The coronavirus pandemic has spurred leaders to take emergency action and lent a surreal quality to the lives of millions of people around the globe. It has disrupted daily routines, overwhelmed hospitals, shuttered schools and offices and halted many sporting and entertainment events. If that weren't enough, many are also forced to grapple with fears about the financial toll, from lost jobs and businesses to shrinking retirement accounts.
These are some of the latest developments on Friday:
PEOPLE CONFRONT DISRUPTED ROUTINES
The intensifying spread of COVID-19 beyond Asia has dashed hopes for a quick containment, even with travel and social events curbed drastically. People fretted over the health risks to the elderly, threatened jobs and dwindling savings, while caring for children staying home from shuttered schools. China, where the outbreak emerged late last year, still accounts for more than 60% of global infections. But on Friday it reported just eight new cases and seven deaths. Most infected people experience mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, and the vast majority get over their illness.
EMERGENCY DECLARATIONS
U.S. President Donald Trump invoked emergency powers that he said it would free up as much as $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the new virus. Addressing a criticism of his administration's response to coronavirus, he announced a public-private partnership to increase national testing capabilities. Meanwhile, French president Emmanuel Macron said leaders of the world's largest democracies, the G-7, would hold a video-conference summit Monday to discuss
COUNTRIES CLOSED OFF
Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine were among countries imposing new restrictions at their borders. Meanwhile,
MARKETS CLAW BACK
Stocks clawed back some of their losses on Wall Street and in Europe a day after the market's worst session in over three decades. An early surge in buying subsided around midday Friday, then regained momentum in the afternoon, leaving major indexes up about 9%.
LEADERS INFECTED
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau is in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19, leaving the prime minister to go into isolation for 14 days as well even though he has no symptoms. Francis Suarez, the mayor of the U.S. city in Florida tested positive. He had met with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s communications director, Fábio Wajngarten, who tested positive just days after
MIDEAST PRAYER LIMITED Religious authorities
AMERICAN LIFE UPENDED
After first striking Asia, and then Europe, now America, too, is upending routines as the coronavirus affects just about every facet of life. Most big tech companies in San Francisco and Seattle have told employees to work from home, emptying out the downtown
ASIAN COUNTRIES SEEK TO STOP VIRUS' RETURN
Just as the spread of the disease is stabilizing in much of Asia, following a major outbreak in China and sizable ones in South Korea and Japan, it's popping up in new hotspots around the world. That has prompted those three nations to take measures to prevent the new virus from coming back to where it first broke out. The South Korean government is introducing new screening and border controls on people arriving from abroad.
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The Associated Press