Italy quarantines north in drastic bid to slow virus spread
ROME — Italy took a page from China’s playbook Sunday, attempting to lock down 16 million people — more than a quarter of its population — for nearly a month to halt the relentless march of the new coronavirus across Europe.
Weddings and museums, movie theaters and shopping malls are all affected by the new restrictions, which focus on a swath of northern Italy but are disrupting daily life around the country. Confusion reigned after the quarantine was announced, with residents and tourists from Venice to Milan trying to figure out how and when the new measures would be put into practice. Travelers crammed aboard standing-room-only trains, tucking their faces into scarves and sharing sanitizing gel.
After mass testing uncovered more than 7,300 infections, Italy now has registered more cases of the virus than any country but China, where the disease is in retreat. The death toll in the country rose to 366.
Around the globe, more and more events were canceled or hidden behind closed doors, from the pope’s Sunday service to a Formula One car race in Bahrain to a sumo competition in Japan, where wrestlers arrived at the arena in face masks and were required to use hand sanitizer before entering. In Saudi Arabia, officials announced all schools and universities would be closed starting Monday, following the lead of other Gulf countries. Questions grew about whether to maintain U.S. presidential campaign rallies and other potential “super-spreading” gatherings, as the virus enters new states.
Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte signed a quarantine decree early Sunday for the country’s prosperous north. Areas under lockdown include Milan, Italy’s financial hub and the main city in Lombardy, and Venice, the main city in the neighboring Veneto region. The extraordinary measures will be in place until April 3.
Oil plunges 20% as another virus-fueled trading week begins
NEW YORK — Oil prices are plunging as a dispute among producers could lead a global economy weakened by COVID-19 to be awash in an oversupply of crude.
Brent crude, the international standard, lost $9.50, or 20.1%, to $35.77 per barrel, as of 7:58 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday after earlier touching its lowest price since 2016. Benchmark U.S. crude fell $8.64 to $32.64.
The dramatic losses follow a 10.1% drop for U.S. oil on Friday, which was its biggest loss in more than five years. Prices are falling as Saudi Arabia, Russia and other oil-producing countries argue how much to cut production in order to prop up prices.
Demand for energy is falling as people cut back on travel around the world. The worry is that the new coronavirus will slow economies sharply, meaning even less demand.
Stephen Innes, chief markets strategist at AxiCorp, called reports that Saudi Arabia could increase its oil production in order to gain market share a “shock-and-awe” strategy.
Anxiety grips companies across the world as virus spreads
WASHINGTON — Since breaking out of China, the coronavirus has breached the walls of the Vatican. It’s struck the Iranian holy city of Qom and contaminated a nursing home in Seattle.
And around the world, it’s carrying not just sickness and death but also the anxiety and paralysis that can smother economic growth.
From Florida, where the CEO of a toy maker who can’t get products from Chinese factories is preparing layoffs, to Hong Kong, where the palatial Jumbo Kingdom restaurant is closed, businesses are struggling. The virus has grounded a British airline, and it’s sunk a Japanese cruise-ship company.
The cumulative damage is mounting.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development this week slashed its forecast for global growth for this year to 2.4% from 2.9%. It warned that Japan and the 19 European countries that share the euro currency are in danger of recession. Italy may already be there.
Nursing homes face unique challenge with coronavirus
MIAMI — From Miami to Seattle, nursing homes and other facilities for the elderly are stockpiling masks and thermometers, preparing for staff shortages and screening visitors to protect a particularly vulnerable population from the coronavirus.
In China, where the outbreak began, the disease has been substantially deadlier for the elderly. In Italy, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in Europe, the more than 100 people who died were either elderly, sick with other complications, or both.
Of the 21 deaths across the U.S. as of Sunday, at least 16 had been linked to a Seattle-area nursing home, along with many other infections among residents, staff and family members. The Seattle Times reported that a second nursing home and a retirement community in the area had each reported one case of the virus.
That has put other facilities in the U.S. on high alert, especially in states with large populations of older residents, such as Florida and California. About 2.5 million people live in long-term care facilities in the United States.
“For people over the age of 80 … the mortality rate could be as high as 15 percent,” said Mark Parkinson, president of the nursing home trade group American Health Care Association.
Despite virus risk, 2020 hopefuls keep up campaigns for now
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — As the coronavirus hits more states, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said Sunday his campaign is gauging when it may become necessary to cancel the large campaign rallies that public health experts say could be breeding grounds to spread the potentially deadly illness.
“Obviously what is most important to us is to protect the health of the American people,” Sanders said as he appeared in a series of TV interviews. “And what I will tell you, we are talking to public health officials all over this country.”
“This is an issue that every organization, every candidate has got to deal with,” he said.
Federal health authorities have been advising older people and those with medical conditions, in particular, to avoid crowded spaces, prompting the cancellation of music and arts festivals and other events around the country. On Sunday, Surgeon General Jerome Adams noted that the average age of death for people from the coronavirus is 80, while for those needing medical attention, it is 60.
But that so far hasn’t led President Donald Trump or his two remaining major Democratic rivals, Sanders and Joe Biden, to cut back on big campaign events. Each man is in his 70s.
Targets of crackdown in China fear government’s reach in US
WASHINGTON — The photo of his father was barely recognizable. The old man looked unusually pale and tired, and his customary beard was shaved off. The son who received the photo over WhatsApp was immediately suspicious.
He hadn’t heard from his family in western China for two years while he studied at a U.S. university.
His family are Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group that has become the target of a massive crackdown in China. Since 2017, more than 1 million people have been confined to internment camps and many more are monitored in their own homes.
Why would he get this message now? And why would it come over WhatsApp? The messaging platform is censored for ordinary people in China, but often is used by authorities.
No words accompanied the photo, but he interpreted it as a kind of warning.
N. Korea fires weapons after threatening ‘momentous’ action
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired three unidentified projectiles off its east coast on Monday, South Korea’s military said, two days after the North threatened to take “momentous” action to protest outside condemnation over its earlier live-fire exercises.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement it detected the three launches made from an eastern coastal town in the North’s South Hamgyong province. It said South Korea’s military is monitoring North Korea for possible additional launches.
In the past 10 days, North Korea has said leader Kim Jong Un supervised two rounds of live-fire artillery exercises in its first weapons tests since late November. Kim had entered the new year with a vow to bolster his nuclear deterrent and not to be bound by a major weapons test moratorium amid a deadlock in a U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at convincing Kim to abandon his nuclear program in return for economic and political benefits.
South Korea and some European countries protested against the second North Korea drills, which they believe involved ballistic missile launches in a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
North Korea has lashed out at the outside criticism, saying it has the right to conduct military drills in the face of U.S. and South Korean forces on its doorstep.
Nashville church worships in the rubble after deadly tornado
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Bobbie Harris, 79, lost her rental home, her job and her church when a deadly tornado struck her community in North Nashville. But all she could think about was her blessings.
“Through it all, God is good,” Harris said.
Harris joined other members of Mount Bethel Missionary Baptist Church on Sunday to worship just outside the ruins of the church, which has been in the community for 135 years. The roofs of their two church buildings are gone, ripped away by strong winds early Tuesday.
The church pitched a tent in the parking lot and the congregants gathered to sing, pray and hold hands in what the church called “worship in the rubble.” Even contractors who were busily trying to replace downed power lines paused and took off their hard hats as Pastor Jacques Boyd led the congregation in prayer on the sunny, windy morning.
The National Weather Service has said at least six tornadoes hit middle Tennessee during last week’s storms that killed 24 people and caused massive damage in parts of Middle Tennessee.