The virus sweeps the globe, with cases in at least 47 countries.
The
fight to contain the coronavirus entered a new and potentially alarming
phase on Thursday as public health officials in the United States and
Germany grappled with patients who exhibited no known connection to
others with the illness.
That raised
the possibility that the virus could have begun to spread locally by an
unknown means, or that infected people had spread the illness to others
sequentially, making it virtually impossible for the authorities to find
and isolate the origin
Either way, the two cases, thousands of
miles apart, underscored how quickly the virus was making its way around
the globe after first emerging in China late last year, and how
difficult it was proving to contain.
“We
have before us a crisis, an epidemic that is coming, we know that
certain countries are already much more affected than us,” President
Emmanuel Macron of France said on Thursday. “We are going to have to
confront it as best we can, even as life goes on
As the number of cases in Japan has steadily risen, the government took the extreme step of closing all schools through March in an effort to combat the outbreak.
President Trump announced that Vice President Mike Pence would lead the American effort to combat the virus, while maps tracking new cases continued to light up in countries around the globe.
During the news conference, the Trump administration continued to send mixed messages about the virus, with public health officials warning of potentially “major disruptions,” while President Trump blamed Democrats and cable news channels for overstating the threat
President Trump announced that Vice President Mike Pence would lead the American effort to combat the virus, while maps tracking new cases continued to light up in countries around the globe.
During the news conference, the Trump administration continued to send mixed messages about the virus, with public health officials warning of potentially “major disruptions,” while President Trump blamed Democrats and cable news channels for overstating the threat
Financial markets, whose performance Mr. Trump has used as a benchmark for his presidency, continued their weeklong declines.
In
Europe, Denmark, Estonia, Norway and Romania all reported their first
cases, while several other countries registered new infections that
illustrated the diverse ways the pathogen could cross borders.
Two new cases in Britain, for instance, were linked to Italy and to Tenerife in the Canary Islands of Spain.
While
the spread of the virus from northern Italy has been taking place for
some time, the spread from Tenerife — where a hotel visited by an
Italian doctor who tested positive for the virus remains locked down —
would be a first.
In the Middle East, concerns were building about the extent and
what it did broadcast seemed sketchy and
unreliable. The government said on Thursday that 245 people had been
infected and that 26 had died. But given a mortality rate that experts
have put at around 2 percent, the death toll would suggest that at least
1,100 people had contracted the virus.Perhaps
a better indication of the government’s concern was the decision to
cancel Friday Prayers, a cornerstone ritual of the Islamic Republic
.
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