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Coronavirus Updates: Trump Bans Travelers From Europe For 30 Days
By
Elizabeth Kim
Published Mar 11, 2020
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By
Elizabeth Kim
Published Mar 11, 2020
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This is our daily update of breaking COVID-19 news for Wednesday, March 11th, 2020. Previous daily updates can be found here. Our guide topreparing for the spread of coronavirus is here, and if you have lingering questions about the virus, here is our regularly updated coronavirus FAQ. Here are some local and state hotlines for more information: NYC: 311; NY State Hotline: 888-364-3065; NJ State Hotline: 800-222-1222.
Trump Calls For Travel Ban And Economic Relief For Those Affected By Virus
In his first Oval Office address on the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump called for the suspension of all travel from Europe, with the exception of the U.K, for 30 days beginning on Friday at midnight.
Only Americans will be exempted from the travel ban.
“Small actions today will prevent the spread of the virus tomorrow," Trump said, during the roughly 11-minute long speech.
The president has promised tax relief and an extension of the April 15th IRS tax deadline. On Wednesday night, he announced that he would announce an emergency action that would give targeted economic relief to individuals and businesses that have suffered losses as a result of the virus. Businesses would also be eligible for low-interest loans.
He added that health insurance companies would now agree to cover coronavirus treatments and waive related co-payments.
“This is not a financial crisis,” he said. “This is just a temporary moment in time that we will overcome as a nation and a world.”
The address to the nation, which featured a deadpan Trump who at times struggled with his lines, came after a momentous day in the escalating public health crisis. The World Health Organization officially declared coronavirus a pandemic, a fact the president acknowledged in his speech after weeks of downplaying the virus. The markets also fell once again, with the S&P 500 down nearly 5 percent, erasing the gains from the prior day.
It marked an abrupt change from a bull to a bear market: the index is now down 19 percent from its all-time high on February 19th.
The next few weeks will tell if the president's latest actions will be sufficient to calm the roiling markets, much less combat the spreading coronavirus. Health experts, including the WHO, have strongly argued for more aggressive testing and containment measures such as those taken by China and South Korea.
"The virus will not have a chance against us," Trump said. "We have the best economy."
Immediately following the address, Mayor de Blasio issued a statement criticizing the president's response.
“After weeks of minimizing what has now become a global pandemic, we were hoping for concerted action. Instead, the President remains all but silent on the most important thing: rapid, expansive testing," he said. "New Yorkers don’t care where the virus came from. They just want every level of Government to do the utmost to halt the spread."
New Study Suggests Coronavirus Could Live Longer On Air And Surfaces Than City Says
Mayor Bill de Blasio / Flickr
4:45 p.m. A new study by U.S. scientists finds that the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can live in the air for several hours and persist on some surfaces for as long as two to three days.
The paper, published Wednesday, said that experiments showed that the virus could linger in the air for up to three hours. On surfaces, it lasted up to four hours on copper and up to 24 hours on cardboard and between two to three days on plastic and stainless steel. The findings are similar to that of SARS, another type of coronavirus.
The study argued that the viability of the virus may explain why there have so-called "super-spreading events" associated with COVID-19.
"A tendency toward such super-spreading events has two important consequences for the epidemiology of emerging infections: it makes any given introduction of infection more likely to die out by chance, but when outbreaks do occur they are explosive and can overwhelm hospital and public health capacity," wrote the researchers.
Governor Cuomo has alluded to the new study as a possible explanation for the large cluster of cases in Westchester which have been mostly connected to Lawrence Garbuz, a 50-year-old New Rochelle attorney who worked in Manhattan. Earlier on Wednesday, the governor reported at least 212 cases statewide. To date, there are 121 cases in Westchester, nearly 60 percent of the total number of cases.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, New York City has 53 confirmed cases.
The scientists who performed the experiments represented the National Institutes of Health, Princeton University, UCLA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Their research contradicts the findings of New York City health officials. In recent days, Mayor de Blasio has said that based on the city's research, the latest coronavirus lasts only "minutes" on surfaces.
At his press conference on Sunday, de Blasio said:
"The question of surfaces has come up a lot. The best understanding of our public health officials is that this is a disease that does not live long on a surface. Certainly, on most surfaces like metal, plastic you know, a desk, a kitchen counter, a subway pole. It's only a matter of minutes before the disease dies, the virus dies in the open air."
But another study of other types of coronaviruses found that the particles can persist on inanimate surfaces like metal, glass or plastic for up to 9 days. Most health experts have said they don't enough about the new virus to determine all the ways it is transmitted.
When asked about the contradicting research, de Blasio touted the city's experts.
"I want to emphasize again, there are studies, there are academic studies, there are global and national organizations providing the information they have," he said on Monday. "But you know, the old saying, God bless the child who's got his own or her own. This is the New York City Health Department, which is widely regarded as one of the best, strongest health organizations in America actually working with real patients here in real conditions in New York City."
Asked about the new study during a press conference on Wednesday, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the city's health commissioner, said the research was performed in a laboratory and that the city was relying on "real world scenarios."
Later, de Blasio said, "It's not resolved. Our team thinks it has a very limited shelf life."
He added: "We're telling people what we understand."
Clarisa Diaz / Gothamist & WNYC
Major Sporting Events Start to Go Spectator-less
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made the case for stopping all large gatherings on Wednesday morning. During a congressional meeting on Wednesday morning, he said, "The bottom line: It is going to get worse."
He continued, "We would recommend that there not be large crowds. If that means not having any people in the audience where the NBA plays, so be it. But as a public health official, anything that has large crowds is something that would give a risk to spread.”
Up until Wednesday, major sports leagues had only restricted the media from their locker rooms and clubhouses, but the Golden State Warriors, whose home in the Bay Area has many cases, have announced they will play their game against the Brooklyn Nets without fans at the Chase Center on Thursday night:
Previously, Lakers star LeBron James had said he would never play without fans in attendance. He changed his tune on Tuesday:
On Wednesday afternoon, the NCAA announced that its men's and women's Division I college basketball games would be held—but without audiences. The only people allowed to watch would be "essential staff and limited family attendance."
The Seattle Mariners are planning to move their first home games through March (Major League Baseball's opening day is March 26) to another city, as Seattle has banned large gatherings. The team said in a statement, "While we hope to be back to playing baseball in Seattle as soon as possible, the health and safety of our community is the most important consideration."
There are at least 366 cases of COVID-19 in Washington State, including 29 deaths.
SUNY And CUNY Will Suspend In-Person Classes Next Week
7:16 p.m. CUNY has announced that it would suspend all classes from March 12-18, and move to distance learning on March 19.
2:44 p.m. Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday announced that SUNY and CUNY would suspend in-person classes beginning on March 19th and move to distance learning for the remainder of the semester.
All students, with the exception of those with hardships, will have to leave their dorms.
New York now has 212 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Westchester has the largest cluster with 121 cases. In that area, six courtrooms at the Westchester County courthouse have closed after a White Plains attorney tested positive for the virus.
Citywide, the number of individuals infected is 48.
Cuomo’s decision to move to remote learning comes amid an uproar from students and faculty members, who have pointed to private universities that have moved to online classes. On Tuesday night, CUNY officials canceled Wednesday classes at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan after learning of a female student who tested positive for coronavirus.
The governor also indicated he was leaning toward canceling the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Manhattan after speaking with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House task force on coronavirus. He said Dr. Fauci had in general advised against large gatherings such as sporting events.
Cuomo said experts have said not to hold the parade, "which I believe makes sense."
But minutes before Cuomo's press conference, Mayor de Blasio was on MSNBC downplaying concerns about the parade.
"It’s an outdoor event," he said. "It's inherently safer than crowded indoor events."
The state is also preparing to ramp up its testing capacity, reaching out to 28 private labs in the state to assist with testing. But without FDA approval, the state, however, has still been hamstrung in its efforts to increase and speed up testing.
Cuomo has roundly criticized the federal government's response. He began his press conference by comparing the testing numbers of China, South Korea and the United States. China has performed 200,00 tests a day, whereas South Korea has done 15,000 a day.
"In this country, we’ve done 5,000 tests to date," Cuomo said.
Nonetheless, the Cuomo administration has yet to reveal how many tests it has performed to date statewide. Asked that question, state health commissioner Howard Zucker said, "Way over 500."
WHO Officially Declares COVID-19 A "Pandemic"
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), informs to the media about the last updates regarding on the novel coronavirus
SALVATORE DI NOLFI/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
2 p.m. The World Health Organization has officially recognized the COVID-19 epidemic as a pandemic, a designation that recognizes the global scale and danger of the new virus as well as the inadequate response.
"WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction," said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's director-general. "We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic."
The declaration, announced during the WHO's news briefing on Wednesday in Geneva, comes after weeks of urging from public health experts who said the crisis had long ago met the criteria for a pandemic.
On Monday, CNN announced that it would begin calling the coronavirus a pandemic despite the lack of an official declaration from the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The WHO has defined a pandemic as “the worldwide spread of a new disease” affecting large numbers of people.
To date, there have been more than 121,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 around the globe. More than 4,300 have died, most of them in China, where the outbreaks first started.
Prior to Wednesday, the WHO had expressed increasing concern about the disease but had notably stopped short of calling it a pandemic,suggesting in part its fears that the classification would create undue panic and discrimination.
The decision to call the epidemic a pandemic was accompanied by a strong call to action. From the start, one of the agency's biggest concerns has been the toll such a disease would inflict on less industrialized countries with weaker healthcare systems.
"We cannot say this loudly enough, or clearly enough, or often enough: all countries can still change the course of this pandemic," Tedros said. "If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace, and mobilize their people in the response, those with a handful of COVID-19 cases can prevent those cases becoming clusters, and those clusters becoming community transmission."
Trump Floats Tax Cut To Calm Markets, Crisis Worsens In Europe
President Donald Trump (C), joined by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Vice President Mike Pence, speaks after meeting with Senate Republicans on a possible economic package in the wake of market turbulence caused by the coronavirus.
Shutterstock
12:09 p.m. President Donald Trump has proposed a fiscal stimulus plan to bail out the economy as it endures financial losses suffered from the ongoing spread of coronavirus. Among his ideas is a payroll tax cut that would cost nearly $700 billion and giving Americans an extension on the IRS's April 15 tax filing deadline. Trump has also recommended targeted assistance for two of the hardest hit industries: airlines and cruises.
Both Republicans and Democrats have been lukewarm on the plan. Republicans, including Senator Lindsey Graham, a reliable supporter of the president, said they wanted time to absorb the plan while others expressed concerns about the cost and how it would be paid for. House Democrats plan to unveil their own plan on Wednesday.
After coming out of a meeting on Tuesday with Senate Republicans, Trump said about the viral outbreak, “Just stay calm. It will go away."
He later added: "The consumer has never been in a better position than they are right now. So a lot of good things are going to happen.”
Investors remain unconvinced. On Wednesday morning, stocks dropped again after having rebounded from a disastrous performance on Monday. Both the S&P 500 and Dow were down roughly 4 percent during early trading.
Outside of the U.S., there are signs that the coronavirus epidemic is spreading deeper across Europe. Italy now has more than 10,000 cases and on Tuesday instituted a national lockdown, effectively restricting the movements of 60 million people.
On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the virus 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.
Statewide Cases Grow By 20
Governor Andrew Cuomo at a press briefing on Saturday talking about the state's coronavirus cases.
Governor Andrew Cuomo / Flickr
10 a.m. Appearing on CNN, Governor Andrew Cuomo said that the number of cases across New York state had increased by about 20. That would bring the total to 193.
The governor said he was expecting to receive another tranche of results soon. Washington state currently has been hit hardest, with 279 cases and 24 deaths.
The first positive test in New York state occurred on March 1st. There have not been any deaths to date. At least 14 people are currently hospitalized.
As the outbreak worsens, Cuomo and de Blasio have been conducting daily television appearances. In addition to outlining their steps to handle the public health crisis, the two have been critical of the federal government's response, particularly with respect to testing.
"I think this is going to be the public health version of Hurricane Katrina," Cuomo said on the MSNBC show "Morning Joe."
Wikicommons
John Jay College Closes After Student Tests Positive
9:01 a.m. John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan has canceled classes for today after learning of a female student who tested positive for COVID-19. The City University of New York announced the news in a tweet on Tuesday night, saying, "We will use [Wednesday] to consult further with public health and state and city officials."
"Health officials said the infection posed no threat to the school community, but out of an abundance of caution the school will be closed Wednesday, March 11th," university officials said. "CUNY continues to work closely with State and City leaders and public health officials to ensure that our guidance is as comprehensive as possible. Again, our priority is to ensure students' health & safety and support their academic continuity and day-to-day concerns."
University officials as well as Governor Andrew Cuomo, who oversees the system of over 250,000 students, have been under growing pressure to suspend classes amid the spread of coronavirus. An online petition to cancel classes has garnered nearly 40,000 signatures.
John Jay, which is located on 59th Street near 10th Avenue, has more than 12,000 students.
JCC Closes After Mother And Child Test Positive For Coronavirus
Officials at the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side have announced that the facility would be closed on Wednesday and Thursday following a positive COVD-19 test by a child who had attended a program on Saturday and the mother.
"Out of an abundance of caution, the Board of Directors of the JCC has made the decision to close the JCC tomorrow (Wednesday, Mar 11) and Thursday, Mar 12 in order to do a thorough and deep hospital-grade sanitizing of our building," read an email sent to members Tuesday evening. "It is our expectation that we will reopen on Friday; should that change, you will hear from us."
A commuter wears a face mask while riding the subway in New York.
Mary Altaffer/AP/Shutterstock
10 More Positive Tests In NYC Overnight, St. Patrick's Day Parade Still On For Tuesday
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in New York City increased by 10 overnight, bringing the total to 46.
New York City has been gradually ramping up testing in recent days as private labs have come on line to assist the city's health lab.
"We should recognize the more and more testing we do, we’re going to find more cases," said Mayor Bill de Blasio, during an appearance Wednesday morning on WPIX11.
The state is yet to update its numbers this morning, but the city's latest tally means that statewide cases of coronavirus number at least 183, with Westchester having the largest cluster. Across the country, the number of infections has now exceeded 1,000, spreading into 37 states. At least 31 people have died. New York, California and Washington state have the most cases.
As the number of cases in New York has risen, state and local officials have urged people to avoid large gatherings and employers to allow staggered work schedules and telecommuting.
However, both the governor and mayor have been noncommittal on canceling the St. Patrick's Day. Other American cities, including Philadelphia and Boston, have elected to scrap this year's festivities in an attempt to limit the spread of the virus.
Late Tuesday, organizers of the New York City Half-Marathon called off the race, which was scheduled to take place on Sunday.
Asked about the parade on TV this morning, de Blasio said he was still "talking it through with the parade committee."
He said the parade could be less of a concern because it is held outdoors. "It’s not a slam dunk. However, there are real concerns," he said.
"Each one is going to be case by case," he added.
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coronavirus
Elizabeth Kim
Elizabeth Kim is a reporter on the People and Power desk who covers mayoral power. She previously covered the pandemic, housing, redevelopment and public spaces. A native of Queens, she speaks fluent Mandarin. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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