets signaled persistent investor jitters. Futures for gold, a traditional haven, edged higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond fell, another indicator of investor nervousness.
Oil prices fell after the Saudi Arabian state oil company said for the second time this week that it would expand production capacity. The announcement signaled no let up in Saudi Arabia’s clash with Russia over supplies, which sent crude prices crashing this week.
As virus races across Europe, nations step up restrictions.
The speed of the coronavirus spread across Europe — with Italy accounting for about half of the nearly 20,000 cases on the Continent — has left countries scrambling to come up with a coordinated containment plan.
At the end of February, European nations other than Italy had reported just a few dozen cases. Now, France, Germany and Spain have well over 1,000 cases each.
Hundreds of cases have also been reported elsewhere: the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland each have at least 400 confirmed infections; Denmark and Belgium, which said a first person had died of the virus on Wednesday, have both reported more than 250 cases, and Sweden has more than 350.
Even the island nation of Iceland has not escaped, with 81 infections in a population of about 364,000, one of the highest number of cases per capita worldwide.
Some of the countries with the fewest cases are taking the most drastic actions.
Greece and Ukraine announced this week the closing of all schools, universities, and kindergartens.
Poland, which on Wednesday had 25 confirmed cases, will also shut down theaters, movie theaters, museums and art galleries for two weeks starting Friday.
Denmark has suspended naturalization ceremonies because a handshake is officially required for their completion.
In an unusual three-hour teleconference on Tuesday night, the European Council, which comprises the heads of government of the European Union states, decided to set up a $28 billion investment fund and to relax rules governing airlines.
But the leaders failed to overcome disagreements among bloc members about sharing medical equipment like face masks and respirators, given that health issues are the responsibility of national governments.
After the meeting, President Emmanuel Macron of France said: “What we are living is a true world crisis.”
Delays in testing set back the U.S. coronavirus response.
In late January, the first confirmed American case of coronavirus had been reported in the Seattle area. But had the man infected anyone else? Was the virus already spreading?
Dr. Helen Y. Chu, an infectious disease expert in Seattle, had a way to monitor the region. As part of a research project into the flu, she and a team of researchers had been collecting nasal swabs for months from residents experiencing symptoms throughout the Puget Sound region.
To repurpose the tests for the coronavirus, they would need the support of state and federal officials. But officials repeatedly rejected her idea, interviews and emails show, even as weeks crawled by and outbreaks emerged outside of China.
By Feb. 25, Dr. Chu and her colleagues could not wait any longer. They began performing coronavirus tests without government approval. What came back confirmed their worst fear: They had a positive test from a local teenager with no recent travel history.
In fact, officials would later discover through testing, the virus had already contributed to the deaths of two people, and it would go on to kill 20 more in the Seattle region over the following days.
Federal and state officials said the flu study could not be repurposed because Dr. Chu’s lab did not have explicit permission from research subjects; the lab was also not certified for clinical work. While acknowledging the ethical questions, Dr. Chu and others argued there should be more flexibility in an emergency.
The failure to tap into the flu study was just one in a series of missed chances by the federal government to ensure more widespread testing during the early days of the outbreak, when greater containment still seemed possible.
Even now, after weeks of mounting frustration toward federal agencies over flawed test kits and burdensome rules, states such as New York and California are struggling to test widely for the coronavirus. The continued delays have made it impossible for officials to get a true picture of the scale of the growing outbreak, which has now spread to 36 states and Washington, D.C.
The U.S. caseload has surpassed 1,000.
As the United States scrambled to understand the scope of the escalating public health crisis, the number of known U.S. cases of coronavirus infection passed 1,000 on Tuesday night, signaling that the virus was spreading widely in communities on both coasts and in the center of the country.
In yet another sign that the pace of infections was increasing, more than a quarter of the country’s cases were announced on Tuesday. As of early Wednesday, people in 37 states and Washington, D.C., had tested positive for the virus. There were at least 31 related deaths.
As health officials around the country take increasingly drastic measures to try to slow the virus’s spread, Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington State planned to announce on Wednesday a prohibition on community gatherings of 250 or more people in the Seattle area, according to a person involved in the discussions. The announcement is expected to target events such as sports games and entertainment gatherings while offering exceptions to schools and retail stores.
In California, second only to Washington State in the number of cases, passengers continued to disembark from a cruise ship on which about two dozen people had tested positive for the virus.
As of Tuesday evening, about 1,406 people had been able to leave the ship, the Grand Princess, after it docked in Oakland. Some passengers and state officials expressed frustration about what they said was the slow pace of the departures.
“I don’t want to start crying, but I’m stressed,” said Denise Morse, from Davis, Calif., who has been quarantined in her stateroom since Friday. “This is very exhausting to experience.”
And across the country, more colleges canceled classes and told students not to return to campuses after their spring breaks.
Isabella Kwasnik, a senior at Harvard College, said the move was startling. “You spend four years at a university, and you work incredibly hard and expect that at the end you can tie a bow on it and wrap it up,” she said.
“But there’s this unexpected outcome,” she added. “It’s just a logistical and emotional nightmare.”
Massachusetts was emerging as a new hot spot for the virus, along with California, New York and Washington State. Of 92 cases in Massachusetts, 70 were tied to a meeting for a biotechnology company in Boston last month.
The governor of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, as did governors in a number of states, including Colorado, Michigan and North Carolina.
Common questions about the coronavirus, and other ways to prepare.
Here are some of the most common questions that readers are asking about how they can prepare for the coronavirus, how they can boost their immune systems and how they should react to the market. (Don’t, probably.)
The I.R.S. could extend the tax payment deadline past April 15.
The Treasury Department is considering delaying tax payments beyond the April 15 deadline, according to a person familiar with the plans, as taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service brace for economic disruption from the spread of the coronavirus.
Treasury and White House officials have been discussing the idea of extending the tax deadline over the past week as the administration considers measures to relieve financial pressure on individuals and businesses struggling with fallout from a virus that has closed schools, kept workers at home and disrupted supply chains.
The I.R.S. could extend the tax payment deadline or waive penalties and interest for late payments.
The plan, which was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, came as Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee wrote to Charles Rettig, the I.R.S. commissioner, to ask for an update on the effect of the outbreak on tax filing season and for an evaluation of whether the agency needed to re-evaluate the traditional April 15 deadline.
On Monday, as stock markets plunged, President Trump said the administration would consider economic stimulus options, including a payroll tax cut and other relief. Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, said on Tuesday that the administration could use executive authority to help individuals and businesses, noting that “we have leverage on tax deferral.”
Delaying tax day would also ease logistical problems that the I.R.S. could face if more government workers were forced to work remotely. The tax collection agency has service centers across the country that require staff to have face-to-face contact with the general public.
Italy plans to spend $28 billion to bolster its economy and fight the virus.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy announced on Wednesday that his government was developing a plan to spend 25 billion euros, about $28 billion, to confront the coronavirus emergency.
“We will do everything necessary,” Mr. Conte said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The details of the plan will be outlined in more detail on Friday but are expected to include broader unemployment benefits and tax relief for companies, as well as the possibility of parents taking time off work or receiving a “babysitter voucher.”
Schools in Italy remained closed on Wednesday as the country entered its second day under lockdown. With total infections numbering more than 10,000 — with more than 630 deaths — the country’s health system has showed signs of buckling under the pressure, and some of the money would be earmarked for hospitals and other medical facilities.
Mr. Conte said that European Union officials had shown “openness” to Italy’s need for greater liquidity to “deal with this emergency.”
Roberto Gualtieri, the Italian economy minister, said that some of the measures that the government was deliberating could take advantage of European funds.
Mr. Conte said that half of the $28 billion would be used immediately, while the remainder would be used “to deal with all the difficulties of this emergency.”
Increasingly isolated, Iraq cancels Friday Prayer.
Iraq announced the cancellation of Friday Prayer for a second week on Wednesday, as did Lebanon, as travel restrictions across the Middle East were stepped up to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
Any doubt about the religious justification of such a decision was laid to rest by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani of Iraq, a Shiite leader, who posted his views in a statement on his website.
“Whenever and wherever such gatherings are prohibited in order to mitigate the outbreak of the virus, then you must adhere to those instructions,” he said.
Iraq has 71 confirmed cases of the coronavirus so far and has had seven deaths, but with a major outbreak in neighboring Iran, there are fears that the illness could spread rapidly.
In larger mosques, Friday Prayer can bring several thousands of people together in a small space.
Sunni Muslims in Iraq have received mixed messages about the precautions to take, with some of their religious leaders still urging people to participate in Friday Prayer. But the Sunni Endowment Office — a government body that administers religious sites and real estate in Iraq — has encouraged people to avoid the services and in some provinces has suspended them. In neighboring Iran, Friday Prayer have been canceled for the past two weeks.
Syria on Wednesday joined the list of countries to have closed land borders with Iraq. Iran, Jordan, Kuwait and Turkey had already taken that step. People in Iraq can now only leave the country by air, and even those options are dwindling.
Three T.S.A. agents in San Jose test positive for the coronavirus.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration said that three officers working at Mineta San Jose International Airport had tested positive for the Covid-19 virus.
The T.S.A. said in a statement that the officers were receiving medical treatment and all other employees who came into contact with them were being quarantined for two weeks at home. The statement did not say what interactions the officers may have had with the public.
The agency, which was created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and manage security at airports and other transit points, said it was working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the California Department of Public Health and the Santa Clara County Public Health Department to monitor the health and safety of its employees and the traveling public.
The county’s public health department has reported at least 45 cases confirmed cases; it was not immediately clear if the agents were included in that number.
At least one person, a woman in her 60s who has chronic health conditions, has died of Covid-19 in the county.
A British health minister says she is infected.
Nadine Dorries, a British health minister, confirmed reports late on Tuesday that she had tested positive for the coronavirus. She had attended a reception at Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s official residence two days earlier.
Ms. Dorries said in a post on Twitter that she had felt “pretty rubbish,” but hoped that the worst of the viral illness had come and gone. British news reports said she was the first member of Parliament to test positive.
Health officials were rushing to trace her contacts, which included dozens of constituents and lawmakers, as well as co-workers at the Department of Health and Social Care, according to British news outlets. She was at 10 Downing Street, Mr. Johnson’s residence, on Sunday for International Women’s Day.
The news prompted discussion in Britain about whether Parliament would need to be suspended. Lawmakers meet in the cramped House of Commons, sitting shoulder to shoulder on green leather benches and often spilling into the aisles and standing-room areas, creating fertile conditions for illness to spread.
Some observers noted that Ms. Dorries appeared to have voted in the House of Commons about a week ago, meaning she had at least brief contact with other lawmakers at a time when she was presumably contagious.
But her most dangerous contact may have been with her 84-year-old mother, who is staying with her, Ms. Dorries wrote on Twitter late Tuesday night. “Thanks for so many good wishes,” Ms. Dorries wrote, adding that her mother had developed a cough. “She is being tested tomorrow,” she wrote. “Keep safe and keep washing those hands, everyone.”
Reporting was contributed by Elisabetta Povoledo, Steven Erlanger, Alissa J. Rubin, Andrew Kramer, Joanna Berendt, Marc Santora, Megan Specia, Iliana Magra, Elian Peltier, Jason Horowitz, Emma Bubola, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Jorge Arangure, Elaine Yu, Amy Qin, Alan Rappeport, Emily Cochrane, Sheri Fink, Mike Baker and Benjamin Mueller.
