Coronavirus extends across West, Californians must stay home
Tim Sullivan | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 8 months AGO
A view of the corridor outside the intensive care unit of the hospital of Brescia, Italy, Thursday, March 19, 2020. Italy has become the country with the most coronavirus-related deaths, surpassing China by registering 3,405 dead. Italy reached the gruesome milestone on the same day the epicenter of the pandemic, Wuhan, China, recorded no new infections. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)
Spanish UME (Emergency Army Unit) soldiers disinfect the terminal one to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at the airport of Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, March 19, 2020. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some, it can cause more severe illness, especially in older adults and people with existing health problems. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Veterinary Eva Martinez feeds lemurs during a daily check up at the Madrid Zoo, Spain, Thursday, March 19, 2020. It's feeding time for the animals and it business as usual at the Madrid Zoo and aquarium despite the state of emergency in place across Spain. Just like on the almost empty streets of the Madrid capital, the zoo workers are keeping a minimum social distancing between themselves and when possible with the animals. The vast majority of people recover from the new coronavirus. According to the World Health Organization, most people recover in about two to six weeks, depending on the …
Susan Stroud screens a customer at a Witham Health Services drive-through Community Viral Screening center, Thursday, March 19, 2020, in Whitestown, Ind. Indiana’s governor has ordered all public and private schools across the state remain closed to students until at least May 1 among steps aimed at slowing the coronavirus spread. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
A woman wearing protection mask looks on through the window, at San Martin nursing home, where several elderly people were infected by coronavirus in Vitoria, northern Spain, Thursday, March 19, 2020. Spain will mobilize 200 billion euros or the equivalent to one fifth of the country's annual output in loans, credit guarantees and subsidies for workers and vulnerable citizens, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced Tuesday. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some, it can cause more severe illness, especially in older adults and people with existing…
In this aerial drone photo, workers erect a temporary field hospital for use by people unable to isolate and recover from COVID-19 in their own homes on a soccer field Thursday, March 19, 2020, in the Seattle suburb of Shoreline, Wash. The field hospital will provide up to 200 beds, according to a city website, and will house "people exposed to, at risk of exposure, or becoming ill with the novel coronavirus." (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Medical personnel at work in the intensive care unit of the hospital of Brescia, Italy, Thursday, March 19, 2020. Italy has become the country with the most coronavirus-related deaths, surpassing China by registering 3,405 dead. Italy reached the gruesome milestone on the same day the epicenter of the pandemic, Wuhan, China, recorded no new infections. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)
The Manhattan bridge is seen in the background of a flashing sign urging commuters to avoid gatherings, reduce crowding and to wash hands in the Brooklyn borough of New York, on Thursday, March 19, 2020. In a matter of days, millions of Americans have seen their lives upended by measures to curb the spread of the new coronavirus. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
Passengers walk in an empty terminal at the airport of Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, March 19, 2020. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some, it can cause more severe illness, especially in older adults and people with existing health problems. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A man removes his cap as a soldier takes his temperature outside a food market as a preventative measure against the spread of the coronavirus in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, March 19, 2020. To enter the market, people are required to get their temperature taken and disinfect their hands. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
People wearing protective mask ride their bicycle at the Castello Sforzesco castle in Milan, Italy, Thursday, March 19, 2020.For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness, especially in older adults and people with existing health problems. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)
Family members applaud from their house in support of the medical staff that are working in coronavirus or COVID-19 outbreak in Brussels, Thursday, March 19, 2020. Belgium has ordered further lockdown measures following in the steps of European neighbours Italy, Spain and France. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A man wearing a face mask as a precaution against the spread of the new coronavirus, walks near a bus station in Guatemala City, Thursday, March 19, 2020. As part of emergency measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guatemalan government has restricted public transportation. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
ROME (AP) — Italy's deaths from the coronavirus pandemic eclipsed China’s on Thursday as the scourge extended its march across the West, where the United States and other countries increasingly enlisted the military to prepare for an onslaught of patients and California's governor ordered people in the most-populous U.S. state to stay home.
The U.S. Army prepared mobile military hospitals for deployment in major cities. In Madrid, Spain, a four-star hotel was turned into a hospital. Long lines of motorists waited for nurses to swab their nostrils at new U.S. drive-thru testing sites.
The virus has infected at least one European head of state: Monaco's 62-year-old Prince Albert II, who continued to work from his office. And it appeared to be opening an alarming new front in Africa, where health care in many countries is already in sorry shape.
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world is “at war with a virus” and warned that “a global recession, perhaps of record dimensions, is a near certainty.”
“If we let the virus spread like wildfire — especially in the most vulnerable regions of the world -- it would kill millions of people,” he said.
Italy, with 60 million citizens, has recorded 3,405 deaths, or roughly 150 more than in China, a country with a population over 20 times larger. As Italy reached its bleak milestone, China is seeing signs of hope. Wuhan, the city where the new virus emerged three months ago, had no new infections for a second day Friday, a sign its draconian lockdowns had worked.
Health authorities cited a variety of reasons for Italy’s high toll, key among them its large population of elderly, who are particularly susceptible to serious complications from the virus. Italy has the world’s second-oldest population, and the vast majority of its dead — 87% — were over 70.
Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit, a virologist at Germany's Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, offered another reason for Italy's high death rate: “That's what happens when the health system collapses."
In a measure of how the fortunes of East and West have shifted, New York officials were sent to China to buy more ventilators. And in Italy, the leader of a delegation from the Chinese Red Cross openly castigated Italians for failing to take the national lockdown seriously.
On a visit to the hard-hit city of Milan, Sun Shuopeng said he was shocked to see so many people walking around, using public transportation and eating out in hotels.
“Right now we need to stop all economic activity, and we need to stop the mobility of people,” he said. “All people should be staying at home in quarantine.”
Worldwide the death toll surpassed 10,000 and infections topped 240,000, including 86,000 people who have recovered.
In the U.S., where deaths reached at least 205, and infections climbed past 14,000, Army officials announced plans to deploy two hospitals, probably to Seattle and New York City. Washington state had the highest death toll, 74. President Donald Trump said earlier this week that he would send a Navy hospital ship to the West Coast as well as one to New York City, which is rapidly becoming a U.S. epicenter, with more than 4,000 cases.
Damage to the world's largest economy kept increasing, with the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits surging by 70,000 last week. On Wall Street, though, stocks rose modestly amid optimism over efforts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks to shore up the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained almost 200 points, or 1%.
Congress is weighing a proposed $1 trillion emergency package that would dispense relief checks to households in as many as two rounds, the first of which would consist of payments of $1,000 per adult and $500 for each child.
Around the country, governors and mayors sounded increasingly alarmed and took ever more drastic measures to fend off the crisis.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom late Thursday expanded to nearly 40 million people the restrictions he said already applied to about half the state. He said the statewide restriction on non-essential movement outside people's homes is necessary to control the spread of the virus that threatens to overwhelm California's medical system.
Newsom earlier in the day issued the dire prediction that 56% of California’s population could contract the virus over the next eight weeks.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf ordered the closing of all “non-life-sustaining” businesses in the state, with exceptions for gas stations, grocery stores, pharmacies and takeout restaurant service, and warned that violators could be subject to fines or imprisonment.
At a video conference with Trump, governors complained they were having difficulty obtaining such things as swabs and protective gear for doctors and nurses.
And New York Mayor Bill de Blasio lashed out at the president as “the Herbert Hoover of your generation," referring to the man who was president when the stock market crashed in 1929 and the Depression set in.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state does not have enough ventilators for the expected surge of patients in need of help breathing, and needs to acquire thousands before the outbreak overwhelms hospitals.
“Every state is shopping for ventilators. We're shopping for ventilators. We literally have people in China shopping for ventilators which is one of the largest manufacturers. So this is a major problem,” he said.
A Houston hospital that opened its doors to drive-thru testing quickly saw a line of hundreds of vehicles stretching more than a mile. At a white tent, workers in masks and head-to-toe protective gear swabbed motorists. Petra Sanchez waited to find out whether she had the virus.
“I have an 80-year-old dad, and I haven’t been around him for the same reason,” she said. ”I don't know what I have."
The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, warned Americans in the strongest terms yet not to travel abroad under any circumstances.
The British government, criticized as slow to react to the virus, shifted gears and drew up legislation giving itself new powers to detain people and restrict gatherings. The bill is expected to be approved by Parliament next week.
Supermarket chain Sainsbury's reserved the first hour of shopping for vulnerable customers. Among them was Jim Gibson, 72, of London, who was concerned that the country wasn't ramping up testing fast enough.
“You can't go on ignoring World Health Organization guidelines — if they're wrong, who the hell is right?” he said. “Let's have no shilly-shallying.”
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe pleaded with people to social distance, even as the crisis pushed them to seek comfort. “When you love someone, you should avoid taking them in your arms,” he said in Parliament.
China for the second day said Friday the locked-down city of Wuhan, where thousands once lay sick or dying in hurriedly constructed hospitals, had no new cases of infections. All 39 new cases recorded nationally were from abroad.
“Today, we have seen the dawn after so many days of hard effort,” said Jiao Yahui, a senior inspector at the National Health Commission, said Thursday. Officials say they will only lift the quarantine of Wuhan after the city goes 14 consecutive days with no new cases.
China is slowly coming back to life, with the government saying about 80% of economic activity has been restored, although millions of workers remain stranded by travel bans. Beijing's tourism industry is still on hold, just as it should be ramping up for the summer season.
The World Health Organization warned, though, that the virus is spreading quickly in Africa, from about five countries a week and a half ago to 35 of the continent's 54 nations — an “extremely rapid evolution,” said WHO’s Africa chief, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti.
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Sullivan reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press reporters around the world contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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This story has been corrected to show Wuhan had no cases of infection and China had only imported cases, not that Wuhan had imported cases.
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Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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