U.S. Coronavirus Infections Rise as Cases Outside China Pass 10,000
New cases reported in New York, Georgia as nationwide patient tally tops 100
New cases of the novel coronavirus in New York, Arizona and Georgia raised the number of infected people in the U.S. to over 100 Tuesday, as concern over the infection’s potential effect on the economy pushed the Federal Reserve to make its first unscheduled rate cut since the 2008 financial crisis.
On Tuesday, New York confirmed its second case of the novel coronavirus. The patient, a 50-year-old attorney who lives in New Rochelle, N.Y., hadn’t traveled to affected countries, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
The man is hospitalized in New York City in serious condition, according to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. His diagnosis led to the closure of a Bronx private school attended by one of the patient’s children.
In Arizona, state officials said a Maricopa County man in his 20s tested positive for the virus and is recovering at home. The man was a known contact of another coronavirus patient outside Arizona who had traveled to a community where the virus was spreading.
“As far as risk to the public, we are still doing the case investigation of this individual, however, because we know when and where this individual was exposed, this does not represent community spread,” said Rebecca Sunenshine, medical director for disease control for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health.
Two members of an Atlanta-area household also have tested positive for the virus, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said at a Monday night press briefing. One had recently been to Italy, which has reported thousands of infections. Both have shown only mild symptoms and are being isolated at home with other relatives while officials trace the patients’ contacts, according to state health officials.
More than 60 people have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus within the U.S., excluding those repatriated from China and Japan. Cases have been reported in 12 states, and six people have died after contracting Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
The number of confirmed cases of the illness in the U.S. is expected to rise in coming days as local health officials ramp up testing, which then await further confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Trump administration is weighing paying hospitals and doctors for treating uninsured coronavirus patients, a person familiar with the conversations said, as concerns rise over the costs of treating some of the 27 million Americans without health coverage.
Globally, the new coronavirus has infected 90,926 people since it was first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, but 53% of those patients have recovered, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. A total of 3,117 coronavirus patients have died.
In an effort to stem potential economic fallout from the virus in U.S., the Federal Reserve on Tuesday cut its benchmark federal-funds rate by half a percentage point to a range between 1% and 1.25%.
“We do recognize a rate cut will not reduce the rate of infection. It won’t fix a broken supply chain. We get that,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a press conference following the move. “But we do believe that our action will provide a meaningful boost to the economy.”
Earlier in the day, the Reserve Bank of Australia became the first central bank in a developed economy to cut interest rates in response to economic pressures caused by the epidemic. It lowered its benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a record-low 0.5%.
More than a third of Australia’s exports go to China, where a sharp slowdown in economic activity and snarled logistics networks are hurting demand for commodities and raw materials.
Several multinational companies warned of financial hits from the coronavirus. Payment processor Visa Inc. blamed a sharp slowdown in travel spending for a cut to its first-quarter revenue forecasts and said “the deteriorating trend has not bottomed out yet.” Hyatt Hotels Corp. withdrew its 2020 financial outlook, saying it expects reduced travel to hurt sales.
The spread of the new coronavirus across the U.S. in recent days has closed down schools, disrupted travel plans and emptied store shelves of hand sanitizer and cleaning products. State leaders have attempted to quell fears, saying that the virus still poses a low risk even in cities and states where more cases have appeared.
Washington state has emerged as the center of the infection’s spread in the U.S. Officials there said six people have died from the viral since Friday—four of whom were residents of a nursing home in Kirkland, Wash., northeast of Seattle. A number of schools have closed in the state for cleaning, and local officials have issued emergency proclamations.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Seattle field office was closed “out of an abundance of caution” after an employee who had visited the Kirkland nursing facility became sick with flulike symptoms, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The employee and the employee’s family self-quarantined once it became apparent there was a coronavirus outbreak at the facility, acting DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said in a tweet.
In China, the virus killed a further 31 people Tuesday, bringing the death toll to 2,943. But the country reported just 125 new confirmed infections, the lowest number since nationwide daily updates began Jan. 21. Most of the latest fatalities were in Hubei province, where the epidemic originated.
As infection rates in China have slowed, businesses there are gradually resuming more activities. Apple Inc.’s main iPhone assembler, Foxconn Technology Group, said it expects the number of workers at its plants in mainland China to return to normal levels by the end of March if the epidemic doesn’t worsen.
The novel coronavirus is now spreading faster outside China than within, with the number of confirmed cases outside mainland China crossing 10,000 Tuesday, compared with some 80,300 inside the country, according to the World Health Organization. Eighty percent of the new cases reported Tuesday came from South Korea, Italy and Iran, the WHO said.
Infections continued to rise quickly in Italy, where authorities Tuesday reported a 23% increase in new cases to 2,502—by far the largest number in Europe, putting the country’s total behind only China’s and South Korea’s—up from 2,036 on Monday. Its death toll rose Tuesday to 79 from a total of 52 the day before.
Italian authorities said they are considering creating a new quarantine zone in near Bergamo, a city east of Milan, because of increasing cases there. Already, a cluster of towns south of Milan and in an area near Venice are under quarantine, with army checkpoints to stop people from leaving or entering the zone.
The Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Francis, who has been ill in recent days, has been diagnosed with a cold “without symptoms associated with other pathologies.” The Vatican didn’t comment on an Italian media report that the pope had tested negative for the coronavirus. His illness this week has fuelled speculation in Italy about whether he might have contracted the virus.
Iran’s health ministry said the number of deaths from the new coronavirus there rose to 77, up from 66 a day earlier. The number of confirmed cases rose 56% to 2,336.
South Korea—the worst-hit country outside China—reported another surge in infections. Most of the 851 new cases were in the southern city of Daegu, where the outbreak centers on a secretive megachurch. Confirmed cases in South Korea now total 5,186, with 31 deaths.
Just two weeks ago, there were fewer than 50 confirmed infections in the country. President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday said the epidemic has reached a critical phase and the country has begun a “war” against Covid-19. He said the government would spend 30 trillion won ($25 billion) on virus response, and described the economic situation as grave.