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As the virus’s impact expands, Washington mulls more emergency measures.
As the toll of the coronavirus continued to mount — overwhelming hospitals and sickening health care workers, spreading through jails, playing havoc with the economy and making deadly inroads in more cities — federal lawmakers and Trump administration officials turned their attention Monday to new measures to try to contain the fallout.
In a sign of how fast the virus is upending life in the United States, officials in Washington were already beginning to chart the next phase of the government’s response on Monday — just days after enacting a $2 trillion stabilization plan, the largest economic stimulus package in modern American history.
“We have to pass another bill that goes to meeting the need more substantially than we have,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said on Sunday, ticking off a list of Democratic priorities, including increased protections for workers on the front lines and a further expansion of the paid sick leave provisions approved in previous legislation.
Maryland became the latest state to issue a stay-at-home directive on Monday, meaning that roughly three out of four Americans are or will soon be under instructions to stay indoors as states try to curb the spread before their hospitals are overwhelmed. And school systems around the country have extended closings that superintendents once hoped would be brief.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who has favored local action over statewide mandates, said he would sign an order codifying a patchwork of local rules urging residents of the southeast corner of the state to remain at home. It would apply to Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe Counties.
Local Florida governments have taken wildly different approaches to restricting interactions. While the city of Jacksonville shut down its beaches, St. Johns County to the south did not. A striking photo taken over the weekend showed bare beaches on one side of the county line and crowded sand on the other. (St. Johns County later closed its shoreline.)
President Trump — who retreated Sunday from his earlier hope to get the country back to normal by Easter after public health experts warned that lifting the social distance guidelines too soon could lead to far more deaths — continued to express optimism. Mr. Trump said Monday that he and his advisers expected the number of people who test positive to peak around Easter, though he cited no data to back up his claim.
“That’s going to be the highest point, we think, and then it’s going to start coming down from there,” Mr. Trump said during an interview on Fox & Friends. “That will be a day of celebration, and we just want to do it right so we picked the end of April.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ leading infectious disease expert, said on Monday that the country as a whole would see the death toll rise.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw over 100,000 deaths,” he said.
A 1,000-bed Navy hospital ship, the Comfort, docked in Manhattan Monday morning to free up beds in the city’s overwhelmed hospitals so they can treat more coronavirus patients. A small field hospital was being constructed in tents in Central Park. And in hospitals and clinics around the city, typically dispassionate medical professionals are feeling panicked as increasing numbers of their colleagues get sick.
The economic toll continued to be staggering. Macy’s, which also owns Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, said on Monday that with stores closed and sales down it would furlough the majority of its employees this week. Macy’s had 130,000 part-time and full-time employees as of Feb. 2. And oil prices hit their lowest levels since 2002 on Monday as Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell nearly 6 percent to $23.50 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. marker, briefly fell below $20.
The sharp economic contraction caused by the spreading coronavirus epidemic is causing demand for oil, the world’s largest source of energy, to evaporate
In jails and prisons, where social distancing is impossible and sanitizer is widely banned, authorities across the country have moved to release thousands of inmates to try to slow the infection, but the infections continued. The Rikers Island jail complex in New York City had at least 139 confirmed cases of the virus. A week ago, the Cook County jail in Chicago had two diagnoses; by Sunday, 101 inmates and a dozen sheriff’s deputies had tested positive. And at least 38 inmates and employees in the federal prison system have the virus, with one prisoner dead in Louisiana.
And in Detroit, an American city that has seen more than its share of struggles in recent years, the virus was posing a new, lethal test. In less than two weeks, 35 people with the virus have died there. The police chief tested positive for the virus, and more than 500 police officers are in quarantine.
“Everybody is starting to understand that this virus is looking for more hosts,” Mayor Mike Duggan of Detroit said in an interview. “Even if you’re young and healthy.”
By Sunday evening, with more than 5,400 cases, Michigan was fourth in known cases among the states, behind New York, New Jersey and California.
China says it’s halting the virus’s spread. Is that true?
China says it has all but halted the spread of the new coronavirus, with fewer infections than the United States, Italy or Spain, and a far lower death rate than some European countries.
But are those claims true?
Increasingly serious questions have been raised about whether China is concealing the extent of the epidemic — both nationally and specifically in the restive Xinjiang province — and the death toll, particularly in Wuhan, the city where it began.
The answers will have profound repercussions as the country begins to lift lockdowns and restart its economy, risking a flare-up. China has held itself up as a model for others to follow, but if that model is not what it seems, the implications are global. Lives are at stake, as well as the battered credibility of the Communist Party government, dented again in recent days by claims that China had supplied faulty equipment to other countries.
China’s official count of more than 82,000 confirmed coronavirus cases excludes people who test positive but show no symptoms. They are added only if they get sick.
Caixin, an influential Chinese newsmagazine, on Sunday urged the government to disclose those numbers. The magazine’s commentary came after confirmation of a case in Henan Province, apparently spread by a person who was asymptomatic and not counted in the official tally.
The government acknowledges few cases in Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of people, primarily Uighur Muslims, are held in indoctrination camps. People in the region question the figures, but the government enforces a near-blackout on news from Xinjiang.
Since January, doubts have been aired about the number of dead reported, particularly in Wuhan, where more than 2,500 of the official national count of about 3,300 deaths took place. Caixin reported recently that many thousands of urns were sent to funeral homes in Wuhan, suggesting a much higher toll.
Early in the epidemic, when hospitals were inundated, many people in Wuhan grew sick and either recovered or died without ever being tested.
Agony in Spain and Italy as deaths climb and lockdowns are extended.
Struggling to give its beleaguered medical workers a fighting chance to combat a virus that has torn through their own ranks in recent weeks, Spanish officials said on Monday that they would impose even more rigorous restrictions on residents’ movements, calling for a national period of “hibernation.”
The officials compared the tighter restrictions to those imposed in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected last year. The measures there were perhaps the most draconian attempted anywhere in the world so far.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain said at the weekend that the tighter lockdown was needed to avoid the collapse of saturated hospitals in Madrid and a few other regions of the country.
“The most important thing is to slow down the number of people in hospitals, in the intensive care units,” he said. “I’m thinking especially of Madrid, where they are under a lot of pressure.”
The new restrictions — allowing only “essential workers” to leave their homes — will last until at least April 9 and come on top of the lockdown that was imposed on March 14.
Spain reported more than 812 new deaths on Monday, bringing the country’s death toll to nearly 7,400.
While Spanish hospitals were on the edge of collapse, Italian officials hoped that the burden on medical facilities might be starting to ease.
Luca Richeldi, a clinical pneumologist at the Gemelli hospital in Rome and a member of the government’s scientific advisory committee, said that the number of deaths had dropped every day over the weekend and that the number of new patients needing critical care had also gone down to 50, from 124.
“With our behavior, we save lives,” he said.
The April 3 deadline of the national lockdown would certainly be extended, Italian government officials said.
The health minister, Roberto Speranza, said that the government measures “will certainly be prolonged, and we will require a sacrifice that I don’t think will be too short.”
In a televised interview Sunday night, he said that the crisis was far from over and that decisions would be made with the input of the government’s scientific advisory board, which was meeting on Monday.
“There are some encouraging signals,” especially from the worst hit areas, Mr. Speranza said. “But it is not enough.” Opening up too soon, he added, could “burn everything we’ve obtained until now.”
In Britain, Dr. Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, said it could be six months or more before a return to normal, with lockdowns being reassessed every three weeks. She said that if the strategy was successful, the country could effectively limit the peak of cases in the short term, but that measures would have to continue.
“We must not then revert to our regular way of living, that would be quite dangerous,” she said during a Sunday evening news conference.
“Doctors are getting sick everywhere.” Health workers confront fear as colleagues fall ill.
In emergency rooms and intensive care units throughout New York City, typically dispassionate medical professionals are feeling panicked as increasing numbers of their colleagues get sick.
“I feel like we’re all just being sent to slaughter,” said Thomas Riley, a nurse at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, who has contracted the virus, along with his husband.
Medical workers are still showing up day after day to face overflowing emergency rooms, earning them praise as heroes. Thousands of volunteers have signed up to join their colleagues. Two nurses in city hospitals have died.
On Monday, New York’s governor said that 1,218 people had died, and that 9,517 people in the state were hospitalized with the virus.
But doctors and nurses said they can look overseas for a dark glimpse of the risk they are facing — especially when protective gear has been in short supply.
In China, more than 3,000 doctors were infected, nearly half of them in Wuhan, where the pandemic began, according to Chinese government statistics. Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who first tried to raise the alarm about Covid-19, eventually died of it.
In Italy, the number of infected heath care workers is now twice the Chinese total, and the National Federation of Orders of Surgeons and Dentists has compiled a list of 50 who have died. Nearly 14 percent of Spain’s confirmed coronavirus cases are medical professionals.
William P. Jaquis, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said the situation across the country was too fluid to begin tracking such data, but he said he expected the danger to intensify.
“Doctors are getting sick everywhere,” he said.
As the virus spreads behind bars, there are calls rising to free inmates.
The coronavirus is spreading quickly in America’s jails and prisons, where social distancing is impossible and sanitizer is widely banned, prompting authorities across the country to release thousands of inmates in recent weeks to try to slow the infection, save lives and preserve medical resources.
By Sunday, the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City had at least 139 confirmed cases of the virus. A week ago, the Cook County jail in Chicago had two diagnoses; by Sunday, 101 inmates and a dozen sheriff’s deputies had tested positive. And at least 38 inmates and employees in the federal prison system have the virus, with one prisoner dead in Louisiana.
“It’s very concerning as a parent,” said William Brewer Jr., whose son is serving time for robbery in Virginia. “He’s in there sleeping in an open bay with 60 other people. There’s no way they can isolate and get six feet between each other.”
Defense lawyers, elected officials, health experts and even some prosecutors have warned that efforts to release inmates and stop the spread are moving too slowly in the face of a contagion that has so far infected more than 142,000 people in the United States, with more than 2,300 deaths.
“By keeping more people in the jails, you are increasing the overall number of people who contract the virus,” and the demand for hospital beds, ventilators and other lifesaving resources, said David E. Patton, head of the federal public defender’s office in New York City, which represents nearly half of the 2,500 inmates in the city’s two federal jails. “They are playing roulette with people’s lives.”
The virus sweeps into Detroit, a city that has seen its share of hardship.
It has seen its population plummet, houses fall to ruin, and the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation. Now another crisis has descended on Detroit: the coronavirus.
In less than two weeks, 35 people with the illness have died in Detroit. The police chief has tested positive, and more than 500 police officers are in quarantine.
The virus could place a unique burden on Detroit, a city of 670,000 people where three out of 10 residents live in poverty, a large number have asthma and other chronic diseases, and hospitals are already overwhelmed.
“Everybody is starting to understand that this virus is looking for more hosts,” Mayor Mike Duggan said in an interview on Sunday. “Even if you’re young and healthy.”
By Sunday evening, with more than 5,400 cases, Michigan was fourth in known cases among the states, behind New York, New Jersey and California. Across the state, at least 132 residents have died, placing Michigan fifth across the nation in deaths from the virus.
No one is sure why the Detroit region is seeing a flood of cases in the weeks since officials announced the state’s first known case on March 10. Mr. Duggan said he suspected that the region’s international airport, with a significant number of flights from overseas, may have contributed to the spread.
Howard Markel, a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan, said the city was “underequipped” to deal with the outbreak.
“It’s a perfect storm of poverty and very rudimentary public health conditions,” he said.
Oil prices are sliding as energy demands erode.
Oil prices hit their lowest levels since 2002 on Monday as Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell nearly 6 percent to $23.50 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. marker, briefly fell below $20.
The sharp economic contraction caused by the spreading coronavirus pandemic is causing demand for oil, the world’s largest source of energy, to evaporate. The gloom deepened on Sunday as Mr. Trump extended guidelines on social distancing and nonessential travel in the United States another two weeks until at least the end of April.
In addition, there is little sign that Saudi Arabia and Russia, two of the largest oil producers, are willing to end the price war that erupted after a failed OPEC meeting this month. The United States has been leaning on the Saudis to end the feud, which has resulted in an increase in oil production. But on Friday, Saudi Arabia issued an unusual statement saying that the kingdom was not engaged in talks with Russia “to balance oil markets.”
Speaking on “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning, Mr. Trump said he would have a phone conversation with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, to discuss the oil situation right after the TV interview. “I never thought I’d be saying that maybe we have to have an oil increase, because we do,” he said.
Analysts say that the collapse in demand caused by the pandemic far outweighs the threat of new supplies from OPEC and Russia. FGE, a consulting firm, recently estimated that demand for April would fall by 17 million barrels a day — about 17 percent lower than usual — as airplanes are grounded, road traffic falls sharply and factories are shuttered.
Stocks on Wall Street inched higher on Monday, as other global markets signaled that investors are still nervous about the economy as governments extend measures to contain the outbreak.
Street vendors, delivery men and other workers in Latin America’s informal economy will be hit hard.
Latin America’s economies were fragile even before the outbreak. As government efforts to confront the pandemic paralyze economic activity, the outlook is far worse.
And no sector is as vulnerable as the workers who toil in the region’s vast informal economy.
Workers such as the street vendors in Asunción, Paraguay, the delivery men crisscrossing Lima, Peru, and the trash recyclers in Tegucigalpa, Honduras toil mostly beyond government oversight, without labor protections or formal contracts.
They are a majority in Latin America, and most live hand-to-mouth, with meager or no savings and a limited social safety net. Many have jobs that put them in contact with strangers and they retire at day’s end to overcrowded homes. The precarious state of public health care in many countries in the region has also left these workers even more vulnerable to the outbreak.
“They are going to be very badly hurt,” said Santiago Levy, a Mexican economist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
Even after the Mexican government told people to stay home, Leonardo Meneses Prado continued to tend his hamburger cart at his usual sidewalk spot in Mexico City.
“I can’t stop,” he said late last week, an edge of desperation in his voice. “If I don’t sell, I don’t eat. It’s as simple as that.”
The virus continues to affect the world’s top leaders.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel went into quarantine after an aide tested positive, officials said on Monday.
Rivka Paluch, an adviser to the 70-year-old Mr. Netanyahu on ultra-Orthodox affairs and on parliamentary issues, tested positive after her husband was hospitalized with the virus. Mr. Netanyahu tested negative for the virus a couple of weeks ago and was expected to be tested again soon.
In Britain, Prince Charles, the heir to the throne who was quarantined in Scotland over the last seven days after testing positive, took himself out of isolation, Buckingham Palace announced on Monday.
The prince, who began suffering mild symptoms the weekend of March 21, “is in good health,” an official at the palace said. “He is now operating under the current standard medical restrictions that apply nationwide.”
The palace said that Charles, 71, would be able to hold meetings and to exercise and that his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, would remain in isolation until the end of the week. She did not test positive for the virus, the palace said last week, but she is being monitored.
Britain’s guidance indicates that those who test positive for the virus should stay at home for seven days after symptoms begin, but the World Health Organization recommends that confirmed patients remain isolated for two weeks after symptoms resolve.
Also on Monday, the top adviser to the British prime minister, Dominic Cummings, reported that he had symptoms of the virus and had isolated himself, according to the government.
Mr. Cummings was seen on Friday running out of 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official residence, with a backpack, shortly after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that he had the coronavirus.
The virus threatens to wipe out half of all jobs in Africa.
Nearly half of all jobs in Africa could be lost because of the coronavirus, according to the United Nations.
In a report released on Monday, the world body warned that the crisis would disproportionately affect developing countries in Africa and elsewhere, taking a toll on education, human rights, basic food security and nutrition.
“This pandemic is a health crisis. But not just a health crisis. For vast swathes of the globe, the pandemic will leave deep, deep scars,” Achim Steiner, the administrator of the United Nations Development Program, which produced the report, said in a statement. “Without support from the international community, we risk a massive reversal of gains made over the last two decades, and an entire generation lost, if not in lives, then in rights, opportunities and dignity.”
Among the developing nations named in the report were Bosnia, China, Djibouti, El Salvador, Eritrea, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Nigeria, Paraguay, Panama, Serbia, Ukraine and Vietnam. Overpopulation, poor waste management, pollution and traffic were all identified as factors that threatened a developing nation’s chances of recovering from a coronavirus outbreak.
Leaders across the world have tried to balance economic concerns with the need to act swiftly to stop the spread of the virus. Iran has reported among the world’s highest numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths, but President Hassan Rouhani has been severely criticized for not acting forcefully enough to fight the epidemic. And while the illness has been slow to take hold across Africa, the number of confirmed cases and deaths there have risen gradually, raising fears about the continent’s readiness to respond.
The coronavirus lockdown in India has left vast numbers of migrant laborers stranded and hungry, and more than a dozen migrant laborers have died since the measure was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to hospital officials.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are rescheduled for July 2021.
The Summer Olympics in Tokyo, pushed back a year because of the coronavirus pandemic after Olympic officials and Japanese organizers bowed to widespread pressure, will now open on July 23, 2021, organizers said on Monday.
Thomas Bach, the International Olympic Committee president, told international federations on a conference call that the date had been picked to give organizers the maximum time possible to deal with the fallout from the coronavirus.
After presenting the federation members with one choice for a new date, Bach called for a show of support, and the proposal received unanimous backing. The Games will run through Aug. 8.
In preparing to postpone the Games for the first time, the International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo authorities have had to work without a playbook, trying to cram years of complex planning decisions into a short time frame.
The changes must take into account an array of stakeholders whose needs differ wildly, including athletes desperate to know how and when to resume training, and broadcast and commercial partners who will recast their own campaigns.
Reporting was contributed by Michael Cooper, Richard Pérez-Peña, Karen Zraick, Mihir Zaveri, Eileen Sullivan, Elisabetta Povoledo, Raphael Minder, Melissa Eddy, Mary M. Chapman, Julie Bosman, John Eligon, Elian Peltier, Isabel Kershner, Ali Watkins, Stephen Castle, Marc Santora, Mark Landler, David M. Halbfinger, Michael D. Shear, Thomas Fuller, Megan Specia, Austin Ramzy, Neil Vigdor, Kate Taylor, Vivian Yee, Mike Baker, Rick Rojas, Sapna Maheshwari, Vanessa Swales, Michael Levenson, Aimee Ortiz, Suhasini Raj, Stanley Reed and Kai Schultz.