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During a press conference on Friday, in which Donald Trump declared a national emergency due to the coronavirus outbreak, PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor asked the US president about the US Pandemic Response Team that was disbanded in May 2018. Trump replied that he knew nothing about it
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Nearly 19,000 schools have or will close across the US, affecting more than 8.1m students and counting, according to Education Week, one of the few outlets tracking school closures nationally. There are roughly 76 million students in US schools.
That number will likely rise as coronavirus spreads to Midwest and rural areas of the country.
Update: At least 18,700 schools have closed or will close, affecting at least 8.1 million students, due to #coronavirus, as of today at 11 a.m. (Some of those schools have reopened.)
Hours before the House was scheduled to vote on a package that would provide assistance those affected by the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump criticized the proposal, throwing a compromise into question.
“We don’t think they’re giving enough,” Trump said, referring to Democrats during a midday press conference from the Rose Garden. “They’re not doing what’s right for the country.”
The World Health Organization has stepped up its calls for intensified action to fight the coronavirus pandemic, imploring countries “not to let this fire burn”, as Spain said it would declare a 15-day state of emergency from Saturday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, said Europe – where the virus is present in all 27 EU states and has infected 25,000 people – had become the centre of the epidemic, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined apart from China.
On 17 March, Donald Trump told reporters he knew this coronavirus 'was a pandemic all along', but that is in stark contrast to many of his previous statements. Here's a look back at how the US president has spoken about Covid-19 since January 2020
Pledges of help from EU, China and Germany plus declaration of US emergency produce mild rally after torrid week
The world’s most powerful central bank, the US Federal Reserve, is preparing a fresh attempt to shore up investor confidence despite a late rally on Wall Street on Friday that ended a torrid week for stock markets on a more positive note.
Fresh pledges of help from China, Germany and the European commission combined with Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency over coronavirus to reassure investors after an ordeal for equities on both sides of the Atlantic that echoed the depths of the banking crisis.
Donald Trump on Friday declared a national emergency over the fast-spreading coronavirus, opening the door to providing what he said was about $50bn in federal aid to fight the disease. Speaking at a news conference in the Rose Garden, the US president said he was declaring the national emergency in order to 'unleash the full power of the federal government'.
A nation supposedly forged in the hellfire of war almost crumbled in the face of a virulent threat at home
Newly federated Australia, with its population not yet 5 million, was still enduring shocking fatalities on the European western front when its authorities began paying attention to the virulent strain of pneumonic influenza sweeping Britain.
Early Australian awareness of the “Spanish influenza” – an epidemic in Britain by mid to late 1918 – came with an acknowledgment that the new states grown of old colonies would need to stick together should the virus reach this isolated continent.
Cancellations of public events are radical departure for the monarch. Even Trooping the Colour is in doubt
The Queen has cancelled her public engagements due to a national crisis for the first time in her 68-year-reign.
Royal watchers said it was unprecedented for the Queen to call off her two public engagements later this month and to review future diary commitments. The move came as the government formally moved from the “contain” to the “delay” stage of the coronavirus “battle plan”.
Herd immunity is a phrase normally used when large numbers of children have been vaccinated against a disease like measles, reducing the chances that others will get it. As a tactic in fighting a pandemic for which there is no vaccine, it is novel – and some say alarming.
It relies on people getting the disease – in this case Covid-19 – and becoming immune as a result. Generally it is thought that those who recover will be immune, at least for now, so they won’t get it twice.
Prime minister delivers address from self-imposed quarantine
Parliament shuttered and curbs on international travel
Canada has unveiled aggressive new measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak, shutting down parliament and advising against foreign travel, even as Justin Trudeau urged citizens to remain calm in a national address delivered from self-imposed quarantine.
“We have an outstanding, we have outstanding public health authorities who are doing an outstanding job. We will get through this together,” said the prime minister, who has been in self-isolation after his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday.
Local elections and the London mayoral election have been postponed for a year to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. The government made the decision to push back the 7 May elections after the Electoral Commission said the health crisis would have an impact on campaigning and voting.
“We will bring forward legislation to postpone local, mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections until May next year,” a government spokesman said.
There’s a strange mood in the intensive care unit (ICU) where I work at the moment. It’s one of controlled planning, paperwork and people pulling together in ways that on a normal day perhaps wouldn’t happen.
ICUs are as prepared as they can be. Locally business as usual has made way for preparations for caring for high numbers of patients. We are finding every ventilator we may have and identifying every suitably qualified member of staff. We will work together to fill gaps as best we can.
Fake Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts seemed to aim to inflame divides in US
A newly discovered Russian-led network of professional trolls was being outsourced to Ghanaian and Nigerian operatives, according to Facebook and Twitter, who removed the network’s accounts on Thursday.
The network was small: just 49 Facebook accounts, 85 Instagram accounts and 71 Twitter accounts in question. But it marks the first time that a Russian information operation targeting the US has been found to be run from Africa.
The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said Europe is now at the centre of the global coronavirus outbreak. In a press briefing at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday, he said Europe had more cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined apart from China
The startling spread of the coronavirus across the globe is causing understandable alarm. But though it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions about how many deaths may occur, the statistics do point to general trends that can get lost in the drama.
At present, one thing that does seem clear is that the vast majority of people who get the disease will survive.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are to clear streets, shops and public places in the country within the next 24 hours, in a dramatic escalation of efforts to combat the spread of coronavirus.
The near-curfew follows growing exasperation among MPs that calls for Iranian citizens to stay at home had been widely ignored, as people continued to travel before the Nowruz new year holidays. Shops and offices have largely remained open.
People across Italy have been singing from their balconies in an effort to keep up morale as the country faces the worst coronavirus outbreak outside China. Italy’s 60 million citizens were placed under lockdown to halt the spread of a virus that has so far claimed over 1,000 lives in the country
British Airways has warned staff it is in a fight for survival and expects to make job cuts and ground an unprecedented number of planes, as it said the coronavirus pandemic has caused a crisis “worse than 9/11” for the airline industry.
BA’s chief executive, Alex Cruz, said in a message to 45,000 employees entitled “The Survival of British Airways” that the airline would be “parking aircraft in a way we never have before” after the drop in demand was compounded by the shock US travel ban from Europe announced on Wednesday night. It came as the German media reported that the country’s flagship carrier, Lufthansa, might ground most of its fleet and ask for state aid in the wake of Donald Trump’s surprise move.
Fewer visitors mean less food for troops of wild monkeys at Prang Sam Yod
The coronavirus outbreak has left Thailand’s hotels empty, its tour guides without work and its markets unusually quiet. The country’s wildlife may also now be noticing the lack of visitors.
A video filmed this week in Lopburi, north-east of Bangkok, showed large crowds of monkeys brawling in the streets, apparently fighting over a yoghurt pot. Residents in the city, which is famed for its monkey population, say the fall in tourist numbers means there are far fewer people offering food.
Plans to close off Catalonia have been announced by the northeastern Spanish region’s president, Quim Torra, who called on the central government to help by authorising the closure of ports, airports and railways.
The evolution of the contagion calls for most drastic action. We need to restrict entry and exit to protect ourselves.
In Europe, Hungary is closing all schools and will continue education as best as it can via digital channels, its prime minister Viktor Orbán has said.
In a Facebook video, he said he expected the Hungarian economy to stall soon and it will have to be restarted; an effort the government will participate in.