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The White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing
Grocery stores are offering special hours for seniors and disabled shoppers
Responding to the throngs of people who have emptied their shelves in the last week, grocery stores in the Los Angeles area have started offering specific times for at-risk populations to shop during the coronavirus outbreak.
Northgate Market announced Monday that it would open from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. for residents 65 and older and for residents with disabilities.”We recognize the challenge facing seniors and other at-risk populations, and we need to address them by providing them an opportunity to shop for essentials without fear or trepidation,” the company said in a statement.
Super A Foods in Commerce announced it would offer a special shopping time for residents 65 and older, starting Tuesday.
Starting Thursday, Grocery Outlet in Altadena also will offer a specific time for residents 60 and older to shop from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m.
DMV asks law enforcement to use discretion for next 60 days in ticketing driver license, registration issues
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has asked state and local law enforcement officers to exercise discretion for 60 days in their enforcement of driver license and vehicle registration expiration dates beginning Monday.
In some cases, DMV might waive vehicle registration penalties for ticketed customers.
In a news release, the agency said that the DMV is taking this action so at-risk populations, including older residents and those with underlying health conditions, can avoid required visits to DMV field offices for driver license or vehicle registration renewals.
This 60-day grace period for driver license and vehicle registrations is intended to protect the health and safety of customers who would otherwise have to come to a DMV office to take care of business, but are concerned during this coronavirus pandemic.
Those transactions that require a DMV office visit include new driver license, duplicate driver license, some driver license renewals, new license plates, complex vehicle registrations or title transfers and off-highway permits.
Transactions that fall within this action include driver license renewals for those:
- 70 years of age and older, who are required to take a knowledge test
- Individuals who are required to renew in the office (last DMV visit was 15 years prior)
- Individuals subject to vision testing
- Individuals with complex driving history
The 60-day period also applies to vehicle registration renewals for customers who are not eligible to use an alternative service channel because of the following reasons:
- Outdated insurance information
- Registration expired for 90 days or more
- Smog issues
- Recent transfer
All DMV offices remain open at this time to process transactions that must be taken care of in an office, including REAL ID.
For REAL ID, the federal government requires an office visit. REAL ID customers can fill out the online application before going into an office. In 23 offices throughout the state, customers can upload their REAL ID documents before their office visit. This option will be statewide by June.
Archdiocese of Los Angeles announces suspension of masses
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced Monday afternoon the suspension of masses amid the current health threat of COVID-19.
“I deeply regret that we are forced to temporarily suspend public celebration of the Mass in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,” said Archbishop José H. Gomez in a statement. “What we do in the church, we do out of love for God and love for our brothers and sisters. We are taking this extraordinary step today out of love and concern for those in our families and communities who are most vulnerable to this deadly coronavirus.”
Gomez said the decision was “not made lightly,” and that it was made after “much prayer and reflection” and in consultation with the Archdiocese’s auxiliary bishops, Council of Priests, lay advisers, and government and public health officials.
“I ask your continued prayers for all those who are afflicted with this virus and those who are afraid and vulnerable,” Gomez said. “I also ask you to pray and reach out to help the many families who are facing difficulties as a result of this emergency. We also need to keep in our prayers all the doctors, nurses, caregivers, and public health and civil authorities working to contain the outbreak of this virus and treat those who are sick.
”In a news release, the Archdiocese encouraged Catholics to continue to pray at home with their families and participate in the Holy Mass online.
The Archdiocese will provide a livestream of non-public Masses celebrated by the priests from the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels daily and on Sunday via Facebook, and at lacatholics.org/emergency/. The weekday Mass in English at 12:10 p.m. and the Sunday Masses in English at 10 a.m. and in Spanish at 12:30 p.m. will be livestreamed.
L.A. will temporarily stop ticketing during street sweeping
In an effort to help residents stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic, Los Angeles will temporarily stop ticketing cars during street sweeping and relax its enforcement of some other parking rules, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Monday.
For the next two weeks, cars left on the street in L.A. during street sweeping will not be ticketed, Garcetti said.
The city will also temporarily stop ticketing and towing vehicles that are abandoned, oversized vehicles parked overnight, and vehicles parked in peak-hour parking zones.
The city will also freeze parking fine increases for the next 60 days, Garcetti said, and will extend all payment deadlines until June 1.
Los Angeles parking officers will not ticket parents and caregivers who are picking up meals around closed schools, and there will be an “extended grace period” for people picking up groceries or dropping off goods, he said.
Not all parking enforcement will stop. During “the duration of this emergency period,” Garcetti said, parking officers will focus on “street sweeping around encampments, ensuring emergency access, keeping colored curbs clear, and repaving and slurry operations.”
First two deaths reported in Riverside County
Riverside County public health officials announced the county’s first two deaths linked to the coronavirus. Both deaths occurred in Coachella Valley, public health officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser said.
“Our thoughts are with the families of the two patients,” said Kaiser. “Sadly, these outcomes are expected as we face a serious challenge and continue to make the necessary decisions to protect the health of the community.”Kaiser also instituted stricter orders to limit public gatherings from 250 people to no more than 10. The new directive follows President Trump’s advisement Monday against similar gatherings.
Kaiser also ordered the closure of all Riverside County schools from elementary to colleges.As cases continue to rise throughout California, officials said the county’s public health lab is now operational allowing for an expansion of testing.
“Unfortunately, the number of cases are going to keep going up for awhile,” Kaiser said. “But we’re taking steps to keep us ahead of the curve and getting people taken care of as quickly as we can. If everyone does their part we’ll get through this together.”
San Cruz joins other Bay Area counties in shelter-in-place orders
Seven counties in the San Francisco Bay Area will be placed under a shelter-in-place directive by public health officials in a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus, a move that will close virtually all businesses and direct residents to remain at home for the next three weeks.
San Mateo Mayor Joe Goethals said he believed that the order, announced in a pair of news conferences Monday afternoon, put six counties — San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda — on perhaps the nation’s most restrictive public health footing since the outbreak of the potentially deadly coronavirus.
Later in the day, Santa Cruz County issued a similar order, bringing the total counties affected to seven.
Coronavirus turns Grand Central Market into a ghost town: ‘It’s scary, sad and ugly’
Most of the food vendors inside L.A.’s Grand Central Market were closed or had a few customers standing in line ordering food to go.
Rows and groups of stools and metal chairs sat on top of tables as staff walked around sanitizing them. Minerva Torres, 47, who runs a produce market, said she understands the concerns about the coronavirus but doesn’t think businesses should be forced to close.
“We lose money and we have bills to pay,” she said. “I have kids in universities that I need to help.”
Torres said that when she heard about Mayor Eric Garcetti’s emergency order, she didn’t know how it would affect her, given that most vendors inside the market sell food.
Orange County Sheriff’s Department temporarily suspending public visitation
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department announced Monday that public visitation and inmate programming would be temporarily suspended at all its jail facilities.The restrictions will remain in place until March 27, and will be reassessed at that time, according to the department.
Attorney-client and other legal visits can still take place, officials said, and inmates will be able to make two free five-minute phone calls each week during this period.
“By temporarily suspending these operations, the Sheriff’s Department helps minimize risk to the public, staff, volunteers and those in our care and custody,” officials said in a news release. “The Sheriff’s Department understands that visiting and programming play a critical role in inmate rehabilitation, however safety remains the department’s top priority.”
Restaurants are pivoting to takeout and delivery. Will it be enough to survive?
As fallout from the coronavirus pandemic began to hit the dining industry, delivery companies offered a rare concession to their restaurant partners.
Delivery app Postmates Inc. said Tuesday it would waive commission fees for small businesses in San Francisco that signed up for a relief pilot program.
On Friday, competitor Grubhub Inc. announced it would “suspend collecting up to $100 million in commissions from independent restaurants across the country.” UberEats announced Monday it would waive delivery fees for independently owned restaurants using its service.
Amid coronavirus panic, here’s how celebrities are keeping their distance
The stars were not out this weekend.
Amid coronavirus fears, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Lizzo, Arnold Schwarzenegger and more celebrities took to social media to demonstrate social distancing and encourage others to follow their lead by staying home and avoiding crowded spaces.
Swift penned a message to her fans Sunday on Instagram, imploring Swifties to take CDC-recommended measures to “isolate” themselves to protect others.
“I follow you online and I love you guys so much and need to express my concern that things aren’t being taken seriously enough right now,” the “Lover” singer wrote on her Instagram story. “I’m seeing lots of get togethers and hangs and parties still happening.”
Amazon plans to hire 100,000 workers over the next 18 months
Amazon said Monday that it needed to hire 100,000 people across the U.S. to keep up with a crush of orders as the coronavirus kept more people at home, shopping online.
The online retailer said Thursday the jobs were full time and came with benefits. Many of the new jobs will be at fulfillment centers currently being built in a number of states, including California, Florida and Texas.
The Seattle company says the new jobs will be filled over the next 18 months by people of differing experiences and education levels.
Amazon.com Inc. says it’s expanded its U.S. workforce by more than 150,000 people in the last five years.
The hiring surge comes as traditional retailers cut jobs and close stores.
Last week, the Limited said it would close all its stores, and Macy’s moved forward with plans to close 68 stores and said it would cut more than 10,000 jobs.
Ohio governor calls for postponing Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary
Ohio’s governor is going to court to postpone Tuesday’s in-person voting in the state’s Democratic presidential primary, casting uncertainty over whether millions of people will be able to cast ballots amid mounting concerns over the coronavirus.
“A lawsuit will be filed to postpone the election until June 2, 2020,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, said on Twitter. “In the meantime, voters would still be able to request absentee ballots. It will be up to a judge to decide if the election will be postponed.”
DeWine’s announcement came on the eve of presidential primaries in his state as well as Florida, Illinois and Arizona. Louisiana and Georgia had already postponed their primaries.
“At some point, it may be so difficult to run a primary that it has to be delayed,” said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UC Irvine.
CDC deep cleans its office after employee tests positive
ATLANTA — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday that it was deep cleaning office space after its first employee tested positive for COVID-19.
The employee, who was not involved in the coronavirus response, had not worked in a CDC workspace since March 6 and was asymptomatic at that time, Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the CDC, said in an email.
Upon developing symptoms, the employee stayed home, Redfield said, and was in “good condition” and “isolated to prevent spread of infection to others.”
Staff working in the same unit as the employee, who could not be identified for privacy reasons, are teleworking as the office space is cleaned. The CDC was set to inform “potentially affected” staff and take “swift measures” to mitigate spread of the virus, Redfield said.
“Our best wishes go to the employee for a rapid and full recovery,” he said.
The sprawling Atlanta-based national public health institute has already taken steps to mitigate the risk of infection in workspaces by increasing the use of teleworking, intensifying the cleaning of buildings, recommending that sick employees stay home, and canceling in-person meetings and staff travel.
“We know this is a time of great uncertainty and concern for our CDC family,” Redfield said, “but please be assured that we are considering and taking all necessary actions to further protect your health and safety.”
Trump urges people to avoid gatherings of 10 or more
President Trump on Monday announced new guidelines to avoid the spread of the novel coronavirus. He urged schools not to have in-person classes and for people to avoid food courts, bars, restaurants and gatherings of groups of more than 10.
Trump said restrictions on daily life could last until July or August.
Trump said officials were not “at this point” looking at a nationwide quarantine.
“We may look at certain areas, certain hot spots,” he said.
“If everyone makes these critical changes and sacrifices now, we will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus,” Trump said. Once that happens, we can “have a big celebration all together.“
Trump described the new virus as “an invisible enemy.”
“We have a problem that, a month ago, nobody ever thought about,” he said. “It’s just so contagious. Just a record-setting-type contagion.”
Trump also said the federal government would be “in a position to help the airlines very much.”
”With several weeks of focused action, we can turn the corner and turn it quickly.“
Trump said that it was “important for the young and healthy people to understand, while they may experience milder symptoms, they can easily spread this virus.
”We especially worry about our senior citizens,” he added.
Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s most visible infectious diseases expert, said that when you’re dealing with emerging disease, “you are always behind where you think you are if you think today reflects where you really are.“
”The best way to address it is to do something that looks like it might be an overreaction. It isn’t an overreaction,” he said.
With live theaters shut down, your best options for streaming the stage at home
Clichés about the theater are quite durable, but in the era of the coronavirus, one of the oldest needs to be updated. In our new reality, the show will go online.
For true theater fans, there is no substitute for gathering together and watching talented performers act out a compelling story in real time. But unlike London in 1606, when Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre had its season curtailed by the plague, we can still enjoy the works of that master and many others while remaining snugly quarantined in our homes.
Streaming services are offering dramas, comedies and musicals — some recorded in the early days of television, others captured as recently as last year. Prices tend to be quite reasonable, and the quality is often remarkable. Here’s a rundown of some of your best options.
Now missing at L.A. swap meets: Live music and cheap toilet paper
Even swap meets are running out of toilet paper to sell.
On Sunday, vendors at two Los Angeles-area swap meets said they were clean out of T.P., the maddening symbol of coronavirus panic shopping. The hoarding is leaving empty shelves at supermarket stores across Los Angeles — and in the case of a typical Southern California swap meet, empty sections of asphalt where stacks of paper goods used to be abundant.
“There is no more,” said Maria Osorio, a 74-year-old immigrant from Jalisco, Mexico, who runs a stall of paper products, disposable plates and cleaning supplies at the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet.
Osorio, a vendor there for 25 years, seemed upbeat about her sales. “My $5, $15 and $18 packs are all gone,” she said.
Sheriff cuts jail population and arrests amid the virus outbreak
L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Monday his agency had reduced the number of inmates in its jails by more than 600 amid concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
Although there are no confirmed cases of the virus in the jails, 21 inmates are quarantined at Men’s Central Jail, five are quarantined at Twin Towers Correctional Facility, and nine inmates are in isolation at the Correctional Treatment Center, Villanueva said at a news conference Monday.
“All of them are receiving the necessary level of care,” Villanueva said.
He said the Sheriff’s Department had reduced the jail population to 16,459 inmates since Feb. 28, including through the early release of inmates who had less than 30 days of jail time left to serve.
Pasadena to close gyms, bars and restaurants
Pasadena, a city with more than 700 restaurants, joined Los Angeles on Monday in announcing it was directing the closure of all bars, gyms and fitness centers, private social clubs and sit-down restaurant service in the city.
The closure was to go into effect immediately. Restaurant take-out and delivery services are exempted from the order. City officials say the new restrictions are necessary to stop large numbers of people from gathering and spending time together in close proximity, City officials gave no date for reopening of those businesses.
“We know how difficult these restrictions will be on small businesses in Pasadena, but public safety is our top priority,” said City Manager Steve Mermell.
“This is a serious situation, and the time for bold action is now. We have an obligation to act in the best interests of our community.”
City officials said those businesses and employers not covered by the closure order were encouraged to find ways to maximize social distancing, including reducing hours and voluntary closure.
Watch Live: White House task force to host news conference
Farmers markets will stay open in L.A. County
Bar, gyms and movie theaters may have been forced to close because of coronavirus concerns, but farmers markets have been deemed essential and will continue to operate under modified conditions in Los Angeles County.
Farmers markets in Beverly Hills, Claremont, Culver City and Rancho Palos Verdes have announced temporary closures in the last week; there was a lingering fear among farmers and shoppers that the same fate would befall other markets across the county.
But according to official guidelines published Sunday evening by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, “to ensure that fresh food is available to residents,” outdoor certified farmers markets will be allowed to operate under these main conditions:
Universal to make current theatrical movies available for home viewing on Friday
Universal Pictures, in a bold move to confront the coronavirus’ threat to the movie industry, is collapsing the theatrical window.
In an extraordinary step, the studio on Monday said it would make its movies available in the home on the same day as their global theatrical releases, beginning with DreamWorks Animation’s “Trolls World Tour,” opening April 10 in the U.S.
The company will also make movies that are currently in theatrical release available on-demand as early as Friday, starting with “The Invisible Man,” “The Hunt” and “Emma.”
The movies will be available on a wide variety of on-demand services, including iTunes and Google Play for a 48-hour rental period at a suggested retail price of $19.99.
Utah Jazz’s Donovan Mitchell on Rudy Gobert: ‘It took a while for me to kind of cool off’
Donovan Mitchell is one of two Utah Jazz players who tested positive for the coronavirus last week. He indicated in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” from isolation Monday that he initially wasn’t happy with Rudy Gobert, his teammate who appeared to have a careless attitude about the outbreak before becoming the first NBA player to test positive for the virus while the team was on the road in Oklahoma City.
In a widely circulated clip from a postgame news conference a week ago, Gobert is seen touching all of the reporters’ microphones and recorders in an apparent attempt to make light of the global outbreak. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Gobert also touched teammates and their belongings in a similar manner before learning Wednesday of his positive test.
Gobert has since publicly apologized “to the people that I might have endangered” and has donated more than $500,000 to support health services in the U.S. and France and employees of the team affected by the coronavirus.
Garcetti implores Angelenos not to ‘panic buy’
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti visited a Ralphs food distribution center in Paramount on Monday morning with several grocery store chain executives in an effort to calm Angelenos worried about the region’s grocery supplies.
Garcetti implored Angelenos not to “panic buy” at supermarkets, and live-streamed his visit on Facebook. “It’s appropriate to buy food for a week, as we do,” Garcetti said. “But to buy so much food for a month, or even for months, has a consequence not just for you but for your loved ones, for grocery workers, and of course for those who are most vulnerable and who need food right now.”
The grocery store executives said stores are being restocked and cleaned.
“Although we are a little bit behind on stocking some shelves, it’s not a supply problem,” said Rob McDougall, president of Gelson’s. “It’s just really a people problem in [getting] that product to the shelves.”
Bryan Kaltenbach, president of Food 4 Less, said: “Try to be prudent in the amount of products that you are buying in one setting.”
Garcetti said the best estimates for the delivery of hand sanitizers being delivered to stores “is a matter of weeks.” He also said that tap water is safe to drink.
What’s the status of U.S. and world Olympic qualifiers?
Here is the status of Olympic qualifiers for the U.S. and the rest of the world in many of the disciplines.
ATHLETICS: The U.S. Olympic track and field trials are still scheduled for June 19-28 in Eugene, Ore. Other countries use a variety of methods, including trials, world rankings and appointment based on results.
BASEBALL: Four countries — Israel, Mexico, South Korea and Olympics-host Japan — are in the six-team field. The final two spots are to be determined by tournaments that were postponed: An Americas qualifier in Arizona has been indefinitely postponed, and a last-chance qualifying tournament in Taiwan slated for April is now scheduled for June 17-21.
BASKETBALL: Men — eight teams, including the United States, already have qualified. The remaining spots in the 12-nation field will be determined in four winner-take-all six-team tournaments scheduled for June 23-28 in Serbia, Canada, Croatia and Lithuania; Women — the 12-team field was filled in February with four tournaments. Although defending world champion United States and the host Japanese were already guaranteed spots, both finished in position to qualify anyway; 3x3 — FIBA has postponed the qualifying tournament scheduled for March 18-22 in India. A second qualifying tournament scheduled for April in Hungary is in limbo. Four women’s teams and four men’s teams have already qualified for the eight-country fields.
Trump administration alleges foreign disinformation is stoking fears
The Trump administration is alleging that a foreign disinformation campaign is underway aimed at spreading fear in the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Federal officials are confronting what they say is a deliberate effort by a foreign entity to sow fears of a nationwide quarantine. They have not named the foreign entity they believe to be responsible. Agencies took coordinated action to deny that any such plans for a quarantine were put in place as they tried to calm a nation already on edge due to disruptions to daily life caused by the virus.
“Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE,” tweeted the National Security Council Sunday night. “There is no national lockdown.”
Just when we thought Tom Hanks had suffered enough, he does Vegemite wrong
Tom Hanks has been fielding plenty of warm thoughts down in Australia since he and wife Rita Wilson tested positive for the coronavirus last week. But that all changed with a single tweet Sunday.
“Thanks to the Helpers,” the Oscar winner tweeted from isolation down under, including a photo of a stuffed kangaroo, an Australian flag, a clip-on koala, a tube of Vegemite and, fatefully, some toast. “Let’s take care of ourselves and each other.”
It was the toast, smeared with a thick, espresso-brown spread of Vegemite, that tipped Aussies to the fact that Hanks needed a little more “taking care of” — if not a strong smack upside the head.
Turns out you don’t do Vegemite that way.
California Supreme Court suspends in-person hearings
The California Supreme Court on Monday suspended in-person hearings. Lawyers will appear for cases remotely via video or telephone conferences.
According to a court spokesman, it’s not yet been decided whether judges will appear in person or electronically.
The public still will be permitted to attend hearings, but seating will be limited to ensure appropriate distances, the court said.
California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye is preparing emergency orders to further curtail court operations in San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Sonoma, Marin, Nevada and San Luis Obispo counties. The orders permit courts to waive legal deadlines in both civil and criminal cases.
U.S. economy is now in recession, UCLA Anderson Forecast says
Forget predictions that the U.S. economy will enter a recession this year due to the coronavirus pandemic — the UCLA Anderson Forecast says it has happened already.
On Monday, the school revised a forecast it issued just last week that had stopped short of predicting a recession. The revised version says the economy has already stopped growing and will remain in recession through the end of September.
This is the first time in the 68-year history of the forecast that it has been updated before its planned quarterly update.
Economists at the the UCLA Anderson School of Management — the university’s graduate business school — said they revised the forecast after incorporating a review of how the 1957–58 H2N2 influenza pandemic affected the U.S. economy.
NBA suspends drug testing of players
The NBA will suspend drug testing of players while the league is in a hiatus.
According to a source familiar with the decision but not authorized to speak publicly, the decision is a logistical one — players have been allowed to return home and have been encouraged to limit unnecessary contact while the league deals with COVID-19. It’s one of a handful of changes to league procedure brought on by the pandemic.
The virus has brought the NBA, along with other professional sports, to a stop, with the NBA readying for a lengthy interruption to their season — if they’re able to resume it.
Yahoo first reported the testing pause.
San Francisco shutters courts for most cases
San Francisco has shuttered its courts for most cases. Civil jury trials are being postponed for 90 days. All in-person visits involving guardianship and conservatorship cases also are suspended until April 15, 2020.
San Mateo County Superior Court is postponing all traffic cases.
Coronavirus vaccine test underway as U.S. volunteer gets first shot
SEATTLE — U.S. researchers gave the first shot to the first person in a test of an experimental coronavirus vaccine Monday — leading off a worldwide hunt for protection even as the pandemic surges.
With a careful jab in a healthy volunteer’s arm, scientists at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle begin an anxiously awaited first-stage study of a potential COVID-19 vaccine, developed in record time after the new virus exploded from China and fanned across the globe.
“We’re team coronavirus now,” Kaiser Permanente study leader Dr. Lisa Jackson said on the eve of the experiment. “Everyone wants to do what they can in this emergency.”
The Associated Press observed as the study’s first participant, Jennifer Haller, an operations manager at a small tech company, received the injection inside an exam room. Three others were next in line for a test that would ultimately give 45 volunteers two doses, a month apart.
NHL players allowed to go home, isolate until end of March
NHL players have been told to go home and self-isolate until the end of March, suggesting any potential return to play is many weeks away.
The National Hockey League and NHL Players’ Assn. sent out separate memos Monday detailing the new directive, which comes on the heels of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that people not hold gatherings of 50 or more for the next eight weeks because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Players had previously been told to remain in their team’s city and await direction.
After saying last week the season was on “pause,” Commissioner Gary Bettman had refused to put a time frame on when the NHL could resume play. Sending players home, including to other countries, pushes back the earliest possible return to at least May.
State, federal agencies object to Costa Mesa’s actions to halt use of site for COVID-19 patients
State and federal agencies are calling Costa Mesa’s objections to using the Fairview Developmental Center as a coronavirus quarantine site “premature,” “speculation” and lacking a basis for “extraordinary disruption and intervention.”
U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton issued an injunction Friday preventing the transport of anyone infected with or exposed to the COVID-19 virus to any location in Costa Mesa before a hearing scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana.
Federal defendants named in the city’s filing Friday — including the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense, Air Force and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — said the city overstepped its bounds by interfering in the agencies’ handling of a public health crisis.
The city also named as defendants the state of California and its Office of Emergency Services and Department of General Services, and the Fairview Developmental Center, which is state-owned.
Santa Monica Pier closes
As part of its response to the coronavirus, the city of Santa Monica ordered the temporary closure of its iconic pier, effective 6 a.m. Monday.
The closure also affects the Santa Monica Pier’s parking deck and businesses and applies to both people and cars, according to the city.
“We welcome thousands of guests to our Pier each and every day, so we take this step out of the deepest desire to keep people at home and healthy,” City Manager Rick Cole said in a statement.
“We love our Pier and the joy it brings to everyone that visits, but in this moment, we must take aggressive actions to slow the spread of COVID-19.”
In a Facebook post, the Santa Monica Pier Corp. expressed “full support of the city’s decision.”
“Though this will heavily impact the Pier businesses and their staff, amid this public health crisis it’s the right thing to do,” officials wrote. “We know that once it’s safe, our iconic Pier will play an important role in bringing back the best in fun! To all of our visitors, from all over the world, and from all walks of life, we look forward to welcoming you back.”
NFL draft will take place as scheduled in April but without public festivities
The NFL draft is staying put.
The league announced Monday that it would stay the course on the April 23-25 draft in Las Vegas amid the COVID-19 outbreak but that public festivities surrounding the event had been canceled.
The league said it was exploring innovative options for how the process would be conducted and would provide that information as it became available. The selection process will be televised.
“This decision reflects our foremost priority — the health and safety of all fans and citizens,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a written statement. “While this outcome is disappointing both to the NFL and to the Las Vegas community, we look forward to partnering with the Raiders, the City of Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority for a future NFL Draft as well as evaluating opportunities for other major NFL events in Las Vegas in the future, including the Super Bowl.”
EU weighing restriction of nonessential travel for 30 days
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants the European Union to put in place a 30-day ban on people entering the bloc unless their travel is essential, in an effort to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.
On the eve of an EU summit via video conference, Von der Leyen said Monday, “I propose to the heads of states and government to introduce temporary restrictions on nonessential travel to the European Union.
“The less travel, the more we can contain the virus,” she said in a video message.
Von der Leyen says that people with long-term EU residency or who are family members of European citizens, plus diplomats, doctors and health care workers could be exempted from the ban. Transport workers could also be exempt to help keep goods flowing.
MLB June amateur draft uncertain with college and high school baseball canceled
For Billy Gasparino, it all happened so fast.
A week ago, the Dodgers’ director of amateur scouting began preparing his department for a slowdown and possible suspension of high school and college baseball games around the country in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as governing bodies began implementing bans on large gatherings.
Two days later, Gasparino was in Texas on a scouting trip and planned to attend more games this weekend. By Thursday morning, those games were canceled. Hours later, he was home in Los Angeles, unsure when he’d be back on the road to evaluate players for the upcoming 2020 draft — whenever it happens, if it happens.
Major League Baseball suspended spring training and delayed the start of the regular season by at least two weeks Thursday, but the coronavirus outbreak was already going to affect one significant event on the league’s calendar: the first-year player draft held every June.
Supreme Court calls off oral arguments in first postponement of its kind in 102 years
WASHINGTON —The Supreme Court announced Monday it would not hold oral arguments during the next two weeks due to the cononarvirus, the first postponement of its kind since 1918.
“In keeping with public health precautions recommended in response to COVID-19, the Supreme Court is postponing the oral arguments currently scheduled for the March session (March 23-25 and March 30-April 1). The court will examine the options for rescheduling those cases in due course in light of the developing circumstances,” the court’s public information office said in a statement.
The court had been scheduled to hear arguments in several high-profile cases, including President Trump’s appeal of three lower court rulings that would require his accountants to disclose his tax returns to several House committees and to a New York district attorney.
It is not clear whether the postponement will change how or when the court decides those cases. Typically, the justices hear oral arguments through the end of April and issue opinions in those cases by the end of June. But both schedules can be changed. The justices have at times heard arguments in May and have not released their final rulings until July.
New Jersey, New York and Connecticut to close bars, eateries
Bars and restaurants will become takeout-only, and businesses including movie theaters, gyms and more will be shuttered Monday night throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut because of the coronavirus, the states’ governors said.
The governors said essential businesses such as supermarkets and gas stations would be able to stay open after 8 p.m. Monday, though all nonessential businesses must close. Restaurants will be able to offer take-out and delivery.
The steps mark the latest escalation of efforts to keep people apart in the New York metropolitan area in hopes of curbing the spread of the virus, and an attempt to coordinate a regional response in the face of what the states’ Democratic governors called lagging federal action.
“We’ve got to work through this together. The feds have been asleep at the switch,” Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont told reporters on a conference call. He and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy are Democrats.
New York City bars and restaurants were already set to shut their dining rooms and take up their bar stools Tuesday morning under a plan that Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday.
Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts and Washington state also are among places that have ordered bars to close and restaurants to stop dine-in service.
Catalonian president tests positive
The president of Catalonia, the northeastern Spanish region that for two years has been embroiled in an independence conflict, has tested positive for COVID-19, the regional government announced Monday afternoon.
Quim Torra has been in quarantine in a building near the Generalitat, Catalonia’s seat of government, since Sunday. The region’s vice president, Pere Aragones, announced Sunday he also tested positive for the disease.
On Saturday, the Spanish central government announced that Begoña Gómez, wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, had contracted the disease. The same day, officials announced a nationwide lockdown, prohibiting residents from leaving their homes except in necessary circumstances, such as buying groceries or going to the pharmacy. Airlines have canceled thousands of flights into the country.
White House cancels Easter Egg Roll
The White House has canceled the famed Easter Egg Roll set to take place next month.
At Biola University, track and field athletes must adjust to a season interrupted
Biola University’s track and field team was supposed to spend Saturday competing at Occidental College. But as concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus grew in recent days, the meet was canceled.
The Eagles’ backup plan, a meet at Cal State Fullerton, was soon canceled as well, and before Sean Henning, the cross-country and track and field coach at the Christian university in La Mirada since 2015, could even send in his entries to yet another meet near San Diego, it too was called off.
Soon, there were no more options. Hours after the NCAA canceled all winter and spring championships Thursday, joining other leagues that banned large-scale gatherings in hopes of slowing the virus’ spread, the PacWest Conference, in which Biola competes at the Division II level, suspended all competitions through March 30.
Why ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ is needed now
As the Friday release date of Nintendo’s “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” approaches, there have been calls on social media for the Japanese video game giant to unleash the latest edition of the game series early — to pull a similar advance-release move as Disney did by placing “Frozen 2” on its streaming service ahead of schedule.
The argument: During these stressed-out times, when many are working from home or in isolation because of the fear of spreading the novel coronavirus, “Animal Crossing,” for those lucky enough to have access to a Nintendo Switch, is something of a healing tonic.
They are correct.
Coronavirus forces radical changes to California with sweeping restrictions on life
In a sweeping effort to slow the spread of coronavirus in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday urged people 65 and older and those with chronic health conditions to isolate themselves from others — a directive that reflects the fast-moving nature of a public health crisis that threatens the well-being of some 40 million Californians.
Hours later, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Los Angeles bars and nightclubs would close and restaurants must halt dine-in service and limit their business to takeout orders until March 31. The order became effective at midnight Sunday.
Movie theaters, gyms and fitness centers will be closed, Garcetti said in a video news conference Sunday night. Grocery stores, pharmacies and food banks will remain open. Garcetti also announced a moratorium on evictions for renters.
Newsom also called on bars and brewery and winery tasting rooms statewide to close their doors to patrons as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the state continued to rise.
Though many businesses have been affected by a slower stream of customers, bars in West Hollywood were packed on Sunday afternoon.
Despite dire coronavirus warning, some refuse to give up their routines
As schools closed and store shelves emptied of toilet paper, Joseph Sanchez realized that life as he knew it was grinding to a halt.
What was next? Perhaps even bars would close to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 6,500 people worldwide?
Sanchez invited a friend, Marcos Avina, to meet at their favorite spot, Glendale Tap, for what he termed “one more moment of normality.”
His hunch proved prescient.
As he and Avina sipped craft beers Sunday afternoon at the neighborhood bar on San Fernando Road, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that bars in California should close their doors, restaurants should seat customers farther apart, and senior citizens should isolate themselves.
“This could be the last bar we go to in a long time,” said Avina, 40, a bill collector for Spectrum, the internet and cable company.
Business is marvelous ... for sellers of survival supplies and bunkers
The crowd outside the survival store in Upland stood waiting as the manager opened shop a few minutes early.
On a normal Friday, that eager crew wouldn’t be there.
But as droves of Californians snap up enough pasta to feed Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow and raid shelves of toilet paper in the age of the novel coronavirus, some are prepping for the worst.
That means flocking to stores like Prep and Save and snatching up their stock of survival food, hand sanitizer and masks, canceling vacations and, for those envisioning future disasters, investing in shelters.
“Our phones have been ringing off the hook,” said Tony DeCastro, manager of Prep and Save, as dozens of customers milled around the aisles. “People are buying whatever they can get their hands on.”
Recovery community urges: Even if you skip 12-step meetings, stay connected
It was time for the coveted sobriety chips, so Grace snapped on a pair of plastic gloves and kept a bit of distance as she doled out medallions to members who had gone 30, 60 and 90 days without a drink.
Normally, she hugs the people gathered here in this church on the Westside, but on Thursday she offered them a small namaste bow instead.
This is what an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting looks like during a pandemic.
“AA can’t totally close its doors,” said Grace, a 49-year-old yoga teacher, who asked to be identified by her middle name to respect the group’s anonymity pledge. “We don’t know when someone’s going to crawl in in desperation.”
U.S. futures and global stock markets fall after Fed rate cut
Global stock markets and U.S. futures fell Monday after central bank moves to shore up economic growth failed to dispel investors’ fears over anti-virus controls that were shutting down global business and travel.
There were no glimmers of optimism: Paris tumbled 9% shortly after the open, London sank 7%, and Frankfurt gave up 7.5%. In Asian trading, Sydney’s benchmark plunged 9.7%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 3.4%, and India shed 5.9%.
On Wall Street, futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index and Dow Jones Industrial Average were off nearly 5% following Sunday’s emergency rate cut by the Federal Reserve.
Member of Iranian clerical assembly reportedly dies from virus
A 78-year-old member of the Iranian clerical body that chooses the country’s supreme leader has died from the illness caused by the new coronavirus, news agencies reported Monday. He was the latest of several senior Iranian officials to have been infected in the worsening outbreak.
The pandemic has infected nearly 14,000 people in Iran and killed more than 700, with the toll jumping by more than a hundred in the last 24 hours. The real numbers may be even higher, as some have questioned the government’s reporting.
The semi-official Fars and Tasnim news agencies reported that Ayatollah Hashem Bathaei, a low-profile, moderate member of the Assembly of Experts, died from COVID-19.
The clerical assembly has the authority to appoint or remove the supreme leader, who has the final say on all major policies.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 80 years old and has been in power since 1989, wore disposable gloves at a recent public event, apparently as a precaution.
Cabinet ministers, members of parliament, Revolutionary Guard members and Health Ministry officials have been infected, compounding fears about Iran’s response to the global pandemic, which has infected nearly 170,000 people worldwide and killed more than 6,500.
More than 77,000 people have recovered.
Peace Corps evacuates volunteers worldwide amid outbreak
The Peace Corps is telling its volunteers around the world that it is suspending all operations globally and evacuating all volunteers in light of the spread of the new coronavirus.
In an open letter to volunteers posted Sunday on its website, the federal agency’s director, Jody Olsen, said the decision followed recent evacuations in China and Mongolia due to the outbreak. Olsen said that with evacuations now underway at other posts and travel becoming more challenging by the day, the agency decided to expand the suspension and evacuations.
“As COVID-19 continues to spread and international travel becomes more and more challenging by the day, we are acting now to safeguard your well-being and prevent a situation where Volunteers are unable to leave their host countries,” Olsen said.
Olsen says the posts are not closing and that the agency looks forward to returning to normal operations when conditions permit.
The letter says country directors will be providing more information to volunteers.
As the coronavirus pandemic grows, gun sales are surging in many states
Gun sales are surging in many U.S. states, especially in those hit hardest by the coronavirus — California, New York and Washington.
But there’s also been an uptick in less-affected areas, with some first-time gun buyers fearing an unraveling of the social order and some gun owners worried that the government might use its emergency powers to restrict gun purchases.
Bars to close and restaurants must go takeout only, Mayor Garcetti orders
Los Angeles bars and nightclubs will close and restaurants must halt dine-in service and limit their business to takeout until March 31 as part of the city’s efforts to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Mayor Garcetti said Sunday night.
Movie theaters, gyms and fitness centers will be closed, Garcetti said in a video press conference. Grocery stores, pharmacies and food banks will remain open.
CDC says U.S. gatherings of over 50 people should not be held for eight weeks
In the most extreme effort yet to slow the march of coronavirus in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that events of 50 people or more not be held for about two months.
For the next eight weeks, organizers should cancel or postpone in-person events of that size throughout the U.S., the agency said on its website Sunday. When feasible, organizers could modify events to be virtual.
The advisory doesn’t apply to the day-to-day operation of organizations such as schools, institutes of higher learning, or businesses -- although many of those entities have taken steps of their own.
U.S. authorities are focusing on “flattening the curve” of the Covid-19 virus’s spread, to prevent health care and other facilities from becoming overwhelmed.
An unexpected side effect of the coronavirus? A new urgency about helping homeless people
As public health officials scramble to manage the spread of the novel coronavirus, strategies are starting to be implemented across California and the rest of the country to protect the homeless population.
On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that homeless people would be prioritized as a vulnerable population. Though he offered few details, he said there would be a massive attempt to move people off the streets and into indoor settings, including hotels and motels purchased in recent days and 450 state-owned trailers that will be deployed throughout California.
On Friday, President Trump issued a federal emergency declaration, which will ease the funneling of Medicaid dollars to states to help low-income individuals get tested and treated for COVID-19, open emergency clinics and develop quarantine sites for those who have no place to self-isolate.
Sales are up at supermarkets. But that brings new problems for the grocery industry
There can be such a thing as too much business, supermarkets across the country are realizing as the surge in grocery demand sparked by the widening coronavirus crisis is forcing them to modify their policies.
The rush of shoppers has buoyed industry stock prices even as much of the market has faltered. But it has also strained supply chains, resulting in picked-over shelves, long lines, harried staff and reduced hours — leaving supermarkets the most visible symbol for many Americans of the macro and microeconomic consequences of the outbreak.
And with officials across the country beginning to order or recommend that restaurants and bars close or restrict capacity, the pressure on supermarkets will probably increase.
Major grocery chains such as Walmart, Stater Bros. and a number of Kroger subsidiaries, including Ralphs, are halting 24-hour operations to allow extra time for their workers to clean, sanitize and restock stores.
Fed slashes rate to near zero, eases lending rules
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve, taking a second and more powerful emergency action to fight the coronavirus’s severe impact on markets and the economy, slashed interest rates on Sunday to near zero and said it would employ other steps to boost lending and support the financial system.
The Fed announced it would cut a full percentage point from its benchmark rate, taking it down to the same rock-bottom level where it was pinned for several years because of the Great Recession.
Officials said they also would buy at least $700 billion of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities to help maintain smooth functioning of financial markets.
“The coronavirus outbreak has harmed communities and disrupted economic activity in many countries, including the United States,” the Fed’s monetary policy committee said in a statement. “The Federal Reserve is prepared to use its full range of tools to support the flow of credit to households and businesses and thereby promote its maximum employment and price stability goals.”
Italy’s death toll jumps to over 1,800 with 368 new deaths on Sunday
Italy’s virus cases surged again Sunday, with 3,590 more in a 24-hour period for a total of 24,747 cases. Deaths also jumped, with 368 more, bringing the country’s overall death toll from COVID-19 to 1,809.
The additional coronavirus infections reported Sunday represented the biggest day-to-day increase so far in Italy.
One of Rep. Adam Schiff’s staffers has tested positive for COVID-19
Delaying start of NFL year and draft is a possibility because of coronavirus
Now that the collective bargaining agreement has been ratified, the NFL can turn its full attention to the immediate upcoming events: the start of the league year Wednesday, which marks the beginning of free agency, and the April 23-25 draft.
Pushing back both is a distinct possibility in light of the coronavirus outbreak.
The decision on the Las Vegas draft is particularly complex. The original plan calls for clusters of at least 100 fans representing each franchise positioned in sections closest to the stage to cheer their team for the TV cameras. That flies in the face of all the advisories about social distancing and avoiding unnecessary travel.
Parts of San Quentin prison in quarantine as a precaution
SACRAMENTO —Inmates in two cellblocks at San Quentin State Prison are quarantined off from the rest of the Bay Area prison, but California prison officials say there is no indication that the prison is dealing with the coronavirus.
Dana Simas, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, on Sunday confirmed the quarantine. She also outlined in an email the testing protocol for inmates: “If a test for flu comes back negative we will test for COVID-19.”
Internal memos at the Bay Area prison point out that it may take three to four days to find out if there are any coronavirus cases.
Illinois Gov. Pritzker assails Trump for ‘unacceptable’ long lines at airport customs during outbreak
As large crowds of travelers standing shoulder-to-shoulder vented their frustrations on the situation at O’Hare International Airport on social media, the airport’s Twitter account responded to many, saying the customs procedure was taking longer than usual due to “enhanced #COVID-19 screening for passengers coming from Europe.”
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot retweeted a photo of a crowded airport concourse and cited Trump’s recently announced travel ban that restricted travel from most of Europe.
Unhappy with the situation at the airport, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker joined the chorus and called out President Trump for travelers’ plight.
Priztker said the long lines were “unacceptable” and called on the federal government to “solve this.”
Ralphs, Stater Bros. Markets and Walmart among grocers cutting back hours
Major grocery chains across the country announced Saturday that they would reduce operating hours until further notice in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including Walmart, Stater Bros. Markets, and a number of Kroger subsidiaries, including Ralphs.
The new hours vary from chain to chain, but all are stopping 24-hour operations in order to allow extra time for their workers to clean, sanitize and restock stores.
Ralphs is reducing its hours to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Stater Bros. is reducing to 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Walmart is reducing hours nationwide to 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
John Votava, director of corporate affairs for Kroger, said the change would help his company “really sanitize the store, and it gives us time to restock, and it also gives us time to balance the needs of our associates.”
The change comes as people flood markets across the country to stock up their pantries, fearing that they might catch the novel coronavirus and be asked to stay at home for an extended period or that the pandemic’s spread might prevent new supplies from reaching stores in the near future.
For the moment, there is no reason to fear food shortages, as the U.S. food supply chain remains fully operational. But the spike in demand has led to cleaned-out shelves at individual locations on a day-by-day basis, with store managers and workers scrambling to put their stores back together each night.
Self-quarantined? Here are 7 ways to experience live music without ever leaving your couch
In September, the experimental rock duo 100 gecs premiered a new track to a gathered posse of avatars inside the video game Minecraft. Part of an event called the Mine Gala, it was organized and promoted by a team of real-life creators via an “independent virtual events platform” called Open Pit.
A cheeky reference to the New York art event the Met Gala, the Mine Gala offered many of the amenities familiar to those at an outdoor event: a VIP area for fans willing to pay for access; the freedom to explore various rooms and spaces; a feeling of being part of larger community; and the chance to hear artists or DJs make and mix music. It even featured an art gallery with original work.
Joined palms, hands on hearts, Vulcan salutes: Saying hello in a no-handshake era
Handshakes? Not advised. Fist bumps? Not recommended. Kisses on the cheek? Absolutely not.
Even elbow bumps are too close for comfort, according to the head of the World Health Organization.
As we enter the era of social distancing, Americans are rapidly reassessing their approaches to the most basic form of social etiquette: saying hello.
‘We’ve never sold out of pork butt before’: Inside 22 L.A. grocery stores
Long lines. Crowded parking lots. Barren shelves. And of course, no toilet paper.
This is grocery shopping in the age of the coronavirus outbreak. As the number of cases continues to increase, shoppers have flocked to stores to stock up on shelf-stable items ranging from frozen foods and canned goods to rice and bread. Hand sanitizer and face masks are also in short supply.
The reason for much of this stockpiling? Fears of future shortages or quarantines that would prevent people from getting what they need.
The Los Angeles Times visited grocery stores and supermarkets throughout the L.A. area on Friday between noon and 3 p.m. Here’s what we found.
Shoppers force limited hours at Texas grocers to prevent hoarding
Texas grocery store shelves were bare late Friday as residents stocked up on everything from flu remedies, to toilet paper, bread, meat and pet food. The hoarding prompted Texas grocery chain HEB to reduce store hours the 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and post guards at entrances to turn people away, a sight last seen in Houston after Hurricane Harvey.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott during a Friday briefing urged residents to remain calm and avoid overpurchasing items at stores as toilet paper and cleaning supplies have become increasingly difficult to find.
“There is absolutely no need to go out and stock up on supplies,” Abbott said.
At an HEB in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood near downtown, shelves were bare late Friday. Dozens of shoppers showed up after 8 p.m. Security guards started shouting, “We’re closed!” as they pulled into the parking lot.
Dasha Savenkova, 25, a medical student visiting from Russia for three months of study, was shocked to find the store closed. Her shelves were bare. “People spread panic,” she said as she stood in the parking lot Googling other grocery stores. “It insane because no one in Russia is in panic. I have no food at home.”
Spencer Kawachika, 20, a junior at nearby Rice University, which just shifted to online classes, didn’t have much food at home either.
He had stopped by Sunday, bought some soup, but by then all the toilet paper was gone. “It’s kind of like the apocalypse has descended on us,” said his classmate, Madeline Ngo, 21, of Dallas.
Others were unfazed. Jennifer Alam, 27, a NASA project manager, tried to get a prescription filled, was rebuffed by the guard and figured she’d return Saturday. Store staff sad they would restock by morning. “We’ll get through this and laugh at it one day,” she said.
Coronavirus no-nos, as demonstrated at Trump’s press conference today
Coronavirus no-nos, as demonstrated at Trump’s press conference today
Cruise lines suspending trips for 30 days, cruise association says
Cruise lines from U.S. ports will suspend service for the next 30 days, Cruise Lines International Assn. said Friday.
The trade organization called the decision, brought on by the coronavirus scare, voluntary and temporary.
The suspension begins Saturday CLIA said.
Earlier Friday, President Trump tweeted that Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian and MSC Cruises would be stopping ship trips for a month. He called the industry “great and important” and said it would be “kept that way.”Princess, which is part of Carnival Corp., Viking and Disney said Thursday they were suspending operations.
House reaches deal with Trump on coronavirus stimulus package
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin reached a deal Friday on an economic stimulus package to address the coronavirus, providing paid sick leave for workers and pumping billions of dollars to states for food programs and unemployment benefits.
Hours after President Trump trashed the tentative deal at an afternoon news conference, Pelosi announced an agreement.
“We are proud to have reached an agreement with the administration to resolve outstanding challenges, and now will soon pass the Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues late Friday.
San Francisco issues order banning non-essential events of 100 or more people
San Francisco’s health officer has issued a public health order banning all non-essential events of 100 or more people.
Restaurants that have a capacity of more than 100 people can continue operating if they reduce their occupancy in half. For instance, a restaurant with an occupancy of 150 can continue operating if it reduces its occupancy in half to 75.
“We hope that this order will encourage people to skip social gatherings for the time being, and promote telecommuting and social distancing. Together, we can fight the spread of coronavirus, reduce harm to our community, and protect the most vulnerable people,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s director of health.
‘Huge cloud’ hangs over concert industry as Live Nation and AEG shut down tours
Barely five days ago, music fans and the concert business had a rude awakening to the reality of the coronavirus pandemic when promoters of the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals bumped both back six months into October.
Just two days later, however, even that shock to the system was dwarfed as the entire live entertainment industry ground to a near halt, capped by the decision of the world’s two largest promoters of live music to halt all tours and shows, at least through the end of March.
Dodgers players allowed to go home from Arizona
A day after Major League Baseball suspended spring training and delayed the start of the season by two weeks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, teams around the majors, including the Dodgers, are allowing players to go home, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
The development came after the league and the players association met Friday to begin discussing how to proceed.
New measures require travelers to return to 13 U.S. airports , including LAX
As of midnight, U.S. citizens, legal residents and immediate family returning from countries where travel has been restricted due to coronavirus will be required to fly back to 13 domestic airports, including LAX in Los Angeles and SFO in San Francisco, Homeland Security officials announced Friday.
“The Trump administration is taking these aggressive measures to keep the risk low,” Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said in a statement.
The other 11 airports:
· Boston-Logan
· Chicago O’Hare
· Dallas/Fort Worth
· Detroit
· Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Hawaii
· Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta
· John F. Kennedy
· Miami
· Newark
· Seattle
· Washington-Dulles
Wolf said the agency is identifying passengers before their scheduled flights from China, Iran and European countries so they can be rerouted at no added cost.
“This new process will be disruptive to some travelers, however this action is needed to protect the general public from further exposure and spread of the coronavirus,” he said.
Upon arrival in the U.S., travelers will receive added medical screening and written guidance about coronavirus, the agency said. They must provide contact information for local health authorities and immediately quarantine at home.
“It is imperative that individuals honor self-quarantine directives to help protect their loved ones and communities,” Wolf said.
The Coronavirus Self-Quarantine Shopping List
Burbank Unified expects to vote on school closures Friday night
Burbank Unified announced Friday afternoon the board of education expects to take action on closing schools for students from March 16 through March 30 during the emergency meeting.
The announcement posted on the district website stated, “After several days of communication with state and county officials, the Los Angeles County Office of Education has just informed us we can close schools without the approval of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).”
Starting March 30, the district plans to move to a flexible learning model until health officials give the clearance for students to return to school. Burbank Teachers Association is exploring models that could include online tools and on-site learning centers. All employees will still be paid even if they aren’t providing services to students. Teachers and staff will receive instructions for Monday.
The emergency board meeting will be held today at 6 p.m. in the district headquarters, located on the third floor of 1900 West Olive Ave. For updates, follow the Burbank Leader’s coverage of the coronavirus outbreak.
Los Angeles county sees eight new cases
L.A. County Public Health Department officials confirmed eight new cases of the coronavirus, bringing the total to 40, as community spread intensified.Three of those cases are likely the result of community transmission, as the source of exposure is unknown.
Two of the individuals are hospitalized, public health dirctor Dr. Barbara Ferrer said.Officials said they expect those cases the expand significantly as more people get tested. Ferrer said L.A. County got more test kits this week, and noted that initial testing limitations have made estimates difficult to gather.
“Its very hard to know how many cases we have,” she said.Ferrer also said that on Monday, officials will release geographic locations and age groups of the known cases. Those who may be close contacts of individuals who test positive for the virus may start receiving “blanket quarantines,” rather than being interviewed first, Ferrer said.
Municipal bond issuers halt billions of sales in market rout
The worst municipal bond market sell-off on record drove state and local governments to cancel or delay $7 billion of debt sales as yields soared and underwriters balked at bidding in auctions.
School districts in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Texas, as well as state agencies in Rhode Island, New York and Virginia, were among those that shelved offerings planned for the week of March 9, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The retreat came as municipal bond prices tumbled sharply, driving up yields on even the safest 30-year securities by nearly a full percentage point, as panic about the spreading coronavirus rippled through Wall Street. The riskiest debt was hit particularly hard as investors pulled a record $1.7 billion from high-yield municipal funds in the week through Wednesday, according to Refinitiv Lipper US Fund Flows.
Municipal bond sales -- particularly those for lower-rated borrowers --- shift to a different day on occasion as banks seek more time to drum up bidders. But they’re rarely postponed en masse due to broader market moves.
UCLA Chancellor in self-quarantine
The UCLA Chancellor announced Friday that he was entering self-quarantining at home for 14 days after being in contact with someone with COVID-19.
“I have no symptoms and continue to run UCLA, but wanted to keep you informed,” he tweeted at 12:28 pm. “I know others are in similar situations and I want you to know the Bruin community supports you.”
Trump declares a national emergency
WASHINGTON —President Trump invoked emergency powers Friday, declaring a national emergency over the coronavirus outbreak, which will allow more federal aid to flow to states and municipalities.
“I am officially declaring a national emergency,” the president said during a news conference in the Rose Garden. “No resources will be spared, nothing whatsoever.”
The announcement came an hour after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi partially preempted Trump by making a public statement from the Capitol, outlining legislation she has negotiated largely with Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin that, she said, would ensure that coronavirus testing is free for all Americans, including the uninsured.
“We can only defeat this outbreak if we have an accurate determination of its scale and scope,” said Pelosi.
County courts can request legal deadline extension
County courts can ask the chief justice to to issue emergency orders extending legal deadlines for both civil and criminal cases. Around noon Friday, Contra Costa, San Mateo, and Ventura have submitted emergency order requests. A spokesman for the California Supreme Court said more requests are expected.
“All requests are reviewed and evaluated on the merits — that will determine any action on the request for emergency relief,” said Cathal Conneely, a spokesman for Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. So far only the three courts previously mentioned have made requests.
Detroit carmakers send office workers home but keep factories running
Detroit’s three automakers are asking office employees to work remotely while pushing production staff to keep running many of their factories — including one where a worker tested positive for the coronavirus.
Fiat Chrysler’s salaried personnel, including 14,000 at its U.S. headquarters north of Detroit, were told to work from home as of Thursday, a spokesman said. A transmission factory in Indiana is continuing to operate despite a worker there testing positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. followed suit Friday, ordering office personnel to work remotely. The companies continue to build vehicles despite analysts’ warnings that the virus will significantly curtail demand for their products around the globe. In China, where the illness originated, car sales plunged a record 79% in February.
Iranian military to impose nationwide quarantine
As the coronavirus continues to ravage Iran, the country’s chief of its joint staff said Friday that Iranian armed forces and troops will require people to clear roads, supermarkets and streets within the next 24 hours in order to stop the deadly virus from spreading further.
The new measure, one of the strictest the country, has been implemented since the virus broke out several weeks ago and comes one day after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei handed the country’s coronavirus control and prevention task force over to Gen. Mohammad Baqeri, the chief of the joint staff of Iran’s armed forces.
Baqeri said at a news conference Friday that due to the shortage of medical staff, Basij militia members and other volunteers would be partaking in a one-week training course in order to help overworked doctors, nurses and other medical professionals on the front lines. He added that citizens would be monitored through “cyberspace and phone calls” for the next 10 days and that if a person is suspected of being infected, members of Iran’s armed forces would send someone to monitor the person’s symptoms at their home.
The new protocols come as the number of confirmed cases reached 11,364 on Friday, a 1,300 jump in infections within the last 24 hours. The virus also claimed the lives of 85 more, reaching a death total of 514.
Hurricanes announcer in self-isolation after staying in Rudy Gobert’s room
Two employees of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes were isolated after the team stayed in a Detroit hotel that was previously occupied by the Utah Jazz and in rooms that the Centers for Disease Control identified for possible exposure to the coronavirus.
The Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer reported that play-by-play announcer John Forslund, who also calls nationally televised games, has self-quarantined in his home in North Carolina after being told he had stayed in the same room as Rudy Gobert, the first NBA player to test positive for the coronavirus. Hurricanes videographer Zach Brame also stayed in a room previously occupied by a member of the Jazz’s traveling group and was isolated.
“It’s serious,” Forslund told the News & Observer Friday. “We’ve got to listen to what we’re supposed to do. And act accordingly. You know me. I can be as sarcastic as anybody. Initially, we were all kind of in the same boat. And now look where we are. It’s a serious thing. You just hope and pray everybody’s going to be OK. What I’m going through is no big deal, because there are people who are going to have complications.”
L.A. County Probation Department suspends visitations at juvenile facilities
The Los Angeles County Probation Department is temporarily suspending visitations to its juvenile halls and residential treatment facilities in an attempt to keep the coronavirus from infecting its staff or the youth under its supervision, officials said Friday.
The prohibition applies to weekend, special and after-court visits from family or community groups, but will not stop court-ordered or required legal visits from taking place, according to the department.
“The department values visitation as an essential part of family reunification,” officials wrote in a news release. “Youth in juvenile facilities will have extended phone privileges to maintain contact with family and loved ones and all internal programming within the facilities will continue. In addition, the department will explore the feasibility of other options for families to communicate with their youth, such as video conferencing from various community locations.”
Quarantined and need some stress relief? Bake a pie for Pi Day
Spending a lot of time indoors these days and looking for a good project that isn’t organizing your closets? Pie baking is challenging enough to feel like an accomplishment but simple to get right. Plus, the tactile pleasure of handling dough is relaxing and, at the end, your reward is dessert.
These are 10 favorites, categorized by degrees of ease:
Woodbury University president announces campus closure and switches to online learning
Woodbury University’s on-campus classes were canceled effective Thursday after the President’s Cabinet unanimously decided to shift to an online teaching format through April 3 and possibly longer.
“Clearly, our intent is to balance the impact on our students’ and other stakeholders’ experiences, both on campus and at home, with the need to take decisive action given that yesterday the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic,” wrote David Steele-Figueredo, university president, in a letter.
The university’s leadership team confirmed Thursday through email that there aren’t any known coronavirus cases on the university’s campuses and they are not aware of any students under self-quarantine after traveling to countries affected by the coronavirus.
Woodbury expects faculty to use spring break, March 16 through March 20, to convert traditional courses to an online format. Students are asked to pick up belongings to work off-campus before March 17. If belongings aren’t necessary to participate in online learning, the university is urging students not to come to campus.
Watch live: Trump likely to declare national emergency in address to nation
Visits to federal inmates halted
WASHINGTON —Inmates at all 122 federal correctional facilities across the country will no longer be allowed visits from family, friends or attorneys for the next 30 days, in response to the threat of the coronavirus, officials told The Associated Press on Friday.
The restrictions, now in effect, were portrayed as a precaution, since no federal inmates or Bureau of Prisons staff members have tested positives for COVID-19. The officials said some exceptions could be made for legal visits.
The plan to temporarily suspend visitation, curtail staff travel and pause inmate transfers is part of the bureau’s action plan for concerns over the spread of the new coronavirus for the 175,000 inmates in BOP custody.
Correctional officers and other Bureau of Prisons staff members who work in facilities in areas with “sustained community transmission” or at medical referral centers — which provide advanced care for inmates with chronic or acute medical conditions — would be subject to enhanced health screenings. Those include having their temperature taken before they report for duty each day.
Homeless person under quarantine near Seattle walks away, and into store and bus
Officials in the Seattle area are finding that keeping people in quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic can be challenging.
King County officials expect that most people who are infected or have symptoms will quarantine themselves at home. But the county recently purchased an Econo Lodge in Kent, Wash., to isolate and quarantine people who lack housing.
The plan went through over vehement opposition from government and business leaders in the city just south of Seattle. King County has not imposed a mandatory quarantine, and opponents said they feared that nothing would stop motel guests from wandering into the community.
The first person to check into the motel tested negative and moved out, according to a county news release issued Friday. On Thursday, a second person moved in. The man was homeless and awaiting COVID-19 test results, the release said.
“At approximately 7:30 a.m., the individual disregarded the instructions of an onsite security guard and left the motel,” the release said. “The individual crossed Central Avenue North and entered a convenience store, where he allegedly shoplifted items before taking a northbound Route 153 King County Metro bus.” The bus was taken out of service for sanitation.
The man remained missing on Friday.
Disney Studios halts production on “The Little Mermaid,” “Shang-Chi,” and other films
Walt Disney Studios has temporarily halted production of its live-action films, including “The Little Mermaid,” which was scheduled to begin shooting in London next week.
The move was targeted to limit potential spread of the coronavirus.
“While there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 on our productions, after considering the current environment and the best interests of our cast and crew, we have made the decision to pause production on some of our live-action films for a short time,” a Disney studio representative said Friday in a statement. “We will continue to assess the situation and restart as soon as feasible.”
Production of the Marvel film, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” had already ground to a halt in Australia due to fears of the COVID-19 virus spread.
Texas governor declares state of disaster
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster Friday due to coronavirus.
“We need all Texans to do their part to help the state respond to this situation,” Abbott said as he appeared flanked by white-coated doctors and other public health managers at a briefing in the state Capitol.
Texas has 39 confirmed cases of coronavirus; 220 Texans have been tested by public health labs or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 75 additional Texans were being tested Friday, Abbott said. That’s in addition to 90 people evacuated from China’s Hubei province, quarantined for two weeks at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and released last month.
Abbott noted that all of those quarantined returned home.
“This is not a death sentence,” he said.
Texas public health labs at 10 locations statewide can test 273 people daily, Abbott said, and that’s expected to increase next week as private labs start testing several thousand per week. He said San Antonio city officials opened a drive-through coronavirus testing site that will initially serve first-responders, healthcare workers, operators of key infrastructure and certain healthcare patients, although it was unclear how many they can test. Similar drive-through testing sites were expected to open next week in Dallas and Houston, he said, followed by Austin.
“We have already received millions of dollars from the federal government already in our hands that we are going to be parceling out to local communities to deal with this,” Abbott said.
Abbott said state officials have asked health insurers and HMOs to waive the cost of visits related to coronavirus and “we have a long list of health insurers who have agreed to comply.”
CDC still grappling with the pandemic
ATLANTA—At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here, where thousands of employees continue to work in large offices and laboratories, many are grappling with the same questions as their fellow Americans:
Should older staffers work from home?
How intensively is their workspace being cleaned?
Where can they be tested for COVID-19?
“We are at an unprecedented time at CDC and in the country,” Dr. Jonathan Mermin, the director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention told staff said Friday in an all-hands conference call.
Many CDC employees, whether they are running lab samples or analyzing data and writing reports, continue to work on the main campus and satellite buildings.
After getting HHS approval for a limited teleworking exception, the massive government bureaucracy has begun mandatory telework training exercises with a goal to get 80% of staff working remotely. Employees with children or elders at home will soon be able to telework.
Still, many contract workers, who are required to work in an office even if they can perform their duties from home, are waiting for their supervisors to tweak their agreements.
And many CDC employees are trying to figure out how to prepare for a new normal as events across the metro area are canceled and schools close.
“Our children wonder if they will be going to school,” Mermin said. “We contemplate whether we will be able to take care of them if they are home and if we will be able to telework for extended periods… We wonder if there will be food shortages and if we should stock up, and we have to make decisions about travel. We think about where we can buy masks and hand sanitizer and we wonder whether we are over or under reacting.”
Oakland Unified schools closed through March
All schools and child development centers in the Oakland Unified School District will close at 6 p.m. Friday and remain so through at least April 5, officials said.
District offices will stay open, but public access will be limited.
“All OUSD employees will also continue to work and be paid throughout this period, although exact responsibilities and worksite locations may vary,” officials wrote in a message to district families. “During this period, each school will receive a deep cleaning. Because of the evolving nature of the coronavirus pandemic, we hope to be able to resume instruction on Monday, April 6, but will continually assess the conditions to determine the best time for reopening schools.”
The district’s Nutrition Services Department will offer “grab-and-go” meals for students during the closure.
Column: ‘Buy when blood is in the streets,’ and other maxims from bear markets past
The story is told that one day a friend told J. Pierpont Morgan that he was so worried about his stocks that he couldn’t sleep at night. What should he do?
“Sell down to the sleeping point,” Morgan is said to have replied.
The anecdote dates to the 1890s, and its attribution to the man who then dominated American finance with such authority that he was nicknamed “Jupiter” may be apocryphal. But it raises two points.
One is that it encompasses a truism, which is that investors should divorce their emotional response to the markets from the cold analysis that should underlie investment decisions, if they can. The other is that stock market history is brimming with lessons from downturns of yore, often digested into bite-sized maxims.
Burbank Unified superintendent asks Newsom to close schools, cancel events
As the coronavirus outbreak continues to prompt some school districts throughout California to close, Burbank Unified is left standing along with a number of local public school districts.
On behalf of the district, Burbank Supt. Matt Hill sent a letter Thursday night asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to close all public schools throughout the state without any penalty for three weeks. The letter also asks to provide emergency funding to establish online learning if needed beyond three weeks, learning centers for students who don’t have space or access to digital learning tools and child care resources for families who can’t miss work.
“Los Angeles County is still in Scenario II; therefore, BUSD is faced with a Hobson’s Choice. Our students, teachers and staff have to wait for at least one person to become infected with Coronavirus before we can close schools. How can you encourage Disneyland to proactively close, but have our children wait?” wrote Hill in the letter.
Miami mayor tests positive
The mayor of Miami has tested positive for the new coronavirus after meeting with a Brazilian senior official who was also in close proximity to President Donald Trump.
Mayor Francis Suarez said Friday he was not feeling any symptoms and advised anyone who shook hands with him or was close to him to self-isolate for 14 days.
Florida politicians such as U.S. Sen. Rick Scott had expressed concerns about coming into contact with the Brazilian president’s press secretary Fábio Wajngarten, who tested positive after joining Bolsonaro in a visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last weekend.
Florida has reported about 43 cases of the new coronavirus.
Long Beach schools closed starting Monday
The Long Beach Unified School District will close its campuses starting Monday until April 20, officials said Friday.
Though there are no presumptive or confirmed cases in the schools, district officials said the closures would provide “an extra measure of protection to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.”
“Schools are an essential service and crucial to our communities,” according to a statement from the district. “We are facing an unprecedented health crisis in our community, and new information is surfacing rapidly. It is likely our community will be seeing many more cases of COVID-19 in the coming weeks and months and this will require a measured, sustained response.”
Officials also said students should minimize their social contact as much as possible.
House expected to vote on economic stimulus package
WASHINGTON —House Democrats and the Trump administration are on the brink of a deal on an economic stimulus bill to address fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, but it is uncertain whether congressional Republicans will support the measure, creating a sense of uncertainty on Capitol Hill.
The bill would provide temporary sick leave to Americans afflicted by COVID-19 and billions of dollars in aid to states for food programs and unemployment benefits.
It would also dramatically expand access to free coronavirus testing. Insurance companies would be required to cover it without a copay for consumers and a federal national disaster program would reimburse the cost for people without insurance.
With a sense of urgency to respond to the crisis overtaking Capitol Hill, Republicans are hoping that President Trump makes his position on the bill clear during a news conference scheduled for 3 p.m. EDT Friday.
In Iran, worries and resilience in the face of the coronavirus
Iranians talk about quarantine, the shortage of supplies, frustration with the government and other challenges amid the virus pandemic.
West Hollywood officials postpone LA Pride and other events
Around Los Angeles, events are being canceled or postponed due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. On Thursday afternoon, the city of West Hollywood announced LA Pride was one of them.
“Christopher Street West will postpone all events related to LA Pride in West Hollywood, which had been scheduled in June 2020, and organizers will assess,”a city news release said. The city is also canceling all public meetings, city-sponsored events, and the Helen Albert Certified Farmers’ Market.
“Public safety is job No. 1 and the city of West Hollywood is taking great care to assist our partners in public health to the fullest extent possible,” West Hollywood Mayor John D’Amico said in a statement.
“Right now, our focus is doing our part to flatten the curve of the disease progression by focusing on essential City business functions and canceling events under the City’s purview. Social distancing has been proven effective in other regions and we are following best practices to slow down the spread of this virus so our healthcare system does not become overwhelmed at this time,” the news release said.
“Please remain calm and take care of yourselves and each other. Follow the guidance from L.A. County Public Health and the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. Our community navigated the global HIV/AIDS pandemic and we will get through this if we follow guidelines – and, please, let’s do this the WeHo way with kindness and empathy.”
L.A. Archdiocese says Catholics don’t need to attend Sunday Mass for next three weeks
In a dramatic response to the coronavirus outbreak, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced Friday it was lifting from its parishioners the obligation of attending Sunday Mass for the next three weeks.
Archbishop José H. Gomez also announced attendance at any Mass in the archdiocese should be limited to 250 people and that nonessential group meetings and retreats would be suspended.
“I encourage those of you who cannot come to Mass to stay home and read the gospels, pray with your families and to join yourself to the sacrifice of the Mass by making an act of spiritual communion,” Gomez wrote in a letter to the archdiocese.
The archdiocese covers Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
All athletic competitions halted in Santa Clarita Valley’s Hart High School District
Casey Burrill, the longtime baseball coach at Valencia West Ranch, spent Thursday night texting some of his distraught seniors after news came out from the William S. Hart Union High School District that all sports and practices in the district would cease until at least April 30 because of coronavirus concerns.
“Our last regular season game is April 30,” Burrill said Friday morning. “For all intents and purposes, that canceled our season. For our seniors, it was a difficult time. It’s very emotional.”
Burrill plans to meet with his team later Friday to discuss moving forward. He will be allowed to work with his players during baseball class -- if school remains in session.
“We will practice,” he said. “We will hit, throw and try to improve skills. I’m sure the seniors will want to be involved with that. I’m anticipating the next time West Ranch is on the field playing will be the summer.”
Louisiana delays presidential primary because of the virus
The state of Louisiana is delaying its April 4 presidential primary because of concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, local media reported Friday.
A spokeswoman for Gov. John Bel Edwards told the Advocate newspaper that the move is an “extraordinary measure but one we feel is prudent.”
“Our poll workers are by large elderly, over the age of 70 and we think it is unsafe for them to be monitoring the election,” said the spokeswoman, Christina Stephens. “We don’t think we would have enough poll workers ... and we think we should be discouraging people from congregating in that way.”
The secretary of state was set to hold a news conference Friday.
Europe is now the epicenter of the pandemic, WHO says
Europe has become the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with more cases reported there every day than were reported in China at the height of its epidemic, World Health Organization officials said Friday.
“Any country that looks at the experience of other countries with large epidemics and thinks ‘that won’t happen to us’ is making a deadly mistake,” said WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “It can happen to any country.”
Tedros said that the experiences of China, South Korea and Singapore show that even countries with major outbreaks can contain the virus’ spread using aggressive testing, contact tracing and social distancing. The agency recently said the outbreak was widespread enough to be called a pandemic, but emphasized that does mean that it cannot be contained. “Do not just let this fire burn,” Tedros said Friday.
WHO officials said that finding contacts of people infected is key to stopping the spread of the virus. Travel bans often do not work and can give countries a false sense of security, they said. Though increased testing will make the situation appear worse due to case counts rising, it is ultimately the only way to control an outbreak, officials said.
“Please look for cases, please do testing and find those cases so we can turn the tide,” said WHO epidemiologst Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove.
Los Angeles school district to close all schools, starting Monday
Los Angeles school officials on Friday voted to shut down the nation’s second-largest school system effective Monday, citing concerns over the rapid spread of the coronavirus. The district has about 900 campuses serving more than 670,000 children and adult students. District officials said that they will continue meal programs and offer televised and online lessons in an attempt to help families. The move came amid mounting pressure for the L.A. Unified School District to take more aggressive action, which officials had resisted because county health officials have identified no confirmed case of COVID-19 linked to a Los Angeles campus through Thursday. But the calls to close schools have been growing in number and intensity, including the teachers union late Thursday. An emergency board meeting had been called for 1 p.m. Friday, but was moved up.
Actor David Arquette isn’t letting COVID-19 get ‘im down
See photos from the backyard screening of the David Arquette wrestling doc that was set to premiere at SXSW before the cancellation due to the coronavirus.
U.S. general says he’s ‘fairly certain’ North Korea has COVID-19 cases
The top American general in South Korea said Friday he is “fairly certain” North Korea has not been spared in the COVID-19 outbreak that began in neighboring China, although the North has not publicly confirmed a single case.
Speaking by video-teleconference from his headquarters in South Korea, Army Gen. Robert Abrams told reporters at the Pentagon that the North had halted military training for a month — including a 24-day hiatus in military flying — but has since resumed.
“It is a closed-off nation, so we can’t say emphatically that they have cases, but we’re fairly certain they do,” he said. “What I do know is that their armed forces had been fundamentally in a lockdown for about 30 days and only recently have they started routine training again. As one example, they didn’t fly an airplane for 24 days.” He said they have resumed flying.
Earlier this week, North Korean state media reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised his second live-fire artillery exercise in a week. The report Tuesday by Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency came a day after South Korea’s military detected the launches of three short-range projectiles off the North’s eastern coast.
Abrams said that only one U.S. service member, among the approximately 28,000 in South Korea, has tested positive for the novel coronavirus. He said efforts to shield the force, including family members and South Korea support personnel, have been largely successful thus far.
The measures Abrams said he has taken to minimize the COVID-19 spread within his force include requiring troops and employees to limit their movement off base, stay home if not feeling well and conducting strict and expansive tracing to identify people who were exposed to anyone who tested positive and require their quarantine.
Stocks surge on Wall Street; Dow jumps 800 points, or 4%
Stocks opened sharply higher on Wall Street on Friday, a day after the worst drop since 1987. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 800 points, or 4%.
However, that’s far less than half of what the index lost a day earlier.European markets surged about 7% a day after one of their worst drops on record.
The wild swings continued as governments stepped up precautions against the spread of the new coronavirus and considered ways to cushion the blow to their economies. Asian markets ended a volatile day mostly lower. Shares rose in Paris and London but fell 6.1% in Japan following Wall Street’s and Europe’s biggest drop since the 1987 Black Monday crash.
Friday the 13th brought wild swings for some markets as governments stepped up precautions against the spread of the new coronavirus and considered ways to cushion the blow to their economies.
Column: NCAA, Pac-12 were slow to do the right thing in canceling tournaments
LAS VEGAS —An organization’s stated mission isn’t necessarily its actual purpose. Capitalism might as well be this country’s official religion. These were the lessons of the week.
So, there was some teaching taking place here, even if it was unintentional. The student-athletes who gathered in this city over the last couple of days observed how their world really functions.
Of course, this shouldn’t be the instruction universities offer the leaders of tomorrow, not unless the schools intend on molding them into the kinds of reactionaries who run the bodies that govern collegiate athletics.
There was nothing admirable in how Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott reached the point of canceling his conference’s basketball tournament on Thursday morning. Nor was there anything honorable in the way NCAA president Mark Emmert scrapped March Madness later in the day.
Stadium workers’ union asks L.A. pro teams to pay wages, benefits during shutdown
Sylvia Sosa measures her time working at Dodger Stadium by the stars. She is a bartender now, but she started at a humble concession stand.
“Taking care of the mustard, relish, ketchup and nachos,” she said, “during the Fernando years.”
She has worked at the ballpark for 45 years. She is retired from her full-time job, so the money from her Dodger Stadium job is important. The health insurance is critical. And, as of Thursday, she has no idea when she might work there again.
“It kind of gets into panic mode,” Sosa said.
After an unprecedented 24-hour period in which the NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer put their seasons on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic, the men and women whose livelihood depends on selling hot dogs and drinks at those games suddenly face at an indefinite layoff.
Working from home is awesome. Here’s how to excel at it
I love working from home.
I learned this week that this is apparently a controversial stance. The unfolding coronavirus crisis is forcing many of us to work from home in an effort to help stop the spread. Not everyone greeted the news with a cheer. And that’s how I learned there are some people who claim to enjoy putting on work clothes and packing a sad desk lunch and battling morning traffic. Not me.
I’ve had jobs where I worked from home full-time, and jobs — like the one I have now — where I normally work from home every once in a while. I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty good at it.
A lot of the “how to work from home” guides popping up this week seem to assume no one has ever pulled out their laptop to check their work email from home before. I trust you know the basics. So here are some tips to work from home more efficiently, stay connected with your colleagues, and maybe even enjoy yourself a little bit.
The handshake deal is being tested by coronavirus
In sales, reaching a deal is supposed to be the tricky part — not the handshake at the end.
Douglas Jones, head of global sales and marketing for BioCell Technology in Irvine, must now be prepared for many possibilities. No flinching, for example, when a fist or elbow comes his way.
In the time of the coronavirus, the most staid of business traditions — the handshake — is taking new forms.
“You kind of need to assess the situation that you’re in, where you are and who you are with,” said Jones, whose company manufactures ingredients used in dietary supplements, foods and cosmetics. “This time, we might have to do the fist bump, maybe the elbow bump. It could be the foot bump. You swing your leg across the left to the right and you just touch shoes. I kind of wait and see. You need to read the body language.”
Column: Lighter traffic, easy restaurant reservations and other perks of the pandemic
This just in:
At 11:30 a.m., in Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles, I counted just seven people in line at Eggslut.
This is bigger news than the stock market crash.
I’ve never seen such a short line at this eatery, where millennials and others are always more than happy to queue up and wait eons for an egg sandwich.
The coronavirus may be scary, but there are upsides, it seems.
At 11:40 a.m., only one person was in line at Eggslut. It was me, and I wasn’t really in line. I just wanted to ask if business had ever been slower.
“No,” said Eli Watson, who manned the cash register.
What if schools are closed for weeks? That’s already the reality in parts of Asia
Homework delivered via WhatsApp. “Minecraft” and Netflix instead of lectures and gym classes. Refrigerators as blackboards, harried parents, bored children — and no end in sight to what one 7-year-old calls a “nightmare.”
School closures are just beginning to ripple across the United States as authorities try to contain the spreading coronavirus, but across swaths of Asia, the Middle East and Europe, children have already been kept home from classes for several nerve-racking weeks.
Twenty-nine countries, including China, South Korea and Japan, have imposed nationwide school closures affecting more than 391 million students from elementary school through the university level, according to UNESCO.
“ I was kind of happy to stay home, but now I really want to go to school,” said O Hyun-jin, an 11th-grader in Daegu, the epicenter of South Korea’s coronavirus outbreak, where the typical start of the school year on March 2 has been pushed back at least three weeks. O hasn’t set foot on campus since winter break began in December.
In one of the last places to likely see coronavirus, disaster prep is a way of life
SHELLEY, Idaho —It was January when David Gillmore went to Home Depot for face masks before logging onto Amazon, where he bought a plastic sign that read, “DANGER: KEEP OUT QUARANTINE.”
There were no confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. at the time, and, at 61, he was healthier than ever, having recently lost dozens of pounds on a potato-based diet.
They held hands and prayed, they said, thinking over words from the 19th-century Scripture that guides them: “If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.”
Shelley, a town of 4,409 in southeastern Idaho between the Snake River and Blackfoot Mountains, is likely to be among the last places to know the coronavirus. Less than two square miles, the village of potato farmers is hours from the nearest confirmed cases in Washington, Utah and Wyoming. Downtown’s State Street is quiet most days with empty storefronts. It’s rare to have a visitor from another part of the country, let alone another part of the world.
But this is also the center of Mormon country, a community where nearly every resident is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a state also long-known as a haven for survivalists. For Mormons, preparation for disaster has been part of the faith since the 1850s, when church leader Brigham Young told followers to store wheat to avoid winter starvation after settlers colonized the rough Utah desert.
Anticipation builds over possible closing of L.A. schools
Los Angeles school officials have called an emergency 7 a.m. closed-door meeting Friday, increasing speculation that a district-wide shutdown is imminent. So far, no coronavirus cases have been linked to L.A. schools, which have remained open amid the widening pandemic.
The emergency meeting comes the morning after the L.A. teachers union called on the nation’s second-largest school district to close all its campuses as quickly as possible to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
While health officials have supported the district’s decision to keep schools operating, an increasing number of schools districts throughout California and the nation have announced closures including San Francisco Unified, several unified districts in Ventura County including Simi Valley, Moorpark and Oak Park. Also the governors in four states — Ohio, Maryland, New Mexico and Michigan — ordered the closing of all public schools.
Public life slows to a near halt as California hunkers down in the face of coronavirus
Public life across the state of California ground into a slower and more ominous gear Thursday as attempts to slow the spread of the coronavirus shut down community gatherings, sports events and government meetings and forced the planned closure of Disneyland for just the fourth time in its 64-year history.
A day after calling for the cancellation of all gatherings of more than 250 people, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a sweeping executive order allowing the state, if necessary, to take over hotels and medical facilities to treat a potential tide of coronavirus patients.
The unprecedented actions mirrored a hunkering down across the U.S., as the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. canceled its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, all theaters on Broadway went dark, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would no longer welcome visitors and Major League Baseball called off spring training games and said the start of the season would be delayed at least two weeks.
Trump administration blocks states from using Medicaid to respond to coronavirus crisis
WASHINGTON —Despite mounting pleas from California and other states, the Trump administration isn’t allowing states to use Medicaid more freely to respond to the coronavirus crisis by expanding medical services.
In previous emergencies, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the H1N1 flu outbreak, both Republican and Democratic administrations loosened Medicaid rules to empower states to meet surging needs.
But months into the current global disease outbreak, the White House and senior federal health officials haven’t taken the necessary steps to give states simple pathways to fully leverage the mammoth safety net program to prevent a wider epidemic.
That’s making it harder for states to quickly sign up poor patients for coverage so they can get necessary testing or treatment if they are exposed to coronavirus.
South Korea to limit information about patients
South Korea plans to limit the amount of information it releases about coronavirus patients amid criticism that the details currently shared reveal too much personal information and exacerbate panic.
The director of South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jung Eun-kyeong, said Friday her agency is drafting a new guideline for local governments to prevent them from releasing details that are unnecessary for quarantine and prevention work.
She didn’t say what specific recommendations would be included in the guideline.
South Korean health authorities have been actively using personal information — including immigration, public transportation, credit card and smartphone GPS data — to track patients and their contacts.
Details about the places patients visited before testing positive are posted online and shared through smartphone alerts to inform people who may have been in their vicinity.
South Korea’s Human Rights Commission on Monday raised concerns about the release of the data, saying patients were being exposed to “criticism, ridicule and hate.”
Some people have used the information to identify the patients and have publicly condemned them for moving around while sick.
There are concerns that the release of the detailed information is worsening panic and discouraging sick people from coming forward. A recent survey by Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Public Health found that many people were more afraid of being stigmatized as a virus patient than of catching the virus itself.
Gulf moves to contain virus as top Iran aide tests positive
Dubai announced Friday that it would hold a major horse race without spectators later this month in response to the new coronavirus, as a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quarantined at home after testing positive.
Persian Gulf countries have been scrambling to contain the outbreak, which has infected thousands of people in nearby Iran — one of the largest clusters of cases outside China.
The Dubai World Cup, planned for March 28, is the world’s richest purse for horse racing, with a $12 million prize last year. Dubai’s crown prince, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, separately announced a $400 million stimulus plan for the city-state whose real-estate market and tourism industry have been hard-hit by the virus.
Dubai International Airport, the busiest for international travel and home to long-haul carrier Emirates, has seen passenger numbers plummet.
King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of the island nation of Bahrain meanwhile released nearly 1,500 prisoners, around 900 of whom were pardoned. The move appeared aimed at preventing the virus from spreading inside detention facilities.
In hard-hit Iran, state-run TV announced that Ali Akbar Velayati was quarantined at home after testing positive for the virus. He is a close, trusted adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 80-year-old leader of the Islamic Republic.
Iran has reported more than 10,000 cases and more than 400 deaths. There are concerns that the number of infections is much higher, with some Iranian lawmakers even speaking out.
XFL halts play for rest of regular season
A day after the NBA suspended its season and hours after the NHL, MLS and MLB delayed their own, the XFL went a step further Thursday afternoon, calling off the remainder of its inaugural season because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Currently, the XFL will not be playing its regular season games,” the league said in a statement. “However, all players will be paid their base pay and benefits for the 2020 regular season. All XFL ticket holders will be issued refunds or credit toward future games. The XFL is committed to playing a full season in 2021 and future years.”
Thursday’s announcement could be a crushing blow for the first-year, eight-team league, which was attempting to establish itself as a viable pro football option with its revamped rule book and broadcast partners in Fox Sports and ESPN/ABC.
House Democrats, White House close to deal on economic stimulus package
After a day of negotiations and partisan brinkmanship, House Democrats and Trump administration officials were close to reaching agreement Thursday evening on an economic stimulus package to address the widening impact of the coronavirus on American workers and businesses.
The deal — being forged by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin via frequent phone calls — is expected to eliminate insurance co-payments for COVID-19 testing and provide billions of dollars in aid to state and local governments for food programs and unemployment benefits. It is also likely to include assistance for workers dealing with coronavirus who don’t receive sick pay at work.
“It’s fair to say we’re close to an agreement subject to the exchange of paper,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday evening, adding that a vote on the measure would take place Friday, with or without a deal with the White House.
Pelosi suggested the final deal would be slimmer than the ambitious plan Democrats released Wednesday.
Coronavirus brings stock market its worst day since 1987
Financial markets exercised their own form of social distancing Thursday as they ignored friendly intervention and plunged deeply into bear territory amid coronavirus fears, notching their worst day of trading since the 1987 crash.
Neither an automatic time-out in trading, nor a $1.5-trillion Federal Reserve pledge to sop up the bond market, nor a series of clarifications and reassurances from the Trump administration could stem a selling contagion. The market listened, then spun on its heels and sold. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 2,352 points, down about 10%, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq trimming 9.5% and 9.4%, respectively.
The pain was widespread. Travel plummeted over government restrictions and concerns about containment of the virus. Energy was particularly hard-hit, falling 40%, as an oil price war coupled with an anticipated fall in demand weighed on investors. Technology firms faltered, with Amazon dropping nearly 8% and Apple falling 12% over questions about its supply chain and sales in China. The consumer durables sector notched one of the market’s few gains, up more than 6%, as buyers hoard supplies.
San Francisco school district closing all schools for three weeks
The San Francisco Unified School District is closing all schools for three weeks beginning March 16 through the end of the regularly scheduled spring break on April 3.
The move came after four students at Lakeshore Elementary School have pneumonia, most likely with the coronavirus, the district said. Lakeshore Elementary was ordered closed on Wednesday after four students and some of their family adult members reported respiratory illness.
Meanwhile will L.A. Unified School District close its 860-some campuses this week or next week, or not at all?
The answer, as of 1:30 p.m. Thursday, was no. Despite mounting cries on Thursday afternoon for LAUSD to close, officials said it would not.
Here are all the movie releases that have been postponed due to coronavirus
From the sequel to ‘A Quiet Place’ to the latest James Bond, many high-profile films are rescheduling their release dates to mitigate the risk of contracting COVID-19 in movie theaters and other large gatherings.
Walt Disney Studios has postponed the March 27 release of “Mulan,” as well as the planned releases of the already much-delayed X-Men franchise entry “The New Mutants” and the Guillermo del Toro-produced horror movie “Antlers,” a Searchlight title, and is reportedly eyeing new potential dates later this year.
Here’s a working list of all the film releases affected by coronavirus.
LAX to close overnight for construction and cleaning
Los Angeles International Airport will be closed to the public between midnight at 5 a.m., except for ticketed passengers and staff, officials said Thursday.
The closures at the nation’s second-busiest airport were planned before the coronavirus began spreading in California, as airport officials prepared for heavy construction on several projects, said spokesman Heath Montgomery. But having fewer people around will allow airport cleaning crews to more efficiently sanitize the terminals and other common areas, he said.
The airport is juggling multiple major construction projects, including an automated people-mover train that will carry travelers and workers from a nearby Metro station. The construction of the station pillars inside the terminal area has forced multiple lane closures, as well as the reorganization of Uber and Lyft pickups, the system called “LAXit.”
Cleaning crews will take advantage of the emptier terminals overnight to spend more time focusing on high-touch areas and bathrooms, Montgomery said.
“It enables them to scrub down surfaces that aren’t being used, and they don’t have to go around passengers or ask anyone to move,” Montgomery said. “It enables them to do a more thorough job.”
The closure applies to all areas west of Sepulveda Boulevard on airport property, including terminals, parking garages, the LAX Theme Building and the Bob Hope U.S.O. Passengers with boarding passes, and anyone assisting them, are still allowed to be at the airport overnight, officials said.
“If you have a boarding pass, you are allowed to stay at the airport,” said Jay Kim, a spokesman for the airport police. “If you work at LAX, or you have business to be there, you can be.”
Should L.A. Unified close its schools? Parents are debating
On Facebook and group chats, the rumors are spreading.
With more cases of the novel coronavirus being confirmed daily, will L.A. Unified School District close its 860-some campuses this week or next week, or not at all? Should it follow in the footsteps of the universities that are rapidly moving to online learning or the K-12 districts in Northern California and across the country that have shuttered as they have confirmed their first cases of the virus?
The answer, as of 1:30 p.m. Thursday, was no. Despite mounting cries on Thursday afternoon for LAUSD to close, officials said it would not.
Can L.A. nightlife survive the coronavirus?
After a week when most travel from Europe was banned, Coachella was postponed until October, the NBA season was canceled and whole world finally accepted that a pandemic is truly spreading, going out to concerts was both a way to cling to normalcy and, perhaps, a pleasure that should stop immediately.
Over two nights, The Times went to various local shows to see how music fans were reacting to the pandemic and to get a glimpse of how the city’s live music scene may change as the reality of coronavirus sets in.
Some fans seemed cavalier about it all, making jokes with friends and pressing the flesh in crowds from Highland Park to West Hollywood.
Disneyland, California Adventure to close for the rest of the month over coronavirus
Disneyland and Disney California Adventure will close Saturday morning through the end of the month in light of Gov. Gavin Newsom and state health officials’ recommendation that gatherings of 250 or more people be canceled across the state.
“While there have been no reported cases of COVID-19 at Disneyland Resort, after carefully reviewing the guidelines of the governor of California’s executive order and in the best interest of our guests and employees, we are proceeding with the closure of Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure, beginning the morning of March 14 through the end of the month,” the Walt Disney Co. wrote in a statement Thursday afternoon.
“The hotels of Disneyland Resort will remain open until Monday, March 16, to give guests the ability to make necessary travel arrangements; Downtown Disney will remain open. We will monitor the ongoing situation and follow the advice and guidance of federal and state officials and health agencies. Disney will continue to pay cast members during this time.”
The company announced it would refund hotel bookings during the closure.
Gov. Newsom issues order allowing California to take over hotels, medical facilities
California Gov. Gavin Newsom released a sweeping executive order on Thursday that allows the state to commandeer hotels and medical facilities to treat coronavirus patients and permits government officials to hold teleconferences in private without violating open meeting laws.
Newsom issued the order hours after he called for the cancellation of gatherings of 250 or more people, marking the first time he has applied so-called social distancing practices to the entire state of California.
“This is where we need to go next, and to make sure we fully implement those procedures and protocols to slow down the spread to get through a peak and to get through the next few months, so we don’t overwhelm our healthcare delivery system,” Newsom told reporters Thursday.
The Supreme Court building will close to the general public
The Supreme Court announced today it is closing the building to the general public until further notice. During normal week days, visitors may walk through the exhibits on the ground floor of the court and also sit in the courtroom when the justices are not hearing arguments. Today’s announcement said nothing about whether Court will hear arguments as scheduled during the week of March 23. Then, about 300 people, including lawyers, clerks and tourists would gather in the courtroom to hear an argument.
City of Los Angeles postpones large-scale meetings
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced sweeping measures on Thursday to try to limit the spread of the virus.
Garcetti said all city departments are being ordered to postpone or cancel public events and meetings expected to draw 50 or more people. He also called for a ban on all public events and conferences on city-owned properties expected to draw 50 or more.
He also said that visitors were effectively banned from City Hall.
“We are closing City Hall to all non-city employees.” However, guests are allowed to attend City Council meetings, he said.
His announcement came one day after city leaders announced a sweeping reduction in the number of public meetings at City Hall. The City Council, which usually meets three times a week, will cut down to once a week for the remainder of the month.
Also canceled: all council committee meetings, which are devoted to such topics as public safety, planning and the city budget.
Feinstein closing California offices, Washington office remains open for now
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she’s closing her California offices and considering closing her Washington office because of the coronavirus.
“I don’t want people unnecessarily hurt,” she said in a brief interview. “It’s a big decision.”
She said Senate Democrats were advised in a healthcare meeting to close their offices. A handful of other lawmakers have already said they plan to do so.
Fed unveils dramatic measures to ease market strain from virus
The Federal Reserve took aggressive steps Thursday to ease what it called “temporary disruptions” in Treasuries, flooding the market with liquidity and widening its purchases of U.S. government securities in a measure that recalls the quantitative easing it used during the financial crisis.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in a statement that the “changes are being made to address highly unusual disruptions in Treasury financing markets associated with the coronavirus outbreak” and had been done at the direction of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in consultation with the Federal Open Market Committee.
Under the Fed’s existing program to buy $60 billion a month in securities, the purchases will be widened to include coupon-bearing notes across a range of maturities to match the maturity composition of the Treasury market, it said.
St. Francis basketball’s bid for state title ends as CIF cancels contests amidst COVID-19 concerns
The bags were packed. The buses were scheduled. The hotels were booked.
The St. Francis basketball team was set to depart for Sacramento at noon Thursday as the Golden Knights planned to spend time in the state capital before the program’s first-ever CIF State championship game at the Golden 1 Center on Saturday.
However, the growing concerns of the coronavirus outbreak throughout the country and world has halted the weekend’s state championships, as the CIF moved to cancel all title games early Thursday.
“The decision was made after careful deliberation and in the primary interest of protecting the health and safety of our member schools, fans and most importantly, our student-athletes,” Thursday’s CIF statement read. “While we understand this decision is disappointing, we strongly believe that the opportunity to compete in this event does not outweigh our obligation to place the health and safety of our member schools and school communities above all else.”
Disney, other theme parks stay open as California urges ban on large gatherings
It appeared to be business as usual for some Southern California theme parks Thursday morning, even as Gov. Gavin Newsom and state health officials recommended canceling gatherings of 250 or more people across the entire state.
The advisory, which does not carry the force of law, stops short of asking Californians to change their work, travel or even some leisure habits. A document provided by the governor’s administration said the limit on large gatherings does “not apply to essential public transportation, airport travel or shopping at a store or mall.”
Big West Conference cancels men’s and women’s basketball tournaments
The Big West Conference on Thursday morning canceled its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments because of concerns about the coronavirus.
The women’s tournament began Tuesday at the Pyramid in Long Beach, and the men’s tournament was set to tip off Thursday at noon at Honda Center in Anaheim. The finals in both events were scheduled for Saturday in Anaheim.
In a statement, a league spokesman said: “The main priority of the Big West Conference continues to be the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes, coaches, administrators, fans and media as we continue to monitor all developing and relevant information on the COVID-19 virus.”
White House says Trump not getting tested after his exposure to Brazilian official
President Trump will not get tested after his exposure to the Brazilian official, the White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Thursday.
Grisham said the White House is aware of reports and said confirmatory testing is pending and that officials are assessing exposures to the individual.
She said both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had “almost no interactions with the individual who tested positive”
5 things you should know about coronavirus
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U.S. is ‘failing’ to provide testing for those in need, Dr. Anthony Fauci says
At a hearing of the House Oversight Committee on Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the United States is “failing” to provide testing for everyone who needs it.
“The system is not really geared to what we need right now — what you are asking for. That is a failing. It is a failing,” Fauci said. “Let’s admit it.... The idea of anybody getting it easily, the way people in other countries are doing it, we’re not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes.”
Canada: Trudeau stays at home after wife’s flu-like symptoms
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is quarantining himself at home after his wife exhibited flu-like symptoms.
Trudeau’s office said Thursday that Sophie Grégoire Trudeau returned from a speaking engagement in Britain and had mild flu-like symptoms, including a low fever late, Wednesday night.
She is being tested for the COVID-19 disease and is awaiting results. Her symptoms have since subsided.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the Prime Minister is opting to self-isolate and work from home until receiving Sophie’s results,” the statement said.
His office said the doctor’s advice to the prime minister is to continue daily activities while self-monitoring, given that he is exhibiting no symptoms himself. He is spending the day in briefings, phone calls, and virtual meetings from home, including speaking with other world leaders and joining a special cabinet committee discussion on the new coronavirus.
Trudeau has also cancelled an in-person meeting with Canada’s provincial premiers.
CIF state basketball championships are canceled
The CIF announced in a conference call with coaches and administrators on Thursday morning that it is canceling the state basketball championships scheduled for Friday and Saturday at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
The decision comes after California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined state health officials in recommending the cancellation of gatherings of 250 or more people across the entire state, escalating the effort by his administration to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Big Ten, SEC and AAC cancel their men’s basketball tournaments
The Big Ten, Southeastern and American Athletic conferences canceled their remaining games of their respective men’s basketball tournaments on Thursday.
The move comes a day after the NCAA announced the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will bar fans from attending. The NBA, Major League Soccer and the ATP Tour have all suspended play.
The Players Championship to bar spectators starting Friday
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. —The Players Championship, which started Thursday with fans in attendance, will not have spectators for the final three days at the TPC Sawgrass.
A person involved in the discussions over the new coronavirus says the policy is expected to be in place for the next several weeks, starting with the Players and extending to next week at the Valspar Championship in the Tampa Bay area. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the move has not been announced.
The only times a PGA Tour event has kept fans off the course were safety issues related to weather.
Even after the NBA suspended its season and the NCAA said its basketball tournaments would not have fans present, the Players began Thursday with fans. The only stipulation Thursday was they not ask for autographs.
Princess Cruises suspends operations for 60 days
Princess Cruises, owner of a ship where an outbreak of the coronavirus forced the quarantine of thousands of passengers and crew since last week, announced Thursday it will suspend all operations for its vacation voyages for 60 days.
The move comes as the cruise ship industry faces increased pressure from federal and state regulators during the global outbreak of coronavirus. Two Princess Cruise ships have been sites of an outbreak of the deadly virus this year, including the Grand Princess, which has sparked the quarantine of 3,500 passengers and 1,100 crew members.
Calling it a “proactive response to the unpredictable circumstances evolving from the global spread of COVID-19,” the company said in a statement its 18 cruise ships will cease sailing immediately. It hopes to resume operations in May. The State Department on Sunday urged U.S. citizens to not travel on cruise ships.
“U.S. citizens, particularly travelers with underlying health conditions, should not travel by cruise ship,” the State Department said in a statement on its website.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has also been vocal in his criticism of cruising during the outbreak. Several times the governor has advised people, especially those who are older, to stop cruising. He has also indicated he was investigating what powers the state could invoke to prevent cruise ships from docking in California during the outbreak.
On March 4, passengers aboard the Grand Princess, which was on a return voyage from Hawaii, learned a traveler on a previous cruise tested positive for the coronavirus and died. That man was a resident of Placer County in Northern California. Passengers were quarantined in their cabins for days off the coast of San Francisco as federal, state and local authorities hammered out a plan to bring them ashore.
On Monday, the ship docked at the commercial Port of Oakland and passengers began to disembark. Those in need of medical treatment or who had symptoms were taken to hospitals or hotels for observation.
The majority of passengers will be quarantined for 14 days at military facilities in California, Texas and Georgia. Foreign passengers will be repatriated, including more than 200 Canadians who returned home on a charter flight Monday night. More than 1,100 crew members will be quarantined on board, according to the cruise line and state officials.
U.S. Capitol, House and Senate office buildings closed to public
Officials are closing the U.S. Capitol, House and Senate office buildings to the public until April 1 because of the coronavirus.
The closure of the Capitol Complex will take effect at 5 p.m. today, the House Sergeant at Arms announced. Only lawmakers, staff, credentialed press and official business visitors will have access.
“We are taking this temporary action out of concern for the health and safety of congressional employees as well as the public,” a press release said.
Mt. Everest expedition operators say China is canceling climbs over coronavirus
KATHMANDU, Nepal —Expedition operators on Mt. Everest said Thursday that Chinese mountaineering officials will not allow spring climbs from their side of the mountain due to fears of the coronavirus.
On the other side of the mountain in Nepal, operators say cancellations for the popular spring climbing season have been pouring in despite the mountain being open for business.
Dawa Shepra of Kathmandu-based Climbalaya Treks and Expeditions said the officials told them though the virus was getting under control in China, they could not risk bringing in foreign climbers.
He said the conversation with the China Tibet Mountaineering Assn. officials was over the phone and no official emails, faxes or messages were sent.
Europe balks at Trump-announced travel restrictions
LONDON —After Europe awoke Thursday to news of President Trump’s decision to restrict travel between much of the continent and the United States, its leaders expressed indignation and bafflement over a move they said would do little to impact the spread of coronavirus.
Trump came under sharp criticism for what European allies said was failure to consult with them prior to his announcement in an Oval Office address on Wednesday night, in which he initially announced that all European travel and movement of cargo would be halted -- though that statement was quickly walked back.
U.S. officials said the restrictions would apply not to U.S. citizens and their immediate family members, but to most foreign citizens who had been in Europe’s passport-free travel zone – the so-called Schengen Area -- at any point in 14 days before travel to the United States. And they clarified it would apply to people, not goods.
Even in its diluted form, the U.S. position appeared to be another instance of Trump catching allies unaware with a major policy decision.
European Central Bank seeks to cushion economic fallout
The European Central Bank is deploying new stimulus measures to cushion the economic pain inflicted by the virus outbreak.
The central bank decided Thursday to buy up 120 billion euros more in bonds, money that is newly created and injected into the financial system.
Some economists say the 19 countries that use the currency could be facing a recession this year.
Did Wednesday change everything for boomers skeptical of the coronavirus pandemic?
Retired businessman Gary Martin Zelman was looking forward to his center court seat at Thursday’s Lakers game. Up until Wednesday night, he had planned to be there, rooting for his hometown NBA team, regardless of warnings that baby boomers should distance themselves from public places to help stem the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus.
Hours later, the NBA suspended its season and President Trump, who has downplayed the risk of the virus, imposed sweeping travel restrictions on visitors from Europe. An NBA player tested positive and actor Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson announced they are infected. In a matter of hours, Zelman — who is 57 with health issues — went from describing COVID-19 as a politically motivated fuss to acknowledging it poses real risks.
At 1:04 p.m., Zelman was saying: “We are adults and we should know how to take care of ourselves by now. If I have somewhere to go, I’m going to go.”
By 7:46 p.m.: “This changes the narrative. It’s time to take precautions.”
HIV conspiracy theories and the virus continue to thrive in Russia
NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia —The day Svetlana Sumina was diagnosed with HIV, she went home and turned on the television to a program called “Inexplicably, but a Fact.”
The host explained that the virus was fake, and the drugs prescribed to treat it would destroy her organs.
Sumina became convinced and vowed never to take the medications, a promise she kept for nearly a decade. She and her HIV-positive husband would throw away the drugs the Russian government provided or sell them on the black market.
“We felt fine and were happy,” she recalled.
Then in 2016, Sumina became pregnant and began to wonder whether the doctors were right: “What if this was real and I could give it to my child?”
She started taking the drugs and months later gave birth to a healthy girl.
Her husband never changed his mind about HIV and soon became gravely ill. He died at age 37 less than a year later of complications from AIDS.
EU condemns Trump travel ban from Europe as virus spreads
The European Union on Thursday lashed out at President Trump’s “unilateral” decision to restrict travel from Europe to the United States over the coronavirus, saying that the illness does not respect borders.
Trump announced that all European travel would be cut off, but U.S. officials later clarified that restrictions would apply only to most foreign citizens who have been in Europe’s passport-free travel zone at any point for 14 days prior to their arrival to the United States.
“The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation,” EU Council President Charles Michel and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint statement.
“The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action,” the two said.
They rejected Trump’s suggestion that Europe is not doing enough to combat COVID-19, saying that the 27-nation bloc “is taking strong action to limit the spread of the virus.”
The so-called Schengen area comprises 26 countries including EU members France, Italy, German, Greece, Austria and Belgium, where the bloc has its headquarters, but also others like Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
Coronavirus will hit the health system hard, and not all states are prepared
As coronavirus infections spread across the country, the outbreak will test America’s unusually decentralized public health system, spotlighting large gaps in some states’ readiness to confront a major health crisis.
That threatens to exacerbate an outbreak that has already infected more than 1,000 Americans, but is expected to grow dramatically in coming weeks and put severe strains on medical providers around the country.
Spike in cases in Gulf pushes Mideast past 10,000 infections
A spike in cases in the Gulf helped push infections in the Middle East for the new coronavirus past 10,000 cases on Thursday, with most infected people either in Iran or having recently traveled there.
Countries in the region have imposed varying levels of restrictions on travel, from wholesale halting of all commercial flights in Kuwait to Saudi Arabia banning travel to 39 countries.
Regional stock markets were down, reflecting investor concerns and nerves felt globally as oil prices plunge and tourism revenue is eroded by the virus. The World Health Organization on Wednesday officially designated the outbreak a “pandemic.”
Multiple top officials in Iran — from its senior vice president to Cabinet ministers, members of parliament, Revolutionary Guard members, health workers and health ministry officials — have contracted the virus. Some of those officials have died.
Iran says the virus has killed 354 people and infected some 9,000 people nationwide. There are concerns that the number of infections across Iran is much higher than the confirmed cases reported by the government, which is struggling to contain or manage its spread. The rising casualty figures each day in Iran suggest the fight against the new coronavirus is far from over.
Tests show new virus lives on some surfaces for up to 3 days
The new coronavirus can live in the air for several hours and on some surfaces for as long as two to three days, tests by U.S. government and other scientists have found.
Their work, published Wednesday, doesn’t prove that anyone has been infected through breathing it from the air or by touching contaminated surfaces, researchers said.
“We’re not by any way saying there is aerosolized transmission of the virus,” but this work shows that the virus stays viable for long periods in those conditions, so it’s theoretically possible, said study leader Neeltje van Doremalen at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
As coronavirus outbreak accelerates, youthful faces may mask mortal risk
Grace Rose Bauer buzzed around her Studio City bedroom on a recent sunny afternoon, stuffing her backpack with last-minute supplies for a sleepover at a friend’s house in Beverly Hills. Under her makeup bag and comfy clothes, she had stashed extra bottles of hand sanitizer, packets of antiseptic wipes, and several thousand dollars’ worth of pills.
“As soon as we get to her house, I’m going to walk to Rite Aid to get Hostess cupcakes,” the 17-year-old said with a grin. “I don’t normally like them. But this” — she flashed the blister pack of Trikafta, her new $284-per-dose prescription — “has to be digested with fatty food.”
Bauer has cystic fibrosis, a rare genetic disorder that impairs lung function and can fuel lethal infections from the smallest viral spark. The common cold can send her to the emergency room gasping for breath, as it does millions with asthma. But when it comes to COVID-19, she and others living with chronic illness fear their youthful faces may mask their fragile health.
Watch President Trump address the nation on the U.S. response to the coronavirus
How does coronavirus compare to other pandemics?
The WHO has officially declared the coronavirus a pandemic. This is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus. Infectious disease physician Timothy Brewer of UCLA compares the novel coronavirus to other pandemics, like H1N1, MERS, SARS and influenza.
The WHO has officially declared the coronavirus a pandemic. This is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus. Infectious disease physician Timothy Brewer of UCLA compares the novel coronavirus to other pandemics, like H1N1, MERS, SARS and influenza.
CDC suggests checking employees’ temperatures daily in Silicon Valley and Seattle
Regular checks of temperature and cough are now being recommended for anyone entering workplaces, schools and childcare centers in the nation’s two areas hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic — Silicon Valley and the Seattle area.
The guidelines also suggest canceling large gatherings of more than 250 people generally, and canceling gatherings of 10 or more people for organizations that serve high-risk communities, like those with diabetes, a weakened immune system, disease of the kidney, liver, heart, or lung, and those who are pregnant. Those in their 70s can have quadruple the risk of death as that of the general population if they are infected.
Churches and other faith-based and community gatherings should consider canceling meetings of any size and move to video-accessible venues or postpone or cancel events, the recommendations say.
Juventus’ Daniele Rugani becomes first Serie A player to test positive for coronavirus
Italian soccer club Juventus says one of its players, defender Daniele Rugani, has tested positive for COVID-19.
Rugani, who also plays for the Italian national team, is the first player in the country’s top soccer division to test positive.
Juventus, which has won the last eight Serie A titles, announced the result on its website and social media channels.
The club says Rugani and those known to have had contact with him are being isolated.
Italian soccer, along with all other sports in the country, has been suspended until April 3.
Columbus Blue Jackets to play games without fans present
The Columbus Blue Jackets became the first NHL team to say it will play in an empty arena, announcing on Wednesday that it will abide by a mandate from the state of Ohio that prohibits mass gatherings to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The first game to be affected will be the Blue Jackets’ game Thursday against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Nationwide Arena.
The NBA’s Golden State Warriors announced earlier Wednesday that they will close the Chase Center to the public at their next home game, Thursday against the Brooklyn Nets.
Washington state bans large gatherings; some schools remain open
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee imposed the most draconian measures in the country Wednesday to slow COVID-19, banning gatherings of more than 250 people in the Seattle area, further atomizing society in the hotbed of the U.S. epidemic.
Using powers of an emergency declaration, Inslee prohibited large social, recreational and spiritual events in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. These include sporting and faith-based events, weddings, parades, concerts, festivals and fundraising occasions.
Schools will remain open for now, Inslee said, but administrators should make contingency plans for potential closures shortly that could continue for months or weeks. The prohibition does not extend to airports, grocery stores or transportation systems such as buses and ferries, officials said.
The governor acknowledged that the ban would be profoundly disturbing to people’s lives. He said that after speaking with Vice President Mike Pence Wednesday morning, he expected the U.S. government to issue similar guidance soon.
“This is an extremely dangerous event that we are facing, but we are not helpless,” said Inslee, who was flanked by health officials and mayors at a Seattle news conference. “This prohibition could be expanded in the days to come, depending on the development of the virus.”
Jeff Duchin, Seattle & King County public health officer, compared the epidemic to “the infectious disease equivalent of a major earthquake that’s going to shake us for weeks and weeks.” He said he was signing a King County order prohibiting gatherings of fewer than 250 people unless organizers ensured social distancing, adequate sanitation and health checks.
King County Executive Dow Constantine said that the steps “will help ensure that a health crisis does not become a humanitarian disaster.”
Inslee says scientists project that about 25,000 people in Washington will be infected if officials don’t act, and cases could double each week. “So by mid-May, we could be looking at over 60,000 people infected,” he said.
Businesses can remain open, Inslee said. But he asked store owners and other business operators to come up with “creative and aggressive ways” to distance employees and customers.
Despite virus concerns, the U.S. Capitol still sees tourists
Warriors to play to empty seats after San Francisco ban
The Golden State Warriors are the first NBA team ordered to play home games to empty seats after San Francisco Mayor London Breed banned public events attended by 1,000 or more people for the next two weeks because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The Warriors, who have been warning sick fans and those at risk for infection to stay away from the Chase Center since the weekend, host the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday.
Los Angeles gaming convention E3 joins list of canceled events
Los Angeles’ Electronic Entertainment Expo, the gaming industry’s largest event in North America, is the latest gathering affected by the growing threat of coronavirus.
E3, as it’s known, typically brings more than 65,000 fans and industry professionals to the Los Angeles Convention Center and surrounding events every summer. This year’s E3, originally scheduled for June 9-11, has been particularly anticipated because new consoles from Sony and Microsoft are due to be released by the end of the year.
“Following increased and overwhelming concerns about the COVID-19 virus, we felt this was the best way to proceed during such an unprecedented global situation,” read a statement posted Wednesday on the official website for the Electronic Software Assn., the trade body that hosts the conference.
L.A. Art Book Fair at MOCA canceled
The L.A. Art Book Fair, which typically draws more than 30,000 people each year to the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Geffen Contemporary in downtown Los Angeles, said Wednesday that it was joining the growing list of events to be canceled because of coronavirus fears.
The fair, scheduled for April 3-5, is produced by Printed Matter, a nonprofit that helps artists publish and distribute books.
Long Beach Grand Prix to take place in April as planned
The Long Beach Grand Prix, which last year drew 187,000 people over its three days of motor racing and other entertainment, will take place as planned next month despite the coronavirus outbreak, organizers said Wednesday.
The decision came as other major events, such as the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, already had been postponed and sports leagues weighed whether to bar fans from stadiums and other venues. Formula One’s Bahrain Grand Prix, for example, will be staged without spectators March 22.
The Grand Prix Assn. of Long Beach, which runs the Long Beach race, said in a statement that “at this time, the threat to the general public is low and there are no changes planned to the regular operation of our event this April 17-19.”
G7 foreign ministers to meet virtually
Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo announced the upcoming G7 ministerial will be held by video teleconference instead of in person.
The gathering of foreign ministers from countries including the United States, Canada, France and Germany was supposed to convene in Pittsburgh on March 24 and 25.
It’s being held virtually as a precaution amid the coronavirus pandemic, the State Department said.
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo canceled
On Wednesday, city officials canceled the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which had been scheduled for Feb. 25 to March 22, due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.
Billed as the largest indoor rodeo in the world, the Houston event drew more than 1.3 million people last year. This is the first time the rodeo has been canceled since 1932. A dozen musicians had been scheduled to perform, including Gwen Stefani, Keith Urban, and Houston native Lizzo. The Houston metro area is home to more than 6 million people.
“We’re doing this in order to save lives,” said Dr. David Persse, health authority for the city’s health department, at an afternoon briefing with the mayor, county executive and rodeo officials.
More than 11,000 people had signed an online petition asking that the Houston event be canceled due to the spread of coronavirus, especially after Austin’s SXSW festival was canceled last week. At least 11 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the Houston area, but the first spread through the community — as opposed to foreign travel — was identified Tuesday, Mayor Sylvester Turner said.
“Yesterday changed things,” Turner said. “For those of us who are Texans through and through, from our area, you know just how much we love the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. You know this decision does not come easily. But the health and safety of people in our area is paramount.”
As in California, cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer and toilet paper have been disappearing from Houston stores as residents concerned about coronavirus stock up. Lina Hidalgo, chief executive for the surrounding Harris County, said, “The anxiety in the community just continues to grow as we hear the news of the spread in other parts of the country and the world.
“If we had the capability to test more people, we surely would be having more test positive,” she said.
Both Hidalgo and Turner issued emergency health declarations Wednesday, but Hidalgo said it was impossible to seal the area, especially with spring break just starting for many local schools.
“We are not an island nation. We cannot close our borders. We cannot do what some of these small countries can do. So we have to recognize that, despite our containment efforts, it is likely that we will see further spread,” she said.
Turner said there were indications that one of the individuals infected with coronavirus had attended the rodeo barbecue cook-off on Feb. 28 and that that was being investigated.
San Francisco bans large events, affecting Warriors home games
San Francisco on Wednesday prohibited gatherings of more than 1,000 people as it fought to slow the spread of coronavirus.
“We know that this Order is disruptive, but it is an important step to support public health,” said Mayor London Breed in a statement. “We’re following the recommendations of public health officials to slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community.”
The Golden State Warriors, who play in the city, will be greatly affected by the rule.
“We know canceling these events is a challenge for everyone, and we’ve been talking with venues and event organizers about the need to protect public health,” Breed said. “Today I spoke with the Warriors to discuss the steps we’re taking to cancel large events, and they are in support of our efforts.”
Cal State Long Beach, Pepperdine suspend in-person classes
Cal State Long Beach and Pepperdine University announced Wednesday they would join colleges and universities across the nation that had suspended face-to-face classes in response to the fast-moving coronavirus.
Classes at Cal State Long Beach will be canceled from Thursday through Tuesday to allow faculty time to make preparations for starting alternative instruction March 18, a campus-wide message said. Student housing, dining facilities, libraries, computer labs and other student services offices will be open to ensure that students continue to have access to technology, Wi-Fi and other support, spokesman Jeff Cook said.
The campus is expected to resume normal operations April 20.
WCC tournaments take place in front of fans without a hitch
LAS VEGAS — Gloria Nevarez, West Coast Conference commissioner, crisscrossed a confetti-covered floor Tuesday night, congratulating players and fist-bumping parents after Gonzaga’s men’s basketball team captured the league’s tournament title at Orleans Arena.
For a few moments, the league’s third-year commissioner was able to relax. Her conference had completed its men’s and women’s tournaments without any serious coronavirus-related complications.
“We had our cancellation protocols in place, but we never received facts or information that there was COVID-19 in the building, on the teams, or that there was a threat here,” Nevarez said after all 18 games were held as scheduled in front of spectators.
Fans are still allowed at pro sporting events. But are they showing up?
Coronavirus fears have caused some sports leagues and teams around the world to take the precautionary steps of canceling games or holding their events with no spectators in attendance.
None of the major professional leagues in the U.S. have taken such measures at this point, so fans have been free to watch those events in person if they so choose.
But are they choosing to do so? Let’s check out the crowd sizes for the local teams that played Tuesday night.
The Lakers announced a sellout crowd for their game against the Brooklyn Nets. Los Angeles Times reporter Tania Ganguli noted that “although a few more empty seats than normal dotted the arena, fans still packed Staples Center.”
Stocks fall again on Wall Street as wild swings continue
Stocks sank again Wednesday morning, wiping out more than half of a huge rally from a day earlier, as Wall Street continues to be hit by wild swings.
Another big central bank made an emergency cut to interest rates in hopes of blunting the economic pain caused by the coronavirus, which economists call the global economy’s biggest threat. But investors are still waiting for details promised by President Trump on potential aid for the economy through tax breaks and other relief.
Stocks fell from the opening of trading in New York, including a 3% drop for the S&P 500. Perhaps the best gauge of confidence in the economy on Wall Street recently, Treasury yields, pulled back. Asian markets also fell, while European markets were steadier following the cut by the Bank of England.
A Singaporean’s view of the coronavirus: ‘It’s surprising to see the U.S. so messed up’
SINGAPORE — In a fearful time of nationwide lockdowns and supermarket-aisle fights over toilet paper, Zhi Peng Lee’s website tracking the coronavirus is oddly reassuring.
Charts and maps detail patients’ ages and nationalities, length of hospitalization, where they live, their connections to one another and how the number of cases has risen and fallen with time — an elegantly simple and comprehensive source of information about the outbreak.
The catch is, the site only includes cases from Singapore — but then it’s hard to imagine it being possible anywhere else. No country has released as much detailed information about its coronavirus cases as this fastidiously run city-state.
“I’d like to launch this for the U.S.,” said Lee, the 39-year-old founder of a coding school who built his co.vid19.sg site using Singapore’s publicly available data. “The issue is the data — it’s not even close.”
Some Grand Princess passengers will be quarantined on Monterey Peninsula
Up to two dozen passengers of the Grand Princess will head to a California state beach on the Monterey Peninsula for a mandatory 14-day quarantine after they disembark from the cruise ship — where at least 21 people have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said.
During their temporary stay at the Asilomar State Beach and Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, the individuals will be housed in a cluster of buildings “removed from visitors and the public, and will not interact with other Asilomar guests, employees or the general public,” according to a statement from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
“Public health and safety is the responsibility of every level of government,” Pacific Grove City Councilwoman Amy Tomlinson said in a statement. “Pacific Grove is working closely with our state and federal partners to ensure the highest level of safety is provided for our community.”
No, China’s fresh food markets did not cause coronavirus
As some media outlets cover the coronavirus, journalists are mixing up wet markets and wildlife markets. But most wet markets are not wildlife markets, and confusing the two is dangerous.
“Wet” markets are what China calls its fresh food markets, the kind you see all over the developing world and in many parts of Europe, where small stalls sell fresh vegetables and butchers sell meat, primarily pork.
They are the daily market for tens of millions of Chinese who prefer to talk to the people who sell them produce, meat, seafood and tofu, and in small cities, are often the only outlet for small-scale farmers who can’t meet the supplier requirements for supermarkets. (Still, it’s important to differentiate: Most wet markets, especially in big cities, may look like farmers markets but are buying from the same wholesale suppliers as supermarkets.)
They are a cornerstone of China’s food distribution system and have benefits for society both tangible and intangible, from improved nutrition for children to stronger interpersonal relationships. So-called for their open-air origins, where the ground was hosed down throughout the day, they are the traditional backbone to China’s food supply system.
Why you should stop obsessing about coronavirus news, and how to do it
It’s 1 in the morning and you can’t stop reading about the coronavirus.
Maybe you want to know if you should cancel your trip to Hawaii over spring break or whether your kid’s school will be closed, or how many people are likely to die.
You look for answers on websites you trust, along with some you’re not so sure about. And when you can’t find conclusive information, you keep searching, clicking and reading.
If you have descended into a coronavirus rabbit hole, you are not alone.
It’s only natural to feel anxious about the evolving coronavirus situation. The disease has caused more than 4,200 deaths worldwide.
But experts say there is something else that is adding to our collective anxiety around the potential pandemic: fear of the unknown.
Will coronavirus make Americans long for normalcy? Joe Biden hopes so
WASHINGTON — Will coronavirus make Joe Biden president?
When he launched his presidential campaign 10 months ago, Biden cast himself as a sober, seasoned antidote to the disruptive politics and chaotic style of Donald Trump.
Biden’s campaign has relied on two underlying messages: a claim that he’s the Democrat best able to defeat Trump and a promise to restore an older, more conciliatory brand of politics.
“We need plain, basic decency,” he says.
He has promised, in effect, to Make America Normal Again.
What’s the risk of COVID-19 for a healthy young person?
The first person diagnosed with COVID-19 in New Jersey was a 32-year-old man who had been admitted to the hospital.
In a video posted to Twitter over the weekend, the patient explained that he’d had no underlying medical conditions that would make him susceptible to severe illness, yet the new coronavirus was making him sicker and sicker. He spoke from a hospital bed, where he had been hooked up to tubes helping him breathe.
The video, which has been viewed more than 440,000 times, raised concerns that young people might be more vulnerable to COVID-19 than health experts had been letting on.
So is that really true?
Column: To assuage coronavirus fears, we need softness and strength. In other words: Toilet paper
I could see the frustration building on my neighborhood NextDoor page: Costco had run out of toilet paper — again. How are we supposed to survive COVID-19 without 60 rolls of toilet paper socked away in the closet?
Thank goodness Costco seems to restock every morning. And since managing a medical crisis by hoarding toilet paper made no sense to me, I joined the hordes at my local Costco last weekend to see what I was missing.
I got there a few minutes before the store opened, and every single space in the parking lot was already taken. People had been queuing up for hours, desperate for a chance to purchase the two giant packages of toilet paper that each shopper was allowed.
“Why do we do this? It’s a panic,” said the stylish woman I approached in the parking lot as she and her husband were cramming their haul into the back seat of their Lexus.
ike most people I talked to, she knew others might consider them foolish or selfish, so didn’t want to give her name. “We’re preparing for the worst,” she said as her husband tried to wave me off. “If nothing happens, well …” She shrugged and let the thought die.
She told me she wasn’t worried about getting the virus, but about the prospect of long-term quarantines. “We’re scared,” she said as her husband hustled her into the car.
It was clear to me as I wandered the parking lot that the fear was real.
As California retreats from containment, New York sends in the National Guard
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo sent the National Guard to a suburban enclave northeast of New York City to prevent COVID-19 from infecting more people there after 108 residents tested positive in recent days.
In Santa Clara, where California is experiencing its largest outbreak of the virus, with 45 positive cases confirmed, health officials continued to direct residents not to congregate, following a ban on large events earlier this week.
In Sacramento, the county health officer announced there would be no more quarantines and minimal tracing to determine how those testing positive for the novel coronavirus contracted the deadly, fast-moving disease. Those with symptoms face only voluntary restrictions for mingling in the community.
“The cat is already out of the bag,” said Peter Beilenson, Sacramento County’s health director. “The community spread has already occurred.”
The health director made his comments before the county revealed Tuesday that a woman in her 90s had died of COVID-19 in an assisted living facility south of Sacramento, making her the third confirmed case of a Californian dying of the disease.
It was further evidence, as many health officials argue, that the novel coronavirus will not easily be contained. From using military might to a seemingly hands-off attitude, hard-hit states and municipalities reacted to the spread of a contagion that threatens lives and can overwhelm health systems if too many cases hit at once.
Virus cluster around Seoul call center raises alarm
A virus cluster connected to a call center in one of the busiest areas of Seoul has raised alarms that South Korea’s outbreak — thought to have been waning — has gained a foothold in the more populated capital region.
More than half of South Korea’s 51 million people live in the Seoul metropolitan area.
So far, 93 people have tested positive among the call center’s employees and their families, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said Wednesday in a briefing broadcast over YouTube. The number could grow as tests are done on people who worked on other floors of the Korea Building in Seoul’s Guro district.
Although most of the infected workers live in Seoul, some of them commuted from nearby cities such as Incheon and Bucheon, raising concern about a broader spread through public transit.
Call center workers may be vulnerable because they work long hours in crowded and confined spaces, Yoon Tae-ho, an official from South Korea’s health ministry, said.
Park says Seoul is investigating the working conditions of more than 400 call centers in the city and will push employers to allow more employees to work from home. The mayor said authorities were responding actively so the cluster didn’t increase as did South Korea’s earlier cluster around the southeastern city of Daegu.
Most of South Korea’s 7,755 cases of infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 have been in Daegu and nearby areas. Many were connected to the local branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, and in the past week, health authorities completed testing of thousands of members of the church.
3 TSA officers at San Jose airport have coronavirus
The Transportation Security Administration confirmed Tuesday that three of its officers who work at Mineta San Jose International Airport tested positive for coronavirus.
Officials said screening at the airport is continuing.
“The officers are receiving medical care, and all TSA employees they have come in contact with over the past 14 days are quarantined at home,” the agency said in a statement. “Screening checkpoints remain open, and the agency is working with the CDC, as well as the California Department of Public Health and the Santa Clara County Public Health Department, to monitor the situation as well as the health and safety of our employees and the traveling public.”
Two screeners at Los Angeles International Airport have also tested positive. Both checked arriving passengers for signs of the coronavirus.
Column: Amid coronavirus, sports must make the hardest decision to save their fans
This past weekend, I attended three crowded basketball games in downtown Los Angeles.
Thousands of fans roared themselves hoarse as the Lakers clawed to their two biggest wins of the year while USC beat UCLA on a three-pointer at the buzzer.
It was exhilarating. It was terrifying.
Huge crowds moved in tight packs through the concourses of Staples Center and the Galen Center, bumping and brushing and connecting. Long lines hurried through restrooms where no surface went untouched. Food was passed and shared from concession lines to condiment stations.
In moving through the various mobs on my way to press row, amid the excitement of the moment, I shook hands without thinking, patted shoulders without looking, and literally bumped heads with at least one poor soul who stopped suddenly in front of me.
Amid the quickening spread of the coronavirus, what should have been an ideal atmosphere suddenly felt like a deadly one, and it’s clearly time for sports officials to put down their greed and take up the fight.
Coachella is postponed. Here’s the latest on ticket, airline and Airbnb refunds
On Tuesday, concert promoter Goldenvoice announced that the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is being postponed due to the growing threat of coronavirus.
Coachella was expected to draw 250,000 fans over the weekends of April 10 and 17 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio. The multiday concerts will be held instead on the weekends of Oct. 9 and 16. The dates for Stagecoach, Coachella’s country music counterpart also held at the Empire Polo Club, are being moved from April 24-26 to Oct. 23-25.
USC will bar fans from home athletic events for foreseeable future
As the NCAA, its member universities, and the conferences they represent contemplate how to proceed with college athletics amid the threat of coronavirus, USC will continue for the foreseeable future without fans present.
With spring football practice set to open to the public Wednesday afternoon, USC announced on Tuesday night that it will limit home sporting events to only essential personnel until March 29, in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus. UCLA enacted a similar policy earlier in the day.
In a statement, USC defined essential personnel as participating athletes and their families, coaches, officials, recruits, and credentialed media, as well as other personnel designated by USC athletics. Any fans who already purchased tickets to an affected event are advised to contact the USC ticket office.
Some Grand Princess passengers with COVID-19 are being isolated in hotels
Some of the 26 Grand Princess passengers who tested positive for COVID-19 and disembarked the cruise ship Monday have been redirected from regional hospitals to hotels and motels for isolation, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday.
The people were originally sent to hospitals out of an abundance of caution but do not require serious medical care, he said.
Newsom said three hotels in Monterey County, Burlingame and San Carlos have been closed to the public and are strictly dedicated to housing coronavirus patients. The hospitals are following strict safety and containment protocols, he said.
“We are securing hotels and motels in multiple sites throughout the state of California and have been working on this process for now the last week or so, since we first anticipated the ship’s arrival into Northern California,” Newsom said. “These are people that don’t need to be in a hospital, but will be sent here anyway for an abundance of caution to complete their quarantine period.”
The Office of Emergency Services said people with COVID-19 who do not require hospital care will continue to be sent to the hotels in the coming weeks so as to open up hospital beds for seriously ill patients.
What should K-12 schools do?
Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, was asked Tuesday how schools should respond to the coronavirus outbreak. Here are the three points she told reporters.
Try to keep sick people out. K-12 schools should “do the same thing we are asking everyone to do: minimize any people coming into your building who are sick,” she said. That applies to everyone from employees to visitors.
Clean more. “We have asked to also enhance cleaning, particularly frequently touched spaces and places,” she said.
Make contingency plans. “We have asked [schools] to have their plans ready,” she said. “Should there be a positive case in a school, an actual confirmed positive case in that school building, we will be working with them on a recommendation that can include closing down that school.”
At the California Capitol, lawmakers’ schedules haven’t changed
SACRAMENTO — Leaders of the California Legislature said Tuesday that they have no plans to impose coronavirus-related restrictions on the work schedules of lawmakers or the operations of the Capitol, though they said they are closely watching events across the state.
At least 10 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Sacramento County, home to the seat of California government. Members of the Senate and Assembly generally work in the state Capitol from Monday through Thursday most weeks, traveling to and from their districts twice a week.
While a growing number of private businesses have changed the workdays of their employees and placed limits on travel or in-office hours, legislative business proceeded as usual on Tuesday in Sacramento. And the Capitol building remains open to the public during business hours and on weekends.
UCLA is moving to online-only classes until at least early April
UCLA will cancel most in-person classes and move instruction online beginning Wednesday, joining the rising number of colleges and universities to limit classes, campus gatherings and travel to fight the global spread of the novel coronavirus.
The Westwood campus of 44,300 students will continue remote instruction until early April and then reassess, UCLA announced Tuesday. No campus member has been diagnosed with the coronavirus, and three students who self-quarantined tested negative. But officials said they wanted to take proactive measures to protect public health and safety.
UCLA is the largest of 10 University of California campuses and the fourth to suspend in-person classes. Dozens of other universities and colleges across the nation have announced since Monday that they, too, would shift to online classes.
Coachella is officially postponed until October
After weeks of nervous speculation, it’s official: The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is postponed due to the growing threat of coronavirus.
Concert promoter Goldenvoice announced that the annual concert, held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, will now take place on the weekends of Oct. 9 and 16. It was originally scheduled to begin on April 10.
Goldenvoice also announced that the country music festival Stagecoach, scheduled for Apr. 24-26 on those same Empire polo grounds, will be postponed until October 23-25.
“At the direction of the County of Riverside and local health authorities,” their statement read, “we must sadly confirm the rescheduling of Coachella and Stagecoach due to COVID-19 concerns. While this decision comes at a time of universal uncertainty, we take the safety and health of our guests, staff and community very seriously. We urge everyone to follow the guidelines and protocols put forth by public health officials.
Gov. Gavin Newsom says California has 157 coronavirus cases, thousands more may have been exposed
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that California has 157 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and thousands of residents who may have come in contact with the disease.
The governor said more than 1,075 Californians have been tested for the coronavirus at 18 labs across the state.
The state marked a turning point in its fight against the virus in recent days, with counties all over California shifting from aggressively tracking residents who may have come in contact with infected people to beginning to implement “social distancing” measures, advising residents not to meet in large groups to prevent widespread transmission.
Grand Princess update: 548 passengers offloaded; previous passenger tests positive in Alameda County
Officials confirmed a new coronavirus case in Alameda County, an older person who left the Grand Princess cruise ship in February. The new case is under isolation at home. There are now four total cases of coronavirus in Alameda County, including one individual in Berkeley, which has a separate health officer.
Alameda County issued similar guidelines as other counties in the Bay Area, urging people who are older and have underlying conditions like heart and lung disease and diabetes to stay home and away from crowded social gatherings, like conferences, sports events and concerts.
At a White House press conference Tuesday afternoon, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar gave an update on the status of the Grand Princess as of 12 p.m. PT today:
- 548 people offloaded
- 228 Canadians back in Canada
- 171 Californians taken to Travis
- 26 individuals were sick and are being treated for coronavirus or something else
The goal is to have all Californians and UK citizens off the ship today.
L.A. County public health chief says teams will visit every nursing home
“Starting tomorrow, we will be out visiting with a technical assistance team from here every nursing home and long-term care facility throughout L.A. County, really both making sure they are able to adequately enforce all of their infectious disease control protocols,” Barbara Ferrer, director of public health for Los Angeles County, told reporters Tuesday.
“Just as important, we would like to help them move to changing some common practices that may happen at their residences. In particular, we are going to be recommending that the large community events that may happen in the community hall at a nursing home, activities that involve large numbers of people getting together, visitors who come in [be] checked to make sure that they are illness free.
“These are all steps that we are asking that our facilities, particularly those facilities really provide services for vulnerable residents who are either already sick or are elderly, take additional steps to limit again public gatherings where there can be exposures that result in more people contracting COVID-19 or influenza. We are worried equally about influenza at this point.”
Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden each cancel a rally
The coronavirus outbreak began to disrupt the Democratic presidential race Tuesday, as Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden canceled major rallies scheduled for Cleveland.
“Out of concern for public health and safety, we are canceling tonight’s rally in Cleveland,” Sanders campaign spokesman Mike Casca said in a statement. “We are heeding the public warnings from Ohio state officials, who have communicated concern about holding large, indoor events during the coronavirus outbreak.”
Biden’s campaign followed suit a few minutes later.
The changing nature of the campaign may have particular impact on Sanders. Rallies are the lifeblood of his campaign, and the gathering scheduled for Ohio was likely to be a big one.
The coronavirus confronts political campaigns with all manner of challenges. Large public gatherings are being discouraged in many states, which could preclude candidates from hitting the stump as the race hits a crucial phase.
So far, President Trump has vowed to continue holding large political rallies for his own followers despite the risk they may pose.
Santa Clara County’s ban on big gatherings may postpone MLS game
A Santa Clara County ban on public gatherings of more than 1,000 people could lead to the first coronavirus-related postponement of an MLS game later this month.
The ban, issued late Monday by the county’s Public Health Department, is the most sweeping government action in California to date in response to the coronavirus outbreak and will remain in effect through the end of the month. The San Jose Earthquakes are scheduled to play Sporting Kansas City in Avaya Stadium on March 21.
The team issued a one-paragraph statement Monday in response: “The San Jose Earthquakes fully support the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department’s recent announcement barring all mass gatherings through the end of the month and will comply immediately.”
True number of U.S. coronavirus cases is far above official tally, scientists say
An analysis of the novel coronavirus’ spread inside the United States suggests that thousands of Americans are already infected, dimming the prospects for stomping out the outbreak in its earliest stages.
Researchers estimate that, by March 1, the virus had already infected about 1,000 to 10,000 people not yet accounted for. At the start of this month, about 80 U.S. cases had been confirmed and officials were still expressing confidence they could contain the new coronavirus.
Quarantines, contact tracing and other public health measures have likely tamped down the COVID-19 outbreak here, the researchers said. But from the start, a group of infected travelers just big enough to fill an elevator likely has been expanding the virus’ reach, largely undetected.
Los Angeles Times postpones Festival of Books and Food Bowl
The Los Angeles Times has postponed its Festival of Books and Food Bowl events, “in light of public health concerns related to the coronavirus and out of an abundance of caution.”
The 25th Festival of Books, originally scheduled for April, will now take place the weekend of Oct. 3-4 on the USC campus. The 4th Food Bowl, previously set for May, will also be moved to the fall, with dates to be announced later.
Although the Book Prizes awards ceremony will not be held this year, honorees and winners will be acknowledged via an announcement to be released April 17.
“Whenever we host the public at our events, we take health and safety seriously,” The Times said Tuesday in a statement. “As we make plans to host the Festival of Books and Food Bowl in the fall, we will continue to monitor developments with the coronavirus in Southern California, and cross-reference with any guests who may be traveling to Southern California from affected areas to participate in our events.”
National Guard to deploy to New York community battling coronavirus
ALBANY, N.Y. — Schools, houses of worship and large gathering places will be shuttered for two weeks in a “containment area” centered in suburban New Rochelle, the heart of what appears to be the nation’s biggest a cluster of cases of the coronavirus, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.
The state will send National Guard troops to help clean surfaces and deliver food in the area, a 1-mile-radius around a point near a synagogue connected to some existing cases, Cuomo said.
The state and a private health system are setting up a testing facility in the area, local schools will close for two weeks starting Friday, and state and local officials are working to determine “large congregate facilities or gathering places” that also will shut down.
‘Mulan’ team sends love to China as coronavirus cancels events worldwide
At the heart of Disney’s live-action “Mulan” is the unflinching resilience of China and its people — a theme director Niki Caro feels is “particularly poignant right now” amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“At this difficult time, we hope that Mulan’s spirit continues to inspire around the world,” Caro said, sending love to China ahead of the screening at the film’s Los Angeles premiere Monday night at the Dolby Theatre. “You are a living testament to Mulan and ... bring honor to us all.”
The cast and creatives of the forthcoming remake converged on Hollywood Boulevard as planned Monday, despite recent cancellations of several other high-profile entertainment events worldwide due to coronavirus concerns. Barring the occasional elbow bump (in place of a handshake or hug), most were undeterred by any potential health risks the crowded carpet and screening might have posed.
Many, however, expressed sympathy for those living in areas severely affected by the outbreak, which originated in title star Liu Yifei‘s birthplace: Wuhan, China.
Trump lobbies skeptical Republicans on economic stimulus
WASHINGTON — President Trump was on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to discuss steps to protect Americans from the spreading coronavirus and press Senate Republicans to pass an economic relief plan to address its impact.
Trump said he would pitch “very, very strong steps for people coming into our country” but provided no other details of his proposal while speaking to reporters during a White House meeting with health insurance industry executives.
He said he was working with the travel sector after his aides earlier suggested its industries might need tax relief.
“We are working very, very closely with the cruise industry,” Trump said, noting that the airline industry could also get some help from Washington. “We’ll be helping them through this patch.”
‘Wheel of Fortune,’ ‘Jeopardy!’ halt live audience tapings
The hit game shows “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” are suspending tapings in front of live audiences for the time being as a coronavirus-related precaution.
Sources close to the show said the move was partly undertaken to better protect “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, who is battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Trebek, 79, is currently undergoing chemotherapy. “Wheel of Fortune” stalwarts Pat Sajak and Vanna White are 73 and 63, respectively.
Both series are produced by Sony Pictures Television. Spokespersons for the company declined to comment.
The move comes as the entertainment industry scrambles to adjust to the spread of the virus, which has led to the cancellation of SXSW and other major events. Globe-trotting CBS competition series “The Amazing Race” suspended production on its 33rd season last month as a precautionary measure.
Xi Jinping visits Wuhan as China declares success in fight against coronavirus
BEIJING — China’s Communist Party signaled confidence in its fight against the coronavirus on Tuesday when the party’s general secretary and Chinese leader Xi Jinping made a surprise visit to Wuhan, where the outbreak began.
It was Xi’s first visit since the city of roughly 11 million was put on lockdown in late January, despite the leader saying he was personally directing China’s efforts against COVID-19. Since then, more than 115,000 people have been infected worldwide, including more than 80,000 Chinese citizens, of whom 3,140 have died.
The visit came as infection numbers skyrocketed in other countries across the globe but dropped dramatically in China.
After a near-total shutdown of most of the country’s economy and transportation for almost two months, with tight surveillance and movement control measures implemented at the neighborhood level across the country, several Chinese provinces have downgraded their emergency levels.
Column: The virus outbreak is one of many reasons to stop shaking hands
The coronavirus outbreak has us all on edge and struggling to understand how to safeguard ourselves and our loved ones.
Because so much remains unknown about the virus, and a great deal of misleading information has been circulating, it’s been difficult to filter out the noise and focus on commonsense responses.
Some of the steps people are taking that might seem sensible at first blush, like wearing masks, are actually unnecessary, according to public health experts.
Other suggestions that have been floated are downright absurd, like avoiding Chinese food — or dangerous, such as gargling with bleach.
Ivy League cancels basketball championships
The Ivy League announced Tuesday that it had canceled its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments because of coronavirus concerns. The regular-season champions — Yale men and Princeton women — will receive the league’s automatic berths to the NCAA tournaments.
The Ivy League tournaments were set to take place Friday to Sunday at Harvard, which announced Tuesday it would switch to remote instruction and asked students not to return following spring break later this month. Princeton also has announced a move to virtual instruction starting March 23.
“We understand and share the disappointment with student athletes, coaches and fans who will not be able to participate in these tournaments,” Ivy League executive director Robin Harris said in a statement. “Regrettably, the information and recommendations presented to us from public health authorities and medical professionals have convinced us that this is the most prudent decision.”
Tickets will be refunded in full.
Why the Bay Area is issuing more severe coronavirus warnings than the L.A. area
SAN FRANCISCO — Up to now, some Bay Area public health agencies have been more aggressive than those in Los Angeles and some other counties in issuing coronavirus-related restrictions.
But that could be about to change.
With the first case of the coronavirus believed to be transmitted within the community now reported in Los Angeles County, the experiences in the San Francisco Bay Area may offer a glimpse for what Southern California is in for.
13 Cal State Northridge students self-isolating after possible coronavirus exposure
Thirteen Cal State Northridge students are self-isolating amid concerns they may have been exposed to the coronavirus during an event in Washington, D.C., last week.
College officials on Monday said the students had not shown any symptoms after attending a conference where two attendees — who are not connected to the campus — tested positive for COVID-19. The students will self-isolate “out of an abundance of caution” for 14 days from the date of possible exposure as they monitor their health for symptoms of the virus, including fever, cough and shortness of breath, CSUN President Dianne F. Harrison said in a statement.
The Los Angeles Department of Public Health “and other health agencies monitoring this issue have stated that the risk of exposure for conference attendees is low, and LADPH is not recommending self-isolation of those who may have come in contact with these CSUN students,” the statement read.
The college did not specify what out-of-state event the group had attended. It wasn’t clear whether the event was the same one that 10 Cal State Long Beach students attended in Washington, D.C., that prompted them to self-isolate.
U.S. stocks rally on hopes of stimulus
U.S. stocks rebounded from the worst rout since the financial crisis on speculation the Trump administration and other governments would deliver stimulus to combat the effects of the spreading coronavirus.
The S&P 500 jumped more than 3% at the open, spurred by the president’s promise for “major” moves later Tuesday. Reports that the White House might not be as far along as thought limited gains that reached almost 5% overnight. European equities rallied, with Germany considering easing bank capital requirements. Brent crude futures rallied after Monday’s crash. The yen slid alongside the Swiss franc. Ten-year Treasury yields retraced about half of Monday’s drop.
Sacramento ends coronavirus containment strategy, 14-day quarantine
Sacramento County officials announced that they would stop focusing on containing the novel coronavirus and instead implement “community mitigation measures” — a strategy that runs counter to other California counties that have called on residents to practice “social distancing.”
“It is no longer necessary for someone who has been in contact with someone with COVID-19 to quarantine for 14 days,” the county said in a Monday night statement. “This applies to the general public, as well as healthcare workers and first responders.
“However, if they develop respiratory symptoms, they should stay home in order to protect those who are well.”
The county is advising residents to stay home if they are sick and manage their symptoms with over-the-counter drugs, unless they are having difficulty breathing or their symptoms worsen after seeming to improve.
What will it cost to change your travel plans over coronavirus fears?
There are roughly 110,000 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. And more cases are reported in new places every day. As a result, travelers (especially those who have underlying health problems) may want to cancel or postpone upcoming vacation plans.
Should I cancel my cruise?
It depends on whether you’re OK with putting yourself at higher risk of getting the disease, but that’s not a risk federal health officials recommend taking. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday came out with its strongest advice yet for all people, especially those with underlying health issues, to “defer all cruise ship travel worldwide.”
“Cruise ships are unique because you are keeping people in repeated contact over a long period of time,” said Dr. Amy Stone, a virologist from Touro University Nevada. That means if someone on the ship is infected, you face a higher risk of being exposed to them repeatedly — in dining areas, common restrooms, on the dance floor, etc. — and contracting the coronavirus.
Will the coronavirus outbreak sink the cruise industry?
With hopes of tapping into a market of up to 83 million passengers, the world’s largest cruise company three years ago launched a new ship built specifically for Chinese vacationers.
The Majestic Princess, operated by a subsidiary of Carnival Corp., featured 1,780 cabins, 19 decks, an atrium and nearly 1,100 square meters of luxury boutiques, representing the largest shopping space at sea.
But the ship is now docked in Singapore, with its next 13 cruise trips canceled.
With China representing ground zero for the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus and thousands of cruise ship passengers forced to undergo extra health screening or a quarantine in Oakland, the cruise industry is reeling, facing its biggest crisis in decades.
Delta and American will cut flights amid coronavirus outbreak
Delta Air Lines Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc. withdrew their 2020 financial forecasts and outlined plans to cut back on flying as they grappled with a rapid decline in travel demand because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Domestic capacity will be pared by as much as 15% while international will tumble as much as 25%, Delta said in a statement Tuesday. The company will also freeze hiring and suspend share buybacks. American will lower U.S. flying 7.5% in April, with a 10% decline in foreign service.
The cuts deepen a dramatic reduction in flight schedules at carriers around the world as the virus’ spread upends economies and prompts travelers to stay home. An airline trade group said last week that the industry would lose as much as $113 billion in sales because of the coronavirus. United Airlines Holdings Inc. abandoned its 2020 forecasts last month.
With virus spreading rapidly, Silicon Valley bans mass gatherings of 1,000 or more
SAN FRANCISCO —With Silicon Valley reporting a rapidly rising number of confirmed coronavirus cases, the health officer for Santa Clara County issued a rare legal order banning mass gatherings of 1,000 or more people.
Santa Clara County, with 43 confirmed coronavirus cases and one death, has California’s largest number of confirmed infections. After declining an earlier recommendation to halt mass gatherings late last week, the San Jose Sharks said the team would abide by the county’s new order at SAP Center in downtown San Jose, which is enforceable by the county sheriff and city police agencies.
“We are clearly facing a historic public health challenge,” the Santa Clara County health officer, Dr. Sara Cody, said at a news conference Monday night. “The number and type of cases to date indicate that the risk of exposure to this virus in our community is increasing.”
Panic ensues in Italian supermarkets, officials seek to ease anxieties
The Italian government is assuring its citizens that supermarkets will remain open and stocked after panic buying erupted after broad anti-virus measures were announced nationwide, sparking overnight runs on 24-hour markets.
Shoppers lined up overnight outside a Rome Carrefour to stock up after the government extended restrictions on movement from hard-hit northern Italy to the rest of the country. Some shoppers wore masks as they waited with their carts to be allowed into the store a few at a time.
Premier Giuseppe Conte’s office issued a clarifying statement after he signed the new decree late Monday, stressing that movement outside homes for “normal necessities” such as grocery shopping would be allowed, as well as for work or health reasons.
The statement said runs on supermarkets were contrary to the intent of the new decree, which aims to prevent Italians from congregating. The government assured citizens that markets would be regularly supplied.
Austria shuts border with Italy
In a dramatic move to keep the coronavirus from shifting north, Austria’s chancellor says the country is barring travelers from Italy from entering.
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Tuesday that exceptions would be made for those with medical notes and that authorities would help repatriate Austrians from Italy.
Malta has suspended all flights into and out of Italy. Austria, Britain and Ireland have issued travel advisories for the whole country as Italy’s extraordinary anti-coronavirus lockdown looks set to isolate the country inside and out.
Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela announced that, until further notice, flights to and from Italy would be suspended and ships from Italy would only be allowed to dock if they were carrying cargo, food or medicine.
Abela said the cruise ship MSC Grandiosa, which was to dock in Malta on Tuesday would not be allowed in since it just came from Palermo in Italy.
Austria issued a full travel warning for Italy to “urgently recommend” that Austrian travelers return home. Britain and Ireland advised against all nonessential travel. Germany’s national disease control institute is describing all of Italy as a “risk area.”
Coachella festival may be rescheduled due to coronavirus threat
As the coronavirus continues to spread and upend travel plans and day-to-day life, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is set to become the latest casualty.
Multiple sources report that Coachella promoter Goldenvoice is in talks with artists to move the 2020 edition of the event, which was set to take place on two consecutive weekends starting April 10, to Oct. 9 and 16. It is also working to move the Stagecoach country music festival to a fall weekend.
Coachella, which occurs every April at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, is slated to feature more than 150 acts, with Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott and Frank Ocean as headliners. Set for April 24-26, Stagecoach touts a lineup led by Thomas Rhett, Carrie Underwood and Eric Church.
Coachella is expected to draw 250,000 fans over its two weekends.
Neither Goldenvoice nor its owner, AEG, has made an announcement concerning the fate of the festivals.
The possible postponements follow SXSW’s announcement on Friday that the city of Austin had pulled the plug on its March series of music, media and film conferences. On Sunday, organizers for the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, not far from Indio, canceled the annual tennis tournament after the Riverside County Public Health Department confirmed the first local case of coronavirus and declared a public health emergency.
Virus kills 54 more people in Iran, raising death toll to 291
Iran said Tuesday that the new coronavirus had killed 54 more people, raising the death toll to 291 amid 8,042 cases in the Islamic Republic.
Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour made the announcement in a televised news conference.
It represented an 18% increase in deaths from the day before and 12% more confirmed cases.
Iran is the hardest-hit country in the Mideast by the new coronavirus, which sickens but largely doesn’t kill those afflicted.
Across the region, there are over 8,600 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus. Worldwide, there are more than 110,000 confirmed cases of the virus, with more than 3,800 deaths attributed to it. The number of people who have recovered is about 62,000.
Costa Fortuna cruise ship passengers disembark in Singapore
A cruise ship barred from Thailand and Malaysia due to coronavirus fears has returned to Singapore a week after it set sail.
Passengers wheeling luggage off the Costa Fortuna were ushered to waiting coaches and ferried away Tuesday morning. Most were not wearing masks. Some passengers told reporters at the scene everything was great and that everyone aboard the ship was fine.
No cases of infection with the new virus has been confirmed in the ship. Singapore authorities previously said doctors would check people before they disembarked.
The ship was refused docking in Thailand because it carried 64 Italians and that country has been the epicenter of Europe’s outbreak. Malaysia also turned away the ship.
Singapore allowed the ship to dock because it had been scheduled and all passengers on board had been screened before the ship sailed.
The virus is a concern on cruise ships after hundreds became infected on a ship that was under quarantine at a Japanese port last month. A ship that docked in California on Monday let off its passengers to face quarantines at U.S. facilities or in their home countries. At least 21 people on that ship are infected.
Sacramento County moving from containment to ‘community mitigation measures’
On Monday, Sacramento County officials announced that they would stop focusing on containing the novel coronavirus and instead implement “community mitigation measures” — a strategy that seemingly runs counter to other California counties that have called on residents to practice “social distancing.”
“It is no longer necessary for someone who has been in contact with someone with COVID-19 to quarantine for 14 days,” the county said Monday night.
This applies to the general public, as well as healthcare workers and first responders. However, if they develop respiratory symptoms, they should stay home in order to protect those who are well.
The county advised residents to stay home if they are sick and manage their symptoms with over-the-counter drugs, unless they are having difficulty breathing or their symptoms worsen after seeming to improve. Additionally, residents who are older, with chronic health conditions or severely weakened immune systems should consider staying home and away from crowded social gatherings, the county said.
The statement comes as hopes of containing the virus are fading. Ten people, including one person who has recovered, have been confirmed to have the strain of coronavirus in Sacramento County. That number includes one elementary school-aged student in Elk Grove.
Elliott: Coronavirus fears beginning to impact the major sports leagues
North America’s major sports leagues have crossed the next fearful frontier in fighting the incursion of the coronavirus.
A ban on gatherings of more than 1,000 people was issued by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department late Monday, leaving the NHL’s San Jose Sharks with the possibility of playing their next three home games in an empty SAP Center, playing at a neutral site or postponing those games until public health officials deem it safe for large crowds to assemble again. The ban will take effect Wednesday and last three weeks, affecting the Sharks’ games March 19 against Montreal, March 21 against Boston and March 29 against Arizona. Arena officials said in a statement they will review each event scheduled at SAP Center and provide an update “in the coming days.”
Some college basketball and college hockey games have been or will be played in arenas without fans in an effort to keep players safe, but this is the first time a major professional sports team has been affected by extraordinary actions intended to minimize the spread of COVID-19. Sadly, it won’t be the last of measures that were considered unthinkable not so long ago.
Coronavirus toll mounts at Seattle-area nursing home
As the deaths of their patients mounted, managers of the nursing home at the center of the U.S. coronavirus epidemic pleaded with authorities to send kits to test those who remained quarantined at the facility.
Enough kits were finally delivered over the weekend, and 35 results came back Monday afternoon. They were grim.
A total of 31 residents tested positive, a spokesman for the Kirkland nursing home said at a hastily called news conference in the facility’s parking lot. One resident tested negative, and three tests were inconclusive.
Results are still to come for an additional 20 residents of Life Care Center of Kirkland, whose death toll climbed to 19 with the announcement Monday of three more COVID-19 fatalities. In all, 22 people have died in Washington state.
Pearl Jam postpones North American tour due to coronavirus
The Seattle rock group Pearl Jam has postponed the North American leg of its upcoming tour due to coronavirus. It’s one of the first major U.S. tours to fall victim to the fast-spreading virus.
The tour, in support of the band’s upcoming album “Gigaton,” was planned to begin March 18 in Toronto, with all shows through April 19th’s Oakland date postponed indefinitely.
Italy quarantines entire country of 60 million: Will Italians comply in face of coronavirus?
ROME — Facing rising deaths from the coronavirus, and an increasingly anxious public, a beleaguered Italy has taken the unprecedented step of placing the entire country under quarantine, a sweeping gamble for a Western democracy that is confronting one of its most severe crises since World War II.
In a startling announcement on Monday, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that all 60 million Italians would face limitations on movement beginning Tuesday. The news came as virus deaths climbed to 463, with new cases reaching 9,172, marking a record one day jump of 1,797 and confirming Italy as Europe’s hardest hit country.
“There is no time unfortunately,” Conte said in a hastily called news conference. “Our habits must change now and we must all give up something for the good of Italy.” He added, “I am about to sign a measure we can call ‘I stay at home.’”
3 new cases in Coachella Valley
Riverside University Health System-Public Health has announced three new cases of the novel coronavirus in Coachella Valley.
The individuals are believed to have traveled to an area with a known outbreak, or had contact with a known case, Riverside County public health officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser said. Two of the individuals have been isolated at home. The third is at a Coachella Valley hospital.
Riverside County announced its first locally-acquired case of a patient who is at Eisenhower Health in Rancho Mirage. The source of exposure is currently unknown and is considered a result of community transmission.
Kaiser recommends that those in the Coachella Valley who are elderly and have underlying health conditions limit non-essential travel and avoid large public gatherings.
Riverside County also has a second confirmed case from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. The passenger is receiving treatment at a Northern California hospital and has not been to Riverside County since leaving the ship.
The total number of COVID-19 cases in the county is six.
Georgia will close more than 100 schools Tuesday
In Georgia, students at two middle schools and a high school south of Atlanta were dismissed early on Monday after an itinerant teacher who worked at two middle schools tested positive for COVID-19.
The Fulton County school district, Georgia’s fourth largest school system with about 93,500 students and more than 14,000 employees, announced that it would shutter more than 100 schools on Tuesday to assess the potential additional risk and allow for additional cleaning and disinfecting.
The district did not identify the teacher, who was being treated at a local hospital after falling ill Friday at Bear Creek Middle School in Fairburn, a suburban city about 20 miles southwest of Atlanta.
The employee also taught at Woodland Middle School in the neighboring town of East Point and had extensive contact with students and staff members at both schools, the Fulton Superintendent, Mike Looney, said at a Monday afternoon press conference. The district also dismissed students at Creekside High School Monday due to its proximity to Bear Creek and the fact that many local families had children in both schools.
Asked how many students and employees the teacher might have been in contact with, Looney said that the typical teacher in the school district has five to six classes of 20 to 25 students.
The district plans to shutter more than 59 elementary schools, 19 middle schools, 18 high schools and 10 charter groups on Tuesday as it works with the Department of Health to help identify the names and contact information of all the students and employees the teacher has had contact with.
Asked what his message was to parents who thought the school system was overreacting, Looney said the health and wellbeing of students and faculty members was of “paramount importance.”
“I can tell you as a school superintendent, the last thing I want to do is closed schools,” he said. “But at the same time, I have a responsibility to make sure that our public is informed and that we make decisions that we believe are in the best interest of our students.”
In an alert on its website, the school system said it was implementing aspects of its “pandemic plan” for students, employees and families and the closure will “allow us to clean and sanitize affected schools as well as share additional details of our ongoing plan.”
“Until we can understand the breath of this issue, I think caution is better than negligence,” Looney said.
California issues coronavirus guidelines for events
As conferences throughout California have been canceled and sports teams face the possibility of playing for empty arenas, the California Department of Public Health has issued guidelines for how event organizers should handle mass gatherings amid the growing number of coronavirus cases.
The guidelines were issued over the weekend, one day after the South by Southwest festival in Austin was canceled and a day before tens of thousands gathered for the Los Angeles Marathon.
Despite the spread of coronavirus exposure across the state, which has confirmed more than 100 cases, the protocols do not explicitly instruct organizers to cancel any events.
If a gathering takes place where coronavirus cases have been confirmed, the onus has been on individual participants to refrain from attending if they’re sick, have traveled to a country with an outbreak in the last 14 days or are vulnerable to illness.
As Beijing claims credit for beating coronavirus, Chinese people are outraged: ‘Fake! It’s all fake!’
BEIJING —The high schooler was lying in his hotel bed, playing a video game, when he heard the sound of rushing sand.
Then the world seemed to cave in.
The ceilings and floors cracked open, people’s screams mixing with the sudden roar of a building tumbling in upon itself. Smoke and dust billowed from the collapsed hotel where Xiang had been isolated on the fourth floor for 12 days, quarantined after traveling from Hubei province, where China’s coronavirus epidemic began.
Xiang’s mother and uncle, also under quarantine, were trapped under the rubble. Xiang managed to climb out, grabbing a rope thrown by firefighters who then moved him to a hospital bed from which he recounted what had happened in a video interview with Chinese newspaper Beijing News. His full name was not reported.
Grand Princess arrives in Oakland as coronavirus pummels markets, closes California schools
The Grand Princess cruise ship arrived at the Port in Oakland on Monday, marking the beginning of a high-stakes operation to remove passengers who might have contracted conronavirus and process them into quarantine zones.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has said aggressive steps have been taken to get the passengers off the boat without jeopardizing the public health. Most will eventually be sent to two California military bases.
Column: Using ‘helicopter money’ and food stamps, U.S. can spend big to address the virus crisis
The continuing spread of the novel coronavirus crisis raise two interrelated questions about America’s ability to deal with the unfolding crisis. First, can it manage the public health ramifications of the event? Second, can it manage the economic turmoil?
The answer to the first is still unknown, since the country’s public health infrastructure is still in the hands of manifestly incompetent leadership in Washington, D.C. The answer to the second, however, is a resounding yes. But that, too, is dependent on political will in Washington.
The government has more than enough fiscal capacity to provide assistance to American workers and their families, and to state governments that are on the economic frontlines. Indeed, falling interest rates in the bond markets have given the government even more capacity. The government also has the legal and administrative tools to deliver this assistance.
Israel announces 2-week quarantine for all overseas arrivals
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government has decided to place anyone arriving from overseas into quarantine in a move to contain a growing coronavirus outbreak.
Netanyahu announced the 14-day quarantine Monday after consultations with Cabinet ministers and senior health officials.
“This is a difficult decision, but it’s necessary to protect public health. Public health comes before everything else,” Netanyahu said.
San Francisco Riordan pulls out of state basketball playoffs
San Francisco Archbishop Riordan, a private school scheduled to play Concord De La Salle in the Northern California Division I regional boys’ basketball semifinals on Monday night, has withdrawn from the tournament for safety reasons because of coronavirus concerns, the CIF confirmed on Monday.
Riordan held no classes on Monday after a parent of a student tested positive for the new coronavirus.
The San Francisco Unified School District has canceled all “non-essential events” at all schools until March 22. That could affect the participation of San Francisco Lincoln in Division IV.
Target joins Kroger in limiting purchases of virus-related items
Target Corp. has joined Kroger Co. in limiting purchases of items like hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes in response to widespread stockpiling due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Target began restricting customers to six such items per person over the weekend, spokeswoman Danielle Schumann said in an email Monday. Signs posted in stores say the move is “due to high demand.” Kroger made a similar move earlier this month, with a limit of five items, and regional grocers across the country have done the same.
The moves aim to curtail a frenzy of buying in recent days that has cleaned out the aisles of grocers and drugstores, disrupting retail supply chains around the globe. Costco Wholesale Corp.’s Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said the wholesaler is struggling to keep items in stock to meet the demand, which boosted the retailer’s February comparable sales by three percentage points. Even products not related to the virus, like patio furniture, have seen an uptick in sales.
What we know about Grand Princess docking, coronavirus quarantine and next steps
When is the cruise ship expected to dock?
The Grand Princess cruise ship is expected to dock in Oakland around noon, according to a port spokesperson, and passengers have also heard that is the time they will arrive. One passenger reported at 10:30 a.m. they were close enough to see the Bay Bridge.
It’s “a good day to pack,” the captain announced over the ship’s intercom at 10 a.m., according to passengers.
Passengers with immediate medical needs, which could extend beyond cases of those suspected of having coronavirus, will disembark first. The captain also said those leaving immediately have already received written notification and luggage tags.
How many people are affected?
There are more than 3,500 passengers and crew on the ship, from 54 countries. At least 21 have tested positive for COVID-19, including two passengers and 19 of the 1,100 crew members. Last week, a passenger on a previous Grand Princess trip became the first known California resident to die of the new coronavirus.
How did the ship prepare for the docking?
Ship personnel, known as “hasty teams,” worked all night conducting medical screenings, waking passengers in the middle of the night as they went. They were covered head to toe in protective gear. It is not yet clear how the ship plans to separate passengers with potential symptoms from those free of symptoms, and those already confirmed to have the virus. To dock the boat, a pilot familiar with the port was brought on board.
Ireland cancels all St. Patrick’s Day parades
Ireland has canceled all St. Patrick’s Day parades across the country in an attempt to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar announced the cancellation and said “further advice about mass public gatherings will be issued in the next few days.”
The annual March 17 parade in Dublin is one of Ireland’s biggest tourist events, and typically draws half a million people onto the city’s streets. Tens of thousands more flock to parades in Ireland’s second-largest city, Cork, and smaller communities.
Ireland has 21 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
U.N. group warns of global recession
A key U.N. trade organization is warning of looming recession in the world economy as countries respond to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Richard Kozul-Wright of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development predicts a global “hit” to the world economy of between $1 trillion and $2 trillion this year, and cautions it could be worse.
Even before oil markets plunged Monday, Kozul-Wright said countries whose economies are largely dependent on production of commodities will face pressures as an economic slowdown reduces demand for their products.
Kozul-Wright said the European Union, which faced poor economic prospects at the end of 2019, was “almost certain” to tumble into recession this year, pointing especially to pressures in Germany and Italy.
He was speaking at a release of a new UNCTAD report examining the possible impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and forecasting that annual global growth would fall below 2.5% this year.
How the coronavirus is affecting sports leagues and events
Sports leagues and federations across the world are addressing the coronavirus outbreak.
Most North American sports leagues, including Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NFL and the NHL are monitoring the situation, with moves such as canceling or postponing games or holding events without spectators in attendance emerging as possibilities as the virus and COVID-19 continue to spread around the world.
Leagues in other parts of the world are taking action by canceling events and playing in empty stadiums.
Los Angeles County officials also have discussed the possibility of banning spectators from attending sporting events in Southern California in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, one of the top tennis tournaments in the world, was canceled Sunday over coronavirus concerns.
It’s ‘a good day to pack’: Grand Princess prepares to dock in Oakland
Morning on the Grand Princess started with some welcome advice from the ship’s captain.
It’s “a good day to pack,” he announced over the ship’s intercom at 10 a.m.
Trapped for days off the coast of San Francisco, the ship is on its way to dock in Oakland, he confirmed, and is still on schedule to arrive around noon. Passengers with immediate medical needs, which could extend beyond cases of those suspected of having coronavirus, will disembark first. The captain also said those leaving immediately have already received written notification and luggage tags.
Earlier, Princess Cruises announced it would offer a full refund to everyone onboard, and a credit for a future cruise.
10 Cal State Long Beach students self-isolating after possible coronavirus exposure
Ten Cal State Long Beach students are self-isolating amid concerns they may have been exposed to coronavirus during a recent event in Washington, D.C., officials announced Sunday.
College officials said the students have not shown any symptoms after attending an event last week in Washington, D.C., where three attendees — who are not connected to the campus — tested positive for COVID-19, which is caused by the new coronavirus. The self-isolation is being done “out of an abundance of caution,” Dr. Kimberly Fodran, co-director of student health services at the college, said in a prepared statement.
The college did not specify what out-of-state event the students were attending.
“Because one of our attendees at the event in Washington lives in student housing, that facility is also being specially cleaned as a preventative measure,” the statement read. “As noted in an email to campus yesterday, our campus has initiated additional cleaning protocols across campus.”
Greece bars spectators from Olympic torch lighting because of coronavirus concerns
As part of a national effort to contain the coronavirus outbreak, officials in Greece have barred spectators from the traditional lighting of the Olympic torch, the start of festivities leading to the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.
The ceremony, scheduled for Thursday in ancient Olympia, usually draws thousands of spectators. This time, only a limited number of Japanese organizers and International Olympic Committee representatives will be on hand.
“Tokyo 2020 is grateful for the efforts of all parties involved to ensure that the ceremony will take place while taking into consideration the latest countermeasures by the Hellenic government against COVID-19,” organizers said.
Greece recently barred fans from sporting events and asked schools to suspend field trips for two weeks.
Coronavirus prompts San Francisco to cancel group events at city facilities
SAN FRANCISCO —San Francisco has banned group events of more than 50 people at many city facilities amid the growing spread of coronavirus, part of a larger effort in California to contain the outbreak.
The ban will last for two weeks and includes such iconic locations as City Hall, the Embarcadero piers, the Palace of Fine Arts and Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
The order was “issued on the basis of scientific evidence and best practices as currently known and available to protect vulnerable members of the public from avoidable risk of serious illness or death resulting from exposure to coronavirus,” the city said.
The move was prompted by a perception among officials that the risk of the virus’ spread is increasing.
Officials identified two San Francisco residents who were infected with COVID-19, neither of whom had a history of travel to places with confirmed coronavirus cases nor had a known contact with a person with a confirmed infection. An additional six San Francisco residents who did have known contact with an infected person tested positive for the virus Saturday.
Grand Princess cruise ship is expected to dock in Oakland around noon today
The Grand Princess cruise ship is expected to dock in Oakland around noon, according to a port spokesperson.
The number of coronavirus cases in California hit 114 and more than 500 nationally as officials struggled to contain the virus. Several schools in California will be closed Monday due to the virus, and Stanford University will go to online classes. An oil price war triggered by the spreading coronavirus sent already anxious financial markets into chaos Monday, with stocks diving and crude prices collapsing in a worldwide panic that threatens a global economic recession.
All 2,500 passengers and those in need of immediate medical care will get off the ship Monday to be assessed for either transfer to treatment at regional medical facilities or quarantine at state military bases, while foreigners will be repatriated to their home countries, according to the plan.
You can find cheap airfares right now because of coronavirus concerns
As a growing number of businesses cancel conventions, postpone events and restrict employee travel because of the coronavirus, airlines are left with empty seats, which means cheaper fares. Until airlines can cut back on routes, you’ll find savings.
“When you spot a great deal, buy it,” said Misty Belles, a spokeswoman for the 22,000-member Virtuoso network of luxury travel advisors. “We aren’t seeing a decline in prices for other types of travel, such as hotels and tours. But airfare is definitely dropping.”
So, too, are some of the added fees airlines usually charged if you change or cancel your plans after you’ve paid for the tickets. Although the policy could revert back at any time, airlines including United, Delta, American and JetBlue are waiving those penalties for new ticket purchases booked directly with the carrier but not through online travel agencies such as Expedia.
“It’s basic supply and demand,” said Michael Holtz, whose New York-based Smart Flyer travel agency caters to high-end corporate and leisure travelers worldwide.
Expect more California schools to close amid coronavirus spread, Newsom says
School will be a lot different Monday on some campuses across California.
The largest school district in Northern California, Elk Grove Unified School District, canceled classes and sports games through Friday amid the growing spread of the coronavirus.
Murrieta Valley High School in Murrieta will be closed Monday, as well Lowell and Riordan high schools in San Francisco.
Stanford University will begin online classes, and USC will test online classes later this week.
These represent only a fraction of the schools and colleges around California affected by the coronavirus, but they could offer a preview for elsewhere as the coronavirus spreads.
“It’s a question of when — not if — some California public schools will face closure because of COVID-19,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Saturday in a statement. “School districts must prepare for these scenarios so that parents and children can plan for what would happen if their local school faced closure.”
Stocks plunge, crude prices dive as oil war, virus fears spread chaos through markets
WASHINGTON —An oil price war triggered by the spreading coronavirus sent already anxious financial markets into chaos Monday, with stocks plunging and crude prices collapsing in a worldwide panic that threatens a global economic recession.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped 7% in the first minutes, triggering a 15-minute halt in trading.
Treasury yields fell to a new record low as investors fled for the safety of government bonds.
Overnight Asian financial markets plummeted, and European stocks were swooning Monday, in the wake of Saudi Arabia’s move over the weekend to drop oil prices and boost output in an angry response to Russia’s refusal to reduce production in the face of falling demand from China, whose economy has been slammed by the virus and efforts to contain it.
The price war caused about a 25% fall in crude prices, to the lowest level in almost 30 years, and the U.S. dollar fell as oil is priced and traded globally in dollars.
6 Italian inmates die during protest over virus measures
Italian penitentiary police said Monday that six inmates protesting virus containment measures at a northern Italian lock-up have died after they broke into the infirmary and overdosed on methadone.
The protest Sunday in Modena was among the first of more than two dozen riots at Italy’s overcrowded lock-ups that grew Monday. Human rights advocates have been warning that increasing tensions over fears of coronavirus were hitting inmates particularly hard, especially after restrictions were imposed on family visits to prevent transmissions.
On Monday, inmates climbed onto the roof of the San Vittore prison in Milan and held up a painted sheet reading “Indulto,” Italian for pardon.
Donato Capece, secretary general of the penitentiary police union, accused the government of abandoning the prison system, refusing to provide sufficient measures to prevent the spread of the virus among inmates and leaving guards on their own to deal with prisoners who could now only speak to relatives by phone or Skype.
“The administration is completely absent,” he told the Associated Press. “They have left the penitentiary police in jeopardy.”
He confirmed six inmates at the Modena prison had died from overdoses. He ticked off the more than two dozen prisons where protests were underway, including in Foggia where some prisoners had escaped.
Italy’s overburdened court system has ground to a near halt because of virus containment measures, increasing tensions among prisoners already forced to endure long delays in justice.
Nursing home at center of coronavirus deaths spurs precautions across U.S.
KIRKLAND, Wash. —Curtis Luterman moved his mother, Mary, into the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Wash., in June. She is 89 years old. She’d been living on the East Coast, nearly 3,000 miles away. He wanted her to “experience the beautiful Pacific Northwest.” He wanted to change her life for the better.
Instead, she ended up in the nursing home at the terrifying center of the coronavirus outbreak. Thirteen residents of the facility who died amid the epidemic tested positive for COVID-19. Eleven others died in the last 2½ weeks of as-yet-unknown causes.
“I never would have thought that something like this could have happened to her after trying to bring her [here] to improve her life,” Luterman told reporters Thursday during a news conference on the leafy nursing home grounds. “I don’t blame the staff in here for this incident. What I do blame right now is the response from our government officials.”
“If the CDC’s doing such a bad response on a small little place like this,” he said, “imagine if this was happening in a large nursing home in downtown Los Angeles or in New York City.”
Grand Princess passengers finally about to dock. Here’s why officials picked Oakland
Passengers confined to their cabins on the Grand Princess cruise ship off the Northern California coast learned Sunday that their week of limbo induced by a COVID-19 outbreak is set to end, as federal and state officials announced a plan to dock at a commercial cargo port in Oakland.
All 2,500 passengers and those in need of immediate medical care will get off the ship Monday to be assessed for either transfer to treatment at regional medical facilities or quarantine at state military bases, while foreigners will be repatriated to their home countries, according to the plan.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference in Oakland on Sunday that the disembarkation and transfer of passengers would take up to three days.
But he warned that the situation was “fluid” and could take longer, in part because the port does not regularly deal with cruise ships, and tides and currents allowed only small windows of time to enter and leave.
Feeling coronavirus ‘cabin fever,’ cruise passengers eager to land in Oakland
Stranded aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship stuck off the coast of San Francisco due to a coronavirus outbreak, Karen Spoon was getting frustrated.
“I’m starting to feel the effects of cabin fever,” she said Sunday.
But detailed plans to get people off the boat at the Port of Oakland as early as Monday made Spoon, from Canada, and others feel more optimistic for the first time in days.
Here’s why officials chose Houston >>
After hearing a briefing in which the California governor said charter flights would repatriate her, Spoon said, “If that’s correct, then yippee!”
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday he expected the operation to take up to three days, but emphasized that the situation was “fluid” and could take longer, in part because the port does not regularly deal with cruise ships and there would only be small windows of opportunity for it to enter the port, based on tides and currents.
Global stocks and oil prices sink as crude exporters squabble
Global stock markets and oil prices plunged Monday after a squabble among crude producers jolted investors who already were on edge about the surging costs of a virus outbreak.
The main stock indexes in London and Frankfurt dropped by more 8% at the opening. Tokyo closed down 5.1% while Sydney lost 7.3% and Shanghai was off 3%.
The benchmark U.S. crude price fell as much as 30%, deepening a rout that began when Saudi Arabia, Russia and other major producers failed to agree on how much to cut output to prop up prices.
Investors usually welcome lower energy costs for businesses and consumers. But the abrupt plunge, amid anxiety over the coronavirus, rattled markets.
2 members of Congress staying at home after exposure to man with coronavirus
Two members of Congress, Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Paul Gosar, say they are isolating themselves after determining they had contact at a political conference in suburban Washington with a man who has tested positive for coronavirus.
Cruz (R-Texas) said he had brief contact with the man at the Conservative Political Action Conference neary two weeks ago and would spend the next few days at his home in Texas until a full 14 days had passed since their interaction.
Gosar (R-Ariz.) said he had made contact with the man at CPAC and that he and three members of his senior staff were under self-quarantine. His office will be closed for the week, Gosar said in a tweet Sunday.
Besides Cruz and Gosar, the CPAC schedule listed three other senators and 12 House members who were scheduled to speak.
BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells canceled because of coronavirus concerns
Organizers of the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament on Sunday canceled this year’s event at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, citing the public health emergency declared by the Riverside County Public Health Department following a recently confirmed local case of the coronavirus.
“As a result, the 2020 BNP Paribas Open will not take place at this time due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus and the safety of the participants and attendees at the event,” organizers said in a statement. “This is following the guidance of medical professionals, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and State of California.”
Main draw play was to have begun on Wednesday. Many players arrived early to practice and get a feel for the courts and the hot, dry desert air.
California Grand Princess passengers face coronavirus quarantine at Travis, Miramar military bases
Gavin Newsom said Sunday it could take three days or longer to get passengers off the Grand Princess, which will dock Monday at the commercial port of Oakland to disembark all passengers and those who need medical attention, including 19 infected crew members.
Many Californians on board will eventually be sent to two California military bases.
The governor expected the operation to take up to three days, but stressed that the situation was “fluid” and could take longer, in part because the port does not regularly deal with cruise ships and there would only be small windows of opportunity for it to enter the port, based on tides and currents.
After medical cases, California residents would be prioritized for disembarkation, and be taken to Travis Air Force base in nearby Solano County to begin a 14-day quarantine.
L.A. Marathon goes on — with laughs even — despite coronavirus worries
The Los Angeles Marathon took place Sunday as scheduled, despite the cancellation of other high-profile events, including the South by Southwest festival. While there were some masks, and hands were being doused with sanitizer, participants and their supporters were looking on the sunny side.
Catherine Borek, a high school English teacher in Compton, said it was important to her to be at the event and that she was using her common sense to avoid infection.
“I’m not going to lick people’s hands,” she said, “but I’m also not going to not show up.”
Aley DeLoria, of Scottsdale, Ariz., and longtime friends Courtney Del Sarto, who flew in from San Francisco, and Jennifer Linehan, who drove up from San Diego, were on hand to cheer on a childhood friend taking part in the marathon. Their signs included one that read “Run like the coronavirus is after you.”
Grand Princess cruise ship to dock in Oakland on Monday
The nearly 3,000 travelers stranded off the San Francisco coast on the Grand Princess cruise ship because of a coronavirus outbreak will dock in Oakland as early as Monday, giving sick passengers a chance to receive medical treatment after more than two weeks at sea.
California authorities Sunday morning outlined a plan for the nearly 3,000 aboard, 1,000 of then from California. Officials stressed no one on board would be immediately released to the general public.
These passengers will not be released into the general public.
--Passengers who require acute medical treatment and hospitalization will be transported to health care facilities in California. If passengers do not require acute medical care following health screenings, those who are California residents will go to a federally run isolation facility within California for testing and isolation, while non-Californians will be transported by the federal government to facilities in other states.
--The crew will be quarantined and treated aboard the ship, but importantly, the ship will only stay in Port of Oakland for the duration of disembarkment. This ship will depart Oakland as soon as possible and will remain elsewhere for the duration of the crew’s quarantine.
Mexico plays down chance that Grand Princess spread coronavirus, but questions multiply
Posters and official fliers in this coastal tourist hot spot seek to allay concerns about the fast-spreading global health menace that has left victims from China to Italy to California.
“Baja California Sur is coronavirus free and that’s how we want to stay!” proclaims one sign.
But even though officials here say Baja has so far avoided the COVID-19 contagion, questions have been raised about whether passengers on the Grand Princess, a cruise ship with several infected crew members and passengers, could have either picked up or spread the coronavirus when it visited Cabo and three other Mexican Pacific ports during a Feb. 11-21 trip from San Francisco.
On Saturday, a cruise line official reported that one 75-year-old California passenger, who later died of the virus, was infected before boarding the ship Feb. 11 and was sick several days before the boat returned to San Francisco on Feb. 21.
According to Dr. Grant Tarling, the cruise’s medical officer, the Placer County man didn’t visit the ship’s doctor until Feb. 20, but started exhibiting symptoms as early as Feb. 13. That was before the vessel made its first Mexican port stop, Feb. 16 in Puerto Vallarta. It went on to visit Manzanillo that same day, stopped in Mazatlan on Feb. 17, then anchored in Cabo San Lucas on Feb. 19.
Complicating matters, Placer County health officials have disputed Tarling’s information, saying the diseased man “likely contracted the disease during international travel to Mexico,” which could mean he contracted it on the boat or during a shore visit.
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Spread of coronavirus on Grand Princess ship raises public health alarms
Federal and state officials were grappling with how to deal with the Grand Princess cruise ship off the coast of San Francisco after 21 people aboard tested positive for the coronavirus.
A state source described conversations about moving passengers and crew members as fluid and said discussions on how to proceed by state and federal officials would resume Saturday. A representative for Princess Cruises said the ship would not dock Friday night, but was moving to a position 20 nautical miles offshore “for logistical purposes.”
LeBron James on games without spectators: ‘I ain’t playing’
To help stop the spread of coronavirus, major events have been canceled, sports leagues have been delayed and games have been played without any fans in attendance.
That is not an idea that LeBron James will entertain for Lakers games.
“We play games without the fans? Nah. Impossible,” James said after a 113-103 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night. “I ain’t playing if you don’t have the fans in the crowd. That’s who I play for. I play for my teammates, I play for the fans. That’s what it’s all about. So, if I show up to the arena and there ain’t no fans in there? I ain’t playing. So, they can do what they want to do.”
Judge denies request for restraining order to block use of Seattle motel for isolating people
The city of Kent, Wash., lost a court bid Friday to prevent a motel from being used as a quarantine facility for coronavirus patients.
A King County Superior Court judge denied the Seattle suburb’s request for a temporary restraining order to block use of the EconoLodge for isolating people testing positive for COVID-19.
The city went to court after county officials said this week that they had completed negotiations to buy the motel for $4 million, and would prepare to house patients within days. Kent Mayor Dana Ralph said she was blindsided by the plan, saying officials aimed to saddle her lower-income city with patients from wealthier, less diverse parts of the county.
King County Executive Dow Constantine issued a statement after the judge’s ruling, saying that the motel was the only site on the market that included separate heating and ventilation systems in each room, and doors opening directly to the outside.He said that an emergency proclamation he issued on Sunday allowed the county to “take extraordinary measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, including acquiring property essential for public health.”
Constantine said that quarantine sites would also be set up in other parts of the county.
“King County will continue to identify and acquire properties in all parts of the county to ensure residents, including health care workers and first-responders who come into contact with COVID-19, are housed appropriately,” he said.
21 aboard Grand Princess cruise ship test positive for coronavirus; passengers angry, concerned
Twenty-one people on the Grand Princess off the San Francisco coast have tested positive for coronavirus, Vice President Mike Pence said Friday, an announcement that angered and deflated many passengers on the cruise ship.
Pence said the federal government is working with the state of California to bring the cruise ship into a noncommercial port over the weekend and quarantine those aboard as necessary. Those testing positive included 19 crew and 2 passengers.
“All passengers will be tested,” the vice president said several hours after testing kits were delivered to the ship. “Those that need to be quarantined will be quarantined.”
Pence said 24 people on the cruise ship had tested negative, and one test has been inconclusive.
Labor unions ask federal government to issue regulations for worker protection
A federation of labor unions is calling on the U.S. government to issue emergency regulations outlining an employer’s responsibilities to protect workers from infectious diseases.
Richard Trumka, the AFL-CIO president, says many employers are woefully unprepared for dealing with the new coronavirus and future infectious disease outbreaks. He says the Obama administration tried to establish enforceable standards to protect workers from infection but that work has ground to a halt under President Trump.
The AFL-CIO submitted a petition to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Friday asking it to set an emergency temporary standard for employers to follow.
The petition says current efforts to protect workers from the coronavirus are largely voluntary, allowing employers to ignore or selectively follow federal guidelines.
It says workers “have the right to consistent levels of protection” in all workplaces where occupational exposure to the coronavirus can be expected.