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U.S. Economy Heads Into 2020 With Steady Growth -- 2nd Update | By Harriet Torry
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. economy headed into 2020 on a solid footing, with growth settling back to the roughly 2% pace that has prevailed during the decade-old economic expansion.
Gross domestic product -- the value of all goods and services produced across the economy -- grew 2.3% last year, after rising at a seasonally and inflation-adjusted annual rate of 2.1% in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
Year-over-year growth of 2.3% was the slowest pace since 2016, but in line with the average pace that has marked the expansion that began in mid-2009.
The economy was buffeted last year by the U.S.-China trade dispute and a slowing global economy, but was buoyed by a strong domestic labor market that fueled consumer spending and optimism.
Many economists expect the U.S. economy to grow at about the same pace in 2020, given the recent trade truce between the U.S. and China, forecasts for a rebound in global growth, low interest rates and upbeat American consumers.
Despite the hit to business investment from the trade war, `` behind the scenes, we actually saw the consumer side looking pretty solid, '' said Brian Coulton, chief economist at Fitch Ratings.
The economy's expansion last quarter reflected a boost from trade as exports increased and imports dropped sharply, amid slower U.S. household spending and higher tariffs on imports from China.
Consumer spending rose at a 1.8% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2019 from a 3.2% pace the prior quarter, and business investment dropped for the third quarter in a row, while residential investment picked up.
`` Big picture, the headline growth was solid but masking some weakness '' in domestic demand, said Jeremy Schwartz, an economist at Credit Suisse, citing slowing consumer spending and trade volatility.
The Federal Reserve left its benchmark interest rate unchanged on Wednesday, maintaining its make-no-move posture, after cutting rates three times in the second half of 2019. The Fed expects moderate economic growth to continue, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday.
Potential negatives for the economy remain on the horizon.
Boeing Co. halted production of its troubled 737 MAX aircraft this month, a blow to U.S. manufacturing. Slowing growth in China and a coronavirus outbreak that originated there could also pose a risk to the global economic pickup many analysts expect for this year.
U.S. stocks edged lower amid fears of a slowdown in global growth. Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes also fell below yields on three-month Treasury bills on Thursday. This dynamic is known as an inverted yield curve, a condition that has preceded many recessions. It occurred at several points last year until the Fed cut short-term interest rates and started purchasing short-term Treasury bills.
Still, the U.S. is reaping the benefits of low unemployment and rising incomes. That is fueling high consumer confidence and continued, if slower, household spending.
MarkAnthoney Gildersleeve recently bought a new moped to commute to work. The 33-year-old said he feels `` really good '' about the economy because he has a good job as a mechanic in Washington, D.C. `` I 'm able to pay bills on time and enjoy my life, '' he said.
Businesses remained wary in the fourth quarter. A key measure of business spending -- nonresidential fixed investment, reflecting spending on commercial construction, equipment and intellectual property products like software -- dropped for the third quarter in a row.
`` The case for an upside surprise to growth in 2020 relies heavily on renewed business investment in the wake of the Phase One trade deal '' between China and the U.S., said Eric Winograd, an economist at investment-management firm AllianceBernstein.
Companies sensitive to trade disputes say uncertainty over tariffs remains a worry.
`` The uncertainty of what's going to happen, it's very difficult to plan the future, '' said Phil Marfuggi, chief executive of The Ambrolia Company Inc., which imports cheese largely from Italy.
The West Caldwell, N.J.-based company has put the brakes on hiring and executives ' travel spending because of the uncertainty. It also halted plans for a new facility for cutting, wrapping and grating cheese due to the U.S. move in October to impose 25% tariffs on food products, among other goods, from the European Union.
Two volatile categories, trade and inventories, had an outsize impact on fourth-quarter growth. Overall private-sector inventories subtracted 1.1 percentage point from the fourth quarter's growth rate. A decline in retail inventories, notably at motor-vehicle dealers, came as the United Auto Workers union nationwide strike at General Motors Co. ran through most of October.
Meantime, net exports added 1.48 percentage point to the quarter's 2.1% growth rate, the largest contribution since the second quarter of 2009. Exports rose at a 1.4% annual rate and imports dropped at an 8.7% pace.
The current expansion became the longest on record in July and it is now midway through its 11th year. The average pace of growth hovered just above 2%, slower than the 2.9% rate during the 2001-2007 expansion and the 3.6% rate from early 1991-2001.
The $ 1.5 trillion tax cut passed by Congress in late 2017 was part of President Trump's plan to boost economic growth to the above-3% annual growth rate that marked previous robust expansions, but that outcome hasn't materialized.
Full-year growth fell slightly short of that level in 2018, immediately after the tax cut passed. The 2.3% year-over-year growth in 2019 was well below the 3.1% level that the White House projected.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers on Thursday said the global slowdown, trade, the Fed's interest-rate policies, Boeing's production issues and the GM strike were among factors that held back U.S. growth. It said the recently signed trade deal with China and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement should reduce uncertainty, which, combined with growth in consumer spending and residential investment `` provide reason to expect that the economy has further room to expand in 2020. ''
Nick Timiraos contributed to this article.
Write to Harriet Torry at harriet.torry @ wsj.com
| business |
Hong Kong unions threaten strikes in push for border closure to curb virus | While Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has ordered the suspension of the high-speed rail service between the city and mainland China from midnight on Thursday and all cross-border ferry services, the unions said it was not enough.
`` Front-line colleagues are in a panic as they are exposed to high risk of getting the virus while at work, '' said Railway Power, which represents about 500 workers from metro operator MTR Corp.
The Hospital Authority Employees Alliance ( HAEA) said it welcomed the steps the government had taken but wanted it to close the entire border and would meet on Saturday to discuss what more action it could take.
`` There is still a considerable distance from our goal of full-scale preventive measures of infection control, '' the union said in a statement.
Chris Cheung, treasurer of the HAEA, which has more than 18,000 members, said many of them planned to begin phased strike action next week unless their demands were met.
The former British colony has confirmed 10 cases of the coronavirus, with one person in critical condition. The epicentre of the outbreak is the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where it is believed to have jumped to humans from an animal in an illegal wildlife market.
The health scare comes after months of at times violent anti-government protests in Hong Kong sparked by fears its autonomy, guaranteed under a `` one country, two systems '' formula, is being eroded by Beijing.
Protesters frustrated by the city government's refusal to make concessions on demands for full democracy have in recent months formed about 40 unions as a way to press their campaign and at least a dozen of them have come out in support of the HAEA's proposed strike.
Lam has said it is `` inappropriate and impractical '' to close the entire border.
The threat of strike action comes as Hong Kong residents have been scouring shops for face masks and joining long queues as supplies dwindle.
Berry So, a waiter, said he had queued up from 2 a.m. outside one shop.
`` I 've been waiting six to seven hours, '' said So, who failed to get a mask.
China's National Health Commission said on Thursday the total number of confirmed deaths from the coronavirus in the country climbed to 170, as the number of infected patients rose to 7,711.
( Reporting By Sarah Wu, Joseph, Campbell and Jessie Pang; Writing by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Robert Birsel) | business |
Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Tesla, Penn, Facebook, Microsoft | Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading on Thursday:
Tesla — Shares of Elon Musk's automaker jumped 10.3% after Tesla handily beat analyst estimates for its fourth-quarter earnings. Tesla delivered a profit for the second consecutive quarter and said it expects positive cash flow and net income on a continuing basis going forward. On the company's conference call with shareholders, Musk said Tesla does not expect to raise capital any time soon, instead focusing on lowering costs such as producing batteries.
Penn National Gaming – The casinos company's stock rose 6.4%, furthering gains made since Penn announced it was taking a 36% stake in digital sports media company Barstool Sports. Penn plans to launch a Barstool Sportsbook brand, while Barstool will promote Penn's casinos and interactive offerings.
Facebook — Shares of the social media giant tanked 6.1% on investor worries about slower revenue growth and increased expenses. Facebook reported full-year 2019 costs and expenses grew 51% year-over-year. Facebook also reported revenue growth of 24.7%, the fourth straight quarter that the company delivered less than 30% growth in that category.
Coca-Cola — Shares of the beverage giant jumped 3.3% after reporting strong quarterly earnings. Coca-Cola's revenue came in at $ 9.085 billion, topping the forecast $ 8.888 billion. Earnings per share were in line with estimates at 44 cents. The bright spot for the beverage company was worldwide organic revenue growth of 7%, compared to the estimate of 4.8% growth, according to Refinitiv. Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey told CNBC the Coke brand and Coke coffee are driving growth.
Hershey — Hershey's stock gained 4.6% after the candy maker posted fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that topped analyst estimates. The company reported a profit of $ 1.28 per share on sales of $ 2.07 billion. Analysts expected a profit of $ 1.24 per share on revenue of $ 2.06 billion, according to Refinitiv. The beat was driven by international revenue growth of 6.3%.
Microsoft — Shares climbed 2.8% on the back of quarterly results that beat analyst expectations. The tech giant posted a profit of $ 1.51 per share on revenue of $ 36.91 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv expected earnings per share of $ 1.32 per share on revenue of $ 35.68 billion. Azure, Microsoft's cloud business, saw growth of 62% in the quarter.
DuPont du Nemours — Shares fell 8.6% after the company missed analyst estimates for fourth quarter revenue. DuPont's earnings per share came in at 95 cents, which was in-line with Street consensus, but the $ 5.20 billion in revenue was below the $ 5.22 billion the Street had been expecting, according to FactSet. The company also issued guidance that fell short of expectations.
United Parcel Service — Shares of the shipping company dropped 6.7% after the company reported fourth quarter results. EPS came in at $ 2.11, which was in-line with Street estimates compiled by FactSet. Revenue, however, came up short, and the company's full-year earnings guidance was also light.
Spirit AeroSystems — Shares of Spirit AeroSystems dropped 3.8% after the aerospace company announced a slow schedule for resuming Boeing 737 Max production. The company said in a statement that will ramp up deliveries throughout the year to reach a total of 216 Max shipsets to Boeing. Spirit also said it doesn't expect to achieve a production rate of 52 shipsets per month until late 2022.
Carnival Corp. — Shares of the cruise line fell 3.8% after a Carnival-owned cruise ship in Italy was placed on lockdown over coronavirus fears. About 6,000 tourists are being held on the ship, as a `` sanitary protocol '' has been activated due to concerns about the health of a Chinese woman on board. | business |
Coronavirus: Italian cruise ship containing 6,000 tourists in lockdown | A passenger on board a cruise ship in Italy has been diagnosed with the common flu, Italian operator Costa Cruises said in a late Thursday statement.
Earlier, some 6,000 tourists were held on the cruise ship over fears that the ill passenger could be infected with the coronavirus.
`` Sanitary protocol '' had been activated amid concerns over the health of an individual traveling on the ship operated by Costa Cruises. The ship reached the Italian port of Civitavecchia on Thursday morning, where it had sailed from Palma in the Spanish island of Mallorca.
`` While we appreciate the inconvenience caused, the procedures in force and our cooperation with the Health Authorities were effective in managing this situation and were intended to ensure maximum safety for all our guests, crew and the community as a whole, '' Costa Cruises said in its statement announcing that the passenger had the common flu.
The cruise operator had previously confirmed to CNBC that medics onboard had been alerted to a suspected case of the virus in a 54-year-old Chinese woman, who had been kept in isolation alongside her travel companion since Wednesday evening.
Late Thursday, Italy's ministry of health said that the cruise ship samples were negative.
According to The Associated Press, health officials screened 6,000 passengers and 1,000 crew members aboard the ship, and all were being prevented from leaving until the type of virus infecting the woman was determined.
The cruise ship, the Costa Smeralda, had a seven-day itinerary with several stops planned in ports across the West Mediterranean. Costa Cruises said the ship will remain in Civitavecchia until Friday before departing for Savona and resuming its program.
The cruise ship incident comes as more than 9,000 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide, with more than 200 deaths reported by Chinese authorities.
The vast majority of those cases have been in mainland China. More than 100 cases have been confirmed outside of China, with the virus reported to have reached a number of countries including the United States, Japan and India. | business |
Remy Cointreau: Diageo tempers sales growth expectations amid trade uncertainties | The maker of Johnnie Walker Scotch whisky, Smirnoff vodka and Guinness stout said it expected annual underlying net sales growth to come in towards the lower end of its 4 to 6% mid-term guidance range, amid rising global trade uncertainty.
The company highlighted volatility in India, Latin America and the Caribbean and said it saw reduced inventory levels and lower passenger traffic including through Hong Kong in its travel retail arm.
Chinese-ruled Hong Kong is in the throes of anti-government protests.
Diageo, which sells 200 brands in 180 countries, also said operating profit rose 0.5% to 2.44 billion pounds ( $ 3.21 billion) in the six months ended Dec. 31.
`` There is ongoing uncertainty in the global trade environment and we would not be immune from further policy changes, '' Chief Executive Officer Ivan Menezes said.
Diageo has faced pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump's use of tariffs as a weapon in trade conflicts after the United States slapped a 25% tariff on scotch whisky and other European products.
Scotch represents 26% of Diageo's net sales, with global performance flat in the first half, the company said.
It reported, however, a 24% rise in net sales from the Greater China region, driven by strong performance in both Chinese white spirits and scotch.
CHINA FEARS
Diageo has been streamlining its portfolio in recent years to improve performance and trying to bulk up on more premium as well as trendier brands. It has looked to focus on the emerging markets of China and India.
Many global companies from hotels and airlines to industrial houses are set to face billions of dollars in losses for disruptions caused by a new coronavirus in China.
French-based spirits maker Remy Cointreau last week warned over the potential impact of the virus outbreak on demand for its premium cognac in China.
`` It's way too early to determine the impact it's ( coronavirus) going to have on our business. China is not one of our largest markets... but it's something that we're watching very closely, '' Chief Financial Officer Kathryn Mikells said.
The company has issued travel guidance to its employees, she added.
Diageo's shares were little changed at 3,121.5 pence.
By Tanishaa Nadkar and Noor Zainab Hussain | business |
Coronavirus Triggers Damage Control From Governments, Companies | By Erin Mendell
HONG KONG -- Government officials and corporate executives around the world are scrambling to limit the damage from the fast-spreading coronavirus as Russia tightened its border with China and the U.S. announced plans for a second evacuation of the Chinese city at the center of the epidemic.
In response to the virus, companies including Tesla Inc. and IKEA were forced to temporarily halt operations in China.
The moves came as two more countries -- India and the Philippines -- confirmed their first infections, bringing the total number of affected countries to nearly 20, as the total number of confirmed cases approached 8,000.
India said a student from Wuhan University tested positive for the virus while visiting the southern state of Kerala and was in isolation at a local hospital. The Philippines said Thursday it recorded its first confirmed coronavirus case, a 38-year-old Chinese woman who arrived in the country on Jan. 21 from Wuhan.
Moscow, meanwhile, said that it will temporarily restrict passage through 16 road, rail and river checkpoints along its 2,670-mile-long border with China, starting Friday. Though Russia's national carrier Aeroflot hasn't stopped flying to China, smaller Russian airlines have canceled flights into China from the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok.
A number of countries pushed ahead with efforts to extract their citizens from central China.
The State Department on Thursday said it is planning a second evacuation flight from Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the newly identified coronavirus first emerged last month, offering hope for the hundreds of American citizens still believed to be in the city.
The Indian government is seeking permission from Chinese authorities to operate two flights to repatriate citizens from Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, and will quarantine them for 14 days.
In Japan, controversy erupted Wednesday after two people on a government-chartered evacuation flight from Wuhan to Tokyo refused to be tested for the new coronavirus. Some on social media wondered why the Japanese government didn't quarantine evacuated citizens the way other countries had.
`` This is unforgivable, '' wrote one Twitter user. `` No more charter flights! ''
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Parliament Thursday that while the government had pushed for all 206 passengers on the Wednesday flight to be tested, it had no legal power to compel them. Three people on the flight tested positive for the virus, including two without symptoms, according to the health ministry. The two who refused testing didn't show any symptoms and health-ministry staff drove them home in a regular car, health ministry official Takuma Kato said.
A second charter flight to evacuate Japanese citizens from Wuhan arrived in Tokyo on Thursday, and Mr. Kato said all 210 people who returned on that flight had agreed to be screened.
Meanwhile, immigration officials in Hong Kong scoured the city for visitors from Hubei, finding 15 on Wednesday night during searches of 110 hotels, according to Lam Shuk-yee, deputy secretary for security of the Chinese territory on Thursday.
Ms. Lam said 1,600 people from the province had been turned away at the Hong Kong border since the ban.
On the corporate front, big multinational companies moved to temporarily shut down their China operations as workers remained largely in place, with the Lunar New Year holiday extended through the end of the week and transportation links largely curtailed.
Tesla Chief Financial Officer Zach Kirkhorn said Wednesday that the company was halting production at its new Shanghai Gigafactory to comply with a local-government order to extend China's Lunar New Year holiday, which Mr. Kirkhorn said could affect the company's first-quarter performance.
All 30 IKEA outlets in mainland China were closed until further notice, the Swedish furniture giant said Thursday.
Air France -- part of Air France-KLM -- joined the list of airlines cutting service to China. The French carrier said it will suspend all scheduled flights to and from the mainland until Feb. 9 and would operate special flights starting Friday to and from Shanghai and Beijing using volunteer crew members to enable customers and employees to depart safely.
China's national women's soccer team is being held in quarantine in a hotel in the Australian city of Brisbane until Feb. 5, health authorities for the northwestern state of Queensland said Thursday. The 32-member team had traveled to Australia to compete in a qualifying tournament for this summer's Olympics in Tokyo.
The tournament was originally scheduled to be held in Wuhan but was moved to Sydney after the outbreak. The team had departed Wuhan Jan. 22, before the city was locked down, said the Chinese Football Association, which said it also planned to suspend soccer competitions nationwide starting Thursday.
Closer to the outbreak's center, the education department of Wuhan's home province of Hubei encouraged middle and primary schools to move classes online to ensure students keep up with their studies even with the Lunar New Year holidays extended indefinitely.
`` The semester is delayed, but study shouldn't be, '' read a slogan included with the recommendation by the department, which separately encouraged local universities to move academic activities online.
The province also opened a new helpline on Thursday for people struggling with the psychological toll of the outbreak, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday, citing local officials.
In Chongqing, a southwestern megacity that borders Hubei, pharmacies are now required to report the names of people who buy medication for symptoms like fever and cough, part of an effort to track people who might have coronavirus symptoms, state broadcaster China Central Television reported Thursday. The city of more than 30 million people had 165 confirmed cases of the coronavirus as of midnight Wednesday and is closely connected to Wuhan by road and rail.
In a sign of mounting pressures on medical staff in affected cities, the head of the infectious diseases division at Shanghai's Huashan Hospital declared that all the doctors who had been treating coronavirus patients would be allowed to rest and would be replaced by doctors who were Chinese Communist Party members.
`` We can't bully those who are more obedient, '' Zhang Wenhong said, describing the early responders as heroic. `` So I 've decided to change the shift. It will all be Party members from now on. ''
In words tinged with exhaustion and frustration, Mr. Zhang, who is also the senior party leader of his division, said Communist Party members needed to live up to their vows to serve the people. `` I don't care whether or not you're willing, you're all going to step up, '' he said.
-- Miho Inada, Yijun Yin, Ann Simmons, Lekai Liu, Eva Dou, Kersten Zhang, Wenxin Fan, Raffaele Huang, Reddy Zhao, and Rajesh Roy contributed to this article.
Write to Erin Mendell at erin.mendell @ wsj.com
| business |
How do you contain a global epidemic such as coronavirus? | “ MADE IN CHINA ” is a label the country’ s government would prefer to be associated with slick technology. Its trending export at present, however, is 2019-nCoV, the new coronavirus that struck in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December. The virus has now spread to at least 16 countries. As The Economist went to press, the World Health Organisation ( WHO) and China had confirmed almost 7,800 infections and 170 deaths, almost all in China.
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When a new infectious disease begins to spread, decisions on how to stop it are based on patchy data that change by the hour. This is “ the fog of war ” phase, says David Heymann of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Health officials have to make decisions quickly and with uncertain information, says Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust, a charity.
They must first determine the deadliness of new viruses. The first cases diagnosed are usually among the worst because those people are ill enough to go to hospital. Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that commonly causes nothing more than mild flu-like symptoms. But the first recorded cases were mostly mothers who contracted the infection during pregnancy and whose babies were born with brain damage as a result. As health officials start actively trying to identify infected people, milder cases are added to the total.
As a result, early estimates tend to overstate the danger of new diseases. That is happening now with the Wuhan virus. At the end of January, reported deaths represent about 2% of confirmed infections. Around 20% of those reported to be infected become severely ill, suffering from pneumonia and respiratory failure. But modelling by Gabriel Leung and Joseph Wu at the University of Hong Kong suggests as of January 25th that the number of infections in Wuhan was closer to 44,000 ( with a range of 20,000-78,000). Most of those infections will be mild, so the death rate for the virus could be as low as 0.1% —no deadlier than the common flu in America.
Officials must then gauge how contagious a new virus is. As growing numbers arrive in hospitals, patterns emerge. If it turns out that most of the newly infected people are health-care workers and relatives of the sick, that would probably mean that the virus is transmitted through close rather than casual contact, so stemming its spread should be easier. Experts must next determine how it is passed from person to person. The common cold spreads through virus-laden droplets from coughs and sneezes that travel only a few metres. Influenza and measles are far more contagious because they ride on airborne particles—so a sneeze can infect an entire room.
It is not yet clear how the Wuhan virus is transmitted. The WHO thinks that, like the one that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS), it hitches a ride on droplets. It is also unclear how often those who are infected but show no symptoms can spread the virus to others. Some infections in China and Germany seem to have been the result of this kind of transmission. If so, contagious people could be unknowingly infecting others for days. Both SARS and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome ( MERS), another lethal coronavirus, had “ superspreaders ” —patients with unusually high viral loads, who are exceptionally infectious. In South Korea in 2015 a patient with MERS infected 81 people during a 58-hour stay at a hospital emergency room.
The threat of a global pandemic will put to the test the preparedness plans that countries and big cities have in place. These feature a worst-case scenario, usually the arrival from abroad of a hypothetical strain of influenza that is both very deadly and highly contagious—a rare combination of features that set apart the Spanish flu which swept the world in 1918, killing 20m-50m people.
City authorities and hospitals routinely carry out drills to test their readiness for such a scenario. In some cases officials huddle in a conference room and plan what they would do. On January 24th New York City’ s top officials held such a drill for the Wuhan virus. In other exercises, doctors and health officials don protective gear and get out on the streets to practise their response. To test its system, New York City routinely uses “ mystery patients ” who show up at hospitals pretending to have symptoms of “ notifiable diseases ” that doctors are supposed to report to public-health departments.
When an outbreak starts to cross borders, as is now happening with the Wuhan virus, the knee-jerk reaction is to set up airport health-checks for passengers arriving from outbreak hotspots. But many health experts think such tests are a waste of time and money. In Canada, screening for SARS at airports in 2003 detected no instances of the disease; that year SARS killed 774 people, including 44 in Canada.
The theatrics of airport checks suit politicians, who are anxious to be seen to be responding to worried citizens. It is more useful to the public to provide those arriving at airports with information explaining what to do if they develop symptoms, says Agoritsa Baka of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Efforts are better spent boosting infection-prevention measures at hospitals, says Ms Baka. Health workers are often among the first to be infected by a new virus, which they pick up from patients. They then pass it on to their families and other patients. In the global SARS outbreak in 2002-03 about a third of those infected were health workers.
The best way to nip an outbreak in the bud is for disease detectives to locate those infected. The goal is to prevent them from passing the virus to others, by isolating them in hospitals and at home. Most countries ask people to quarantine themselves voluntarily. Some will demand court orders to enforce such rules if people rebel.
When an outbreak grows from a few clusters of cases into an epidemic, cities may go further in their efforts to keep people apart. Japan and some European countries close schools for short periods if flu seasons look as though they will be particularly bad. In 2009 Mexico City shut down bars, cinemas, churches and football stadiums for 13 days to try to stop the spread of swine flu.
Locking down large areas, as China is currently doing with the entire province of Hubei, with a population of nearly 60m, is untested in modern times. Such efforts can backfire. One lesson from the Ebola outbreaks in west Africa is that if those under quarantine are not cared for and do not feel that the suffering they are enduring for the common good is respected, they will try to evade the quarantine, says Jeremy Konyndyk of the Centre for Global Development, a think-tank in Washington. That makes matters worse because in an outbreak it is crucial to know who is infected, where they have been and where they are going. A heavy-handed attempt to quarantine West Point, a settlement of 70,000 people in Monrovia, Liberia’ s capital, during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 was abandoned after residents responded with riots. By contrast, a similar but well-organised quarantine in Sierra Leone, in which traditional leaders were brought on board first, did not meet resistance.
If China’ s drastic measures help delay epidemics of the Wuhan virus in other countries by a few months, that could make a huge difference, says Dr Farrar. Hospitals in Europe and America will be better placed to handle a surge of infections in late spring, compared with February when they are overwhelmed by the peak in cases of the seasonal flu. Such a delay could also be crucial for testing a vaccine for the Wuhan virus. Several are already in the works in China, America and Australia. Dr Farrar reckons a vaccine could be ready for clinical trials in 6-12 months.
When it is clear that an epidemic can not be controlled, authorities go into mitigation mode. That involves setting up places to care for patients when hospitals overflow, and systems to identify which patients should be treated first when medical supplies run short. But few countries put such measures in place in advance. China is frantically building extra hospitals in Wuhan to accommodate the current surge in numbers of patients.
Sometimes no preparation can suffice. “ It will not be possible to halt the spread of a new pandemic influenza virus, and it would be a waste of public-health resources and capacity to attempt to do so, ” admits Britain’ s flu pandemic preparedness strategy. At that point, officials are left hoping for the best. ■
National leaders are promoting it. Local ones want to curb driving
National leaders are promoting it. Local ones want to curb driving
Published since September 1843 to take part in “ a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress. ”
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2021. All rights reserved. | business |
WHO Declares Coronavirus Outbreak a Global Public Health Emergency -- 2nd Update | By Brianna Abbott, Katie Camero and Erin Mendell
The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak in China a public health emergency of international concern Thursday as the first person-to-person transmission of the virus was reported in the U.S.
The WHO designation, pointing to an increase in the number of cases, indicates that international public-health authorities now consider the respiratory virus a significant threat beyond China, where it originated last month. The move could further heighten the global response to the outbreak.
The agency made the declaration after the second meeting of its emergency committee, which declined to do so twice last week. Since then, China, other governments and multinational businesses have taken emergency steps to limit the virus's spread, including halting some travel to China.
In the U.S., a sixth person tested positive for the infection in the first case of human-to-human transmission. The patient is the husband of a Chicago woman infected with the virus whose case was reported last week. She had recently traveled to Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus first emerged last month.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state officials emphasized that the overall risk for people in the U.S. and in Illinois remains low.
`` This person-to-person spread was between two very close contacts, a wife and husband, '' said Ngozi Ezike, the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. `` It is not spreading in the wider community. ''
Public-health authorities said the WHO designation helps mobilize resources to contain the virus's spread. The WHO's director-general can make recommendations to the international community, though they aren't legally binding.
WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said he was confident in China's capacity to control the outbreak, which has sickened more than 7,800 people and killed 170, mostly in the Hubei province in China surrounding Wuhan.
`` Let me be clear. This declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China, '' said Dr. Tedros. `` I have never in my life seen this kind of mobilization. ''
Since it gained the power, in 2005, to declare an international emergency, WHO had applied the designation to just five prior situations. The first was in 2009 in response to the H1N1 swine flu, followed by polio in 2014 and the Ebola and Zika virus outbreaks in 2016.
At least 15 other countries or territories have also reported a small number of coronavirus cases, with Finland, India and the Philippines now reporting cases in people who have traveled to Wuhan, according to WHO.
In response to the virus, Russia has tightened its border with China and the U.S. announced plans for a second evacuation of Americans from Wuhan. Companies including Tesla Inc. and IKEA temporarily halted operations in China.
The CDC has investigated 165 people for the virus, according to the numbers released Wednesday, and 68 have tested negative and been cleared. Over 90 cases are pending, and health authorities said that they expect additional cases.
The new Chicago patient lived with and was in consistent close contact with his wife. After returning to the U.S. on Jan. 13, she developed symptoms and was hospitalized in an isolated setting. Once her husband also started developing symptoms he was quickly taken to the hospital. The patient, who has underlying health issues, is in a stable condition, health authorities said.
`` It is clear that this virus is highly transmittable, and this assumption is based on the rapid rate of spread of this infection in China, '' said Eyal Leshem, director of the Institute for Travel and Tropical medicine at Sheba Medical Center in Israel.
`` When there is a public health uncertainty, you always want to slightly overreact to make sure that you don't miss a critical issue, '' said Dr. Leshem. `` Once you learn a little bit more about the risk and the effective steps, then you can scale back. ''
Health authorities believe the virus was spread while the first patient was symptomatic, rather than before.
Officials said the man, who is in his 60s, didn't attend any mass gatherings. There are currently 21 people under investigation in Illinois, Dr. Ezike said, and local and federal health authorities are working to monitor close contacts of the second Chicago patient.
`` This is a very serious public health situation, '' said Nancy Messonnier, the director for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC. `` We're trying to spark a balance in our response right now. ''
The CDC says that people who had recently traveled should be vigilant for symptoms and signs of the virus, which include fever, cough and shortness of breath.
President Trump during a speech in Michigan said the administration is working closely with China and sought to minimize fears about the virus in the U.S.
`` We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment, '' Mr. Trump said, adding a handful of victims are recuperating. `` We think it's going to have a very good ending for us. That I can assure you. ''
Members of a House of Representatives panel briefed by federal medical officials Thursday said that traditional means of stopping infection are still the best guard against the virus's spread. Members of the subcommittee said federal officials appear to have the situation in hand and that there isn't any need for a coronavirus `` czar, '' as occurred with the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa during the Obama administration.
Authorities in Russia, meanwhile, said they would temporarily restrict passage through 16 road, rail and river checkpoints along its 2,670-mile border with China. Though Russia's national carrier Aeroflot hasn't stopped flying to China smaller Russian airlines have canceled flights.
A number of countries have pushed ahead with efforts to extract their citizens from central China.
The State Department on Thursday said it is planning a second evacuation flight from Wuhan for the hundreds of American citizens still believed to be in the city.
The Indian government is seeking permission from Chinese authorities to operate two flights to repatriate citizens from Hubei province, and will quarantine them for 14 days.
In Japan, controversy erupted Wednesday after two people on a government-chartered evacuation flight from Wuhan to Tokyo refused to be tested for the new virus.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Parliament on Thursday that while the government had pushed for all 206 passengers on the flight to be tested, it had no legal power to compel them. Three people on the flight tested positive for the virus, including two without symptoms, according to the health ministry. The two who refused testing didn't show symptoms, health ministry official Takuma Kato said.
A second charter flight to evacuate Japanese citizens from Wuhan arrived in Tokyo on Thursday, and Mr. Kato said all 210 people aboard agreed to be screened.
Meanwhile, immigration officials in Hong Kong scoured the city for visitors from Hubei, finding 15 on Wednesday night during searches of 110 hotels, according to Lam Shuk-Yee, deputy secretary for security of the Chinese territory on Thursday. Ms. Lam said 1,600 people from the province had been turned away at the Hong Kong border since the ban.
On the corporate front, big multinational companies moved to temporarily shut down China operations as workers remained largely in place, with the Lunar New Year holiday extended through the end of the week and transportation links largely curtailed.
Tesla Chief Financial Officer Zach Kirkhorn said Wednesday that the company was halting production at its new Shanghai Gigafactory to comply with a local-government order to extend the Lunar New Year holiday, which Mr. Kirkhorn said could affect the company's first-quarter performance.
All 30 IKEA outlets in mainland China were closed until further notice, the Swedish furniture giant said Thursday.
Air France joined the list of airlines cutting service to China. The carrier said it would suspend all scheduled flights to and from the mainland until Feb. 9 and operate special flights starting Friday using volunteer crew to enable customers and employees to depart safely.
Italian authorities held 6,000 passengers and crew aboard a cruise ship at the port of Civitavecchia near Rome after a 54-year-old Chinese woman showed flulike symptoms. Health authorities late Thursday ruled out she was affected by coronavirus and passengers were allowed to disembark, according to a statement by Costa Crociere, the company operating the ship.
China's national women's soccer team is being held in quarantine in a hotel in the Australian city of Brisbane until Feb. 5, health authorities for the northwestern state of Queensland said Thursday. The 32-member team had traveled to Australia to compete in a qualifying tournament for this summer's Olympics in Tokyo.
The tournament was originally scheduled to be held in Wuhan but was moved to Sydney after the outbreak. The team had departed Wuhan Jan. 22, before the city was locked down, said the Chinese Football Association, which said it also planned to suspend soccer competitions nationwide starting Thursday.
In Chongqing, a southwestern China city of more than 30 million people that borders Hubei, pharmacies are now required to report the names of people who buy medication for symptoms such as fever and cough, part of an effort to track people who might have coronavirus symptoms, state broadcaster China Central Television reported Thursday. The city had 165 confirmed cases of the virus as of midnight Wednesday.
Write to Brianna Abbott at brianna.abbott @ wsj.com and Erin Mendell at erin.mendell @ wsj.com
| business |
Coronavirus: why China's strategy to contain the virus might work | On January 23, the authorities of Wuhan City, China, sealed off the motorways and shut down all public transport to stop the coronavirus outbreak from spreading. Shortly afterwards, at least ten other cities in China were under quarantine orders, most of them located in the areas surrounding Wuhan.
It sounds unbelievable to quarantine a city of 11 million people, but it may work because movement within and between cities in China relies heavily on public transport infrastructure. Major cities in China are well connected by airports, express railways, motorways and long-distance buses. Once the entry points of these transport routes are controlled and patrolled, people can not easily get out. The transport infrastructure is built by the state and over 90% funded by public money, so control remains in the hands of the authorities. The one-party government in China also helps to effectively implement such a strategy.
Another reason this containment strategy may work is that major Chinese cities are large and dense. Wuhan has an urban area of 1,528km2, which makes it extremely difficult for people to walk out of the city if they are not able to take public transport or travel on the motorways using private cars.
People who live on the periphery of the city may still be able to get out through small local road networks that mainly lead to villages or the countryside. As long as the major roads are closed off, they are not able to reach other major cities with a large, concentrated population and the quarantine remains effective.
The urbanisation process facilitated by the Chinese state results in big cities surrounded by smaller cities, towns and counties. This form of city cluster, known as megacity regions, are a recent phenomenon in China and their development has been driven by both political and economic factors. The Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta are the most well known megacity regions, holding enormous economic power and attracting labourers regionally and nationally.
Wuhan and its surrounding cities, towns and counties holds a similar status in central China thanks to its strategic location on the Yangtze River and national railway network. The local authority’ s Great Wuhan Economic Region plan is intended to promote Wuhan in efforts to become comparable to the aforementioned megacity regions.
Megacity regions are connected by transport routes and mostly developed around transport nodes, at both the regional and neighbourhood scales. This so-called transit-oriented development means that if the entry points of public transport are closed off in cities of the whole region, to a large extent, people are controlled in the region.
For more than three decades, Chinese urbanisation has seen large scale domestic migration. People from the countryside and smaller cities and towns move to big cities for more work opportunities and better education and healthcare. Chinese New Year is most important occasion when people return to their home towns to celebrate the festival with their families.
The coronavirus containment measures coincided with the national movement for the New Year celebration. This massive movement of people, if not controlled, would be a serious threat to containing the virus. People were advised against long-distance travel and the New Year holiday has been extended into February. These measures are to make sure movement within the country is restricted as much as possible. Workers will stay in their home cities as their returns are suspended.
The containment measures in Wuhan and other cities are likely to continue until further studies of the virus suggest other effective solutions. At the current moment, international travellers from China have all been checked at airports and some flights have been cancelled.
Cities nowadays rely on complex systems to operate. The concentration of labour and resources may enable efficiency but leaves them vulnerable to attacks. The outbreak put enormous pressure on Wuhan’ s healthcare system as people can only seek treatment in the city. A few high-ranked hospitals in Wuhan possess the best resources, but they can not cope with the healthcare demand from large groups at the same time. Two new hospitals are being built in Wuhan to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. They are expected to be completed on February 3rd and 5th respectively and provide 2,300 beds in total.
In the foreseeable future digital technologies and smart city measures may also play a role in dealing with pressure on health infrastructure by, for instance, reporting cases and coordinating the allocation of resources. Wuhan has a reputation for the active integration of smart technologies in urban management.
Although effective, sealing off an entire city or region should always be a last resort. It will surely have a negative social impact and damage the economy. | business |
U.S. Confirms First Person-to-Person Spread of Coronavirus -- Update | By Brianna Abbott, Katie Camero and Erin Mendell
The first case of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. has been confirmed in Chicago, according to state and federal health officials, as governments and corporations around the world are scrambling to limit the damage from the fast-spreading virus.
The patient, now the sixth confirmed in the U.S., is the husband of the Chicago patient reported last week who had recently traveled to Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus first emerged last month. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state officials emphasized that the overall risk for people in the U.S. and in Illinois remains low.
`` This person-to-person spread was between two very close contacts, a wife and husband, '' said Ngozi Ezike, the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. `` It is not spreading in the wider community. ''
Health authorities believe that the virus first emerged in December in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. So far, the virus has infected more than 7,800 people, and 170 have died, mostly in the Hubei province in China surrounding Wuhan.
At least 15 other countries or territories have also reported a small number of cases, with Finland, India and the Philippines now reporting cases in people with travel history to Wuhan, according to the World Health Organization.
In response to the virus, Russia has tightened its border with China and the U.S. announced plans for a second evacuation of Wuhan. Companies such as Tesla Inc. and IKEA were forced to temporarily halt operations in China.
The WHO emergency committee is currently in deliberation to determine whether to declare the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern after declining to do so last week. They are expected to make their decision later today.
The CDC has investigated 165 people for the virus, according to the numbers released Wednesday, and 68 have tested negative and been cleared. Over 90 cases are still pending, and health authorities said that they expect additional cases.
The new Chicago patient lived with and was in consistent close contact with his wife, who had recently traveled to Wuhan. After returning to the U.S. on Jan. 13, she later developed symptoms and was hospitalized in an isolated setting. Once the husband also started developing symptoms, he was quickly taken to the hospital. The patient, who has underlying health issues, is in a stable condition, health authorities say.
`` It is clear that this virus is highly transmittable, and this assumption is based on the rapid rate of spread of this infection in China, '' Eyal Leshem the director of the Institute for Travel and Tropical medicine at Sheba Medical Center in Israel. `` Compared with the other severe coronaviruses, this is probably a less severe infection. ''
`` When there is a public health uncertainty, you always want to slightly overreact to make sure that you don't miss a critical issue, '' said Dr. Leshem. `` Once you learn a little bit more about the risk and the effective steps, then you can scale back. ''
Health authorities also believe the virus was spread while the first patient was symptomatic, rather than before.
Officials said the man, who is in his 60s, didn't attend any mass gatherings. There are currently 21 people under investigation in the state of Illinois, Dr. Ezike said, and local and federal health authorities are working to reach out to and monitor close contacts of the second Chicago patient.
`` This is a very serious public health situation, '' said Nancy Messonnier, the Director for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC. `` We're trying to spark a balance in our response right now. ''
The CDC says that people who had recently traveled should be vigilant for symptoms and signs of the virus, which include fever, cough and shortness of breath.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said the risk coronavirus poses to Americans remains low and that he wasn't aware of government plans to cancel flights to and from China. He said the U.S. is taking `` all the precautions necessary and will continue to do so. ''
Members of a House of Representatives panel briefed by federal medical officials Thursday said that traditional means of stopping infection are still the best guard against the virus's spread.
Members of the subcommittee said federal officials appear to have the situation well in hand and that there isn't any need for a coronavirus `` czar, '' as occurred with the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa during the Obama administration.
Moscow, meanwhile, said that it will temporarily restrict passage through 16 road, rail and river checkpoints along its 2,670-mile-long border with China, starting Friday. Though Russia's national carrier Aeroflot hasn't stopped flying to China, smaller Russian airlines have canceled flights into China from Vladivostok.
A number of countries have pushed ahead with efforts to extract their citizens from central China.
The State Department on Thursday said it is planning a second evacuation flight from Wuhan, offering hope for the hundreds of American citizens still believed to be in the city.
The Indian government is seeking permission from Chinese authorities to operate two flights to repatriate citizens from Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, and will quarantine them for 14 days.
In Japan, controversy erupted Wednesday after two people on a government-chartered evacuation flight from Wuhan to Tokyo refused to be tested for the new coronavirus.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Parliament Thursday that while the government had pushed for all 206 passengers on the Wednesday flight to be tested, it had no legal power to compel them. Three people on the flight tested positive for the virus, including two without symptoms, according to the health ministry. The two who refused testing didn't show any symptoms and health-ministry staff drove them home in a regular car, health ministry official Takuma Kato said.
A second charter flight to evacuate Japanese citizens from Wuhan arrived in Tokyo on Thursday, and Mr. Kato said all 210 people who returned on that flight had agreed to be screened.
Meanwhile, immigration officials in Hong Kong scoured the city for visitors from Hubei, finding 15 on Wednesday night during searches of 110 hotels, according to Lam Shuk-yee, deputy secretary for security of the Chinese territory on Thursday.
Ms. Lam said 1,600 people from the province had been turned away at the Hong Kong border since the ban.
On the corporate front, big multinational companies moved to temporarily shut down their China operations as workers remained largely in place, with the Lunar New Year holiday extended through the end of the week and transportation links largely curtailed.
Tesla Chief Financial Officer Zach Kirkhorn said Wednesday that the company was halting production at its new Shanghai Gigafactory to comply with a local-government order to extend China's Lunar New Year holiday, which Mr. Kirkhorn said could affect the company's first-quarter performance.
All 30 IKEA outlets in mainland China were closed until further notice, the Swedish furniture giant said Thursday.
Air France -- part of Air France-KLM -- joined the list of airlines cutting service to China. The French carrier said it would suspend all scheduled flights to and from the mainland until Feb. 9 and would operate special flights starting Friday to and from Shanghai and Beijing using volunteer crew members to enable customers and employees to depart safely.
Italian authorities were holding 6,000 passengers and crew aboard a cruise ship docked at the port of Civitavecchia near Rome after a 54-year-old Chinese woman showed flulike symptoms, according to a spokesperson for Costa Crociere, the company operating the ship Costa Smeralda.
The woman and her male traveling companion, who showed no symptoms, were isolated in the ship's hospital, the company said, while Italy's health ministry said it was waiting for the results of tests for coronavirus.
China's national women's soccer team is being held in quarantine in a hotel in the Australian city of Brisbane until Feb. 5, health authorities for the northwestern state of Queensland said Thursday. The 32-member team had traveled to Australia to compete in a qualifying tournament for this summer's Olympics in Tokyo.
The tournament was originally scheduled to be held in Wuhan but was moved to Sydney after the outbreak. The team had departed Wuhan Jan. 22, before the city was locked down, said the Chinese Football Association, which said it also planned to suspend soccer competitions nationwide starting Thursday.
In Chongqing, a southwestern megacity that borders Hubei, pharmacies are now required to report the names of people who buy medication for symptoms like fever and cough, part of an effort to track people who might have coronavirus symptoms, state broadcaster China Central Television reported Thursday. The city of more than 30 million people had 165 confirmed cases of the coronavirus as of midnight Wednesday and is closely connected to Wuhan by road and rail.
-- Miho Inada, Yijun Yin, Ann Simmons, Lekai Liu, Eva Dou, Kersten Zhang, Wenxin Fan, Raffaele Huang, Reddy Zhao, Rajesh Roy, Giovanni Legorano, Rebecca Ballhaus and Tom Burton contributed to this article.
Write to Brianna Abbott at brianna.abbott @ wsj.com and Erin Mendell at erin.mendell @ wsj.com
| business |
Southeast Asia: Markets fall as coronavirus death toll rises, Vietnam down over 3% | Vietnam markets opening after the Lunar New Year holidays saw their worst session in over a year, as investors priced in the economic impact of the virus outbreak.
Adding to woes, the World Health Organization ( WHO) on Wednesday expressed concern over the person-to-person spread of the virus in three countries, including Vietnam.
Flag carrier Vietnam Airlines was among the biggest losers as it shed 6.9% to close at a record low.
Meanwhile, WHO said it would reconvene later on Thursday to deliberate whether the rapid spread of the virus could now be labelled a global emergency.
The new virus has claimed 170 lives in China so far, with the number of infected patients growing to 7,711 in the country.
Infections have been reported in at least 15 other countries, prompting investors to worry about the fiscal health of the world's second-largest economy which recently started showing signs of recovery.
So far, confirmed cases of infection have been reported in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.
Indonesian shares shed 0.9% after the finance minister on Wednesday said the tourism sector would be hit as Chinese tourists, who make up a bulk of tourist footfalls in the country, cancel travel plans due to the outbreak.
Financials and automakers were the biggest drags on the index, with Bank Mandiri and automotive firm Astra International losing 1.9% and 2.9%, respectively.
The Singaporean index also slid, as lender DBS Group Holdings dropped 0.5% and transport services provider SATS Ltd fell 1.7%.
The Malaysian stock index fell for an eighth straight session, as resources and utility stocks weighed.
Philippine shares also fell, closing at their lowest since Dec. 10, 2018.
( This story corrects paragraph 12 to show Malaysian stocks recorded their eighth straight session of losses, not lost for record eight sessions)
By Arpit Nayak | business |
Will the Wuhan virus become a pandemic? | TWO THINGS explain why a new infectious disease is so alarming. One is that, at first, it spreads exponentially. As tens of cases become hundreds and hundreds become thousands, the mathematics run away with you, conjuring speculation about a health-care collapse, social and economic upheaval and a deadly pandemic. The other is profound uncertainty. Sparse data and conflicting reports mean that scientists can not rule out the worst case—and that lets bad information thrive.
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So it is with a new coronavirus, known as 2019-nCoV, which has struck in China. The number of reported cases grew from 282 on January 20th to almost 7,800 just nine days later. In that time four reported cases outside mainland China have multiplied to 105 in 19 territories. Doubt clouds fundamental properties of the disease, including how it is passed on and what share of infected people die. Amid the uncertainty, a simulation of a coronavirus outbreak by Johns Hopkins University in October, in which 65m people lost their lives, was put about as a prediction. It is not.
Those are the right questions, though: will the new virus become a global disease? And how deadly will it be? A definite answer is weeks or months away, but public-health authorities have to plan today. The best guess is that the disease has taken hold in China ( see article) and there is a high risk that it spreads around the world—it may even become a recurrent seasonal infection. It may turn out to be no more lethal than seasonal influenza, but that would still count as serious ( see article). In the short term that would hit the world economy and, depending on how the outbreak is handled, it could also have political effects in China.
The outbreak began in December. The repeated mingling of people and animals in China means that viral mutations that infect humans are likely to arise there; and mass migration to cities means that they are likely to spread between people. This virus probably originated in bats and passed through mammals, such as palm civets or ferret badgers, ending up in Wuhan’ s wet market, where wild animals were on sale. Symptoms resemble flu, but can include pneumonia, which may be fatal. About 20% of reported cases are severe, and need hospital care; about 2% of them have been fatal. As yet, there is no vaccine or antiviral treatment.
The greatest uncertainty is how many cases have gone unrecorded. Primary health care is rudimentary in China and some of the ill either avoided or were turned away from busy hospitals. Many more may have such mild symptoms that they do not realise they have the disease. Modelling by academics in Hong Kong suggests that, as of January 25th, tens of thousands of people have already been infected and that the epidemic will peak in a few months’ time. If so, the virus is more widespread than thought, and hence will be harder to contain within China. But it will also prove less lethal, because the number of deaths should be measured against a much larger base of infections. As with flu, a lot of people could die nonetheless. In 2017-18 a bad flu season saw symptoms in 45m Americans, and 61,000 deaths.
Scientists have started work on vaccines and on treatments to make infections less severe. These are six to 12 months away, so the world must fall back on public-health measures. In China that has led to the biggest quarantine in history, as Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province have been sealed off. The impact of such draconian measures has rippled throughout China. The spring holiday has been extended, keeping schools and businesses closed. The economy is running on the home-delivery of food and goods.
Many experts praise China’ s efforts. Certainly, its scientists have coped better with the Wuhan virus than they did with SARS in 2003, rapidly detecting it, sequencing its genome, licensing diagnostic kits and informing international bodies. China’ s politicians come off less well. They left alone the cramped markets filled with wild animals that spawned SARS. With the new virus, local officials in Wuhan first played down the science and then, when the disease had taken hold, enacted the draconian quarantine fully eight hours after announcing it, allowing perhaps 1m potentially infectious people to leave the city first.
That may have undermined a measure which is taking a substantial toll. China’ s growth in the first quarter could fall to as little as 2%, from 6% before the outbreak. As China accounts for almost a fifth of world output, there will probably be a noticeable dent on global growth. Though the economy will bounce back when the virus fades, the reputation of the Communist Party and even of Xi Jinping may be more lastingly affected ( see article). The party claims that, armed with science, it is more efficient at governing than democracies. The heavy-handed failure to contain the virus suggests otherwise.
Outside China such quarantines are unthinkable. The medical and economic cost will depend on governments slowing the disease’ s spread. The way to do this is by isolating cases as soon as they crop up and tracing and quarantining people that victims have been in contact with—indeed, if the disease burns out in China, that might yet stop the pandemic altogether. If, by contrast, that proves inadequate, they could shut schools, discourage travel and urge the cancellation of public events. Buying time in this way has advantages even if it does not completely stop the disease. Health-care systems would have a greater chance to prepare for the onslaught, and to empty beds that are now full of people with seasonal flu.
Despite all those efforts the epidemic could still be severe. Some health systems, in Africa and the slums of Asia’ s vast cities, will not be able to isolate patients and trace contacts. Much depends on whether people are infectious when their symptoms are mild ( or before they show any at all, as some reports suggest), because such people are hard to spot. And also on whether the virus mutates to become more transmissible or lethal.
The world has never responded as rapidly to a disease as it has to 2019-nCoV. Even so, the virus may still do great harm. As humans encroach on new habitats, farm more animals, gather in cities, travel and warm the planet, new diseases will become more common. One estimate puts their cost at $ 60bn a year. SARS, MERS, Nipah, Zika, Mexican swine flu: the fever from Wuhan is the latest of a bad bunch. It will not be the last. ■
Published since September 1843 to take part in “ a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress. ”
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2021. All rights reserved. | business |
Johnson & Johnson working on coronavirus vaccine | Johnson & Johnson has become the latest pharmaceutical company to begin work on a vaccine for the Chinese coronavirus.
They are utilising the same technologies used to make their Ebola vaccine which has been administered in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
Johnson & Johnson's approach includes a review of known pathways in the coronavirus’ s pathophysiology to determine which tested medicines can help patients survive the infection.
They have also donated 300 boxes of its HIV medication PREZCOBIX to the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center and Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University. Another 50 boxes were sent to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. They will use this to research further solutions to the coronavirus.
Paul Stoffels, Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee and Chief Scientific Officer at Johnson & Johnson, said: “ J & J has a long-standing commitment to fight established and emerging epidemics and is supporting global efforts where we can make the greatest impact. We are collaborating with regulators, healthcare organizations, institutions and communities worldwide to help ensure our research platforms, existing science and outbreak expertise can be maximized to stem this public health threat. This latest outbreak of a novel pathogen once again reinforces the importance of investing in preparedness, surveillance and response to ensure the world remains ahead of potential pandemic threats. ”
The vaccine program will utilise Janssen’ s AdVac® and PER.C6® technologies that provide the ability to rapidly upscale production of the optimal vaccine candidate. | tech |
Trump says coronavirus outbreak is 'all under control ' and a 'very small problem ' in US | President Donald Trump said the U.S. government was working closely with China to contain the coronavirus outbreak that has killed at least 171 people, predicting `` a very good ending '' for the United States.
`` We are working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it's going to have a very good ending for us, that I can assure you, '' Trump said Thursday while visiting a manufacturing plant for auto supplier Dana in Warren, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.
Trump said U.S. officials believe `` we have it all under control, '' adding that it's a `` very small problem in this country. ''
Trump's comments come hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first human transmission of the virus in the U.S. The World Health Organization declared the fast-spreading outbreak a global health emergency earlier Thursday.
Trump's assurance on containing the coronavirus came toward the end of a roughly 30-minute speech in the battleground state, much of which he used to celebrate the signing on Wednesday of a new North American trade deal.
`` The USMCA is an especially big win for American auto workers, '' he said at the facility, which makes parts for vehicles such as the Jeep Wrangler and Ford Super Duty pickups. `` It's coming back. It's all coming back. ''
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which must still be ratified by Canada's parliament before it can take effect, would tighten rules on labor and automotive content on vehicles but has yet to cause a significant reversal of previous investments and jobs by automakers in recent decades in Mexico.
Trump said USMCA will add $ 23 billion in auto parts purchases annually and spur at least $ 34 billion in overall automotive investment. Without providing a time frame, he said the new trade deal will create at least 80,000 new auto jobs, `` but probably about 120,000 new jobs. ''
Automakers such as General Motors and Ford Motor have supported modernizing the trade deal and have acknowledged the need for stability in North American trade rules.
GM, in a statement Wednesday, called the deal `` vital to the success of the North American auto industry. '' Ford President of Automotive Joe Hinrichs, in a statement, said the pact `` spurs innovation, cracks down on currency manipulation and supports U.S. manufacturing while ensuring the U.S. auto industry remains globally competitive. '' Hinrichs and GM CEO Mary Barra attended Trump's signing of the deal Wednesday outside the White House.
Trump, referring to the current North American Free Trade Agreement as a `` nightmare '' and `` disaster, '' said the new USMCA will secure jobs in America and bring jobs back to the country that NAFTA allowed to be outsourced.
Trump on Thursday stayed away from commenting about the ongoing impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate other than calling it a `` disgrace for our country. '' | business |
Co-Diagnostics:, Inc. CEO Interviewed on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo as Coronavirus Concerns Rise | Interviews on Fox Business and other programs discussed issues surrounding the novel strain of the coronavirus and the Company’ s plan to provide a diagnostic solution
The CEO of Co-Diagnostics, Inc. ( Nasdaq: CODX), a molecular diagnostics company with a unique, patented platform for the development of diagnostic tests, has recently participated in interviews with hosts of programs on Fox Business and Yahoo! Finance to discuss the current outbreak of the novel coronavirus that originated in China and continues to raise concerns worldwide.
Currently, the number of confirmed infections in China have surpassed 7,700, quadrupling since the weekend, and caused 170 deaths. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cases of the new coronavirus, “ 2019-nCoV, ” have been confirmed in 19 countries since the virus was first identified in China on January 7, 2020, including 5 positive infections in the US and suspected cases in 36 states.
Topics in the interviews on Fox Business and Yahoo! Finance ranged from issues related to detecting the virus, the importance of a quality diagnostic, and Company competitive advantages and infrastructure that the Company will leverage to bring the product to market.
Regarding the interviews, Co-Diagnostics CEO Dwight Egan commented, “ We believe that the competitive advantages of our CoPrimer™ technology platform and rapid development process have positioned the Company to provide a high-quality, economic solution to this ongoing health crisis. ” | business |
Global stocks, oil tumble on fears virus to hurt China's economy | Gold gained along with the safe-haven Japanese yen and Swiss franc, as the number of people infected by the virus in a fast-spreading health crisis surpassed 8,100 people globally, more than the total from the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic.
The World Health Organization declared a global emergency as people infected by the virus spread to 18 countries.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said the organisation's greatest worry is the potential for the outbreak to spread to countries with weaker health systems.
The International Monetary Fund said it was too soon to quantify the potential economic impact of the virus, which has halted tourism and commerce throughout China.
Damage to China's economy is still hard to assess, but Wall Street economists see slower growth. Fitch Solutions said it maintains its real GDP growth forecast for China at 5.9% for 2020, but the impact of the virus could reduce that to 5.4%.
Major equity indexes slid across the globe, with the declines sharper in Asia and Europe than on Wall Street, where late in the session stocks turned positive.
Fading risk appetite sent yields on U.S. Treasuries down to their lowest in more than three months. A closely watched part of the yield curve briefly inverted.
Investors, who are confused about the strength of the U.S. economy, are buying on the dip as alternatives to owning stocks does not seem attractive, said Rick Meckler, a partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.
`` This is a market where people are very nervous, '' he said. `` There's fear about committing new capital to this market given how far it's come, but there's even a greater fear on missing out on the gains. ''
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS > closed 2.29% lower, while emerging market stocks lost 2.20%.
Latin American assets have been hit hard by expected demand disruptions in China, one of the region's largest export destinations.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 1.01% while MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe but also cut losses late in the session to <.MIWD00000PUS > shed 0.33%. More than half of the world index is weighted to U.S. stocks.
Shares in London fell 1.36%, extending losses as the pound climbed against the dollar after the Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged.
Disappointing earnings in Europe weighed on blue-chips, adding to the gloom. Royal Dutch Shell fell 4.4% after fourth-quarter profit halved to its lowest in more than three years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 124.99 points, or 0.43%, to 28,859.44. The S & P 500 gained 10.26 points, or 0.31%, to 3,283.66 and the Nasdaq Composite added 23.77 points, or 0.26%, to 9,298.93.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 3/32 in price to yield 1.5856%. The yield curve between three-month bills and 10-year notes inverted for the second time this week, a bearish economic signal.
Yields on top-rated, tax-exempt U.S. municipal bonds hit record lows of 1.15% for 10-year debt and 1.80% on 30-year debt, according to Municipal Market Data.
German government bond yields fell sharply, with 10-year German bund yields dropping to a three-month low of -0.445%.
The dollar fell on news the U.S. economy posted its slowest annual growth in three years in 2019 and personal consumption weakened dramatically. The dollar index fell 0.13% after it had gained 0.65% in the last two weeks as investors sold off risk assets.
Still, coronavirus fears persisted, boosting the Japanese yen and Swiss franc.
The euro was up 0.21% to $ 1.1032. The yen strengthened 0.05% at 108.96 per dollar.
Gold prices rose, with U.S. gold futures settling up 0.8% at $ 1,583.50 an ounce.
Oil prices fell more than 2% to the lowest in three months on virus-related worries, while traders also considered the possibility of an early meeting or the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Brent crude lost $ 1.52 to settle at $ 58.29 a barrel, while U.S. crude fell $ 1.19 to settle at $ 52.14 a barrel.
By Herbert Lash | business |
Economic growth looks even weaker this quarter, with virus now a wild card | Coming off the slowest year of growth in three, the economy in the first quarter of 2020 is expected to slow down even more due to the impact of Boeing and now the potential wild card of the coronavirus.
Fourth-quarter GDP growth was 2.1%, in line with economists ' expectations. GDP grew 2.3% for the year, the slowest pace since 2016.
The GDP report, released Thursday morning, revealed continued weakness in business spending and more sluggish consumer spending, with consumption up just 1.8%, down from 3.2% in the third quarter. Residential spending was strong, supporting GDP by 0.2%.
`` The key number is really the final sales to private domestic purchasers. That number shows growth of 1.4%. That's basically telling you domestic demand has slowed a lot since the middle of the year, '' said Jonathan Millar, Barclays U.S. economist. `` Consumer spending has slowed a lot in the last couple of quarters. Business spending remains weak … [ business fixed investment ] was negative for the third consecutive quarter. That's a bit worrisome. ''
Millar expects first-quarter growth of just 1.5%, but that includes the anticipated half a percentage point hit from Boeing's production cuts. That should reverse by the third quarter, when he expects growth of 2.5%, following 2% in the second quarter, he added.
`` Residential investment was a bright spot, and so were net exports, but that's only because you saw a big drop in imports.... Net exports added 1.5 percentage points to GDP, the most since 2009, '' said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex. `` Inventories were the other thing that was a big drag, partly because of the auto sector. ''
So far, economists see an immediate impact on travel but they do not see a big impact yet on economic growth from the coronavirus, which now has infected more than 7,900 people, mostly in China. But it may have some impact, and it is difficult to quantify the impact of the rapidly spreading virus.
`` We 've got the hit from Boeing coming and the uncertainty is how much of a blow will the coronavirus have on manufacturing. How much of a direct impact will it have on demand in China and the spillover effect for the rest of the world? It looks like we 'll get less than 2% growth in the first quarter., '' said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. `` The problem is how much below 2% is in the mostly unknown parts of the equation. '' She said clearly the virus will have some impact on the service sector in the U.S., since airlines are already cutting back on flights and people are curtailing travel.
Top White House economist Larry Kudlow said he doesn't see a material effect on the economy from the virus. Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said the NEC is studying it in relation to SARS and other past viruses.
Fourth-quarter GDP was slightly better than her forecast of 1.7%. `` At first glance, the number masked the underlying domestic demand weakness, and housing is the silver lining, where the Fed has had the biggest impact. The good news is rate cuts work, but the bad new is it's uneven. It wasn't enough to turn the ship around for business investment, '' Swonk said.
By the end of the first month of the fourth quarter, the Fed had delivered the last of three rate cuts that began in the summer. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday indicated the central bank remains on hold, but he noted the Fed is watching global developments, including the coronavirus and the Fed statement pointed out that consumer spending was moderating.
`` The virus is certainly going to create a hit to Chinese growth. It's fluid how big that's going to be, '' said Millar. China has clamped down on travel from a number of cities, impacting about 50 million people, and airlines have canceled flights to the country.
`` It's going to have a hit on Chinese spending, '' said Millar, adding it's too soon and uncertain to see an impact on the U.S. economy. `` We may see more of it in the U.S. but we just don't know at this point. It's very uncertain. ''
U.S. multinationals that do business in China are feeling the impact already. Starbucks and McDonald's have both closed locations in China, and technology companies are concerned about the supply chain.
Millar said the Boeing impact also risks being bigger than forecast, since it will also affect airplane maker's suppliers and ripple out from there.
`` We are assuming that Boeing's production stoppage for the 737MAX reduces Q1 GDP growth by an annual rate of roughly 0.5pp, with some risks of bigger effects if there are spillovers from layoffs, etc, '' he noted, in an email. Millar said the stoppage cuts nominal GDP in the quarter by an annual rate of about $ 36 billion. | business |
Canada's Magna bans China travel as coronavirus spreads | ( Adds details on workers employed by the company)
Jan 30 ( Reuters) - Canada's auto parts maker Magna International Inc said on Thursday it had implemented a travel ban to China in the face of a fast-spreading new coronavirus and extended the Chinese New Year holidays until Feb. 9.
It has 55 manufacturing and assembly units in China, where it employs around 11% of its total workforce. The company has over 166,000 employees, according to its website.
Earlier this week, China's cabinet had announced it would extend the Lunar New Year holidays to Feb. 2 to strengthen the prevention and control of the new coronavirus. The holidays had been due to end on Jan. 30.
The outbreak of the virus could also hit profits at luxury car brands Jaguar and Land Rover, parent Tata Motors said on Thursday.
General Motors Co, the No.1 U.S. automaker, too said it has placed a temporary restriction on travel to Wuhan, where the company has a manufacturing base as part of a joint venture with China's SAIC Motor.
Several companies including Tesla Inc, Apple and Starbucks have warned of a possible impact from the outbreak.
Airlines have been suspending flights to China in the wake of the outbreak, which as of Thursday had killed 170 people and infected almost 8,000. ( Reporting by Ankit Ajmera and Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli) | business |
Oreo maker Mondelez says coronavirus could hurt sales in first quarter | Mondelez CEO Dirk Van de Put said on Thursday that he expects first-quarter revenue to be affected by the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed at least 171 people in China and infected more than 8,200 since emerging less than a month ago.
The company has already closed two factories near the epicenter of the outbreak for 10 days to combat the risk of infection from the virus.
`` Up to the moment that the media started to talk a lot about the coronavirus, we were selling out quite well, '' Van de Put told CNBC's `` Closing Bell. ''
`` In the last three days before the Chinese New Year, the news was very heavy, and consumers were invited by the Chinese government not to go out in public places, to stay home, limit the Chinese New Year celebrations, '' he said.
China is a crucial emerging market to Mondelez, accounting for roughly 4.5% of the company's sales. The company has invested heavily in China in the past few years, focused primarily on product development and marketing there.
The Lunar New Year season is usually a lucrative time for snack makers in China. Van de Put said he expects the virus to have a short-term impact, but he did not quantify that anticipated impact.
`` It's a bit too early to tell right now what that has done to our sellout, '' Van de Put said. `` But we expect that it will have some effect. ''
Mondelez reported fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat analyst forecasts and revenue that topped expectations. The company's stock, which has a market value of $ 84.7 billion, closed up nearly 7.8% at $ 58.80.
The company is set to get its bigger brands more shelf space, such as snacks with more protein and natural ingredients in the U.S. Last year, Mondelez took a majority stake in Perfect Snacks, the owner of refrigerated protein bar Perfect Bar.
The company's net revenue rose 2.1% to $ 6.91 billion, a boost that was supported by the 4.5% rise in sales from the Asia, Middle East and Africa business. Mondelez also earned 61 cents per share, on an adjusted basis, one cent above analyst estimates.
Van de Put said the company found sales by focusing on several key investments such as Ritz Crisp & Thins crackers and different package sizes of Oreos. | business |
Samsung exceeded Q4 memory shipment volume guidance | Samsung Electronics said on Thursday it expects earnings to bounce back in 2020 after a fourth-quarter slump, helped by a gradual recovery in memory chip demand from data center customers and 5G smartphone makers.
The cautiously optimistic outlook from the world's biggest memory chip and smartphone maker draws a line under its worst year since 2015. It also echoes positive guidance from peers like Intel Corp and TSMC, signalling a rebound in chip prices after a lengthy slide.
The South Korean conglomerate reported operating profit of 7.16 trillion won ( $ 6.13 billion), down 34% and in line with its own previous estimate. Net profit fell 38% to 5.2 trillion won, with revenue easing 1% to 59.9 trillion won — also meeting estimates.
`` Looking ahead to 2020, Samsung expects improvements in overall business performance but also sees continued uncertainties in the global business environment, '' Samsung said in a statement. It didn't identify particular issues that could affect its operations.
The United States and China reached an initial deal late last year to resolve a long-running trade row that had disrupted global business, though some issues remain unresolved. Samsung rival Apple earlier this week used a wider-than-normal prediction range for a revenue forecast citing uncertainty created by the coronavirus outbreak in China which economists fear could hurt the global economy.
For first-quarter 2020, Samsung said it expected earnings to fall reflecting low seasonal demand.
Fourth-quarter operating profit more than halved to 3.45 trillion won in Samsung's mainstay chip division, while mobile division profit improved nearly 67% to 2.52 trillion won.
Samsung said the pace of 5G smartphone expansion and its effects should be monitored closely, but the company sees demand picking up around mass-market models as major manufacturers expand their 5G lineups.
Shares fell 1.4% by 0125 GMT, trailing the wider market's 0.6% drop. Samsung shares rallied 44% last year, as expectations of an easing of U.S.-China trade tensions fueled hope of a rebound in the chip industry. | business |
Coronavirus declared global health emergency, first human transmission in US | The coverage on this live blog has ended — but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's Asia-Pacific team.
All times below are in Eastern time.
The Hubei Province Health Commission on Thursday reported an additional 42 deaths along with an additional 1,220 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the region as of Jan. 30. That brings the total to 204 deaths and 5,806 cases in the province.
President Donald Trump said the U.S. government was working closely with China to contain the outbreak, predicting `` a very good ending '' for the United States. `` We are working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it's going to have a very good ending for us, that I can assure you, '' Trump said Thursday while visiting a manufacturing plant for auto supplier Dana in Warren, Mich., a suburb of Detroit. Trump said U.S. officials believe `` we have it all under control, '' adding that it's a `` very small problem in this country. ''
Mondelez Chief Executive Dirk Van de Put said he expects first-quarter revenue to be affected by the spread of the coronavirus. The company has already closed two factories near the epicenter of the outbreak for 10 days to combat the risk of infection from the virus. `` Up to the moment that the media started to talk a lot about the coronavirus, we were selling out quite well, '' Van de Put told CNBC.
The union that represents American Airlines ' pilots said Thursday it's suing American Airlines to halt service to China amid the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 170 people in China and infected more than 8,000 around the world. The Allied Pilots Association represents `` 15,000 professional pilots who fly for American Airlines, '' according to its site. The suit seeks a temporary restraining order that, the APA said, would halt all American Airlines service between the U.S. and China.
The U.S. State Department has placed all non-emergency staff and their families on `` authorized departure '' from China. While this is not an order for personnel to leave the country, it means they are permitted to leave the country amid the coronavirus outbreak. It will affect the U.S. embassy in Beijing and the Consulates General in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenyang, a State Department spokesperson said, all of which will continue to provide consular services, as resources allow.
The World Health Organization said the fast-spreading coronavirus that's infected more than 8,200 across the world is a global health emergency — a rare designation that helps the international agency mobilize financial and political support to contain the outbreak.
WHO is holding its fourth news briefing to announce whether the coronavirus outbreak is a global health emergency. WHO was expected last week to make its decision, but officials said they postponed their announcement to gather more data. WHO doesn't enact the emergencies lightly, health experts say. The last time WHO declared a global health emergency was in 2019 for the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo that killed more than 2,000 people. Watch the announcement here.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Illinois public health officials confirmed Thursday the nation's first person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus. The new patient is the spouse of the Chicago woman who brought the infection back from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, Illinois health officials said during a CDC press briefing. The transmission makes the U.S. at least the fifth country where the infection is now spreading through human-to-human contact.
Coming off the slowest year of growth in three years, the U.S. economy in the first quarter of 2020 is expected to slow down even more due to the impact of Boeing and now the potential wild card of the coronavirus. The virus has already hit the Chinese economy, as cities close and people isolate themselves in their homes. `` It's going to have a hit on Chinese spending, '' Barclays U.S. economist Jonathan Millar said. `` We may see more of it in the U.S. but we just don't know at this point. It's very uncertain. ''
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told CNBC on Thursday the administration will not take `` any public health options off the table '' to protect Americans from the coronavirus, which has infected five U.S. citizens. He added that the risk of infection remains low for the American public and that U.S. health officials are taking all necessary precautions.
More than 8,200 coronavirus cases have now been confirmed across the world, outpacing the total number of infections over the nine-month SARS outbreak in less than a month. As of Thursday morning, there were 8,123 confirmed cases in mainland China alone, according to Chinese state media, and more than 100 cases elsewhere around the world. The new virus first emerged in Wuhan, China on Dec. 31. The deadly SARS virus, by comparison infected a total of 8,098 people globally from Nov. 1, 2002, through July 31, 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the coronavirus could have a positive impact on the U.S. economy. `` I don't want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease, '' Ross told Fox Business Network. `` But the fact is, it does give businesses another thing to consider when they go through their review of their supply chain. ''
″I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America, '' he said. `` Some to the U.S., some to Mexico as well. ''
Costa Cruises is holding 6,000 passengers aboard the Costa Smeralda near Italy after a Chinese woman came down with a fever, raising concern that she may have the virus, Italian news agency Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata reported. The cruise line Costa Cruises said in a statement that it is holding the 54-year-old woman from Macao in isolation along with her travel companion. `` The Health Authority has been immediately notified and is now on board to conduct all the pertinent measures, '' the company said. `` It is our utmost priority to ensure the health and safety of passengers and crew. ''
Russia plans to close its border with China to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to the country's state media. `` A corresponding instruction was signed today. Work on it is already in progress. We will inform all those concerned properly about the measures to close the border in the Far Eastern region and other steps the government has taken ( to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Russia), '' Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told the TASS news agency.
The total number of cases reached more than 7,900 worldwide with 170 deaths in China, Chinese and international health authorities said. The majority of cases are in mainland China, with at least 7,801 cases, exceeding the total number of SARS cases in that country during the 2003 epidemic. At least 101 other cases have been reported across more than a dozen countries across the globe, including the U.S.
More evacuation flights from the city of Wuhan for U.S. citizens will take place Monday, the State Department said. Reuters reported that those on the flights would be subject to screenings and monitoring requirements.
India has officially confirmed that at least one case of the coronavirus has reached the country. Indian health officials said the patient is a student at Wuhan University in China and has been isolated in a hospital in the southwestern state of Kerala. The statement said the person is `` stable and being closely monitored. ''
To see last night's up-to-the minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's Asia-Pacific team.
—CNBC's Weizhen Tan, Evelyn Cheng, Christine Wang and Reuters contributed to this report. | business |
Coronavirus cases top 8,200 — surpassing 2003 SARS outbreak in less than a month | There are now more than 8,200 confirmed coronavirus cases across the world, outpacing the total number of infections over the nine-month SARS outbreak in less than a month.
As of Thursday morning Eastern Time in the U.S., there were 8,123 confirmed cases in mainland China alone, according to Chinese state media, and more than 100 cases elsewhere around the world.
The coronavirus has spread much more quickly than SARS did in 2003. The new virus first emerged in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31. The deadly SARS virus, by comparison, infected a total of 8,098 people globally from Nov. 1, 2002, through July 31, 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
The overwhelming majority of the cases of the not-yet-named coronavirus are in mainland China, though the virus has spread to more than 15 other countries, including the U.S.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that it was monitoring 165 individuals for possible exposure to the virus in the U.S. So far, five people had tested positive, 68 individuals tested negative and the CDC was awaiting results for 92 individuals. U.S. health officials say the threat to the U.S. public still remains low.
The new coronavirus appears to be less deadly than the 2003 SARS epidemic, which killed 774 people over the nine-month outbreak. The coronavirus has claimed 170 lives so far, only in China.
The WHO declined at two emergency meetings last week to declare the virus a global health emergency. WHO officials are holding an emergency meeting Thursday to determine whether the virus is a global health emergency. They 've scheduled a news conference at 1:30 p.m. ET to announce their decision.
On Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters that the `` continued increase in cases and the evidence of human-to-human transmission outside of China are, of course, most deeply disturbing. '' The illness produces a range of symptoms with about 20% of the patients becoming severely ill, including pneumonia and respiratory failure, he said.
`` Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak, '' Tedros said. | business |
Coronavirus: State Dept lets non-emergency employees leave Beijing embassy | The State Department on Thursday authorized a departure of all non-emergency government employees from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, along with their family members, as the deadly coronavirus continues to spread.
The authorization also extends to U.S. consulates general stationed in the Chinese cities of Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenyang, according to a State Department official.
`` The Department of State made the decision to put the U.S. Embassy and Consulates General on authorized departure status out of an abundance of caution related to logistical disruptions stemming from restricted transportation and availability of appropriate health care related to the novel coronavirus, '' the State Department said in a statement.
Both the U.S. Embassy and Consulates General will continue to provide consular services across China, as resources allow, the State Department said.
The authorization, which is not an order to leave the country, came just after the World Health Organization declared the spread of the virus a global health emergency.
Since first emerging about a month ago, the virus has infected more than 8,200 people, and has killed at least 171 people in China and has spread to at least 18 other countries, including the United States.
Earlier Thursday, the United States confirmed its first case of human-to-human transmission of the virus. Almost two dozen other patients are being monitored for possible infections in Illinois.
Multiple people have contracted the virus through human-to-human transmission outside of China, according to a WHO official.
Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to China.
The State Department on Monday also raised its travel advisory for China from Level 2 to Level 3, asking Americans to `` reconsider travel to China due to the novel coronavirus. ''
Follow CNBC's coronavirus live updates here. | business |
Japanese evacuees from Wuhan test positive for virus | Three Japanese evacuated from Wuhan on a government-chartered flight have been confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus — including two who had not shown any symptoms, the health ministry said on Thursday.
The two were the first cases in Japan of people without symptoms being confirmed to have been infected with the virus, the ministry said.
Japan on Tuesday designated illness caused by the new virus as `` designated infectious disease '', which would allow compulsory hospitalization and the use of public funds to treat such patients. But the designation — which takes effect on Feb. 7 after ordinances are issued — does not apply to those without symptoms.
Inaugurating the government's special task force for the coronavirus, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government would take all steps possible to prevent the spread of the virus. Among the measures, the government would confirm contact information of all entrants into Japan who have a record of staying in Wuhan and conduct health checks.
Japan now has confirmed 11 cases of the virus, including a tour bus driver who was infected after coming into contact with Chinese visitors.
The three new cases were among 206 Japanese who were evacuated to Tokyo on Wednesday from Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic.
Of those evacuees, 12 were hospitalized because they had symptoms such as fever and coughing, and two refused to be taken to the hospital for checks but were escorted home. The remaining 201 all tested negative, a ministry official told a briefing.
Asked about concerns over the possible transmission of the virus from people who have not shown symptoms, the official said it was not clear whether that had happened.
Shigeru Omi, head of the Japan Community Health Care Organization, told the same briefing that there were reports of such transmission cases in China.
Chinese National Health Commission Minister Ma Xiaowei on Sunday said the virus was infectious during incubation, which can range from one to 14 days, which was not the case with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS).
Abe told parliament it was regrettable that two of Wednesday's returnees had declined to be tested but said there were limits to what the government could do legally.
`` It is extremely unfortunate that they declined to be tested, '' Abe told a parliamentary panel. `` There are no legal constraints ( on those without symptoms). There are civil rights aspects and there are limits to what we can do. ''
Abe also said the government would keep an eye on the possible economic fallout on tourism and other areas and would do everything necessary to protect people's lives and health.
A second charter flight carrying 210 Japanese nationals arrived at Tokyo's Haneda airport on Thursday morning. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that 13 who returned on Thursday felt unwell. | business |
Ezekiel Emanuel on coronavirus: Americans need to'stop panicking ' | Americans are too worried about the new coronavirus that's spreading rapidly across China, former White House health advisor Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel told CNBC on Thursday
`` Everyone in America should take a very big breath, slow down, and stop panicking and being hysterical, '' said Emanuel, who served during Barack Obama's presidency. `` We are having a little too much histrionics on this. ''
Alex Azar, current secretary of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump, also said later Thursday on CNBC that the risk to Americans remains low.
Chinese officials on Thursday increased their confirmed coronavirus cases to more than 8,000, though some experts believe the number to be much larger. The death roll rose to 170.
Health officials across the world having been putting efforts in place, such as travel restrictions and isolation, to try and stop the virus from spreading. It was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei province in December.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed five cases of the coronavirus in the United States, with 92 pending tests, as of Wednesday. Other countries around the world are also reporting isolated cases.
`` I 'm actually pretty confident that we're going to restrict the spread in the United States and people should remember not to panic, '' said Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania. `` We need to be a little sober about it, even in China. ''
The Wuhan virus, which causes flu-like symptoms, is not spreading through human-to-human contact in America, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Monday.
But Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization's health emergencies program, said Wednesday that the coronavirus has spread to a handful of people through human-to-human contact outside of China.
On Thursday afternoon, the CDC and Illinois public health officials confirmed the first U.S. person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus. The new patient is the spouse of a Chicago woman who brought the infection back from Wuhan.
The WHO is set to reconvene this week to decide whether to declare the coronavirus a global health emergency.
The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic. That severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, which also originated in China, killed 774 people.
`` I think we need to put it into context, the death rate is much lower than for SARS, '' Emanuel said. | business |
Wilbur Ross: Coronavirus could bring jobs, manufacturing back to the US | The fast-spreading coronavirus has infected thousands of people in China and raised fears about a global pandemic — and that could have a positive impact on the U.S. economy, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said Thursday.
Ross said in a Fox Business Network interview that the disease, which Chinese officials say has more than 7,700 confirmed cases and has caused 170 deaths, will lead businesses to reconsider their supply chains.
That could help quicken the pace at which jobs and manufacturing are returning to the U.S. from overseas, he said.
`` I don't want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease, '' Ross told Fox on Thursday morning. `` But the fact is, it does give businesses another thing to consider when they go through their review of their supply chain. ''
The coronavirus is `` another risk factor that people need to take into account, '' Ross said. `` I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America, '' he said. `` Some to the U.S., some to Mexico as well. ''
Ross made the comments weeks after Trump signed a `` phase one '' trade deal with China, which defused some tensions between the nations.
`` As Secretary Ross made clear the first step is to bring the virus under control and help the victims of this disease. It is also important to consider the ramifications of doing business with a country that has a long history of covering up real risks to its own people and the rest of the world, '' a Commerce Department official told CNBC, when asked for further comment on Ross ' remarks. `` Fortunately, the Department of Commerce is equipped to support the American people and our businesses to do both. ''
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ross on Thursday added that companies such as Apple have taken steps to make up some of the production lost from their suppliers in China.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Tuesday that his company has suppliers in Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province and the epicenter of the disease.
`` I think there's a confluence of factors that will make it very, very likely [ that there will be ] more reshoring to the U.S., and some reshoring to Mexico, '' Ross said on Fox.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump's trade advisor, Peter Navarro, suggested Wednesday on CNBC's `` Closing Bell '' that U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports would not be lifted if the deadly coronavirus starts to weigh on China's economy.
`` That's a spin that's coming right out of Wall Street, and it really, I think, it does a disservice to this whole crisis to bring that into the discussion, '' Navarro said.
— CNBC's Thomas Franck contributed to this article. | business |
Coronavirus live updates: China says 170 have died, India's first case | The coverage on this live blog has ended — but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus, visit the live blog from CNBC's U.S. team.
All times below in Beijing time.
`` The safety of our passengers and employees is our highest priority, '' the Nordic airline said in a statement Thursday. SAS said that it had decided to suspend all flights to and from Shanghai and Beijing, as from tomorrow Friday January, until February 9. See the full statement here.
New Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has reportedly instructed officials to close its border with China. `` Work on it is already in progress. We will inform all those concerned properly about the measures to close the border in the Far Eastern region and other steps the government has taken ( to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Russia), '' Mishustin said Thursday, according to the TASS news agency.
More evacuation flights from the city of Wuhan for U.S. citizens will take place on Feb. 3, the State Department said in a statement on Thursday morning. Reuters reported that those on the flights would be subject to screenings and monitoring requirements.
The Philippines Department of Health said it confirmed the country's first case of coronavirus, after the patient's lab results arrived from Melbourne, Australia. The department said the patient is a 38-year-old woman from Wuhan, China who arrived in Manila via Hong Kong on Jan. 21. It also said she was admitted to `` government hospitals last January 25 after experiencing mild cough. She is currently asymptomatic. ''
Chinese state media announced a department of the Chinese Communist Party leadership has recently allocated 108 million yuan ( $ 15.6 million) for virus prevention and support nationwide. Some of the funds will go to party members involved in those efforts, according to an online statement.
India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare confirmed the country's first case of coronavirus in Kerala, a southwestern coastal state. The government said in a statement that the patient is a student at Wuhan University and has been isolated in a hospital. It also said the person is in stable condition and being closely monitored.
A number of flights that were planned to evacuate U.K. and South Korean citizens on Thursday were delayed, according to officials from both countries.
China approved only one of four flights planned to evacuate a total of 700 South Koreans from Wuhan, while Britain delayed a planned evacuation as it did not manage to get clearance from Chinese authorities, they said.
China's agriculture ministry urged feed producers and slaughterhouses to speed up the resumption of production, according to a Reuters report, as the coronavirus outbreak led to spiking prices amid panic buying of food, as well as disruption to transportation.
The country on Thursday also told local authorities not to cut off highways and main roads between provinces.
China's official aviation authority said Thursday that some airlines have received approval for overseas charter flights to Wuhan. The move is part of authorities ' efforts to limit global spread of the new coronavirus that stemmed from the city of 11 million.
Taiwan's benchmark index Taiex dived 5.75% by the close on Thursday after returning to trade from a holiday. Shares of index heavyweight Hon Hai Precision Industry — also known as Foxconn — plummeted nearly 10%.
Taiwan's economy is heavily dependent on China, while manufacturing giant Foxconn — Apple's largest iPhone supplier — is among the top five companies from the virus epicenter of Hubei importing to the U.S. Hubei accounted for 27.4% of Hon Hai-associated U.S. seaborne shipments from China, according to research company Panjiva.
Foxconn however said earlier this week that it has plans in place to meet all manufacturing obligations.
China's National Health Commission and Ministry of Finance announced the personal costs of confirmed virus cases that are not covered by insurance will be subsidized.
Medical personnel and other workers in epidemic prevention will also receive daily subsidies of 200 yuan to 300 yuan each ( $ 29 to $ 44), said the statement, dated Jan. 25.
China's Ministry of Finance said that its finance ministries have issued a cumulative 27.3 billion yuan ( $ 3.9 billion) in subsidies for epidemic prevention and control, as of 5:00 p.m. on Jan. 29.
The city's Municipal Bureau of Civil Affairs announced it would be scrapping a plan to allow marriage registrations on Feb. 2, a popular date as it was deemed to be auspicious. The bureau said it made that decision to avoid large gatherings of people in order to block the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.
Singapore flew home 92 citizens from Wuhan on Thursday morning, according to local media reports. They will be quarantined for 14 days upon their arrival, the reports say.
China's Football Association announced it will postpone domestic matches for the 2020 season at all levels.
The world's biggest furniture retailer Ikea said it has temporarily closed all its 30 stores in China due to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reported. That decision followed its move just a day earlier to temporarily close half of its stores in the country.
A government-chartered plane with around 200 evacuated Japanese passengers from virus-hit Wuhan arrived in Tokyo on Thursday morning, according to public broadcaster NHK — the second such flight to return to Japan in two days. The plane also delivered supplies such as masks and disinfectant to the Chinese city before returning to Japan, according to the report.
Hubei authorities announced late Wednesday night that businesses are not to resume work till midnight on Feb. 13. That followed the nationwide extension of the Lunar New Year Holiday by three days to Feb. 2. This week, Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang announced that businesses are not to resume work till midnight on Feb. 9.
Three people who were among roughly 200 Japanese nationals evacuated from Wuhan have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Japan's health ministry. Two of the infected Japanese, who returned on a government-chartered flight on Wednesday, had not shown any symptoms, according to the report.
China's National Health Commission confirmed an additional 38 deaths and 1,737 new cases. Officials said that brings their total to 170 deaths and 7,711 cases, as of the end of Wednesday. They also said 170 people had been cured and discharged. The NHC said the new cases announced Thursday include the first one confirmed in Tibet.
Early Thursday, health officials confirmed an additional 37 deaths and 1,032 cases in Hubei province, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. Through the end of Wednesday, Hubei authorities said they confirmed a total of 4,586 cases, 162 deaths and 90 cured people so far in this outbreak.
White House trade advisor Peter Navarro pushed back against the idea that the U.S. would remove tariffs on Chinese imports if the outbreak begins to weigh on China's economy. He told `` Closing Bell, '' `` That's a spin that's coming right out of Wall Street. '' Navarro made those comments in response to CNBC's Carl Quintanilla who asked whether a tariff rollback was on the table if China honored the terms of the `` phase one '' trade deal but started to see its economy hurt by the coronavirus.
General Motors, the largest U.S. automaker in China, told employees that it will keep its factories in the country shuttered through Feb. 9, a company spokesman said in an email to CNBC.
Starbucks has already closed more than half of its locations in China, but CEO Kevin Johnson says the company won't hesitate to close more. Google is also temporarily closing its offices in the country and restricting travel. Microsoft employees in China have been told to work from home until Feb. 9. Amazon has also said it is restricting employee travel to China `` until further notice. ''
Airlines are also slashing routes to and from China. Delta said it would cut weekly flights in half. British Airways stopped all its direct flights to and from the mainland. American Airlines also said it would cancel some China service for more than a month.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the U.S. central bank is keeping a close watch on the outbreak.
`` It's a very serious issue and I want to start by acknowledging the significant and considerable human suffering that the virus is already causing, '' he told reporters at a press conference, adding that it's too early to speculate on how it might impact the global economy. `` There is likely to be some disruption to activity in China and possibly globally based on the spread of the virus to date and the travel restrictions and business closures that have already been imposed. ''
Read CNBC's coverage from the U.S. overnight: Outbreak is 'grave concern ' as infections spread beyond China
— CNBC's Eunice Yoon, Riya Bhattacharjee, Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and William Feuer contributed to this report.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that at about 7:50 a.m. Beijing time on Thursday, China's National Health Commission reported that the death toll rose to 170. | business |
Coronavirus: Pilots union sues to halt American Airlines flights to China | The union that represents American Airlines pilots said Thursday that it's suing the carrier to halt service to China amid the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 170 people in China and infected more than 8,000 around the world.
The Allied Pilots Association, which represents about 15,000 pilots for the Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier said its suit seeks a temporary restraining order to halt all American Airlines service between the U.S. and China.
American on Wednesday announced it would suspend its Beijing and Shanghai flights from Los Angeles between Feb. 9 and March 27, citing reduced demand because of the coronavirus outbreak, following similar moves by dozens of airlines around the world.
APA's lawsuit says American still operates approximately 56 monthly flights between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and destinations in China. APA President Capt. Eric Ferguson is calling for American Airlines pilots to refuse to fly to and from China.
[ To see the latest updates on the coronavirus, visit CNBC's live blog here. ]
`` The safety and well-being of our crews and passengers must always be our highest priority — first, last, and always, '' Ferguson said. `` Due to the known and unknown risks associated with traveling to China right now, concurrent with the filing of our lawsuit, we are directing all American Airlines pilots assigned to flights between the United States and China, other than those on return trips to the United States, to decline the assignment. ''
In a statement, American said the airline was aware of the filing and referred to the flight suspensions announced Wednesday. `` We are in close contact with the CDC and global public health officials to make sure we are taking all necessary precautions for our customers and team members, '' the statement said. `` We will continue to monitor the situation and make any updates as needed. ''
Federal regulations require crew members flying to China to remain on the ground for approximately 32 hours to rest between flights, the APA said.
American and the pilots union are in the middle of contentious contract negotiations, but the union said the suit was a separate safety matter and neither a part of the talks nor would it affect them.
Airlines ' China service cuts have increased as the coronavirus spreads, hurting demand for service to the country. Delta Air Lines said Wednesday it is cutting flights to China in half starting Feb. 6 through April 30 as the coronavirus spreads, driving down demand for flights to the country. United Airlines on Tuesday announced it is canceling dozens of China flights next month because of a `` significant decline in demand '' for service, and announced more cuts on Thursday. British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Lufthansa have also slashed or reduced service.
`` While the additional cancellations are based on passenger demand, it will also mitigate the health risk to passengers and crews, '' the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents United's cabin crew, said in a statement Thursday. `` We encourage all airlines to follow United's lead. Together, we can keep people safe, eliminate this public health threat, and more quickly return the industry to full operation. ''
The union that represents Delta pilots said Thursday they have reached out to flight operations management with a request to allow pilots the option `` to remove themselves from flying to China during this ongoing situation. ''
`` Delta has agreed to follow past-practice from similar situations, '' the union said. `` Specifically, if a pilot has concerns about flying to China, the pilot should contact the chief pilot office to share those concerns. If a regular line holder can not swap or drop a trip to China and does not want to fly there, the chief pilot office will drop the trip without pay. If a reserve line holder is assigned a trip to China, the reserve pilot may bypass the China assignment and return to reserve on-call status with no pay hit. ''
On Thursday, the World Health Organization declared the fast-spreading coronavirus a global health emergency — a rare designation that helps the international agency mobilize financial and political support to contain the outbreak.
The announcement came hours after the U.S. confirmed its first human-to-human transmission of the virus, which has killed at least 171 people in China and has now spread to at least 18 other countries.
`` Over the past few weeks we have witnessed the emergence of a previously unknown pathogen that has escalated into an unprecedented outbreak, '' WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a news conference at the organization's Geneva headquarters on Thursday. `` We must act together now to limit the spread. ''
There are more than 12,100 suspected cases in China, on top of the more-than 8,100 that have already been confirmed in the country, according to WHO and China state media data released Thursday. Although the coronavirus doesn't appear to be as deadly as SARS, which had a mortality rate of about 10%, it is spreading significantly faster. The WHO data shows there are roughly 1,400 people in China who are severely ill.
The illness produces a range of symptoms, with about 20% of the patients developing severe illnesses, including pneumonia and respiratory failure, Tedros said. WHO officials said it's transmitted through human contact, in droplets through sneezing or through touching germs left on inanimate objects.
WHO doesn't enact global health emergencies lightly. The international health agency has only applied the emergency designation five times since the rules were implemented in the mid-2000s. The last time WHO declared a global health emergency was in 2019 for the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo that killed more than 2,000 people. The agency also declared global emergencies for the 2016 Zika virus, the 2009 H1N1 swine flu, and the 2014 polio and Ebola outbreaks.
— CNBC's Leslie Josephs contributed to this report. | business |
A quiet Fed may be one of the best things for stocks. Here's why | It appears the Federal Reserve just did one of the best things it could for stocks: doing nothing.
Bespoke Investment Group's Paul Hickey finds that the S & P 500 rises an average of about 1 percent in the month after a Fed decision to hold interest rates steady.
`` It's almost a corollary to the old phrase 'never short a dull market. ' Never short a dull Fed either, '' the firm's co-founder told CNBC's `` Trading Nation '' on Wednesday, the day the Fed announced its decision not to raise rates. `` When you think about it, it makes pretty good sense. If the Fed is doing nothing, it means conditions are pretty good. ''
Hickey wrote in a recent research note that `` the market loves a Fed on hold, '' and he uses this chart to illustrate the pattern:
`` The market can steadily rise higher here going forward in the next month — especially given the Fed's statements that they're not going to become more aggressive on the tightening policy unless inflation becomes significant and persistent, '' said Hickey. `` We are a long way from both of those levels right now. ''
In situations when the Fed shifts rates in either direction, the S & P 500 typically falls in the four weeks after a decision. Even a rate cut is little guarantee it will set the stage for market gains, according to Hickey.
`` If the Fed is hiking rates, it means inflation is running hotter than forecast. Whereas if the Fed is cutting rates, it means that the economy is not doing so well, '' he said.
His data goes back to 1994, when the Fed began announcing its rate decision at the conclusion of its meetings.
But with the S & P 500 within 2% from all-time highs, it's no ordinary market. Plus, the market is dealing with economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.
Yet Hickey believes the historical trend is intact as long as the virus doesn't get much worse.
`` We're not at the stage where we have exuberant sentiment at this point, '' Hickey said. `` Investors have definitely turned more bullish, but we haven't quite hit extreme levels. ''
Disclaimer | business |
Nintendo hikes Switch sales forecast, reports profit at decade high | Nintendo raised its Switch sales forecast for the year ending March 31 to 19.5 million units from 18 million units in a previous estimate, and hiked its operating profit forecast by 15% to 300 billion yen.
Operating profit for the October-December quarter rose 6% to 168.7 billion yen ( 1.17 billion pounds), versus 158.6 billion yen a year earlier.
The quarterly profit was its highest since the same period of 2009, but still came in below an average forecast of 175 billion yen from 10 analyst estimates compiled by Refinitiv.
The Kyoto-based gaming company sold 12.6 million units of its hybrid home-portable Switch device in the nine months to December and 5.2 million handheld-only Switch Lite units that went on sale in September.
Nintendo's release of the lower-priced Switch Lite handheld and two new Pokemon titles - the console's fastest-selling game series - have helped drive momentum in the device's third year as hardware from rivals Sony and Microsoft approaches the end of its lifecycle.
Gaming fans have growing opportunities to experience Nintendo's popular roster of characters, from a branded store in Tokyo that has seen long queues, to a Nintendo-themed area due to open in Osaka's Universal Studios Japan park this summer.
Nintendo is pushing into mobile gaming with its latest title, a version of its marquee racing series Mario Kart, which was widely downloaded but disappointed fans with its lack of a multiplayer option that is now undergoing testing.
Revenues from mobile have topped $ 1 billion, analytics firm Sensor Tower estimates, with Nintendo's home market of Japan and role-playing title Fire Emblem Heroes the biggest drivers.
The company's expansion includes the start of Switch sales in China in December with partner Tencent Holdings Ltd as it tries to shut down a grey market for its products.
With its family-friendly games, Nintendo is seen as having a better chance of receiving approval for its titles from China's regulators.
Production in China is seeing some impact from the coronavirus epidemic that has hit the country, CEO Shuntaro Furukawa said at a news briefing.
Nintendo's shares closed down 1% ahead of the earnings, with the benchmark index <.N225 > down almost 2%. Its shares are down 4% this year, having climbed 50% last year.
( Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Tom Hogue)
By Sam Nussey | business |
Michael Sonnenfeldt sees value in cash despite Dalio calling it trash | The founder of an exclusive investment club for the ultra wealthy told CNBC on Thursday that his members are sitting on piles of cash to protect against an economic downturn.
Michael Sonnenfeldt, the founder and chairman of Tiger 21, said on `` Squawk on the Street '' that members of his club have about 12% of their portfolios in cash.
`` Members... have protection with large amounts of cash so if there is a downturn, they can weather through it rather than having to liquidate at the wrong time, '' Sonnenfeldt said.
The upcoming presidential election and the widening coronavirus outbreak are two areas of concern for club members, he said.
Sonnenfeldt said that cash on hand makes it easier to jump at attractive buying opportunities.
Many high-profile money managers have urged people not to sit on cash — and instead, stay fully invested. They cite low interest rates and difficulty in timing market moves, among other reasons.
Billionaire Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio told CNBC that `` cash is trash, '' during an interview earlier this month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Sonnenfeldt that he thought Dalio's advice was not necessarily wrong but might not apply to Tiger 21 members.
`` We think Ray is one of the great investors, but our community is made up of entrepreneurs, '' Sonnenfeldt said. `` I wouldn't go toe-to-toe with Ray investing large sums of capital, billions. But with small sums of capital, our members create magic, and they do that by having the cash ready to deploy the opportunity presents itself. ''
In order to become a member of Tiger 21, investors must have investable assets of at least $ 10 million and pay an annual fee of $ 30,000, according to the club's website. The club has more than 700 members that collectively manage over $ 75 billion in assets. | business |
Apple iPhone beats Samsung for smartphone shipments in Q4 2019 | Apple has beaten Samsung on quarterly smartphone shipments for the first time in two years, according to figures from several industry analysts.
The iPhone maker saw shipments surge to 72.9 million units in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to Counterpoint Research, climbing above the 70 million Galaxy phones sold by Samsung.
Strategy Analytics said Apple held the most market share in the quarter, with 70.7 million units sold versus Samsung's 68.8 million in the final three months of 2019. Another industry tracker, Canalys, reached a similar conclusion.
One firm, IHS Markit, put Samsung at 70.7 million and Apple at 67.7 million. But the figures nonetheless showed strong momentum for Apple as consumers flock to buy its latest model, the iPhone 11.
`` Apple has surpassed Samsung thanks to iPhone 11 popularity and improvement in upgrade cycle from the larger base of iPhone 6S, 7 and user base, '' Neil Shah, partner and vice president of research at Counterpoint, told CNBC by email.
Still, China's Huawei managed to outpace its U.S. rival during the whole of 2019, taking the number two spot behind Samsung despite headwinds related to the U.S.-China trade war. The company accounts for a whopping 39% of the Chinese market, according to Canalys, with Apple trailing behind on 11.8%.
Apple on Wednesday reported better-than-expected earnings for the fiscal first quarter, thanks in no small part to a pop in iPhone sales. The tech giant said iPhone revenues climbed to $ 55.96 billion in the quarter, up 8% from the previous year.
Gartner Research Vice President Annette Zimmermann said the numbers showed Apple's strategy for the iPhone 11 paid off, noting the `` clever marketing '' strategy of dropping letters — referring to the iPhone X — in favor of a number, as well as a reduction in cost from previous models.
But risks remain for Apple and other smartphone players, especially with the spread of China's coronavirus threatening to shut down production operations for several manufacturers. In Apple's latest earning call, CEO Tim Cook said the company had restricted employee travel and shut one store due to the outbreak.
`` There will definitely be an impact on China in terms of consumption, '' Zimmermann said. She added that local sources are saying smartphone output will likely remain `` on hold for another week or so '' as the country grapples with the health crisis.
Despite a 1% slump in the overall smartphone market — the second decline in two consecutive years — experts expect the rollout of more 5G-capable devices to turn around the market's fortunes in 2020. Apple is slated to release its first 5G phone later this year, while Huawei, Samsung and Xiaomi have launched 5G handsets already.
Such devices struggled to catch on last year, representing just 1% of sales, according to Counterpoint, but with nascent 5G networks coming into operation, the firm expects this figure to rise to around 18% of shipment volumes in 2020. | business |
Virus outbreak pushes China's stretched health care workers to breaking point |
All Shi Muying wanted was to spend one last Lunar New Year holiday with her terminally ill mother.
She flew back from the United Kingdom, where she lives and works, to spend the festive season in her hometown,
Wuhan
, a sprawling metropolis in central China. For 24 hours a day, Shi -- who is in her mid-30s -- sat by her mother's bedside in hospital, taking care of her.
Around her, more and more people were getting sick from a newly identified
coronavirus
. But Shi wasn't too worried.
After all, Chinese authorities were saying that the outbreak was `` preventable and controllable. ''
Now, three weeks after Shi arrived in China, it's clear the outbreak is not under control. The virus has spread to every Chinese province and region, across Asia and as far away as
Europe and the United States
. It has infected more than 9,800 people and killed over 200. Wuhan has been placed on an effective lockdown, almost entirely sealed off from the outside world.
Read More
On Monday, preliminary results showed Shi could also be infected with the virus.
A suspected patient of coronavirus at a community health station in Wuhan, China.
But she is more worried for her family -- for her 67-year-old father who also appears to have the virus, and for her mother who has been uprooted to what she describes as an older, inferior hospital building, to make way for the rush of coronavirus patients.
Shi, and others like her, have become victims of a public health care crisis. Over the past few days, CNN has spoken to patients, medical staff and experts who have told of delays in testing for the virus, in telling the public the true nature of the virus ' spread, and of an already overburdened health system creaking under the enormous weight of a rapidly expanding outbreak.
The start of an outbreak
When Shi arrived in China on January 10, the coronavirus outbreak was already well underway.
By then, a few dozen people in Wuhan had presented with a mysterious virus that seemed similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome (
SARS
), a coronavirus that originated in southern China in November 2002, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing 774 worldwide.
On January 7, Chinese scientists identified the pathogen as a novel coronavirus. Two days later, the first death occurred.
But it wasn't until over a week later, Shi says, that a doctor pulled her aside. The situation wasn't good, the doctor said, and everyone needed to wear a face mask.
`` I saw this doctor going to patients ' families one by one, privately, '' Shi said. `` It was only then when we realized how serious this was getting. ''
On January 17, there were 41 confirmed cases in Wuhan. By January 20, the total number of confirmed cases jumped to 201 across China, with three dead.
While the virus was discussed widely online over that period, it didn't make the front page of official state newspaper, the People's Daily, until January 21.
Chinese authorities traced the virus back to a now-shuttered market in Wuhan that sold a
number of wild animals
. On January 3, the city's health authorities said there was no obvious sign of human-to-human transmission, and no medical staff had been infected.
Less than three weeks later, it was a different story.
On January 20, Chinese-appointed expert Zhong Nanshan
said
there was evidence of the virus being transmitted between humans. Wuhan's mayor Zhou Xianwang later acknowledged that information on the virus wasn't communicated well.
Under Chinese law, local governments need to report an epidemic outbreak with unknown causes to the national health department and get approval from the State Council before they can make an announcement.
Timeline
2019
December 8:
First patient develops symptoms of Wuhan coronavirus
December 31:
Earliest cases of virus reported to World Health Organization
2020
January 1:
Market in Wuhan where outbreak is believed to have originated closed for disinfection
January 7:
Chinese scientists identify pathogen involved as new strain of coronavirus
January 9:
First death linked to virus
January 20:
Cases reported in Beijing and Shenzhen
January 23:
First virus outside Wuhan
Travel restrictions placed on Wuhan's neighboring cities, impacting millions of people
WHO says virus is not yet a public health emergency of international concern
January 28:
Death toll tops 100
Source: Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, CNN reporting
But Mary Gallagher, the director of the Center for Chinese studies at the University of Michigan and an expert in Chinese politics, believes that the numbers of infections was likely under-reported by Wuhan authorities in December and the start of January.
`` It's not even necessarily an insidious command from the central government -- it's almost like an implicit norm, that bad news is to be covered up as much as possible, '' she said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that the government was releasing information in a `` transparent and responsible manner. ''
`` The Chinese people are engaging in a serious battle against the outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia. People's lives and health are always the first priority for the Chinese government, and the prevention and control of the epidemic is the most important task at present, so I have been directing and deploying the works myself. ''
Around the same time as the jump in cases, two men in full hazmat suits barged into Shi's mother's ward, demanding they move to another floor within 30 minutes. `` They gave no reasoning, just the order, '' Shi said. `` It was only when I asked the hospital staff, and they told me that all patients on this floor -- like my mum, they are all cancer patients -- must be evacuated to make space for handling novel coronavirus. ''
A few days later, the whole city went into an almost total
lockdown
.
But by that point, it was likely already too late to contain the virus, Guan Yi, a leading virologist, told
Caixin
. According to Wuhan authorities, 5 million people left the city due to Lunar New Year and the outbreak. As of January 27, there were still more than 4,000 Wuhan residents overseas.
Slow testing
The truth about the virus also came too late for other patients in Wuhan's hospitals.
By January 26, Shi began to have a fever -- one of the symptoms of the novel coronavirus. She went to the hospital's fever clinic where she found over 20 patients, all waiting to be tested by one doctor.
A member of the medical staff at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan on January 25.
She says she was given three tests -- a nasal swipe to rule out the flu, a CT scan to compare her lungs against those of infected patients, and a blood test. After nine hours of tests and waiting for results she says the doctor told her that she had coronavirus, but because he could not give her the fourth and most definitive test, she could only be considered a suspected patient. Her 67-year-old father is in the same situation.
Shi called hospitals all over Wuhan, trying in vain to find one with the confirmation test -- a reagent test which chemically tests for the virus.
For now, Shi and her father are not counted in the official statistics of people infected.
John Nicholls, a professor in pathology at the University of Hong Kong ( HKU), said it was no surprise that Shi could have caught the virus in hospital. He points out viruses can easily spread within a hospital if doctors don't take proper precautions.
Others, like Shi, have experienced delays in tests or have struggled to get tested at all.
Medical staff with a patient at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan.
One Wuhan resident who asked to be referred to as Leya as she fears government reprisals for speaking out said she and her young son have spent days waiting to hear if they have coronavirus. They have had a CT scan and a nucleic acid test -- a laboratory examination to identify a virus. They still haven't got confirmation of coronavirus -- and until they do, they can not be admitted to hospital. Her husband, his parents and her parents are already in hospital with the virus, and she is convinced that she and her son are likely to have the virus, too.
`` I think I might have been infected, '' Leya said fearfully. `` I don't know, everyday I 'm getting pains around my heart. ''
I think I might have been infected... I don't know, everyday I 'm getting pains around my heart
Leya, Wuhan resident
Dora Jiang's 72-year-old uncle -- who is based in Wuhan -- is in a similar position. He went to a dedicated coronavirus hospital, but he says they delayed testing him for days and would not admit him until he receives a formal diagnosis, said Jiang, who spoke with CNN from her home in Germany.
These reports of test delays come amid assurances from Chinese manufacturer Shanghai ZJ Bio-Tech that it can produce enough testing kits to meet nationwide demand. According to state media reports on Monday, the company said it can produce 8,000 boxes per day and has enough raw materials in stock to make testing kits for 2 million people.
On Tuesday evening, Wuhan's Communist Party chief Ma Guoqiang acknowledged that before mid-January, samples had to be sent to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention ( China CDC) in Beijing. From mid-January, Wuhan was able to test about 300 cases a day, he said. China CDC says it is using a test known as fluorescent RT-PCR to detect the virus, which can be done via a nasal swab, blood, urine, or a serum specimen.
A Chinese man wears a protective mask as he stands in a nearly empty street in Beijing on January 26.
HKU's Nicholls said that the PCR rapid test could be done in a couple of hours. He said the nasal swab was worthwhile to exclude ordinary flu, but he thought both a chest X-ray and blood tests to check for an increase in inflammatory cells would be a waste of resources.
The delays in testing can mean patients miss out on treatment but may also mean the scale of the problem is worse than we know.
As Gallagher from the University of Michigan puts it: `` I don't think the numbers that are coming out now are inaccurate because of deliberate under-reporting, I think they may be under-reported because of a lack of capacity to test. ''
' I feel so powerless '
It's not just testing kits that places like Wuhan are short of. Authorities there have asked for more supplies, and announced they would build two new hospitals in a week to increase the city's capacity to fight the outbreak.
Right now, loads of medical staff are at breaking point... I see my sisters charging toward the front line and I feel so powerless.
A nurse in Wuhan
According to a nurse in Wuhan who asked not to be identified for fear of professional repercussions, staff are overwhelmed, resources are running low, and there are no beds. There are so few hazmat suits that staff disinfect them at the end of their shift to wear again the next day, she said. Around 30 of the 500 medical staff at her hospital are now sick and admitted to hospital, and others -- including her -- have self-quarantined at home.
`` There really are a lot of people who can't get admitted, but there's no point in blaming the nurses. There are no beds, no resources. Are we supposed to just fight this battle bare-handed? '' she said. `` Right now, loads of medical staff are at breaking point... I see my sisters charging toward the front line and I feel so powerless. ''
Medical staff in Wuhan on January 26.
Similar things are happening in other
Wuhan hospitals
. On Sunday, a nurse from Wuhan Central Hospital told CNN that at least a dozen medical staff had been infected with coronavirus. One doctor at one of Wuhan's maternity hospitals, who spoke with CNN on condition of anonymity, said hospital staff are encouraging those with minor symptoms to stay at home and self-quarantine.
`` If you have a fever, don't come to the hospital, '' she posted on WeChat, a Chinese social media platform. Unless someone is suffering from serious conditions, she believes they should stay away from hospitals as they risk infecting others and causing unnecessary strain on the health system.
System under pressure
Even before the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, China's health care system was under pressure, says Chen Xi, an assistant professor at Yale School of Public Health.
After the
SARS outbreak in 2003
, the Chinese government poured huge amounts of money into building hospitals, he said. When the government started trying to develop its primary health care sector -- the equivalent of general practitioners -- it was too late: there was already a growing population and a culture of going to hospital for any health issue, including minor ailments, as people thought the hospitals were more trustworthy.
Medical staff at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital on January 25.
There is still a large divide between the care provided at urban hospitals in the most developed cities -- like Wuhan -- and the care in rural hospitals, Chen said.
People in rural areas often travel huge distances to access better care, leading to even more overcrowding at urban hospitals. Particularly at this time of year, hospitals in places like Wuhan would already be extremely busy because it's flu season, Chen added.
According to University of Michigan's Gallagher, there is also a lack of health care professionals, in part because of a fear that becoming a doctor or nurse puts them at risk of violence. Last month, a Beijing doctor was
fatally stabbed
by a patient's relative. The problem is so widespread that China has
passed a new law
-- which comes into effect later this year -- to protect medical workers.
Wuhan may be struggling, but as a major city, its hospitals are relatively good compared to others in China, said Gallagher.
It's plausible that the situation could be even worse in smaller centers where there is lower quality of care. Around 46 million people live in the 14 cities other than Wuhan under travel restrictions in Hubei province, and all those places have less developed health services than the provincial capital.
A Chinese man at a large empty shopping area in Beijing on January 28.
Many of those people might have otherwise traveled to Wuhan for care -- but now, they will have to stay put. In WeChat groups seen by CNN, there are already discussions over regional hospitals lacking supplies.
Health care inequality could also be a problem for China's migrant workers, who have returned home over the Lunar New Year period, Gallagher said. They may be unable to afford health care in the urban center where they work, but health care services could be inadequate in the rural area they are from.
For now, there is little people like Shi can do.
Shi and her father self-quarantined themselves at home this week, and were too afraid to visit Shi's mother lest they infect others.
`` My dad really wants to go and visit mum, but we both seem to have got the virus. We can't go. Our hearts are extremely conflicted, '' she said. `` I am less worried about myself -- I 'm more worried for my father, because it seems that the elderly are more vulnerable to this disease. I just hope that a hospital can take him in first. ''
Shi's father was admitted to hospital Thursday, but Shi is still at home. Earlier this week, a hospital worker told Shi that they don't have space for her and her father. When Shi asked what kind of patient would be admitted, she says the staff member responded: `` We will admit ( them) if they're dying. ''
CNN's Julia Hollingsworth wrote and reported from Hong Kong. Yuli Yang reported from Hong Kong. Xiong Yong and Natalie Thomas reporting from Beijing. | general |
After meager 2019, Samsung's modest chip recovery outlook falls flat | * Q4 operating profit down 34% to $ 6.13 bln; matches own estimate
* Sees gradual chip recovery after lowest annual profit since 2015
* Shares end down 3.2%, conservative outlook disappoints
* Says demand growth could slow down as macro uncertainties loom
Samsung Electronics extends China plant halt on coronavirus ( Add Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDI comments on China coronavirus)
By Hyunjoo Jin and Heekyong Yang
SEOUL, Jan 30 ( Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co is counting on a gradual recovery in memory chip demand from data centers and 5G smartphone makers to help it bounce back in 2020 after sliding to its worst operating profit in four years.
But in a guarded outlook, the world's biggest memory chip and smartphone maker said on Thursday it couldn't rule out the possibility that demand growth may be curbed amid lingering tensions on U.S.-China trade and looming fears of the economic impact of the new coronavirus outbreak in China and beyond.
The conservative forecast failed to satisfy investors hoping for a brighter outlook, and the company's shares ended down 3.2%, having fallen as much as 3.9% at one point, while the Seoul market benchmark was off 1.7%.
Samsung, which counts smartphone rivals Apple Inc and Huawei Technologies Co as customers for its chips and displays, said fourth-quarter operating profit slumped to 7.16 trillion won ( $ 6.13 billion) on weaker chip demand, down 34% from the same period a year earlier.
That was in line with its own estimate, though net profit for the quarter skidded 38% to 5.2 trillion won, meaning Samsung missed analysts ' estimate of 5.6 trillion won.
The October-December quarter marks the end of a year marred by bloated stockpiles of chips that squeezed prices, and the U.S.-China trade war that roiled global supply chains and prospects for consumer demand. For the year, the South Korean conglomerate posted operating profit of 27.8 trillion won, its lowest since 2015.
Samsung said it also expected January-March earnings to fall from the preceding quarter, reflecting low seasonal demand for chips and displays.
Speaking during a conference call, a Samsung chip executive flagged uncertainties in chip demand.
`` The macroeconomic and geopolitical concerns are showing signs of easing recently, but we can't rule out the possibility that the situation would deteriorate, '' said Han Jin-man, senior vice president at Samsung's semiconductor business unit. He didn't identify specific issues that could affect the company.
VIRUS OUTBREAK
In contrast with Samsung's modest forecast, chip peers like Intel Corp and TSMC earlier offered positive outlooks, fueling hopes of a rebound in chip prices after a slide that started in late 2018.
`` Samsung offered a conservative outlook for the memory market, and there is a disconnect between market views and the company views when it comes to strength of the recovery, '' said Park Sung-soon, an analyst at Cape Investment & Securities.
Meanwhile, after posting strong results, Apple earlier this week flagged uncertainty created by the coronavirus outbreak in China which economists fear could hurt the global economy.
On Thursday Samsung Electronics, which has chip, display and home appliance plants in China, declined to comment on the impact of the outbreak on demand. In a statement to Reuters, it said it had extended a holiday closure for some factories in line with Chinese government guidance.
But supplier Samsung SDI, which makes phone batteries and materials for chips and displays, said it expects current-quarter earnings to be adversely affected by the virus outbreak.
Fourth-quarter operating profit more than halved to 3.45 trillion won in Samsung's mainstay chip division, while its mobile division profit surged by two-thirds to 2.52 trillion won, thanks to strong sales of flagship models and a revamp of its mid- and lower-end A series line-up.
Samsung said the actual pace of 5G network expansion and its effects on memory demand remains to be seen, although the company sees demand picking up around mass-market 5G models.
It said it aims to expand its presence in the 5G network equipment market in the United States, while continuing to look at the possibility of entering the European market.
This week Britain granted Huawei a limited role in developing the country's 5G mobile network, frustrating a global attempt by the United States to exclude the Chinese telecoms giant from the West's next-generation communications.
( $ 1 = 1,167.2000 won)
( Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Heekyong Yang; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell) | business |
5 things to know before the stock market opens January 30, 2020 | U.S. stock futures were sharply lower Thursday, as world markets were under pressure on concerns about the widening coronavirus outbreak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was set to drop about 200 points at Wall Street's open, giving up nearly all of its remaining 2020 gains. On Wednesday, the Dow closed up just 11 points after trading some 220-points higher earlier in the session. The government on Thursday morning said its first look at fourth-quarter gross domestic product showed growth of 2.1%, matching estimates, and closed out a year that saw GDP decelerate to its slowest pace in three years. The numbers came one day after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady and struck an upbeat tone on the health of the U.S. economy.
Chinese health officials said the coronavirus death toll rose to 170 as confirmed cases in China increased to more than 7,700. To help contain the spread, Russia closed border crossings with China. India and the Philippines reported their first cases. The U.S. State Department said Thursday that more evacuation flights for Americans from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epic-center of the virus, are set for Monday. The new coronavirus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak. Severe acute respiratory syndrome killed 774 people.
The earnings flood continues, with Dow component Coco-Cola reporting before-the-bell Thursday fourth-quarter earnings that matched estimates and revenue that beat estimates. Shares were moving more than 1% higher in the premarket. Dow stock Verizon is also set to deliver Thursday morning. Dow stock Visa reports after the bell. Also Thursday afternoon, Amazon issues earnings, with one-day delivery investments expected to be a drag.
Shares of Tesla, already up nearly 40% in 2020, were set to add 10% at Thursday's Wall Street open. The electric auto maker reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings after the market close Wednesday. Tesla said vehicle deliveries should `` comfortably exceed 500,000 units '' this year. On the post-earnings analyst call, CEO Elon Musk said Tesla has no plans to raise capital at this point.
The Senate is expected to vote Friday on whether to call witnesses or subpoena additional documents in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are seen as the most likely Republicans to side with Democrats in favor of additional witnesses. On Wednesday, senators peppered House Democrats and Trump defense lawyers with questions. | business |
European markets focus on rising coronavirus death toll | European markets closed lower on Thursday, weighed on by a rising coronavirus death toll and reacting to the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to keep interest rates on hold.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 provisionally dropped 1% by the closing bell, with oil and gas stocks falling 2.6% to lead losses as most sectors and all major bourses slid into the red.
The coronavirus continues to be a focus for international markets; the outbreak has already taken more than 170 lives and infected more than 7,711 in China, according to the latest update by China's National Health Commission.
Stocks on Wall Street also took a downward turn amid the rising death toll from the virus, and markets were also subdued following the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to keep interest rates on hold.
The central bank's Federal Open Market Committee said Wednesday it will hold its benchmark funds rate between 1.5% to 1.75%. The decision marked the second straight meeting the Fed made no changes to rates, following three consecutive reductions in 2019. The central bank affirmed its commitment to nudge up inflation to the 2% level.
In Europe, Brexit is on the agenda with European parliamentary lawmakers meeting for last time Thursday ahead of the U.K.'s departure at 11 p.m. London time on Friday.
The Bank of England ( BOE) on Thursday held interest rates following Governor Mark Carney's final monetary policy meeting. Sterling jumped 0.5% against the dollar to trade at around $ 1.3084 after the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee ( MPC) voted 7-2 to keep the base rate at 0.75%.
Euro zone sentiment jumped in January as manufacturing confidence rose to its highest level since August, suggesting that the bloc may have enjoyed an economic uptick to begin the year, according to European Commission data published Thursday.
Deutsche Bank posted a full-year net loss of 5.3 billion euros ( $ 5.8 billion) before the bell on Thursday, amid a huge transformation project. Shares of Germany's largest lender climbed 4.2% on signs of restructuring progress.
Oil titan Royal Dutch Shell reported a sharp fall in full-year net profit, citing challenging macroeconomic conditions and lower oil and gas prices. The stock fell 4% by the end of the session.
H & M shares jumped 9.4% to the top of the Stoxx 600 after the Swedish fashion retailer posted its first annual profit rise since 2015 and announced a management reshuffle.
BT Group shares fell 7.3% after slightly missing third-quarter earnings expectations and warning of a £500 million ( $ 649.6 million) hit from the U.K.'s cap on Huawei technology.
British cybersecurity company Avast plunged 13.2% after announcing that it will close its Jumpshot analytics business, which recently found itself at the center of a data privacy scandal. | business |
Coronavirus: Russia closes border with China to prevent spread | Russia is to close its border with China as a measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to the country's state media.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said Thursday morning that he had signed an instruction to close the state border in the Far East, Russian news agency TASS reported.
`` A corresponding instruction was signed today. Work on it is already in progress. We will inform all those concerned properly about the measures to close the border in the Far Eastern region and other steps the government has taken ( to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Russia) '' the news agency quoted him as telling a cabinet meeting on Thursday.
Sixteen out of the 25 crossings along the Russian-Chinese border will be closed as of midnight January 31, the decree said, according to the Moscow Times. Russia's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it had temporarily suspended the issuing of electronic visas to Chinese nationals.
The move by Russia comes as the pneumonia-like virus, first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of December, continues to spread.
China's health authorities say the number of cases has now exceeded 7,711 and the death toll stands at 170.
Most of the cases are in China but the virus has also been found in France, Germany, Cambodia, South Korea, Singapore, the U.S., Thailand, Sri Lanka and Japan. The Philippines and India confirmed their first cases on Thursday too.
So far, there have been no reported cases of the virus in Russia. The World Health Organization is to decide later Thursday whether to declare a global health emergency over the outbreak. | business |
CDC confirms first human-to-human transmission of coronavirus in US | U.S. health officials confirmed on Thursday the nation's first person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus that has already killed at least 171 people in China and infected more than 8,200 since emerging less than a month ago.
The new patient is the husband of the Chicago woman who brought the infection back from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, CDC and Illinois health officials said during a press briefing. Health officials said the man, in his 60s, has `` some underlying medical conditions '' but was in good condition. His wife was doing well but remained in isolation at a local hospital, they said.
Public health officials are also monitoring 21 patients in Illinois for possible infections.
[ To see the latest updates on the coronavirus, visit CNBC's live blog here. ]
`` This is a very serious public health situation, '' said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. `` Moving forward, we can expect to see more cases, and more cases means more potential for person-to-person spread. ''
The virus, which emerged Dec. 31, has already spread to more people than the 2003 SARS epidemic, which sickened roughly 8,100 people across the globe over nine months. The transmission makes the U.S. at least the fifth country where the infection is now spreading through human-to-human contact, including China. Officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there are at least nine cases of human-to-human transmission outside of China, as of Thursday.
As of Thursday afternoon, 8,137 cases were confirmed in mainland China alone, according to Chinese state media, and more than 100 cases were confirmed elsewhere around the world — bringing the global total to at least 8,248.
U.S. officials are working to contain the outbreak from spreading in the country, including by increasing travel warnings and expanding screening at 20 U.S. airports. Trump administration officials have said they are constantly evaluating the situation and could take more drastic action if needed.
Health officials said Thursday that they still don't know whether the virus is infectious before symptoms. Officials are working with hospitals to make sure health-care providers are `` protected, '' Messonnier said.
`` Despite the case that we are reporting the first instance of person-to-person transmission in the United States, it is important to note that these two individuals were in close contact, '' she added.
The World Health Organization on Thursday declared the fast-spreading virus a global health emergency — a rare designation that helps the international agency mobilize financial and political support to contain the outbreak.
The coronavirus has spread to a handful of people through human-to-human contact outside of China, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's health emergencies program, said at a news conference at the organization's Geneva headquarters Wednesday.
`` These developments in terms of the evolution of the outbreak and further development of transmission, these are of grave concern and has spurred countries into action, '' Ryan said. `` What we know at this stage, this is still obviously a very active outbreak and information is being updated and changing by the hour. ''
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the `` continued increase in cases and the evidence of human-to-human transmission outside of China are, of course, most deeply disturbing. '' The illness produces a range of symptoms, with about 20% of the patients developing severe illnesses, including pneumonia and respiratory failure, he said.
`` Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak, '' Tedros said.
The number of confirmed cases is likely to grow, health officials said. There are more than 12,100 suspected cases in China that are either awaiting test results or haven't been tested yet, on top of the 8,137 that have already been confirmed in the country, according to WHO and China state media data released Thursday. Although the coronavirus doesn't appear to be as deadly as SARS, which had a mortality rate of about 11%, it is spreading significantly faster. The WHO data shows there are roughly 1,400 people in China who are severely ill.
In Europe, Costa Cruises is holding 6,000 passengers aboard the Costa Smeralda near Italy after a Chinese woman came down with a fever, raising concern that she may have the virus, Italian news agency Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata reported. The cruise line Costa Cruises said in a statement that it is holding the 54-year-old woman from Macao in isolation along with her travel companion. `` The Health Authority has been immediately notified and is now on board to conduct all the pertinent measures, '' the company said. `` It is our utmost priority to ensure the health and safety of passengers and crew. ''
CDC officials said Wednesday that a flight carrying U.S. citizens who evacuated from Wuhan arrived safely in California. Officials said all passengers were asked to remain at the March Air Reserve Base for further CDC screening and testing.
As of Wednesday, the CDC was monitoring 165 people across 36 states for the virus, including five patients who contracted the deadly infection in China and brought it back to the U.S. and one of the spouses. At least 68 people have tested negative for the virus, and the CDC is awaiting results for 92 individuals. World health officials say the respiratory disease spreads through human-to-human contact, droplets carried through sneezing and coughing and germs left on inanimate objects.
CNBC's Meg Tirrell contributed to this article. | business |
Watch: WHO officials announce whether coronavirus is a global health emergency | [ The stream is slated to start at 2:30 p.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time. ]
The World Health Organization on Thursday is holding its fourth news briefing to announce whether the flu-like coronavirus that has killed at least 171 people and infected more than 8,200 people around the world is a global health emergency.
WHO was expected last week to make its decision, but officials said they postponed their announcement to gather more data. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reconvened an emergency committee on the outbreak Thursday. The committee will advise Tedros on whether the outbreak now constitutes a `` public health emergency of international concern '' and what should be done to manage it.
The virus, which emerged Dec. 31, has already spread to more people than the 2003 SARS epidemic that sickened roughly 8,100 people across the globe over nine months. As of Thursday afternoon, 8,137 cases of the new coronavirus were confirmed in mainland China alone, according to Chinese state media, and more than 100 cases were confirmed elsewhere around the world — bringing the global total to at least 8,248.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Thursday the first person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus in the U.S. The transmission makes the U.S. at least the fifth country where the infection is now spreading through human-to-human contact, including China.
On Wednesday, Tedros told reporters that the `` continued increase in cases and the evidence of human-to-human transmission outside of China are, of course, most deeply disturbing. '' The illness produces a range of symptoms with about 20% of the patients becoming severely ill, including pneumonia and respiratory failure, he said.
`` Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak, '' Tedros said.
WHO doesn't enact the emergencies lightly, health experts say. The last time WHO declared a global health emergency was in 2019 for the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo that killed more than 2,000 people. The agency also declared global emergencies for the 2016 Zika virus, the 2009 H1N1 swine flu and the 2014 polio and Ebola outbreaks.
Visit CNBC's live blog to see the latest updates on the coronavirus. | business |
Amazon tops earnings estimates and trader sees 'room for upside ' | Amazon is in a prime position post-earnings.
Shares of the e-commerce giant soared more than 10% in after-hours trade following the company's fourth-quarter earnings report Thursday after the bell. The report topped Wall Street's estimates on earnings and revenue following what the company called a `` record '' holiday sales season.
Even with this impressive move in Amazon, there's still room for upside when it comes to the broader technology sector, Neel Shah, senior trader at Peak6 Capital Management, told CNBC's `` Trading Nation '' on Thursday.
`` Think about how we got here, '' Shah said of the broad market's bull run. `` We got here by buybacks, we got here by [ price-to-earnings multiple ] expansion and people buying stocks. So, I think that's going to take us higher. PE expansion could continue. So, even though people are complaining that valuations are high, I think there's still room for upside here. ''
Still, as Microsoft gains traction in cloud computing with its Azure business, which competes with Amazon Web Services, Amazon could be faced with a tough decision: Cut margins in order to stay competitive or let Microsoft win.
`` Microsoft came out last night, had really good numbers [ for ] cloud, and I think, with Amazon, it's going to drive the market going forward, '' particularly if the cloud business stays strong, Shah said. `` But if they say they're sacrificing margins, watch out below, and watch out below for the market as well. ''
Amazon Web Services grew 35% in the third quarter, trailing estimates and Microsoft Azure's 59% growth in the same time frame. This quarter, Azure grew 62%. A recent Goldman Sachs survey showed Azure was also getting more usage at large companies than Amazon Web Services, which remains the market leader by revenue.
Even with that rivalry heating up, Shah remained bullish on the prospects for tech, emphasizing that — contrary to many market watchers ' assertions that today's market looks a lot like that of the 1999 dotcom bubble — we're a long way off from the overheated conditions Wall Street saw before that bubble burst.
`` Markets do rhyme, but this time, it is different. Valuations aren't egregious, '' he said, noting that 1999 saw at least five days when the broad market dropped 5% in one session and multiple drops of more than 10%.
`` Volatility was significantly higher in 1999, [ and that's ] obviously not the case right now, '' the trader said. `` I think you have to trade this market. You have to kind of be willing to buy it when nobody wants to and just tactically trade it going forward. ''
As for key levels, Shah was watching the 3,181 level on S & P 500 e-Mini Futures contracts, the low from when Iran fired missiles at bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq on Jan. 7.
`` I think that's an important level to watch, '' Shah said, telling CNBC that if S & P e-Mini Futures break below that level, it could be an opportunity to `` tactically trade the panic. ''
Stocks bounced back late in Thursday's trading session as investors continued to parse developments with the coronavirus outbreak.
Disclosure: Peak6 Capital Management has positions in Amazon, Microsoft, the Nasdaq 100 and the S & P 500 e-Mini Futures.
Disclaimer | business |
A new virus stirs up ancient hatred ( opinion) | Jeff Yang is a frequent contributor to CNN Opinion, a featured writer for Quartz and other publications, and the co-host of the podcast `` They Call Us Bruce. '' He co-wrote Jackie Chan's best-selling autobiography, `` I Am Jackie Chan '' and is the editor of three graphic novels: `` Secret Identities, '' `` Shattered '' and the forthcoming `` New Frontiers. '' The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. Read more
opinion
on CNN.
( CNN)
The coronavirus outbreak in China seems terrifying.
Drone video clips
of a deserted Wuhan, its bustling streets emptied of pedestrians due to fear of contact with those who might be carriers, continue to pop up on my social feeds, along with mounting casualty numbers. Over 7,700 people are now infected
with the illness
; over 170 people have died, and the disease has popped up in at least 20 territories and countries around the world, from Australia to Vietnam.
Jeff Yang
But the disease isn't the only thing that's spreading -- or the only thing causing harm. Across the internet, we 've seen widespread eruptions of racist scapegoating, blaming Chinese for a disease that has so far only killed Chinese. The posts frequently claim or imply that the epidemic is the result of Chinese eating habits and hygiene, often pointing to a Chinese social media clip in which a female `` influencer '' is seen eating a bowl of bat soup, while saying that Chinese `` eat anything and everything and infect the world with viruses, '' calling Chinese a `` dirty people who can't keep order, '' and warning people to `` think twice before ordering anything Chinese. ''
At the root of these reactions is something deeply insidious and very familiar. Throughout history, cultures have used ugly slurs on the savagery, backwardness or filthiness of foreigners as a way to rationalize excluding them, ejecting them or eliminating them; we're seeing this today in
the language
that Trump and some in his administration
often use to talk
about Latin American migrants
and other communities
, framing them as bestial and subhuman, as violent and barbaric, as diseased and unclean, all to rationalize inhumane policies.
What it will take to stop the Wuhan coronavirus
Food and hygiene slander have long been the spear tip of attacks by contemptuous ( or envious) Westerners seeking to make Chinese seem impossibly alien, and thus unassimilable and inadmissible to their `` civilized '' countries. Back at the turn of the 19th century, Chinese were commonly
regarded as
`` dirty, heathen rat-eaters '';
vintage ads
for a pest poison called `` Rough on Rats ''
played on this perception
; also by suggesting that it was nearly as effective at controlling vermin as hungry Chinese people, while op-eds took that stereotype and expanded and elevated it to fearful, monstrous proportions, with a typical editorial in the September 29, 1854 edition of the New York Daily Tribune
calling
Chinese `` uncivilized, unclean, filthy beyond all conception, without any of the higher domestic or social relations; lustful and sensual in their dispositions, '' and warning the federal government to ban further influx of Chinese into the United States.
Spurred on by these descriptions, some took it into their own hands to reduce the number of Chinese in the country, gathering vigilante bands to burn down Chinatowns and kill their residents. One of the bloodiest
mass murders of Chinese
took place right here my city of Los Angeles in 1871, as a mob of over 500 invaded the city's old Chinese quarter and slaughtered and hung 20 men, mutilating their corpses in the deadliest known single lynching incident in US history.
Read More
By 1882, the tenor of Sinophobic rage was so great that the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning new immigrants from China entirely and making it unlawful for existing Chinese in America to ever become citizens. The Act is still the only law in American history to ever restrict entry to the US explicitly on the basis of race, and it wasn't repealed for 61 years, when
the 1943 Magnuson Act
finally permitted an entry quota of just 105 Chinese per year.
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02:45
Today, hostility toward China is experiencing in an edgy spike, fueled in part by Trump's trade war and frothing fusillades of tweets. The impact is being felt by Chinese Americans, as researchers of Chinese descent, many of them US citizens,
are being purged
from
universities and technology companies
, and questions of loyalty that haven't been raised for decades are creeping into public discourse. As the coronavirus epidemic spreads, Asians of all backgrounds
are reporting
that they're being treated with unnerving suspicion, to the point where
some are joking
that they plan on coughing loudly in public just to `` see who's racist. '' There are sotto voce whispers to avoid Chinatowns and other places where Asians congregate. There are calls from the fringe to ban the entry of Chinese to the US.
And it's not just America where Chinese and other Asians are reporting this. Thea Suh, a friend of mine from Germany -- a country with
four confirmed coronavirus cases
-- says that news outlets there have featured commentators suggesting that Asians `` deserve '' what they're getting, while she's personally observed train passengers visibly covering their mouths and moving away from where she's seated. `` Racism against people of Asian descent has been subtle in Germany, but it has always been here, '' she told me. `` With this recent coronavirus outbreak, it has just gotten worse... we are basically stuck between getting ridiculed and being the recipient of disgust. ''
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This coronavirus is new. But the diseases of xenophobia and racism are not. And as history has shown, outbreaks of the latter are potentially harder to contain, and far more lethal. | general |
What to watch from the WHO statement on the new coronavirus | A World Health Organization panel is meeting in Geneva on Thursday to assess the latest evolution in the new coronavirus, which has killed 170 people and spread from China to at least 16 other countries.
The 16 independent experts will decide whether the spread of the virus constitutes an international emergency, something they said was premature when they last met on Jan. 23. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus makes the final call.
Following are things to watch for from a statement and news conference scheduled from 7.30 pm local ( 1830 GMT):
- Declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern - known as a `` PHEIC '' in WHO jargon - is rare. Only five have been declared in the past decade: the H1 virus that caused an influenza pandemic ( 2009), West Africa's Ebola outbreak, polio ( 2014), Zika virus ( 2016), and the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo ( 2019).
- Declaration of a global emergency would include recommendations to all countries aimed at preventing or reducing cross-border spread of disease while avoiding unnecessary interference with trade and travel.
- It would include temporary recommendations for national health authorities worldwide, which could include stepping up their monitoring, preparedness and containment measures.
- Although the WHO has no legal authority to sanction countries, it could ask governments to provide scientific justification for any travel or trade restrictions that they impose in the event of an international emergency. ( Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Mark John and Hugh Lawson) | business |
Coca-Cola ( KO) earnings Q4 2019 meet expectations | Coca-Cola on Thursday reported quarterly revenue that topped analysts ' expectations as new products under its namesake brand boosted sales.
Shares of the company, which has a market value of $ 247 billion, rose 2.7% in morning trading. The stock is up 22% over the last 12 months.
Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:
The beverage giant reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income of $ 2.07 billion, or 47 cents per share, up from $ 870 million, or 20 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding impairment charges, refranchising gains and other items, Coke earned 44 cents per share, meeting expectations of analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
Net sales rose 16% to $ 9.07 billion, topping expectations of $ 8.89 billion. New products, such as Coke Plus Coffee and the expansion of Coke Zero Sugar, lifted sales during the quarter and led the namesake brand to its best performance in eight years. As U.S. consumption of soda has fallen, the company has used its Coke brand to create healthier options and branch out into new categories. For example, it launched Coke Energy in the U.S. earlier this month.
Teas from its Fuze brand and coffee also boosted its sales.
Additionally, Coke said it benefited from an extra day in the quarter and more customers buying higher-priced products.
Global organic revenues rose 7% during the quarter. North American unit case volume, which strip out the impact of currency and price hikes, were flat for the quarter.
Volume in its Europe, Middle East and Africa segment climbed 4%, driven by growth in Nigeria, North Africa, Turkey and central and eastern Europe. In Latin America, unit case volume increased by 3%, helped by acquisitions in Central America.
Despite weaker sales in China, the company's Asia Pacific business saw its unit case volume rise 2%.
CEO James Quincey said that it is `` way too early '' to tell the short-term impact of the Wuhan coronavirus on Coke's Chinese business, which accounts for about 10% of its global volume but less of its profits and revenue.
The company has closed offices and a number of its factories in response to the virus outbreak. Coke, working with the Chinese government, is reopening some of its manufacturing plants so it can continue to make its beverages for the Chinese population.
In 2020, Coke estimates organic revenue will grow by 5% and adjusted earnings per share will increase by 7% to $ 2.25. Its earnings outlook falls 1 cent below average analysts ' estimates of $ 2.26 a share for fiscal 2020.
The new year will also bring the launch of Coke's new flavored sparkling water line AHA in March. Quincey said in December that the company waited too long to follow the trend.
Read the full press release here. | business |
How the coronavirus outbreak in China could hit manufacturing | Expect supply disruptions as China takes measures to contain an ongoing coronavirus outbreak, says REYL Singapore's Daryl Liew.
`` The sharp action taken by the Chinese government to basically delay workers going back to work is definitely going to cause some supply disruptions, '' Liew, who is chief investment officer at REYL Singapore, told CNBC's `` Street Signs '' on Thursday.
With the virus infecting at least 7,700 and killing 170 in China, authorities have taken measures to curb the disease's spread. At least three provinces have declared that businesses, other than some essential industries, are barred from resuming work before Feb. 10. In Hubei province, where the majority of cases have been found, resumption of local business has been delayed till at least Feb. 14.
A `` big question mark '' remains over how long the disruptions could last, Liew said, as it depends on whether the situation can be contained.
That comes as manufacturing numbers were showing `` some normalization, '' he added.
`` It's a bit of a lagging indicator but the December ISM numbers have all been broadly positive, especially for Asian economies... which suggest essentially that global trade is normalizing. It's not bouncing back significantly but it is rebounding, '' Liew said, adding that that has translated to better manufacturing numbers.
`` The current virus... and the extended shutdown in China will definitely put a crimp to that, '' Liew said.
The outbreak has sent tremors across markets in Asia and beyond in recent days, as investor concerns about the potential economic impact grow.
`` We're concerned that there could start to be... some overall impact on the Chinese economy which could lend itself, from a sentiment perspective, to greater concerns... for the global economy, '' Shannon Saccocia, chief investment officer at Boston Private, told CNBC on Thursday.
That could spillover into the performance of U.S. businesses at a time when the `` strain of lower production '' is being felt stateside, Saccocia said.
`` If we start to see that upended by the fact that factories aren't opening and … we're not able to get the components that we need from the Chinese economy, you know, that could … certainly slow any sort of manufacturing reacceleration that we were hoping for in the first two quarters of 2020, '' she said.
The Chinese city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, is the epicenter of the outbreak, and authorities have placed multiple cities in the province under partial or complete lockdown. Wuhan and the surrounding region of Hefei and Jiangsu are major manufacturing hubs that work with American firms. But they have also been shut down due to the virus outbreak.
`` As an investor, you need to understand... where the supply chain starts and ends and factor in to your expectations... for those companies, '' Saccocia said, though she acknowledged that it's `` a little early '' to `` paint the picture that half of the year is going to be meaningfully lower from a growth standpoint due to this virus. ''
— CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report. | business |
Dow to fall, Tesla's rally and coronavirus concerns | Worries over the spreading coronavirus are weighing on investor sentiment once again, with U.S. stock futures lower and world stock markets falling this morning. The Dow and S & P 500 are on track to post their second straight weekly losses since October. The Nasdaq could fall for two straight weeks for the first time since September. The Dow and S & P 500 are also on track to lose a good chunk of their remaining January gains at the open. However, the Nasdaq has been fairing better in 2020, with an advance of nearly 3.4% in January, as of Wednesday's close. ( CNBC) * 10-year Treasury yield falls to lowest level since early October as coronavirus fuels anxiety ( CNBC)
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at its meeting this week and tweaked its post-meeting statement to reflect what appears to be a stronger commitment to nudge up inflation. On today's economic calendar, the government will issue the first look at fourth-quarter GDP at 8:30 a.m. ET, along with initial jobless claims for the week ending Jan. 25. ( CNBC) * Fourth quarter GDP could show economy entered a slower growth patch at year-end ( CNBC)
A busy morning for earnings features the latest numbers from Dow components Coca-Cola ( KO) and Verizon ( VZ), as well as Altria ( MO), AmerisourceBergen ( ABC), Biogen ( BIIB), Blackstone ( BX), DuPont ( DD), Eli Lilly ( LLY), Hershey ( HSY), Raytheon ( RTN) and UPS ( UPS). Today's after-the-bell earnings see Amazon ( AMZN) and Dow component Visa ( V) in the spotlight, along with Amgen ( AMGN), Deckers Outdoor ( DECK), FICO ( FICO), Levi Strauss ( LEVI) and Western Digital ( WDC). ( CNBC) * Amazon's spending on one-day delivery is likely to weigh on fourth-quarter profit ( CNBC)
Tesla ( TSLA) shares extended their rally on Thursday, rising 10% in premarket trading following better-than-expected quarterly results. Facebook ( FB) also beat on the top and bottom lines, but the stock fell more than 7% after the company reported rising costs and expenses and a narrowing operating margin. Microsoft ( MSFT) beat on earnings and revenue, and the Dow stock was up more than 3% in the premarket. ( CNBC) * Elon Musk says Tesla won't raise capital, will focus on lowering cost of batteries ( CNBC) * Facebook's new metrics show it's still a one-trick pony ( CNBC)
The spread of a fast-moving virus outside of China is of `` grave concern '' and has prompted the World Health Organization to reconvene an emergency meeting this week to decide whether it's become a global health emergency. The coronavirus outbreak has killed 170 people in China and sickened more than 7,711 across more than a dozen countries across the globe. ( CNBC) * India confirms first case of the coronavirus ( CNBC) * Australia defends plan to create island quarantine camp ( AP)
Senators in Trump's impeachment trial peppered House Democrats and defense lawyers with questions yesterday, ahead of a crucial vote on whether to allow new witnesses and documents into the proceedings. That vote is expected to occur Friday, after the question-and-answer period of the trial ends. ( CNBC) * Battle escalates over John Bolton's bombshell book about Trump ( CNBC) President Donald Trump is holding a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, tonight, ahead of Friday's key Senate impeachment vote and the Iowa caucuses on Monday. Trump's campaign will follow the rally by sending a long list of GOP heavyweights to Iowa, including members of Trump's family, Cabinet officials and congressional leaders. ( USA Today) * Iowa could be a wake-up call for market if Bernie Sanders wins ( CNBC)
A federal jury decided that Apple ( AAPL) and Broadcom must pay $ 1.1 billion to the California Institute of Technology for infringing on patents. The lawsuit said Broadcom used its patented Wi-Fi data transmission technology in computer chips that went into iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and other Apple devices. ( AP)
The first all-electric vehicle for Ford Motor's ( F) luxury Lincoln brand is being developed with EV start-up Rivian. The vehicle will use Rivian's `` flexible skateboard platform, '' which underpins the vehicle, as part of a previously announced $ 500 million investment by Ford into the private company. ( CNBC)
A government report will claim that Southwest Airlines ( LUV) failed to prioritize safety while its regulator, the FAA, failed to do enough about it. Southwest pilots flew more than 17 million passengers on planes with unconfirmed maintenance records over roughly two years, according to a report viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Kobe Bryant's wife of nearly 20 years broke her silence on the death of her husband and their 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, in a heartbreaking Instagram post Wednesday. She described the basketball legend as an adoring husband and father, and called Gianna `` a loving, thoughtful, and wonderful daughter '' and amazing sister. ( NBC News)
Align Technology ( ALGN) is expecting a $ 35 million hit to revenue due to virus-related business disruptions in China. That news is weighing on the stock, even though the maker of the Invisalign teeth straightening system beat Wall Street forecasts on the top and bottom lines for its latest quarter.
Mondelez ( MDLZ) came in a penny ahead of analyst forecasts with adjusted quarterly earnings of 61 cents per share, and the Oreo-cookie maker also saw revenue beat estimates. However, Mondelez also said it expects current quarter revenue to take a hit from the coronavirus issue.
PayPal ( PYPL) reported adjusted quarterly profit of 86 cents per share, 3 cents above estimates, while revenue was slightly above forecasts. However, the payment service gave a weaker-than-expected outlook for the current quarter and the full year.
Unilever ( UL) is beginning a strategic review of its tea business, which includes the Lipton and PG Tips brands. The consumer products company decided on the review as sales of traditional black tea slow in favor of herbal tea.
Lyft ( LYFT) cut 90 jobs, about 1.6% of its workforce, impacting the ride-hailing company's sales and marketing departments.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa pulled out of a documentary search for a girlfriend to take on his voyage around the moon with Elon Musk's SpaceX, citing his `` mixed feelings '' about participating. This month, the 44-year-old announced he was seeking single females over 20 willing to vie to become his girlfriend for a documentary. Almost 28,000 people applied. ( Reuters) | business |
Here's the strategy Bridgewater's Ray Dalio is using to deal with coronavirus | Bridgewater's Ray Dalio said he has no idea what the extent of the coronavirus will be, but for now he believes the best investment strategy is to diversify across geographic locations, asset class and currencies to protect against the unknowns.
`` Terrible, unimaginable things could happen anywhere. What we don't know is much greater than what we do know, '' wrote Dalio in a note Jan. 28. The hedge fund investor said Bridgewater studied past pandemics to put the latest coronavirus in perspective and expects to do more homework on the topic.
Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, said he has no knowledge about the economic or market impacts from the virus, but Bridgewater does know pandemics have happened in the past and have had major impacts.
`` Generally speaking these once-in-a-lifetime big bad things initially are under-worried about and continue to progress until they become over-worried about, until the fundamentals for the reversal happen, '' meaning the virus switches from accelerating to decelerating, he wrote.
In the case of SARS, the Hong Kong stock market was affected by it and reversed when the number of cases peaked, and then started to decline. `` This is all logical and would be the type of market action we would expect if the coronavirus crisis remains concentrated in China, '' he noted. He would expect the greater Chinese and Hong Kong markets to be impacted more than world markets and the impact could reverse as the number of new cases starts to fall.
Bridgewater also looked at the H1N1, or swine flu, virus in 2009 and 2010. With this virus and SARS, the markets acted in a risk-off way, responding to falling growth and the flight to quality. Stocks fell, while gold and bond prices went higher, but these market moves faded and markets could have been responding instead to policy and economic developments that weren't related to the virus. H1N1 also coincided with the beginning of the financial crisis.
The deadliest pandemic in modern history was the 1918 outbreak of the Spanish flu, which coincided with World War I. The war itself contributed to the outbreak, which infected 500 million people and killed 50 million. The peak of the disease came at the end of the war.
`` The impacts of the war and the pandemic are hard to disentangle in market and economy charts, but it looks like positive developments in the war … were overshadowed by the pandemic, marking the end of an equity rally, '' he wrote.
The U.S. economy appeared to go into a sharp downturn during the Spanish flu outbreak. A study by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis looked at headlines form the era and found references to the retail grocery business being reduced by a third, and coal mine operations reporting production was cut in half. Merchants in Little Rock, Arkansas, also reported a decline in sales of 40%.
`` So far, China's response is much more transparent and decisive compared to the SARS outbreak, which affects both the statistical comparison and the rate of dealing with the problem, '' he wrote. | business |
Pilots union files suit to block American Airlines flights to China | - A pilots union on Thursday filed suit in a Texas court seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately halt American Airlines U.S.-China service amid a coronavirus outbreak.
The Allied Pilots Association cited `` serious, and in many ways still unknown, health threats posed by the coronavirus. ''
American, which did not immediately comment on the suit, announced Wednesday it would next month suspend flights from Los Angeles to Beijing and Shanghai, but continue flights from Dallas.
The union cited warnings issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discouraging all nonessential travel to China. ( Reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Chris Reese) | business |
Shell earnings: Net profit falls 23% year-on-year on lower oil, gas prices | Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell reported a sharp fall in full-year net profit on Thursday, citing challenging macroeconomic conditions and lower oil and gas prices.
Net income attributable to shareholders on a current cost of supplies ( CCS) basis and excluding identified items, which is used as a proxy for net profit, came in at $ 16.462 billion for the full-year 2019. That compared with a profit of $ 21.404 billion for full-year 2018, reflecting a year-on-year drop of 23%.
Analysts had expected full-year 2019 net income attributable to shareholders on a CCS basis, and excluding identified items, to come in at $ 17.770 billion, according to data from Refinitiv.
Shell repeated a warning on Thursday that a global economic slowdown could impact the pace of its $ 25 billion share buyback program but the energy giant's chief executive has reaffirmed his intent to complete it.
`` If we want to do everything that we said we needed to do, which is continue to invest in growth, continue to buy back shares — $ 25 billion worth of it — and reduce the net debt then, of course, the macro will probably force some choices on us, '' Ben van Beurden, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, told CNBC's `` Squawk Box Europe '' on Thursday.
`` We are not in the process of making quarterly updates of what we think of the macro but we will be very clear that our strategy and our intentions are completely unchanged from what they were in June last year, '' he added.
Shares of Shell tumbled toward the bottom of the European benchmark during early morning deals, down more than 4% shortly after the opening bell.
Here are the key highlights:
Shell also took a $ 1.6 billion charge on its U.S. gas fields in the final three months of last year. It comes after the Anglo-Dutch energy giant warned last month that it would book additional charges against its income in the fourth quarter.
International benchmark Brent crude traded at $ 58.99 Thursday morning, down more than 1.3%, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate ( WTI) stood at $ 52.57, around 1.4% lower.
Both crude benchmarks slumped to multi-month lows earlier in the week, as energy market participants try to assess the potential impact of China's coronavirus on oil demand growth.
Chinese health officials confirmed there had been 7,711 cases of the deadly pneumonia-like virus at the end of Wednesday, with 170 deaths.
The World Health Organization's ( WHO) Emergency Committee is set to reconvene on Thursday, with officials poised to decide whether the outbreak constitutes a global health emergency.
BP and Total are both expected to report their latest quarterly figures next week. | business |
For zero trust to work, machines and humans require identities | The security method challenges traditional notions of identity management because it includes people, devices and machines.
In 2009, Google was one of the more than 30 companies hit during a series of cyberattacks under Operation Aurora, which targeted the tech giant and other Fortune 100 companies. Google was the first to publicly attribute the attack to China.
The hackers used a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer, according to McAfee. It was a flaw without a disclosed mitigation. Spear phishing and escalated access allowed the intruders to roam through victims ' trade secrets.
Operation Aurora demonstrated the interconnectedness of cybersecurity and the importance of zero trust. Zero trust assumes bad actors are already in a system and promotes a bare minimum access model for users, reducing the threat service.
The attack took advantage of basic cybersecurity woes and weak identity management, one of many which shaped a decade of disastrous cyberattacks.
`` This past decade sucked, '' said Dug Song, VP and general manager of Cisco and co-founder of Duo Security, while speaking at the Zero Trust Summit in Washington Tuesday. Malicious actors from China left blemishes all over the public and private sector in the 2010s. The Office of Personnel Management's 2015 breach was `` one of the largest intelligence failures in history, '' said Song.
The Department of Defense has always had a segregated network, including classified, secret and top secret. Segregated networks are a vital feature of zero trust.
But there are `` some really, really good hackers '' that came after `` what we thought were great devices '' — firewalls, said retired Army LT. Gen. Alan Lynn, VP of engineering at Cisco and former director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, speaking at the summit.
After hackers targeted agency devices, the DOD adopted the `` common access card '' for its identity platform, which it has used for about 15 years, he said. The solution is `` not always loved, but [ it's ] effective. ''
What is difficult about zero trust is how an identity is crafted, said Suzette Kent, federal CIO of the executive office of the president, while speaking at the summit. A trusted identity can be people, devices or machines. Anything on an organization's network `` is the challenge now. '' Businesses have to understand `` who is what '' and why they are on a network.
CIOs and CISOs are challenged with expanding zero trust beyond traditional `` unique identifiers, '' she said. Now they have to understand the individual's purpose of access and, when certain actions don't make sense for a user, how to immediately stop their movement.
`` If you can't get your arms around identity, you're going to have an uphill fight, '' said Steven Hernandez, CISO of the Department of Education, while speaking at the summit. Identity includes anything that might need or want access to an organization's data.
Realizing identity can be crafted from `` non-person entities '' is `` powerful, '' because it challenges the traditional thought of what identity management is, said Hernandez.
While zero trust is security buzzword, its properties have existed for years; it's just been shrouded by a `` crazy landscape '' of security solutions, said Song. There are thousands of security vendors difficult to manage and integrate.
Cybersecurity has become an experience no one enjoys, he said. `` We want to frustrate our attackers, not our users. ''
Trusting no one, zero trust poses a different kind of workforce challenge because everyone plays a role in crafting a reliable identity, said Kent.
Hernandez told summit attendees to build a relationship with the people in charge of human capital in their organization. The security organization can use their data to understand a user's attendance, travel and performance history.
Human capital data feeds a deeper profile, `` which will drive how we view [ a user ] interaction with the data they're trying to get to, '' said Hernandez.
Continuous assessment of access is an added layer to understanding user-data relationships, including the `` lifecycle '' of a user's access history. Having a track record of user actions or geolocations can help determine if expanded access should be granted.
`` Trust engines, '' when fed contextual data, will eventually be able to make access decisions on their own. For example, a trust engine could flag a user accessing banking data when they typically only view environmental impact data, said Hernandez.
While developing singular profiles is an essential piece of limiting access, privacy can't be ignored. Hernandez wants to make sure privacy teams have a seat at the table too. They're `` happy to do it, '' he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic, and ensuing recession, turned security strategies upside down.
Otter.ai launched a live meeting caption capability on Zoom, a step welcomed by accessibility experts. A more holistic accessibility approach is needed in the workplace.
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Tech execs can help broker trust by designing storage, access and privacy solutions for self-identification data.
With IT spend under scrutiny, don't fall for these budget missteps impacting businesses ' bottom lines. | tech |
Tesla, Apple, Starbucks warn of virus hit; firms restrict travel, flights canceled | flights canceled @ ( Rewrites first paragraph to include Tesla; adds Google, Samsung and other companies)
Jan 30 ( Reuters) - Tesla warned a delay in the output of Shanghai-built Model 3 cars would hurt first-quarter profit after China ordered a shutdown of the factory following a virus outbreak that has killed 170 people and infected thousands.
Companies have shut thousands of stores, restricted travel to China and asked staff there to work from home.
Here's what large companies have said about the outbreak:
TRAVEL ADVISORIES/EVACUATIONS/QUARANTINES:
* Facebook suspended non-essential travel to mainland China and told employees who had traveled there to work from home.
* Alibaba extended work-from-home days after a prolonged Lunar New Year break ends on Feb. 2. Novartis and Volkswagen did so as well for China staff.
* Tencent extended holidays until Feb 9.
* Tiktok owner Bytedance asked employees who traveled during the holidays to quarantine themselves at home for 14 days. E-commerce firm Pinduoduo and UBS Group have advised similar action.
* HSBC banned travel to Hong Kong and China, and asked employees who traveled to the mainland recently to quarantine themselves at home.
* Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered took similar quarantine measures. Standard Chartered also restricted travel to China, as did Commonwealth Bank of Australia, SK Hynix, LG Display, Honda Motor and Nippon Steel, Roche and Mondelez.
* LG Electronics, LG Chemical, Exxon Mobil and Brazilian miner Vale SA suspended travel to China. STORE/FACTORY CLOSURES:
* Alphabet's Google temporarily shut all offices in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
* Toyota Motor, which restricted China travel, shut factories in the country through Feb. 9.
* Samsung Electronics, which has chip, display and home-appliance plants in China, extended a suspension of some factories in line with government guidance. It had earlier advised employees who visited Hubei to stay at home for seven days.
* Samsung supplier Samsung SDI expects the outbreak to hurt current-quarter earnings.
* AB Inbev suspended production at its Wuhan brewery.
* Apple closed one of its retail stores in China and reduced hours at others, and restricted employee travel. It said it had baked into its outlook uncertainty related to the outbreak.
* Walt Disney shut its resorts and theme parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong during what is likely their busiest time of the year.
* McDonald's shut all stores in Hubei.
* Starbucks warned results would be hit after it shut over half its cafes in the country.
* Japan's Fast Retailing temporarily closed about 100 Uniqlo stores in Hubei.
* IKEA closed all its 30 stores in China. It has restricted China travel.
* Yum China temporarily closed some KFC and Pizza Hut stores in Wuhan, and Luckin Coffee closed its cafes in the city.
* Imax delayed film releases in China.
* H & M closed 45 stores and suspended business travel to and within China. Staff arriving from China are advised to stay home for 14 days.
* Swatch closed five stores in Wuhan and suspended travel to and from China.
AIRLINE CANCELLATIONS:
* British Airways suspended all direct flights to and from China until at least Jan. 31. Finnair suspended routes to Nanjing and Beijing until end-March.
* United Airlines, Air Canada, Taiwan's China Airlines, Jetstar Asia, Korean Air and IndiGo canceled some flights to China.
* American Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier, said it will suspend flights from Los Angeles to Beijing and Shanghai.
* Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon will cut capacity to and from mainland China by half or more from Jan. 30 to end-March.
* Air Seoul suspended all flights to China. Indonesia's Lion Air canceled some this month and all flights to China next month.
HOTELS, CRUISES:
* InterContinental Hotels will allow customers to change or cancel for free stays booked through official channels and scheduled between Jan. 23-Feb. 29 across mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan..
* Hyatt Hotels said guests who booked stays through its official channels and are canceling due to the coronavirus outbreak, or are Chinese guests outbound to its Asia Pacific hotels, can cancel stays or change dates for free.
* Royal Caribbean Cruises said its 2020 earnings would be hurt after it canceled three trips of its China-based cruise liner following discussions with health authorities over the coronavirus outbreak.
BOOKING PLATFORMS, AGENCIES:
* Ctrip, China's largest online booking platform, said more than 300,000 hotels on its platform had agreed to refunds on bookings between Jan. 22 and Feb. 8. Refunds also include flight tickets, cruises and car rentals.
* Fliggy, Alibaba's booking site, offered similar refunds.
* Some Chinese tour operators such as China International Travel Service offered refunds and many European tour operators canceled tours to China. ( Reporting by Sophie Yu in Beijing, Jamie Freed in Sydney, Ritsuko Ando in Tokyo, Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm, Ben Blanchard in Taipei, Naomi Tajitsu in Tokyo, Heekyong Yang and Jane Chung in Seoul, Josh Horwitz and Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Pei Li in Beijing, Neil Jerome Morales in Manila, Sumeet Chatterjee in Hong Kong, Paul Arnold and Silke Koltrowitz in Zurich, Laurence Frost in Paris; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh and Josephine Mason; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Lisa Shumaker, Tom Hogue, Kim Coghill, Shinjini Ganguli and Aditya Soni) | business |
Asia stocks mixed as coronavirus concerns continue to weigh on investor sentiment | Asia markets were mixed on Friday as fears over the ongoing coronavirus outbreak in China continued to weigh on investor sentiment.
The World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency over the the coronavirus outbreak that has killed at least 200 in China.
Japanese stocks closed higher as the Nikkei 225 rose 0.99% to 23,205.18, with shares of Tokyo Electron jumping 2.3%. The Topix index also added 0.58% to end its trading day at 1,684.44.
South Korea's Kospi, on the other hand, dropped 1.35% to close at 2,119.01.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index shed earlier gains as it fell into negative territory, declining 0.13% as of its final hour of trading.
Shares in Australia rose on the day, with the S & P/ASX 200 up 0.13% to 7,017.20.
Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index was 0.3% lower.
Chinese manufacturing activity was unchanged from the previous month in January, according to official Chinese data released Friday. The official manufacturing Purchasing Managers ' Index ( PMI) came in at 50, said China's National Bureau of Statistics. January's PMI reading of 50 came in line with expectations of economists polled by Reuters. The 50 level for PMI readings separates expansion from contraction.
The release comes amid Beijing's efforts to contain an ongoing virus outbreak in the country that has sent jitters across global markets in recent days.
`` The full impact of the coronavirus has yet to be inflicted on PMI and other monthly activity indicators because the Chinese government shut down Wuhan city and imposed draconian measures in other regions from around 23 January, '' economists at Nomura wrote in a note dated Friday. `` The data for January PMI was collected before those drastic measures were introduced. ''
The economists warned that both the manufacturing and services PMI figures in February could plunge to a range of 40-45 as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.
`` The services PMI could be hit harder than the manufacturing PMI, as a number of service sectors have come to a grinding halt since 23 January, '' they said.
Furthermore, concerns remained over China's consumer sector, which one analyst described as a `` huge unknown at this point. ''
`` You 've got a situation where retail sales have basically been churning out significant 8% plus growth year-over-year. Meanwhile, the consumer has leveraged up, added a lot of debt in the mortgage area, '' Andrew Collier, managing director at Orient Capital Research, told CNBC's `` Street SIgns '' on Friday.
That comes as small businesses in the country are short of capital and the trade war between Washington and Beijing has `` heavily impacted '' high-end imports, Collier said.
`` You 've got a situation now with the virus, so you 've got to wonder at what point there's gon na be a fairly significant decline in consumer purchasing activity as a result of all these different forces, '' he said. `` Whether the virus is the catalyst or just as a pylon until all the other bad stuff happening in China is still unknown. ''
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 97.944 after touching an earlier low of 97.855.
The Japanese yen traded at 109.04 per dollar after weakening from levels below 108.8 yesterday. The Australian dollar changed hands at $ 0.6713 after touching an earlier low of $ 0.6703. | business |
Japan hopefully has time to build virus defenses before Olympics, professor says | Vaccines against a coronavirus that has killed 170 people in China probably won’ t be ready by the start of the Tokyo Summer Olympics, a professor who looked at health risks ahead of the games said, adding that he hoped that there was enough time to build defenses.
Koji Wada, professor of public health at the International University of Health and Welfare in Tokyo, co-authored a paper in 2018 that looked at health risks from the influx of visitors to the 2020 Games in July.
The spread of measles, rubella and other vaccine-preventable diseases was seen at the time as the most likely risk, according to the report, along with food and waterborne illnesses.
Wada said he hoped there was enough time to learn more about the coronavirus and how it spreads.
“ We may have more information about the risk of infection and the risk of severity of getting the virus, so we can prepare, ” Wada said in an interview Wednesday. “ So we can have some precautions for infection control … but I hope we can conduct the Tokyo Olympics as scheduled. ”
Two of three Japanese people evacuated from China and found to be infected with the new virus had not shown symptoms, the health ministry said Thursday, adding to worry about the dangers of the fast-spreading virus.
Fears of disease outbreaks have clouded recent Olympics. The mosquito-borne Zika virus threatened the start of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, while the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver were overshadowed by the H1N1 swine flu pandemic. Dozens fell ill in an outbreak of norovirus ahead of South Korea’ s Pyeongchang Winter Games two years ago.
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More airlines halt China flights as WHO calls emergency meeting on coronavirus | WUHAN, CHINA – Airlines began suspending flights to and from China on Wednesday as the World Health Organization called an urgent meeting over whether a viral epidemic that has killed 132 people and infected around 6,000 others should be declared a global health emergency.
The flight suspensions came as some countries began flights to repatriate their nationals trapped in Wuhan, the quarantined Chinese city of 11 million people at the center of the epidemic.
A growing number of governments — including the United States, U.K. and Germany — have advised their citizens to avoid non-essential travel to China. Beijing has urged Chinese citizens to delay trips abroad, with at least 18 countries having confirmed cases of the disease.
In Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the organization “ deeply regrets ” its reports last week that referred to the global risk of the outbreak as “ moderate ” instead of “ high.
A meeting of WHO experts on Thursday could upgrade it further. “ I have decided to reconvene the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on the new # coronavirus ( 2019-nCoV) tomorrow, ” Tedros wrote on Twitter.
“ The whole world needs to be on alert now, ” Michael Ryan, head of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, told reporters in Geneva on Wednesday. “ The whole world needs to take action. ”
British Airways was the first major airline to announce a suspension of flights to and from China, citing the travel advice of the foreign office.
It was followed by German flag carrier Lufthansa, one of Europe’ s largest airlines, which said all flights to mainland China would be suspended until Feb. 9. The announcement included subsidiaries Swiss and Austrian Airlines.
Indonesia’ s Lion Air Group, Southeast Asia’ s biggest carrier by fleet size, said it would halt services to and from China from Saturday, and airlines from Myanmar and Nepal followed suit.
Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific has reduced flights, citing low demand and the city government’ s response plan to the virus.
Meanwhile Kazakhstan, an important trade partner for China, stopped issuing visas to Chinese citizens and said it would halt cross-border passenger train traffic and suspend flights.
In one of the most dramatic measures, the tiny Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea announced no travelers from Asia would be allowed in.
Countries have scrambled to get their citizens out of Wuhan safely, but have faced logistical, medical and bureaucratic hurdles.
A U.S. charter flight from Wuhan with about 210 Americans on board — including consulate staff — was met at a California military base on Wednesday by emergency vehicles with flashing lights and personnel in white biological hazard suits. The evacuees will be monitored for symptoms and sent to local hospitals if they are found to be ill, the U.S. defense department said.
Some 250 French citizens and 100 other Europeans will be flown out of Wuhan on board two French planes this week. France said it would keep its returnees in a holding facility in Paris for 14 days — the estimated incubation period for the virus..
The Italian government said it would send an aircraft on Thursday. Up to 70 Italians are reportedly in Wuhan.
Australia plans to house any citizens evacuated on an island normally used to detain asylum seekers.
China has taken extraordinary measures to try and stop the disease spreading, including bans on tour groups traveling overseas, suspending schools and extending the Lunar New Year holiday.
Most street traffic in and around Wuhan has been banned in an unprecedented quarantine effort, leaving more than 50 million people shuttered in their homes.
“ This is the first day since the lockdown that I’ ve had to go out, ” a man in his 50s said Wednesday on the mostly deserted streets of the industrial city.
The scale of the deepening crisis was emphasized with the total number of infections on the Chinese mainland exceeding that of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS) outbreak of 2002-03.
But the death toll is so far much lower than SARS, which claimed nearly 800 lives around the world — with most fatalities in mainland China and Hong Kong.
The virus is believed to have originated in a wild-animal market in Wuhan, where it jumped to humans before spreading across the country as the peak travel period for Lunar New Year festivities got underway.
The virus has rattled global markets and started to dent an already-slowing Chinese economy.
Japanese automaker Toyota said it would keep its plants in China closed until at least Feb. 9.
Tech giant Foxconn said Wednesday that Taiwan staff at its vast network of factories in China do not need to return to work until mid-February — a move likely to impact global supply chains for technology firms that rely on the Taiwan company to manufacture everything from iPhones to flat-screen TVs and laptops.
The virus has also disrupted sporting events, with a women’ s football Olympic qualifier event moved from Wuhan to Australia.
Despite the precaution, the Chinese team was quarantined in a Brisbane hotel after arriving for the competition, according to Australian media.
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing, you can help us get the story right. | tech |
McDonald's closes all branches in China's virus-hit province of Hubei | NEW YORK – U.S. fast food giant McDonald’ s said Wednesday it had closed all of its restaurants in Hubei, the Chinese province at the epicenter of a virus outbreak that has spread beyond the country’ s borders.
The novel coronavirus outbreak, traced to the provincial capital Wuhan in central China, has killed more than 130 people and infected nearly 6,000 people nationwide.
That has prompted factories and businesses to close, international airlines to cancel flights to the country and governments to discourage travel to China.
McDonald’ s CEO, Chris Kempczinski, called the situation “ fluid ” and “ concerning, ” and said that the chain had decided to close all of its restaurants in Hubei, which amount to “ several hundred. ”
But 3,000 outlets elsewhere in China remain open, he said during a call to discuss the company’ s fourth quarter financial results.
“ Right now, as you would expect, our priority’ s really on our employees, on our customers, doing everything we can to make sure that they are safe and taken care of, ” Kempczinski said, adding that the company would establish a special team to deal with the outbreak.
China accounts for 9 percent of all McDonald’ s restaurants but only about 4 to 5 percent of its sales and 3 percent of its income, he said.
But commenting on the potential financial hit from the virus, he said “ its actual impact on our business is going to be fairly small, assuming, again, that it stays contained to China. ”
There are now 16 countries that have confirmed cases of the SARS-like illness, from the United States to the United Arab Emirates.
American coffee chain Starbucks announced Tuesday that it had shuttered half of its cafes in China, and Disney shut down its theme parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
The McDonald’ s announcement came as they reported healthy fourth quarter results that showed sales growing worldwide by 5.9 percent, with revenues of $ 5.35 billion, compared to the final three months of 2018.
The earnings were the first since chief executive Steve Easterbrook left the chain following a “ consensual relationship ” with an employee that violated company policy.
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Three Japanese returnees from Wuhan test positive for new coronavirus | Three Japanese who returned from Wuhan on a government-chartered flight have tested positive for the new coronavirus, the health ministry said Thursday as more Japanese evacuees from the Chinese city arrived in Tokyo.
The three — one in stable condition and two without symptoms — were among 206 people brought back Wednesday from Wuhan amid a deadly outbreak started by the pneumonia-causing virus.
It is the first time that a person outside of China without symptoms has been confirmed to be infected with the virus, according to Japan’ s National Institute of Infectious Diseases.
A further 210 Japanese were flown back home Thursday on a second government-chartered flight, with some displaying symptoms such as coughs, according to the health ministry.
In the first group of returnees, all but two people agreed to tests for the virus. All passengers other than the three tested negative for the virus, the ministry said.
The latest group who came back Thursday is expected to be similarly screened.
“ We will put top priority on protecting the lives and health of the people, and we will decide on what needs to be done without hesitation, ” said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a Diet session Thursday, adding it was “ extremely regrettable ” that two people on the first flight refused to be screened.
Abe said authorities “ spent a long time trying to convince them following their return ” but could not force them to undergo testing as it is not mandatory by law.
Abe also stressed the importance of Taiwan joining the World Health Organization, saying “ it will be difficult to stop the spread ” if Taiwan is excluded for political reasons.
The government is planning to send a third flight. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said there are still some 300 Japanese who wish to return from Wuhan, which has been under a virtual lockdown since last week.
Suga said the government is also considering using public facilities, including the National Police Academy, to house the returnees.
While returnees praised the government’ s effort to bring them home quickly, there has been criticism of Japan’ s decision to let them “ self-quarantine, ” including the two people on the first flight who refused to be tested.
Those two were asked to avoid public transport, and quarantine officers will follow up on their health, officials said.
Japan’ s approach sits in stark contrast with other countries that are isolating repatriated nationals for between 72 hours and 14 days. Regulations make similar measures difficult, and the law allows people to refuse testing, said Kazuo Kobayashi, head of the public hygiene department at the Osaka Institute of Public Health.
“ ( The authorities) can only make a request but it doesn’ t have binding power, ” he said, declining to comment on the public safety implications.
The government has decided to classify the new virus a “ designated infectious disease, ” meaning it will be able to forcibly hospitalize those who test positive. But the rules on testing people with no symptoms will not be affected.
The total number of people infected with the virus in Japan, including foreign nationals, rose to 14 on Thursday, including the two people showing no symptoms.
On Wednesday, authorities reported a second case involving someone who had not traveled to China.
The woman was a tour guide who worked on the same bus as a driver who had contracted the virus despite not traveling to China. The bus was carrying a group of Chinese tourists from Wuhan earlier this month.
“ The tour guide’ s case is the second suspected incident of human-to-human transmission in Japan, ” Kato said. “ We are in a truly new situation. ”
The tour guide, who is in her 40s, is a foreign national living in Osaka and was hospitalized on Jan. 23 with pneumonia, the health ministry said. Neither the guide nor the driver has ever been to Wuhan.
The government said Tuesday the driver in his 60s from neighboring Nara Prefecture became the first Japanese to be infected with the virus in the country.
He is believed to have had close contact with a total of 22 people both in and outside Nara after infection, including the tour guide, according to the prefectural government.
In mainland China, confirmed cases of infection have exceeded 7,700 and the death toll has reached 170, including over 120 in Wuhan, according to state media.
Aside from China and Japan, cases of infection have been confirmed in 14 countries including Thailand, Australia, Singapore and the United States as of Wednesday, according to a World Health Organization report.
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H & M reshuffles at the top as recovery accelerates | Helmersson, 46, has been with H & M for over two decades and has held positions from head of sustainability and global head of production to, most recently, chief operating officer.
She replaces the founder's grandson Karl-Johan Persson, who moves to the chairman role.
Helmersson has been involved in setting strategy in recent years. `` I want to continue with the plan that is already on the table, and then of course also keep a close eye on the world around us and tweak the plan as we go along, '' she told Reuters.
Santander analyst Rebecca McClellan said the succession looked sensible. `` Karl-Johan is not going anywhere, in reality he has just got a change of mandate, and Helena has been around for some time, '' she said.
Karl-Johan will in May move into the role vacated by his father, 72-year-old Stefan Persson - the chairman for more than 20 years - marking a shift to a younger generation at the top of the company.
RECOVERY ON TRACK
Shares surged as much as 10% after the world's no. 2 fashion retailer also beat earnings expectations for the fourth quarter.
H & M is recovering from years of sliding profits and mounting inventories due to slowing footfall at its core H & M-branded stores.
Profit in the September through November quarter was 5.40 billion crowns ( $ 569 million), up from 4.35 billion a year before. Analysts had on average forecast a profit of 4.78 billion crowns, according to Refinitiv data.
Big investments in logistics, digital technology, new store concepts and independent brands to meet changing shopping habits and tougher competition helped push annual net sales 11% higher in Swedish crowns.
`` The ongoing transformation work has contributed to continued positive sales development, with more full-price sales, lower markdowns and increased market share, '' the company said in a statement.
Outgoing chairman Stefan Persson, who was CEO from 1982 to 1997, said in a rare interview that it was a good time to step down now that the company was in good condition.
`` The industry is struggling with huge problems, and I would say that we have now managed to transform, even though there are still many challenges ahead, in a way that has left us with our financial position more or less intact and able to weather also future challenges, '' he told Reuters.
H & M said in its earnings report its financial position was strong. Its net debt to profit before depreciation and amortisation ratio, which it has a target of keeping below 1.0, improved to 0.2 in the quarter.
NO REVOLUTION
Stefan said he expected little change to strategy under the new regime.
`` Helena has been with the company for a long time, and in such positions that there will not be any revolution as such. I not least feel confident that she really has placed the issue of sustainability on the map, '' he said.
Helmersson, who will be H & M's first female CEO, was the group's head of sustainability at the time of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh that killed 1,135 garment workers.
The incident prompted massive soul-searching in the industry about factory safety.
H & M's biggest rival, market leader and Zara owner Inditex, also promoted its chief operating officer to chief executive last May.
Both chief executives have a strong sustainability remit, underlining how keen fashion companies are to prioritise their environmental strategies at a time of a public backlash against cheap, throwaway clothing.
`` We want to keep growing, and that's what we 'll do. But in future we won't be able to use the natural resources that we depend on today, not in the same way, '' Helmersson told Reuters.
The outbreak of the newly identified coronavirus in China had a negative impact on sales in that country at the end of January, outgoing CEO Persson said at a press conference to accompany the results in Stockholm on Thursday.
By Anna Ringstrom and Johan Ahlander | business |
Chinese tourists finding they are no longer welcome as fear over coronavirus takes hold | Airlines halt flights from China. Schools in Europe uninvite exchange students. Restaurants in South Korea turn away Chinese customers.
As a deadly virus spreads beyond China, governments, businesses and educational institutions are struggling to find the right response. Safeguarding public health is a priority. How to do that without stigmatizing the entire population of the country where the outbreak began is the challenge.
With the death toll reaching 170 and the roster of cases climbing above 7,700, worries are growing. Many global companies with operations in China have asked workers to stay home, airlines are curtailing flights to the nation and several countries including Japan have begun evacuating citizens from the most stricken zone around the city of Wuhan.
Though the vast majority of cases involve people from the central Chinese metropolis or nearby cities, or those who have been in contact with them, people of Asian appearance around the world say they’ ve been subject to increased wariness since the disease began spreading. In some cases, baser emotions have come to the fore.
A Chinese woman visiting Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture, said that a server at a restaurant shouted “ Chinese! Out! ” at her, according to a recording shared on a Weibo account.
The recording, which included a subsequent phone call to the unnamed eatery, was shared by a reporter from Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV.
A woman who answered the phone at the restaurant said it was refusing customers from China and Southeast Asia because the owner was worried about the coronavirus, according to the recording. “ If our owner contracts the virus and dies, whose responsibility is it then? ” she said.
In South Korea, signs have begun popping up on restaurant windows saying, “ no Chinese allowed. ” A casino in the country catering to foreign visitors said it’ s no longer accepting groups of tourists from China. More than half a million people signed a petition, submitted to the government, calling for a ban on visitors from the nearby country of 1.4 billion.
Health concerns aside, the reaction in South Korea and Japan to the virus reflects long-standing friction with China, as well as resentment over its growing influence in the region. That’ s even as an influx of visitors from China has boosted neighboring economies, including South Korea, where the number of Chinese tourists surged by a quarter to more than 5.5 million through November from the previous year.
Signs of insensitivity aren’ t limited to Asia. French regional newspaper Courrier Picard sparked outrage with its headline “ Yellow Alert ” on a front-page story about the coronavirus. The paper apologized to readers who took to Twitter to condemn the allusion to “ Yellow Peril, ” a xenophobic term referring to the peoples of East Asia that dates to the 19th century.
In Denmark, the Chinese Embassy called on the country’ s Jyllands-Posten newspaper to apologize for an editorial cartoon that depicts China’ s flag with virus symbols instead of stars on a red background.
“ We feel angry and we feel sad because it’ s a kind of insult to our people and to our flag, ” John Liu, secretary general at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Denmark, said in a television interview.
The paper declined to apologize, citing Denmark’ s tradition of freedom of speech.
Those of Chinese descent, but not from China, have also been met with harsh reactions. In Sri Lanka, a group of tourists from Singapore — where the majority of people are of Chinese descent — were barred from climbing local attraction Ella Rock because of their appearance, according to Tucker Chang, 66, one of the tourists. No one in the group had a history of recent travel to China.
In France, the ministry of foreign affairs advised schools and universities to postpone student exchanges with China. At least one high school in Paris withdrew invitations to a group of students set to arrive this week.
In Canada, parents in communities north of Toronto started a petition urging schools to force students who recently returned from China to stay home for at least 17 days to avoid any chance of spreading the disease. The petition has garnered almost 10,000 signatures in the area, which has large ethnic-Chinese and Asian populations.
In response, York school board chair Juanita Nathan and Louise Sirisko, education director, have written to parents advising them that such requests run the risk of “ demonstrating bias and racism, ” even when made in the name of safety.
“ What we’ re really trying to get at is to ( make sure) this situation is not giving rise to any inadvertent racism, ” Nathan told CBC Radio’ s “ Metro Morning. ” “ I think the parents may be overly cautious and very anxious. ”
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Japanese living in Beijing grapple with coronavirus outbreak | Beijing – While some Japanese living in Beijing are optimistic that the new coronavirus can be quickly contained, many others fear that the deadly outbreak will continue to spread.
The virus has claimed more than 100 lives since being detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
For Japanese living in the capital, some have taken solace in the fact that the Chinese government has taken drastic steps to curb the contagion. They have also noted that most residents are wearing masks in the city, possibly a result of learned lessons from the 2002-03 SARS epidemic that killed 774 people.
But concerns remain, with some Japanese residents arguing that awareness of good hygiene practices among Chinese remains low given that public facilities including restrooms are not always kept clean.
Major avenues in Beijing, normally teeming with pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles, are almost deserted, with security guards outside buildings wearing masks. Many tourist sites, usually filled with visitors for the Lunar New Year holidays, are shut down, with the government having urged the public to avoid crowds.
Miaohui ( temple fairs) — a time-honored tradition for Chinese during the weeklong holiday — have been canceled, while the Forbidden City has been shut.
Municipal authorities in Beijing have also decided to postpone the end of school holidays linked to the Lunar New Year, prompting a large number of Japanese working in the city to send their families back to Japan.
“ Chinese people are trying to prevent infection of the new virus, using the SARS epidemic as a lesson, ” said a researcher at a Japanese drugmaker operating in the capital. “ I think the virus may not expand so rapidly, at least in Beijing. ”
The coronavirus that triggered SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, sickened 8,098 people worldwide.
The number of patients confirmed to be infected with the new coronavirus has exceeded 100 in Beijing, but the pace of the increase has apparently slowed in recent days, the researcher said, adding that this might be thanks to the precautions that have been taken.
“ People here have been used to wearing masks due to air pollution, ” said an employee at a Japanese electronics company, who has worked from home in Beijing since earlier this week. Ironically, he said, that factor is helpful amid the outbreak.
Coronaviruses generally cause common cold-like symptoms affecting the nose, sinuses or upper throat and are spread through sneezing, coughing or direct contact. Wearing a mask and regular hand-washing can be effective ways to prevent the infection.
Public transportation services have been already suspended in Wuhan — an international business hub with a population of over 11 million — and nearby cities have followed suit. Wuhan is about 1,000 kilometers south of Beijing.
Starting Monday, the Chinese government also banned all outgoing group travel abroad in an attempt to stop a global pandemic of the virus, which has been found to transmit between humans, as President Xi Jinping has pledged to make every effort to combat it.
“ China has implemented aggressive and unprecedented measures to thwart infection, ” said Hiromi Nagae, a 36-year-old housewife living in Beijing. “ We hope that the situation will turn around in the not-so-distant future. ”
Japanese who have resided in China for decades, however, are pessimistic, criticizing standards for cleanliness and hygiene in the country.
“ For example, Chinese people still think toilets are by their very nature unhygienic places, ” said Yukihiro Yoshimura, a 40-year-old businessman who has lived in the capital for nearly 20 years. “ Even in hospitals in Beijing, toilets are very dirty. ”
“ We have to protect ourselves by washing our hands, gargling and wearing masks ” as preventive steps, as influenza and colds are common at this time of year, Yoshimura added.
On Wednesday, state media reported that confirmed cases of infections from the new coronavirus have topped 6,000 in mainland China, surpassing the number affected there during the SARS epidemic. The SARS virus infected 5,327 people in the country.
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Virus dread spreads with Germany on alert after Munich cases | MUNICH, GERMANY – Near the famous Hofbraeuhaus beer hall in downtown Munich, a printout taped to the glass door of a pharmacy conveys the anxiety gripping the city at the center of one of the biggest coronavirus outbreaks outside China.
In plain lettering, the sign declares: “ SOLD OUT protective mask. ” It’ s a contrast to the sober public-service posters at Munich airport, where authorities inform travelers in tiny German, English and Chinese lettering how to recognize symptoms and what to do.
Germany has taken center stage in the global spread of the coronavirus, a byproduct of the country’ s vigorous trade with China. New details about the disease — like the fact that people are now getting sick who haven’ t been in China and catching the virus from someone who didn’ t show symptoms at the time of contact — are fueling public concerns.
Ground zero for the German outbreak is the Munich suburb of Stockdorf, where auto-parts supplier Webasto AG shut its headquarters after several staff members became infected. That’ s caused fallout on local businesses and created a run on medical masks in Munich, where the face coverings are a rarity on its clean and orderly streets. At least three pharmacies in the city center said they were sold out as of Wednesday morning.
“ We had about 50 people come in and ask yesterday, ” pharmacist Nicole Witt said between serving customers at Rumford Apotheke near the city’ s open-air Viktualien food market. Her shop has ordered more face masks, but they won’ t arrive before next week.
German officials are trying to ease anxiety. Health Minister Jens Spahn told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday: “ I would urge people to be calm but vigilant. ”
The government will evacuate about 100 Germans from Wuhan on Friday using a military plane. Upon arrival in Frankfurt, they will be kept under quarantine for two weeks, officials said at a regular government press briefing on Wednesday.
Bavarian Health Minister Melanie Huml said on Wednesday that number of confirmed cases was steady at four. The state’ s infectious disease task force said Tuesday after the first German case was confirmed that the risk to the public was probably low. He said people should nevertheless take usual precautions including washing their hands after riding on a bus or subway.
“ Now that I know, first thing I’ ll do when I arrive at work is wash my hands, ” Alexander Wegmann said Wednesday morning while leaving the subway at Munich’ s central square, Marienplatz, beneath the City Hall. “ You do kind of look around and worry about who might be infected. ”
The German scare started on Monday. A 33-year-old man who’ d been feeling sick over the weekend showed up for work at Webasto, which makes vehicle heating and cooling systems and has a facility in Wuhan. His bosses told him to go to the doctor, and by evening, he was confirmed as the first German to contract the disease.
The way in which the man had caught the virus raised alarm in Germany. A Chinese colleague last week visited the company’ s headquarters in Stockdorf, a small town of about 4,000 people a half hour south of Munich. She had stayed for four days, then returned to China and started feeling sick on the flight back, officials said.
Later Tuesday, it emerged that three more employees from the Stockdorf office had also been confirmed sick with the coronavirus, while still more were undergoing testing. Authorities are testing more than 40 other employees who may be at risk.
Webasto canceled all business trips to and from China for at least the next two weeks and closed its headquarters until next week. The shutdown has hit local businesses hard.
“ We depend on Webasto, ” said Halit Doenmez, who runs a deli with her husband where she offers warm lunch mainly for the company’ s staff. “ It’ s completely dead, ” the 55-year-old said, adding that she considered staying closed on Wednesday, but opened because she didn’ t want to lose local shoppers who come for vegetables.
The square where she runs her store is home to several restaurants that depend on lunch guests from Webasto. At Restaurant Singh across the street, only two tables were taken at noon on Wednesday, which is normally a peak time with more than 30 guests for the eatery, which offers Italian cuisine along with German Schnitzel and the occasional Indian food.
The virus is “ a big deal, ” said Doenmez. “ Everyone’ s talking about it, everyone. ”
The confirmed patients are all being treated in an isolation ward at a hospital in Munich’ s Schwabing neighborhood, a residential district in the city’ s north. All are in good condition with no fever or respiratory issues, according to Bavarian health officials.
Webasto Chief Executive Officer Holger Engelmann said that while the spread appears under control at the company, “ it’ s too early to give an all-clear. ”
The outbreak is having ripple effects across Germany. Deutsche Lufthansa AG halted flights to mainland China until Feb. 9 and has seen business travel to the Asian country take a hit due to fears about the virus.
Industrial conglomerate Thyssenkrupp AG, which generated over €3 billion ( $ 3.3 billion) in sales in China in 2018 and employed over 17,000 people there, has advised against business travel to the country.
Advanced manufacturing firm Manz AG, a producer of components for the energy and electronics industry, canceled all near-term business trips to China, adding it was closely monitoring developments. Ten staff members who were working at various locations in China returned to Germany.
Back in Munich, Luana Deichmann was waiting for a friend to arrive from Brazil, wearing a face mask and holding a sign that said “ Welcome to Bavaria ” in Portuguese. Deichmann, who lives close to the area where the four cases were discovered, said she was wearing the mask merely as a precautionary measure and not out of fear.
“ I always think I’ m healthy, but I work with tourists, so it’ s good to take care of yourself, ” she said, adding that she advised her traveling friend to wear a mask on the plane and carry hand sanitizer to minimize risks. “ It’ s not so dramatic that I would tell him not to come to Munich. ” | tech |
China steps up 'green channel ' to supply food for locked-down, virus-hit Wuhan | BEIJING – China has told farmers to step up vegetable production, opened roads for delivery trucks and is punishing those trying to profit in order to keep feeding residents of the locked down city of Wuhan at the center of the new coronavirus outbreak.
Authorities cut most transport links to the central Chinese city last week to try to halt the spread of the flu-like virus. Thousands of cases have been reported in China, with a small number in countries including the United States, Thailand and Singapore.
The unprecedented move prompted people in the city of 11 million to rush to supermarkets to stock up on instant noodles, vegetables and whatever else they could put their hands on.
Residents say there has yet to be an acute shortage of food, although shelves are cleared quickly when goods arrive.
Shouguang, the country’ s biggest vegetable production base, in the eastern Shandong province, has been asked to deliver 600 tons of fresh vegetables to Wuhan every day in the next 10 to 15 days, said an official in Sunjiaji, one of Shouguang’ s villages.
Sunjiaji, whose main crop is cucumbers, was tasked with sending 60 tons in less than seven hours.
“ We got the order from our city government at 11 p.m. on Monday and we immediately contacted our farmers, asking them to pick cucumbers overnight and bring their harvest to us before 6 a.m., ” said the official, who only gave her surname, Li, by phone. “ We sent 70 tons in the end, ” she said. “ We are waiting for the next order. ”
China’ s largest food and agricultural firm, COFCO Group, and China Grain Reserves Corp. ( Sinograin) Group have stepped up supplies of rice, meat and cooking oil to Hubei province, state media reported on Wednesday.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a notice on Thursday, urging related departments to coordinate to maintain ample supplies of vegetables and stable prices. Areas like Xinjiang are also sending supplies.
Delivery trucks carrying food are exempt from travel restrictions if they have government permits. Authorities have cracked down on cases of price hikes and publicized them to warn others.
On Tuesday, a supermarket in Zhengzhou in Henan Province was fined 500,000 yuan ( $ 72,000) for selling Chinese cabbage at 63 yuan instead of the usual 17, according to local media.
“ The green channel into Wuhan is smooth, ” said Premier Li Keqiang during a visit to the city this week.
Worries over how long the city’ s quarantine might last are spurring many to stockpile, a Wuhan resident said. People across China have been told to stay away from public areas to lower the risk of infection and many stay indoors.
“ In the morning there are vegetables in supermarkets, but the shelves are cleared quickly because a lot of people buy large amounts, ” she said, describing stores as “ war zones. ”
“ You buy whatever’ s left on the shelf, because that will be gone too. ”
Wushang Group, the largest local supermarket in Wuhan, with nearly 30 stores, said its biggest challenge was a lack of staff. Almost all company employees had become delivery personnel, opting to use their private cars to transport goods.
Their cars are sometimes stopped by police due to the travel restrictions but are usually let go if they explain they are transporting supplies, said a company official who would only give her surname, Gan.
“ On the night of Jan. 25, 400 tons of vegetables arrived in Wuhan from Chongqing and we were given 120 tons, ” she said. About a hundred Wushang employees volunteered to unload and transport the goods, she said. “ On average every person unloaded more than a ton of vegetables that night. ”
The lack of staff and delivery services is plaguing other parts of the food supply chain in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, others said. A number of smaller cities in Hubei have also been locked down due to the outbreak.
Wuhan’ s largest wholesale grocery outlet, the Baishazhou Agricultural Products Market, supplies supermarkets and big restaurants in neighboring cities in Hubei province, such as Huangshi and Jiujiang, but is seeing fewer customers due to the restrictions.
“ We have plenty of vegetables, ” said Yuan, an employee in the market’ s vegetable department. “ But a lot are going rotten. ” | tech |
Royal Caribbean cancels three China sailings due to coronavirus | Cruiseship owner says there are still too many variables and uncertainties to calculate overall impact of outbreak
Royal Caribbean Cruises said it has cancelled three cruises in China due to the coronavirus, it has been confirmed. The US-listed cruiseship owner said | general |
Coronavirus scares hit Costa Cruises vessel and CMA CGM boxship | Passengers quarantined on Costa Smeralda in Italy, but Sri Lankan seafarers in the clear on container vessel
Two passengers suspected of having coronavirus have been quarantined on a Costa Cruises vessel in Italy, while six crew were cleared of having | general |
Coronavirus outbreak declared a global public health emergency by WHO | Following more than a week of meetings the World Health Organization’ s Director General, upon advice from its Emergency Committee, has declared the ongoing coronavirus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern ( PHEIC). This is the sixth time a PHEIC has been declared since the designation was developed 15 years ago.
“ I am declaring a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of 2019nCoV, not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries, ” announced Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General.
I am declaring a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of # 2019nCoV, not because of what is happening in # China, but because of what is happening in other countries.https: //t.co/HNrxyGeoBA
The announcement comes after more than a week of reportedly divergent opinions in the Emergency Committee convened to evaluate the PHEIC declaration. Following two meetings last week the committee declined to announce a global emergency, suggesting the outbreak at that point was still primarily confined to China.
Seven days later and the decision is now unanimous, although Director General Tedros has made clear this announcement is not directed at criticizing China’ s response to the viral outbreak.
“ Let me be clear: this declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China, ” Tedros reiterated at the press conference announcing the PHEIC. “ On the contrary, WHO continues to have confidence in China’ s capacity to control the outbreak. As you know, I was in China just a few days ago, where I met with President Xi Jinping. I left in absolutely no doubt about China’ s commitment to transparency, and to protecting the world’ s people. ”
A Public Health Emergency of International Concern is a relatively new WHO declaration, developed following the 2002/03 SARS outbreak. The declaration is intended to function as a global call to action, recognizing an acute and serious public health risk.
The official definition of a PHEIC by the WHO is, “ an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response. ”
The declaration has been made on five occasions before now, twice for Ebola outbreaks, and once for Swine flu, Polio, and Zika.
In many ways a PHEIC is largely a symbolic gesture. Its invocation is a fundamental acknowledgement from the WHO that the coronavirus poses a serious risk to global health. It allows the WHO to devote more resources to tackling the global spread of the virus and it also allows the organization to make official recommendations to other countries in regards to travel and quarantine.
As part of Director General Tedros’ announcement he outlined a number of key areas the WHO will be focusing on in the immediate future. As well as supporting vaccine development and helping share scientific knowledge, the organization is also planning on combating the spread of misinformation and rumors regarding the virus.
One of the more direct points Tedros made in the announcement was suggesting there is no current need for countries to be restricting international trade or travel. While some regions, including Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Phillippines have already instituted travel restrictions to, or from, parts of China, other countries are at this stage just recommending citizens reconsider travel to the country.
“ … there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade, '' says Tedros. `` WHO doesn’ t recommend limiting trade and movement. We call on all countries to implement decisions that are evidence-based and consistent. WHO stands ready to provide advice to any country that is considering which measures to take. ”
As of right now over 8000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in around 20 countries, with the vast majority still concentrated in China. No cases have been reported so far in Africa or South America, but the WHO’ s big concern is the virus spreading to countries with weaker healthcare systems.
“ Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it, ” says Tedros. “ We don’ t know what sort of damage this virus could do if it were to spread in a country with a weaker health system. We must act now to help countries prepare for that possibility. ” | science |
India touts traditional remedies to combat new coronavirus | NEW DELHI – As scientists race to find a vaccine for the deadly Wuhan virus, the Indian government said Wednesday that ancient homeopathy and Ayurveda remedies could hold an answer.
The ministry that promotes the country’ s booming yoga, naturopathy and homeopathy sectors released an advisory listing herbal oils to be rubbed into the scalp to purportedly ease the symptoms.
It also suggested ingesting Arsenicum album-30, a homeopathic treatment.
The ministry also issued general advice on maintaining personal hygiene to prevent the spread of the virus.
The advisory came as the Dalai Lama, in exile in Dharamsala in India, said on Facebook that followers concerned about the virus should chant a mantra that would be “ helpful ” in dealing with the situation.
India claims to have natural remedies for everything from cancer to the common cold.
The government in recent years has launched a drive to promote traditional remedies as it seeks to cash in on the multi-billion dollar global market for holistic medicine.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a yoga practitioner, has said he wants the world to make Ayurveda “ a way of life.
Ayurvedic medicine — which means the “ science of life ” in Sanskrit — treats the physical and mental sources of illness through, for example, prescribing herbs in conjunction with yoga or massage.
The ministry said that homeopathy, the treatment of diseases with alternative medicines prescribed in minute doses, is the main source of health care for some 10 percent of India’ s 1.3-billion population.
The Unani system is a mix of traditional medicines from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Persia, India, China and other Middle East countries, according to the ministry.
Apart from the recommended Ayurvedic, homeopathy and Unani treatments, the ministry also advised Indians who fear they have been infected to “ wear a mask and contact your nearest hospital immediately. ”
New Delhi family physician Sanjiv Zutshi told AFP the recommended course of action for patients suspected of having the virus was for them to be tested and treated in a hospital.
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Oil falls as virus death toll in China climbs | Oil prices fell more than 2% on Thursday on concerns over the potential economic impact of the coronavirus that continues to spread worldwide, while the market also considered the possibility of an early OPEC meeting.
Brent fell $ 1.52, or 2.5%, to settle at $ 58.29 per barrel, having risen 0.5% on Wednesday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell $ 1.19, or 2.2%, to settle at $ 52.14 per barrel.
Countries have started isolating hundreds of citizens evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan on Thursday to stop the spread of an epidemic that has killed 170 people as worry about the impact on the world's second-biggest economy rattled markets.
Prices have steadied in recent days at three-month lows as investors tried to assess what economic damage the virus might inflict and to demand for crude oil and its products.
But now the rising death toll from the virus and its spread has again turned screens red, with global equities falling. The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 countries, fell 0.5% as European shares followed Asian indexes down.
`` The market is really driven by Asia and the China virus. The only thing that can change the current trend is an emergency OPEC meeting, '' said Olivier Jakob of consultancy Petromatrix.
`` The Libyan outage is not providing much of a floor. Only an additional OPEC cut could change things. ''
The World Health Organisation's Emergency Committee is set for another meeting later on Thursday to reconsider whether the rapid spread of the virus should be considered a global emergency.
Major multinationals are closing operations in China and Airlines around the world are suspending or reducing direct flights to China as travel warnings are issued by governments and passenger numbers drop.
Algeria's energy minister Mohamed Arkab said on Wednesday it was very possible that an OPEC meeting could be advanced to February instead of the scheduled meeting in March.
ING cautioned that outages in Libya - where production has been steadily declining amid a blockade - should not be discounted.
`` While demand is a real concern, it's important not to forget about the supply disruptions from Libya - if these losses persist, it would be enough to swing the market into deficit this quarter, '' ING said in a note.
The bigger than expected build in U.S. crude oil inventories last week also kept pressure on prices.
Crude stocks rose by more than seven times market expectations, gaining 3.5 million barrels in the week to Jan. 24, the U.S. Energy Information Administration ( EIA) said on Wednesday.
Gasoline stocks rose to a record high, increasing for a 12th consecutive week to 261.1 million barrels, the EIA said. | business |
Japan firms delay restarting China operations after holiday as virus spreads | Japanese companies with a foothold in China are delaying their plans to restart operations suspended due to the Lunar New Year holiday in the country, amid the spread of a new strain of coronavirus originating in Wuhan in the Chinese province of Hubei.
But some fear that moves to keep factories closed beyond the end of the holiday period next Sunday, as instructed by Chinese authorities, could disrupt supply chains for a vast array of industries.
On Wednesday, Toyota Motor Corp. decided to keep its four auto assembly plants in China offline until Feb. 9. The company, which also has many auto parts factories in the country, reached the decision based on local authorities’ policies and conditions regarding parts procurement, a public relations official said.
The company will decide whether to reopen the factories on Feb. 10 after monitoring the situation, the official said.
Also Wednesday, Honda Motor Co. began considering whether to push back the reopening of its auto assembly plant in Guangzhou, southern China.
An affiliate of electronics giant NEC Corp. has decided to postpone the restart of its plant in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, eastern China, to Feb. 9.
In Shanghai, firms such as electronic components maker Kyocera Corp., control system manufacturer Omron Corp. and air conditioner-maker Fujitsu General Ltd. put off resuming operations based on instructions from local authorities. Meiji Co. will halt operations at its confectionery factory until Feb. 9.
Companies that have decided to keep plants shut are finding it difficult to decide when to resume business, with an official at one machinery-maker saying, “ We can not be sure ( of when to restart) because instructions from the local government change day-to-day. ”
“ If the plant closures are prolonged, our parts procurement will be affected, ” said NEC Senior Executive Vice President Takayuki Morita at a news conference Wednesday.
“ Wuhan is a key transport hub in China, so we are concerned about possible impacts to our supply chain, ” said Toshizo Tanaka, executive vice president of camera and office equipment-maker Canon Inc.
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing, you can help us get the story right. | tech |
India confirms its first coronavirus case | India has confirmed that at least one case of coronavirus has reached the country.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said the country's first case was in a patient in Kerala, a southwestern coastal state.
The ministry said in a statement that the patient is a student at Wuhan University in China and has been isolated in a hospital.
The case was confirmed to the government by the National Institute of Virology, and that the person is `` stable and being closely monitored. ''
See: Coronavirus live updates
Delhi has a plane ready to fly to Wuhan and pick up Indian nationals with no evidence of sickness but is awaiting permission from Chinese authorities. A British Airways flight to bring 200 U.K. nationals back to Britain was due to take off Thursday but also had not received permission.
Meanwhile, the Philippines also confirmed its first case Thursday. Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters the patient is a 38-year-old woman from Wuhan who arrived in Manila on Jan. 21. She was admitted to a hospital four days later with a mild cough but was no longer displaying symptoms.
According to the latest update by China's National Health Commission, the coronavirus in China has taken the lives of 170 people and infected more than 7,700.
The World Health Organization will again meet Thursday to decide if the outbreak should be considered a global health emergency.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that cases in Germany, Vietnam and Japan had revealed human-to-human transmission and that progress of the virus in some countries was worrying.
Meanwhile, the Chinese central province of Hubei, the origin of the outbreak and where almost all deaths have occurred, remains in a state of lockdown.
Global stocks fell Thursday as the death toll from the coronavirus rose. Stocks in Asia slipped heavily with China's main index in Shanghai closing 2.75% lower. The pan-European Stoxx 600 dropped 1% in early afternoon London time, and U.S. stock futures were pointing to a lower opening. | business |
Coronavirus symptoms clarified in largest study of virus so far | A newly published article in the prestigious journal The Lancet is offering the most thorough insights to date into the clinical characteristics of the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus. The study examined 99 of the earliest cases detected, describing the most common symptoms and the types of patients most likely to contract the virus.
Following a wave of unexplained cases of viral pneumonia in the Chinese city of Wuhan across December 2019, a novel coronavirus was detected. Labeled 2019-nCoV, the spread of the virus has been swift. As of January 29, 2020, it has spread to 20 countries with over 6,000 confirmed cases and 133 deaths.
Scientists have been working hard to understand the characteristics of this new virus. While it belongs to the same general family of viruses responsible for the SARS and MERS outbreaks, its unique properties are still unclear. A new Lancet study is presenting the most comprehensive clinical description of the virus published so far, encompassing 99 patients admitted with the virus to a local Wuhan hospital.
The study revealed the average age of infected patients was 55, and the majority ( 68 percent) were male. Half of the patients studied were suffering from a pre-existing chronic disease and 49 percent had a direct connection to the food market suspected to be the origin of the virus.
Symptomatically, most patients displayed fever and/or cough on admission to hospital. These are the two most prominent and consistent symptoms seen in the virus. Other symptoms seen in some patients included shortness of breath, muscle aches and headaches.
Commenting on an earlier investigation into the clinical characteristics of this new virus, Paul Hunter from the University of East Anglia noted there are key symptomatic differences between this coronavirus and its notorious counterpart, SARS.
“ What comes through strongly is that the clinical features and epidemiology of the recent outbreak is very similar to SARS with one big difference – the relative lack of upper respiratory tract symptoms such as runny nose, sore throat and sneezing compared to what was seen in SARS, ” says Hunter. “ This is very important as sneezes and runny noses are a prime way for people to spread infection. ”
By the endpoint of the study, January 25, only 11 patients had died from the virus, while 31 had recovered and been discharged. The scientists behind this new analysis suggest most of the deceased patients were older than 60 years with pre-existing medical conditions. Those patients with the virus that did die primarily did so from acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, a critical form of respiratory failure.
While the mortality rate in this studied cohort is around 11 percent, the scientists say some patients currently hospitalized may still succumb to the virus. However, it is also noted that this high mortality rate only accounts for acute hospitalized cases and is not indicative of the virus’ s general virulence in the real world.
One of the more compelling data points raised in the study is the virus’ s tendency to be of a higher infection risk to men rather than women. This resembles one of the stranger traits seen in the earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks.
“ The reduced susceptibility of females to viral infections could be attributed to the protection from X chromosome and sex hormones, which play an important role in innate and adaptive immunity, ” the scientists hypothesize in the new study.
The ultimate takeaway from this analysis, the scientists claim, is that older males with pre-existing chronic diseases are most at risk from the novel coronavirus.
The outbreak is, of course, still a dynamic and fast-moving global emergency with a variety of questions still unanswered. Particularly unclear is exactly how contagious the virus may be, and whether it is transmissible when a carrier is still asymptomatic.
Another recently published case study in The Lancet describes how the virus infected a whole family in early January. As well as verifying person-to-person transmission, the case study suggests asymptomatic transmission of the virus is possible. One 10-year-old child in the family was diagnosed with the virus while curiously remaining completely without symptoms. While asymptomatic cases of SARS were detected in the past, they were very rare.
“ Because asymptomatic infection appears possible, controlling the epidemic will also rely on isolating patients, tracing and quarantining contacts as early as possible, educating the public on both food and personal hygiene, and ensuring health care workers comply with infection control, ” said Kwok-Yung Yuen, lead researcher on the family case study.
The new coronavirus clinical study was published in The Lancet. | science |
cruise coronavirus stock drop | Shares of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Royal Caribbean Cruises and Carnival Corporation tumbled in morning trading in New York, at times sliding as much as 5%.
The drop came as two Italian media outlets reported a woman and her husband from Hong Kong were each being kept in solitary confinement in the hospital section of an unidentified Costa Cruises ship. The cruiseliner, a Carnival subsidiary, plans to keep the remaining passengers and crew aboard the ship until the couple tests negative for the infection.
A spokesperson for Costa Cruises told CNN that a 54-year-old woman aboard the ship had a fever, a symptom of the virus.
`` All the other passengers are, at the moment, remaining on board, '' the spokesperson said.
The coronavirus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, has killed 170 people as of Thursday morning and there are 7,800 diagnosed worldwide.
China's government put travel restrictions in certain places across the country in an attempt to contain the virus. More than 60 million people are affected.
In a Jan. 28 securities filing, Carnival ( CCL) said these measures led it to suspend operations from Chinese ports from Jan. 25 to Feb. 4, resulting in nine cruise line cancellations. The company also said the restrictions could cause Chinese clients to cancel bookings for cruises that sail from outside of China.
Fallout from the coronavirus could cut earnings by $ 0.03 to $ 0.04 per share, Carnival said, and by $ 0.05 to $ 0.06 if the restrictions extend until the end of February. The Miami-based firm had expected to deploy 5% of its global capacity in China in fiscal year 2020.
Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean ( RCL) said it has canceled three sailings until Feb. 8, saying this would have an impact on its 2020 financial results of about $ 0.10 per share, and double that if travel restrictions remain in place until the end of February.
A spokesperson for Norwegian ( NCLH) said the company wasn't changing its itineraries and that it was checking the temperature of all passengers boarding in Hong Kong. Anyone with a fever of 100.4°F or higher will not be allowed to board, nor will any guests who visited mainland China in the last 30 days.
The coronavirus has caused the closures of stores owned by Starbucks, Ikea and McDonald's in certain areas of China. British Airways, United Airlines, American Airlines and a host of other global carriers have either stopped flying there or said they would cut back on the number of flights.
On Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a level 3 warning, its highest-degree alert, telling travelers to avoid non-essential travel to China. The agency also said the immediate health risk to the American public remained low. | business |
Oil: Shell CEO warns of tough energy market amid coronavirus outbreak | The chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell is preparing for a tough and uncertain energy market, amid heightened fears China's fast-spreading coronavirus could suppress oil demand growth.
It comes amid speculation that OPEC and allied non-OPEC producers could soon step in to extend production cuts in order to support falling oil prices.
Financial markets have been spooked by the spread of a deadly pneumonia-like virus, with energy market participants trying to assess the potential economic fallout.
International benchmark Brent crude traded at $ 58.40 a barrel Thursday morning, down nearly 2.4%, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate ( WTI) stood at $ 52.13, around 2.2% lower.
Oil prices had steadied in recent sessions, after a rout pushed both crude benchmarks to their lowest level since October on Monday.
Brent has now fallen almost 15% since climbing to an early January peak, with WTI more than 17% lower over the same period.
`` The coronavirus, I 'm sure, will keep a lot of people on edge — and rightly so, '' Ben van Beurden, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, told CNBC's `` Squawk Box Europe '' on Thursday.
`` It is a very concerning development, a lot of people will be anxious and of course we are monitoring very closely what is happening, '' he added.
`` I am absolutely convinced — and that is what we are seeing at the moment — that it will not help sentiment, '' he warned.
`` At this point in time, sentiment in oil markets is not so much sentiment about supply, it is all sentiment in demand. ''
Chinese health officials confirmed there had been 7,711 cases of the deadly pneumonia-like virus at the end of Wednesday, with 170 deaths.
The coronavirus, which was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has since spread to other major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Macao and Hong Kong.
Multiple cases of the coronavirus have also been confirmed in Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, France and the United States.
Germany, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, India and the Philippines have all recently confirmed their first cases of the virus too.
The World Health Organization's ( WHO) Emergency Committee is set to reconvene on Thursday, with officials poised to decide whether the international spread of the virus constitutes a global health emergency.
Physicians have compared the coronavirus to the 2003 outbreak of SARS, which had a short incubation period of two to seven days. Health experts have told CNBC that the spread of coronavirus is `` more infectious '' but less severe than the SARS epidemic.
During the period of infection for SARS ( 2002-2003), there were nearly 8,098 reported cases and 774 deaths, according to WHO. It means the virus killed roughly one in 10 people who were infected.
`` I think we have to prepare for a tough and uncertain macro. We do that in our company by making sure that our investments are resilient … I think that's the best way to inoculate ourselves against an uncertain future, '' Ben van Beurden said.
Shares of Europe's biggest oil company, which reported a 23% drop in full-year net profit on Thursday, were down more than 3% during mid-morning deals. | business |
Under China's coronavirus lockdown: How Wuhan residents are trying to live their lives | The city of 11 million people in central China's Hubei province has been in lockdown for almost one week as Chinese authorities struggle to contain the spread of the deadly new coronavirus that has killed at least 170 people and sickened more than 7,700
Flights, trains and buses leaving Wuhan have been canceled, highways out of the city blocked and all intra-city public transports suspended. On Sunday, the city even banned private vehicles from the roads to discourage people from moving around.
There is no doubting the severity of this outbreak, but amid the fear of contagion and anger at the government's handling of the crisis, many residents are finding ways to amuse themselves within the confines of their homes.
`` Things ( Chinese people) are capable of doing in their living rooms '' has become a hot topic on Weibo -- China's equivalent of Twitter, attracting 230 million views.
Videos show people coming up with all kinds of activities to kill time: playing ping pong on the dining table, playing badminton with a rope tied between the television and a closet, as well as people pretending to fish in fish tanks. `` After the outbreak has ended, they 'll all become sports champions, '' said one of the comments on Weibo.
Others are taking a more sedentary approach. `` I 've stayed at home for five days. Every day, apart from eating I 'm sleeping. I slept so much that my back and my neck hurt, '' said one man surnamed Zhang, who said he was a resident of Wuhan.
`` Suddenly I understand why people walk their dogs every day, I also want to go out for a walk. Thank goodness my house is big enough, '' he said.
His remedy is to bring `` square dancing '' -- a ubiquitous daily routine of middle-aged and elderly women taking part in large, loud dance sessions in China's urban spaces -- indoors, into his own living room.
In the video, his family also joined him, joyfully dancing in colorful, cotton-padded pajamas.
CNN has been unable to verify many of the videos being shared on Weibo that purport to show life inside the lockdown zone. Some appear to show crowded hospitals, strained health care workers and gravely ill patients. Others show empty supermarkets shelves and empty streets. Still others show a lighter side of life as people attempt to achieve some normality in a very unusual situation.
`` Go, Wuhan! ''
Jokes about how Wuhan people can now make a great contribution to the country by simply doing nothing and lying on the couch are doing the rounds on social media.
There is also a viral video of a granny in Wuhan dumping bags of vegetables into her shopping cart while everyone else around her stood still to listen to Premier Li Keqiang giving a short speech at a local supermarket. The meme goes that no one can stop Wuhan grannies from getting their groceries, not even the Chinese premier.
Premier Li visited Wuhan on Monday to inspect the situation on the ground and placate the public amid growing criticism of the government's handling of the disaster.
The same evening, residents could be heard shouting `` Go, Wuhan! '' and singing the national anthem from their high-rise buildings, according to cellphone video circulating online.
The scene echoes similar evening routines in Hong Kong, where protesters shouted `` Go, Hong Kong! '' and sang the protest anthem from their apartment windows during the city's months long pro-democracy movement last year.
Not all Wuhan residents support the practice, however. There was a counter call online to boycott the plan, warning that it is too dangerous as droplets of bodily fluids carrying the coronavirus could be passed from one floor to another as people shouted over balconies.
Vlogging the lockdown
Some Wuhan residents are also chronicling their daily lives on video shared with the outside world.
Li Xiaolei, a radio DJ in the city, started vlogging his life the day after the lockdown began last Thursday. On Saturday, he filmed himself going grocery shopping with a woman he introduced as his neighbor.
From his car, the streets appeared almost empty and, inside the local shopping mall, restaurants were closed. Shoppers waited in a long queue outside the supermarket to get their temperature checked before being allowed to enter. Inside, the smell of disinfectant lingered in the air, Li said. Piles of meat packages lay in baskets, as supermarket staff were too busy to put them into the fridge, Li explained in the video.
`` The overall atmosphere is quite tense -- tense but also orderly, '' Li said in the video.
On his drive home, Li reflected on the risk he and his neighbor took to shop in such a crowded place with his neighbor. The neighbor said there was no alternative because every supermarket would be equally crowded.
`` Every time when ( the government) announces a new measure, everyone doesn't know what would come next, and every measure seems to lead to more inconvenience in life. That's why every time when new announcements are made, people would rush to ( supermarkets) to stock up, '' Li said in the video.
When asked by his neighbor how he was feeling after days of living in lockdown, Li said he felt fine because he had been able to drive his own car. The ban on private vehicles came into force on Sunday, hours after Li uploaded his video. `` Now that cars are no longer allowed, and there's no public transport, I 'm a bit flustered -- what if there is an emergency? '' Li said.
Another video filmed by Wuhan resident Lin Chen on Friday, the day after the lockdown was imposed, showed vacant central shopping streets, deserted underground car parks and empty roads.
`` I know some shots look like scenes from a movie -- completely empty streets, a city suddenly sealed off, but we all know that this is not a movie, '' Lin said in the video.
A food delivery man Lin spoke to told him people were not ordering takeaway anymore -- he had only received five orders that day, a fraction of the number on normal days.
`` From my point of view, people in the city are still going about orderly. I see everyone using their own strength to keep the city functioning as normal. Everyone wants to do the right thing, to make things better, '' Lin said at the end of the video.
`` This is Wuhan at its fewest people, and among the most orderly times, I 've seen in more than 10 years. Because no matter what, it is still home to 11 million people, '' he added. | business |
Apple, more than most companies, stands to lose from the coronavirus outbreak | But Apple ( AAPL), perhaps, stands to lose more than others: It relies heavily on manufacturing in China and on Chinese consumers as a key revenue driver. Although many analysts think it's too early to tell just how hard Apple might be hit by the disease, any major or extended disruption could hammer its production and sales in one blow.
Apple had been looking forward to a turnaround in China. Last year, slumping demand hit sales numbers, and trade tensions caused uncertainty for its supply chain. But in the three months ending in December, sales in the region returned to growth, thanks in large part to the popularity of the iPhone 11.
Now, fears about the spread of coronavirus may dash hopes of sustained improvement in the region — at least so long as the outbreak continues — putting a damper on an otherwise successful earnings report.
`` The return to growth in China is very impressive, '' D.A. Davidson senior analyst Tom Forte said. `` Were it not for the coronavirus, the sustainability of ( the performance in China) would not be called into question... ( It) is an important risk that investors need to monitor. ''
The company on Tuesday projected revenue between $ 63 billion and $ 67 billion for the current quarter, which ends in March, a wider-than-usual range due to the uncertainty caused by coronavirus.
All things considered, that guidance is pretty strong, said Synovus Trust Company senior portfolio manager Dan Morgan.
`` If Apple was overly concerned about it, they might have given us more of an indication in their guidance, '' Morgan said.
However, the outbreak is evolving rapidly. More than 7,700 worldwide have now been infected with the coronavirus, and at least 170 people have died. Chinese officials had already extended the Lunar New Year holiday from January 30 to February 2, forcing companies to keep their doors closed longer in hopes of stemming the spread of the virus.
Some retailers, including Starbucks and Pizza Hut, announced that they plan to suspend store operations even beyond the end of the holiday, and some airlines are offering refunds to people who cancel their travels.
CEO Tim Cook said on a call with Wall Street analysts Tuesday that Apple has closed one retail store and shortened hours at some of the others that remain open. He added that the company is regularly deep cleaning stores that remain open, and is conducting temperature checks on employees to avoid the spread of the virus.
`` We're also working very closely with our team and our partners in the affected areas, and we have limited travel to business-critical situations as of last week, '' Cook said. `` The situation is emerging and we're still gathering lots of data points and monitoring it very closely. ''
Cook said that while the sales at the Wuhan area store are relatively small, store closures at other Apple retailers and a general decline in retail traffic across the country could negatively impact sales. Sales in China make up about 15% of Apple's total revenue.
But unlike some other retailers, Apple has more to worry about than just its consumer sales. The company's manufacturing — particularly the production of the iPhone — is centered in China.
Apple has some suppliers in Wuhan, which is known as a manufacturing hub, and Cook said Chinese officials have delayed the opening of factories in that area from the end of January to February 10.
The company aimed to factor the risk of lost production at those facilities into its guidance for the current quarter, and has developed a mitigation plan based on alternate sources, Cook said Tuesday. However, he said the impact of the disease on production facilities in other areas of the country is `` less clear at this time. ''
Foxconn, one of Apple's main manufacturing partners in the region, especially for the iPhone, said in a statement Wednesday that it is following `` holiday schedules, '' indicating it does not plan to keep factories closed beyond what is currently required by Chinese officials.
`` As a matter of policy and for reasons of commercial sensitivity, we do not comment on our specific production practices but we can confirm that we have measures in place to ensure that we can continue to meet all global manufacturing obligations, '' the company said. It added that having previously handled the SARS out break in the early 2000s, the company understands how to mitigate the effects of such an outbreak.
That's likely a good sign for Apple, at least for now, Synovus ' Morgan said.
`` With the SARS events a few years ago, everyone got all upset but it didn't really do too much, '' Morgan said. `` They have a whole chip and hardware ecosystem ( in the region), so if you start to see that having problems, that will be an indication that Apple could have an issue. If they do, then, yeah, maybe there's some risk going into the second quarter for Apple. '' | business |
Tesla Model 3 production delayed in Shanghai because of coronavirus outbreak | Beijing has taken extraordinary measures to try and contain the outbreak, including placing major cities on lockdown and extending the Lunar New Year holiday. Officials in Shanghai, where Tesla's China factory is located, extended the holiday period from January 30 to February 9.
`` At this point, we're expecting a 1 to 1½ week delay in the ramp ( up) of Shanghai-built Model 3 due to a government-required factory shutdown, '' Tesla's chief financial officer Zachary Kirkhorn said during an earnings call Wednesday.
Kirkhorn said the hit to Tesla earnings will be limited because profits from the China-made cars are still in the early stages. He added that the company is also keeping an eye on whether there will be supply chain disruptions for Tesla's California-made cars.
The company on Wednesday posted it first annual profit, topping Wall Street's forecasts. Shares in Tesla ( TSLA) jumped 11% in after hours trading in New York.
The coronavirus has killed 170 people so far and sickened more than 7,000 people across China, with dozens more cases confirmed in countries such as the United States, Germany and Japan.
Tesla is among a growing number of businesses feeling the effects of the coronavirus outbreak. Fellow car makers Toyota ( TM) and Geely ( GELYF) — which owns Volvo ( VOLAF) — said their factories across China will remain closed through February 9 to comply with the extended holiday.
Restaurants such as McDonald's ( MCD), Starbucks ( SBUX) and Yum China-owned ( YUMC) KFC and Pizza Hut have closed thousands of stores across the country. Major airlines including British Airways, American Airlines ( AAL) and United ( UAL) have decreased flights to and from mainland China, or suspended them altogether. Disney ( DIS) shuttered its parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong, as museums and major attractions including the Forbidden City remain closed.
Tesla's ambitious China strategy
Tesla's factory shutdown comes just weeks after the company began delivering its first Shanghai-made Model 3 cars to the public in China, an important step in Musk's bold strategy to pick up a big slice of the world's biggest car market.
Speaking at a ceremony to mark the first deliveries earlier this month, Musk announced that Tesla will also make the Model Y, its lower-priced SUV, at its new Shanghai factory. It also plans to open a design center in China with the aim of creating an `` original car '' for sale in markets around the world.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the delay in China-made Model 3 cars `` is a containable near term risk, '' given the Shanghai factory is just starting to ramp production.
`` We do not believe the coronavirus will have a longer term overhang for Musk ( and Tesla) in this key region with China, the fuel on the growth engine, '' he said. Ives has a buy rating on Tesla stock with a bull case valuation of $ 900. Shares in Tesla closed at $ 581 in New York on Wednesday.
Musk remains bullish on China, saying during Wednesday's earnings call that Tesla has seen a `` pretty big fundamental efficiency gain '' by making affordable Model 3 cars `` on the continent where the customers are. ''
Earlier this month, Tesla slashed the starting price of its Shanghai-made Model 3 sedan to 323,800 Chinese yuan ( $ 46,680) from 355,800 yuan ( $ 51,290). With government subsidies, the cost could drop to as low as 299,050 yuan ( $ 43,110).
`` We were trying to make the cars as affordable as possible as fast as possible (...) while still being at least a little bit profitable and grow a company like crazy, '' Musk said on Wednesday.
-- Laura He contributed to this report. | business |
First case of person-to-person transmission of Wuhan virus in the US confirmed |
`` I want to emphasize that the risk of this novel coronavirus to the general public in Illinois remains low, '' Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said in a written statement on Thursday. She added that local, state and federal health officials are working to identify people who have had close contact with the case in order to minimize further spread of the virus.
`` We will continue to keep the public fully informed as additional information becomes available, '' she said.
The husband, a Chicago resident in his 60s, is the second confirmed case of the virus in the state.
The woman, who is in her 60s, is the first confirmed travel-associated case in Illinois and was diagnosed after returning from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak originated. She is `` doing quite well '' and remains hospitalized primarily for isolation, doctors told reporters during a telebriefing with reporters on Thursday.
The husband, who did not travel to China, was admitted more recently to the hospital and has some underlying medical conditions, but is stable.
`` Given what we 've seen in China versus other countries, CDC experts have expected to find some person-to-person spread in the United States, '' CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said during Thursday's telebriefing.
`` Based on what we know now, our assessment remains that the immediate risk to the American public is low. ''
The Illinois Department of Public Health said the husband was in close contact with his spouse over a long period of time while she was symptomatic. Symptoms can include fever, cough and shortness of breath.
`` We know coronaviruses are most likely to spread through close personal contact, and we know this second patient had close contact with his wife after she began to develop symptoms, so it's not totally unexpected that he acquired the virus, '' Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said in the written statement on Thursday.
`` This is exactly why public health has been monitoring him closely, and why we monitor any close contacts of confirmed cases, '' she said. `` This does not change our guidance that the risk to the general public remains low at this time. People in the community do not need to change their behavior based on this news; for example, they don't need to cancel events, avoid mass gatherings, or wear gloves and masks in public. ''
Public health officials are investigating locations the second patient visited over the past two weeks and any people he may have had close contact with, state officials said.
Public health and medical professionals are taking an aggressive approach in identifying and actively monitoring people who were in contact with both the second patient and his wife in an effort to reduce the risk of additional transmission. A CDC team also remains in Illinois to support those efforts, according to the state.
In the United States so far, with this latest case, there are a total of six confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to the CDC. One case is in Arizona, one in Washington state, two in California and two in Illinois. The CDC said Wednesday that 165 people in the United States have been under investigation for the virus. Sixty-eight had tested negative and 92 results were pending.
In mainland China, at least 170 people have died and more than 8,100 cases have been confirmed as the virus continues to spread.
`` If you are a traveler who has recently returned from the impacted area, we want you to be vigilant with the symptoms and signs of this coronavirus, '' Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during the teleconference.
`` Wash your hands, cover your cough, '' Messonnier said. `` For the rest of the American public right now, we understand that folks are concerned. '' | business |
An American who was evacuated from Wuhan tried to leave base | The unidentified person has been ordered to stay in quarantine at the March Air Reserve Base until the `` entire incubation period or until otherwise cleared, '' Riverside County Public Health said in a statement Thursday.
The incubation period will be 14 days.
`` This action was taken as a result of the unknown risk to the public should someone leave MARB early without undergoing a full health evaluation, '' the agency said.
Nearly 200 Americans arrived Wednesday at the military base from Wuhan, the epicenter of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China, and were asked to stay for at least three days so they can be monitored for coronavirus symptoms.
US health officials had said they will not issue a blanket quarantine for the evacuees, but some have agreed to stay at the base voluntarily longer than 72 hours.
Jarred Evans, one of the 195 passengers from Wuhan, said he `` will stay as long as I need '' at the military base. Earlier on Thursday, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials held a briefing for passengers.
`` You're not obligated to leave ( when the 72 hours are up), so they're saying that the best thing for you, your people, your family and the community is to stay as long as possible, '' Evans said.
Evans told CNN he was not aware that a passenger tried to leave the base.
Passengers are taking precautions
The passengers are wearing protective masks and are spending some time outdoors.
`` We're all still taking major precautions. So it's not like we're around here hugging each other and shaking hands and things like that, '' Evans said.
None of the passengers have showed signs of sickness but they will be monitored for fewer and other symptoms at least twice daily, said Dr. Chris Braden of the CDC.
If any demand to go home during the initial 72-hour monitoring period, health officials will discuss their options and may issue an individual quarantine if they believe the person poses a danger of infecting others, Braden said.
Coronavirus has killed at least 213 people and infected nearly 8,000 others in China, most of them in the hardest-hit city of Wuhan. Outside mainland China, there are 108 confirmed cases, including five in the United States.
More evacuation flights for US citizens in Wuhan will be arranged, the US State Department said. Those flights will leave Wuhan on or around Monday; further details weren't immediately available.
American describes panic in Wuhan
Before landing in the US on the chartered flight, Evans spent more than a week holed up in his apartment in Wuhan as coronavirus raced through the city. During that time, he said, residents sent panicked messages, warning others to take precaution.
`` It hit fast and... it just was very hectic for, like, three days straight, '' he said. `` I got the news from my Chinese friends saying, 'Hey, stay inside. Wear a mask. Don't go outside, stock up on some food 'cause this is going to get serious. ' And as you can see, it's very serious. ''
And through it all, it felt surreal, like a bad dream as the city got cut off from the rest of the nation.
`` When you're there and there's no transportation, no trains, no subways, no planes, the military is blocking off each and every aspect of the road. No Ubers, nothing. Mom and pop stores are closed. You think to yourself, like, is this real? Is this a movie? Is this a nightmare? '' he said.
The New York-native moved to Wuhan to play American football in a Chinese league. When the US Embassy announced it was evacuating diplomats, their families and some US citizens this week, depending on space availability, he had only five hours to get to the airport, he said.
And when their flight arrived in the United States -- first in Anchorage, Alaska, for fueling before making its way to the military base in California -- there was a huge sense of relief among passengers, mixed with some apprehension that some people may have contracted the virus.
`` Everyone was clapping. No one was shaking hands, that's for sure... but we were clapping, '' he said.
Passengers need monitoring for 14 days
Evans and the other passengers will be held for three days, but that will not be the end of the monitoring process.
If health officials determine they don't pose a danger and can go home, they will still need to be monitored by local officials for the 14-day incubation period, Braden said. Those staying near the base can choose to remain there for the 14 days.
`` If anyone demands to leave right now, that is where all of the partners... would come together and talk about what needs to be done, '' said Dr. Nancy Knight, the CDC's director of global health protection. She noted that US marshals are on hand to ensure everyone's safety.
Before they arrived in California, the passengers were also screened in Alaska when the flight landed Tuesday night in an isolated area of the Anchorage airport's north terminal, which handles international flights, airport manager Jim Szczesniak said.
The CDC will work with airport officials to clean the terminal, and there are no international flights scheduled at the airport until May, he said.
US and states work to combat epidemic
As more cases of the virus are confirmed worldwide, the White House announced a new task force that's meeting daily to discuss the threat of the coronavirus.
The task force will help monitor and contain the spread of the virus, and ensure Americans have accurate and up-to-date health and travel information, it said.
Meanwhile, states are pushing for more action.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee asked US federal health officials to expand screenings to passengers returning to the United States from China at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where the country's first confirmed case of the deadly virus entered. Inslee wants the CDC to collect passengers ' health history and temperature readings.
`` There is a lot we don't know about the virus, it's called 'novel ' for a reason, '' Inslee said. `` We know there are multiple infections in China and we hope ( the CDC) will extend that ( testing). ''
In Hawaii, the state closest to the coronavirus outbreak, officials are urging residents to avoid discretionary trips to China.
`` Not only because of the health threat but because... travel is very much disrupted, '' Hawaii Health Director Bruce Anderson said
There are currently no cases of coronavirus in Hawaii, and officials said there's minimal risk to people on the islands.
The State Department has issued an advisory asking Americans not to travel to Wuhan while the virus has an impact. | business |
WHO declares Wuhan coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern | The decision came after cases of human-to-human transmissions were confirmed outside China, where the outbreak started. A first such case was confirmed in the United States on Thursday, following a case in Germany earlier this week.
The number of cases of the virus, which has killed at least 213 people, shot up to more than 8,100 in mainland China alone by Thursday evening. That is a higher number of infected people than the number who caught SARS worldwide during the 2002-2003 epidemic. However, the current case fatality rate for Wuhan virus is around 2% -- significantly smaller than SARS ' 9.6% mortality rate.
While the virus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December, there are now more than 100 cases in 20 other countries and territories spanning Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East. India and the Philippines were the latest to confirm the virus had reached their shores.
Thousands of people were held on a cruise ship in Italy on Thursday and Russia closed off its borders with China as global fears continued to grow over the rapidly spreading Wuhan coronavirus.
On Thursday, 7,000 people, including 1,000 crew, were confined to a cruise ship in a port near Rome as a couple was being tested for the virus. A spokesperson for Costa Cruises told CNN that a 54-year-old woman aboard the cruise ship was suffering from a fever and that she and her husband were both being tested. Italian news agency ANSA and public broadcaster RAI reported that the woman and her husband were from Hong Kong and were being kept separately in solitary confinement in the hospital section of the cruiseliner.
The Costa Smeralda cruise ship is now docked at Civitavecchia port, a coastal town northwest of Rome. It had arrived from Palma de Majorca, Spain, as part of its tour of the western Mediterranean.
The test came back negative, the Italian Ministry of Health said Thursday night, but it was unclear when the passengers will be allowed to disembark.
Border closures
Several countries are repatriating their citizens from China and multiple air carriers have suspended flights to the country.
Russian state media reported Thursday that Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin had signed an order to close Russia's border with China in the Far East in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus.
`` An order has been signed today, it is in the works. Today we will inform everyone accordingly about the relevant measures to close the border in the Far Eastern region and other measures that have been taken by the government, '' Mishustin said, RIA reports.
Russia's Far Eastern Federal District shares a land border with China, Mongolia and North Korea. Thursday's announcement comes after several Russian tour operators and charter flight companies suspended flights to China.
Russia will also limit its railway service with China from Friday, TASS reported.
In the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong, where only 10 cases have been confirmed, the government has closed a high-speed rail station that would usually connect the city to China's mainland. Hong Kong has introduced new limits it says will cut the amount of mainland Chinese travelers coming to the city by 80%.
A CNN correspondent described Hong Kong as a ghost town, with empty shops and streets at a time that Chinese New Year celebrations usually light up the city. Instead, people lined up for more than three hours to collect surgical face masks to help keep them safe from the virus.
Several countries, including the United States, Japan and some in the European Union, are evacuating their citizens from Wuhan. The United Kingdom was given the green light to fly nationals home in the early hours of Friday morning after a long delay.
Multiple major air carriers are also canceling flights to and from parts of China, including British Airways, American Airlines, Air Canada, KLM, Lufthansa and United. The moves follow travel guidance from multiple governments advising against `` nonessential '' travel to the country.
Across Asia and elsewhere, strict checks and screening have been put in place for all travelers arriving from China -- though this may be ineffective as scientists previously warned that the virus can be spread while patients are asymptomatic.
Quarantine city
As the number of confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus continues to grow worldwide, the city at the heart of the outbreak marks a week since it was first placed under lockdown.
All 31 provinces and regions within China have now reported cases of the virus, including Tibet, which had instituted strict checks on travelers and shutdown tourist sites in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to stop its spread to the region.
Some 60 million people across Hubei, the province of which Wuhan is the capital, are on some level of lockdown, and many travelers from the region have been ordered to self-quarantine, holed up in their apartments or hotel rooms for days on end.
In Wuhan itself, 11 million people are marking a week on lockdown with no sign of immediate relief. Nor is there firm evidence that their sacrifice has been worth it, with the virus spreading around the country and scientists warning that other major cities could soon become self-sustaining epidemics.
Online, people trapped in their houses have been uploading videos and photos showing various ways they are staying busy -- staging makeshift Lunar New Year lion dances in their apartments, exercising, and urging others to keep their spirits up. But as the lockdown stretches on, such positivity may be harder to come by, particularly as some begin to feel the lost wages or business.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday ordered the People's Liberation Army to aid in `` winning the battle against the novel coronavirus epidemic. '' Military medical teams have already been sent to Wuhan and soldiers are also aiding with transporting supplies to the stricken city.
Outside of Hubei, infections are predicted to continue growing for weeks, if not months. Researchers at Imperial College London have estimated that at least 4,000 people were infected in Wuhan by January 18, almost a week before the lockdown began. Their model suggests a low national figure of 20,000 infections by the end of the month, potentially as high as 100,000.
Speaking to state media Tuesday, Zhong Nanshan, one of China's leading respiratory experts and a hero of the 2003 fight against SARS, said he expected the peak to come in up to 10 days.
`` It is very difficult to definitely estimate when the outbreak reaches its peak. But I think in one week or about 10 days, it will reach the climax and then there will be no large-scale increases, '' Zhong said. | business |
A new virus stirs up ancient hatred ( opinion) | But the disease isn't the only thing that's spreading -- or the only thing causing harm. Across the internet, we 've seen widespread eruptions of racist scapegoating, blaming Chinese for a disease that has so far only killed Chinese. The posts frequently claim or imply that the epidemic is the result of Chinese eating habits and hygiene, often pointing to a Chinese social media clip in which a female `` influencer '' is seen eating a bowl of bat soup, while saying that Chinese `` eat anything and everything and infect the world with viruses, '' calling Chinese a `` dirty people who can't keep order, '' and warning people to `` think twice before ordering anything Chinese. ''
At the root of these reactions is something deeply insidious and very familiar. Throughout history, cultures have used ugly slurs on the savagery, backwardness or filthiness of foreigners as a way to rationalize excluding them, ejecting them or eliminating them; we're seeing this today in the language that Trump and some in his administration often use to talk about Latin American migrants and other communities, framing them as bestial and subhuman, as violent and barbaric, as diseased and unclean, all to rationalize inhumane policies.
Food and hygiene slander have long been the spear tip of attacks by contemptuous ( or envious) Westerners seeking to make Chinese seem impossibly alien, and thus unassimilable and inadmissible to their `` civilized '' countries. Back at the turn of the 19th century, Chinese were commonly regarded as `` dirty, heathen rat-eaters ''; vintage ads for a pest poison called `` Rough on Rats '' played on this perception; also by suggesting that it was nearly as effective at controlling vermin as hungry Chinese people, while op-eds took that stereotype and expanded and elevated it to fearful, monstrous proportions, with a typical editorial in the September 29, 1854 edition of the New York Daily Tribune calling Chinese `` uncivilized, unclean, filthy beyond all conception, without any of the higher domestic or social relations; lustful and sensual in their dispositions, '' and warning the federal government to ban further influx of Chinese into the United States.
Spurred on by these descriptions, some took it into their own hands to reduce the number of Chinese in the country, gathering vigilante bands to burn down Chinatowns and kill their residents. One of the bloodiest mass murders of Chinese took place right here my city of Los Angeles in 1871, as a mob of over 500 invaded the city's old Chinese quarter and slaughtered and hung 20 men, mutilating their corpses in the deadliest known single lynching incident in US history.
By 1882, the tenor of Sinophobic rage was so great that the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning new immigrants from China entirely and making it unlawful for existing Chinese in America to ever become citizens. The Act is still the only law in American history to ever restrict entry to the US explicitly on the basis of race, and it wasn't repealed for 61 years, when the 1943 Magnuson Act finally permitted an entry quota of just 105 Chinese per year.
Today, hostility toward China is experiencing in an edgy spike, fueled in part by Trump's trade war and frothing fusillades of tweets. The impact is being felt by Chinese Americans, as researchers of Chinese descent, many of them US citizens, are being purged from universities and technology companies, and questions of loyalty that haven't been raised for decades are creeping into public discourse. As the coronavirus epidemic spreads, Asians of all backgrounds are reporting that they're being treated with unnerving suspicion, to the point where some are joking that they plan on coughing loudly in public just to `` see who's racist. '' There are sotto voce whispers to avoid Chinatowns and other places where Asians congregate. There are calls from the fringe to ban the entry of Chinese to the US.
And it's not just America where Chinese and other Asians are reporting this. Thea Suh, a friend of mine from Germany -- a country with four confirmed coronavirus cases -- says that news outlets there have featured commentators suggesting that Asians `` deserve '' what they're getting, while she's personally observed train passengers visibly covering their mouths and moving away from where she's seated. `` Racism against people of Asian descent has been subtle in Germany, but it has always been here, '' she told me. `` With this recent coronavirus outbreak, it has just gotten worse... we are basically stuck between getting ridiculed and being the recipient of disgust. ''
This coronavirus is new. But the diseases of xenophobia and racism are not. And as history has shown, outbreaks of the latter are potentially harder to contain, and far more lethal. | business |
'Contagion ' and other movies that predicted an outbreak like coronavirus | Yet that film is only one example of a recurring theme in movies associated with such an outbreak, a longtime staple of science fiction that has always been informed by science fact.
Not surprisingly, the Hollywood version of global pandemics has frequently spiraled off in fantastic directions, birthing armies of zombies in movies like `` The Omega Man, '' `` World War Z '' and `` Pandemic. ''
More sober stories, however, have tapped into the notion of mankind being threatened with annihilation not by nuclear weapons ( a favorite topic in the 1950s and '60s) but a microbial killer.
Early examples include the 1971 thriller `` The Andromeda Strain '' -- adapted from a book by the prescient author Michael Crichton, who repeatedly returned to concepts ( see `` Westworld '' and `` Jurassic Park '') in which scientific and technological breakthroughs created existential threats to humankind.
The juxtaposition of those impulses within the genre can be seen in two movies released in 1995: `` 12 Monkeys, '' a science-fiction plot about using time travel to try to thwart a nascent plague that will wipe out most of humanity; and `` Outbreak, '' a more grounded premise in which an airborne virus gets inadvertently smuggled into the US from Africa, requiring a team of doctors ( led by Dustin Hoffman) to race against time trying to save a town where the infection is spreading.
Nor have screen versions of these stories been confined to fiction. Just last year, the National Geographic network aired `` The Hot Zone, '' a fact-based account about the emergence of Ebola virus in 1989, and Army scientists reacting to potential exposure in the suburbs of Washington DC, via imported monkeys.
'Contagion ' best fits the brewing danger
For all those examples, `` Contagion '' correlates most directly with the current danger, beginning as it does with a woman ( played by Gwyneth Paltrow) who returns to Minnesota with a strange illness after a trip to Hong Kong.
In a matter of days, she's dead, leaving her husband ( Matt Damon) in a state of shock, before others begin exhibiting the same symptoms, as the outbreak spreads across the world.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott Z. Burns, the movie offers an alarming glimpse at a worst-case scenario. Rumors and panic begin to spread, and the guardrails quickly start to come off society as the days click by, amid quarantines, looting and chilling scenes of vacant airports.
Watching the movie again, what stands out -- beyond an inordinately good cast that includes Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard and Bryan Cranston -- is how difficult it is to convey the global sweep of such a story without sacrificing something in terms of the drama.
Specifically, `` Contagion '' scatters its attention among so many characters -- including victims and those desperately working to find a vaccine -- that it suffers in stoking an attachment to any one of them.
Buried within the film, though, is a stark warning that feels even timelier today, subtly conveying how one misguided policy decision or thoughtless action can have a devastating domino effect, sowing the seeds of destruction in a vast, interconnected world.
At the time of the movie's release, Laurie Garrett, a consultant on the film who wrote the book `` The Coming Plague, '' stated that the plot is `` part fantasy, part reality and totally possible. ''
In that sense, `` Contagion '' is well worth seeing -- or seeing again -- as a reminder that some of the scariest stories don't involve supernatural threats, but those that hew most closely to reality. | business |
China delays start of football season as Wuhan coronavirus cases top 7,000 | The Super League, the country's premier division, was due to commence February 22 and run to October 31. A new start date has not yet been announced.
This year's Chinese FA Super Cup game, a match between China FA Cup winner Shanghai Shenhua and Chinese Super League champion Guangzhou Evergrande, had been scheduled for February 15.
In a statement on its website, the Chinese Football Association said postponing the `` 2020 season national football competitions at all levels '' was taken to help with the `` prevention and control of the pneumonia epidemic of the new coronavirus infection, and to protect the health of the majority of fans, media, players, coaches, game officials, clubs and district staff ''.
`` The Chinese Football Association will continue to maintain close communication with national authorities, to determine the timing of each event in this season based on the actual development of the epidemic situation at various locales, '' it added.
`` It will make reasonable adjustments to the system, schedule, and scale of some events when necessary. ''
The virus has taken the lives of at least 170 people and health authorities in China have said more than 7,700 cases have been confirmed in mainland China, while nearly 60 million people have been under partial or full lockdowns in Chinese cities for a week.
READ: Life inside ground zero of Wuhan coronavirus outbreak
There is a risk sports events will be disrupted further into the calendar year if the virus continues to spread.
In a statement, Formula One's governing body the FIA said it was `` monitoring '' the situation. The Shanghai Grand Prix is set to take place April 17-19.
Elsewhere, Autosport reports that Formula E will continue to `` closely monitor '' the situation ahead of its 21 March race in Sanya, southern China.
READ: Bats, the source of so many viruses, could be the origin of Wuhan coronavirus, say experts
A number of sporting events in China have already been postponed, canceled or under threat.
The postponement of China's Super League marks the latest disruption in the sporting world caused by the coronavirus:
China's women's national football team is being held in quarantine at their Brisbane hotel until February 5. The Olympics qualifying matches were moved to Sydney, Australia, from China, and the team had been due to play Thailand on February 3.The 2020 World Athletics Indoor Championships, due to be held from March 13-15 in Nanjing, has been postponed until next year on advice given by the World Health Organization to governing body World Athletics.
The start of the new Chinese Basketball Association League -- scheduled for February 1 -- has been postponed.
The Asian Athletics Association canceled the Asian Indoor Track and Field Championship to ensure `` the safety of our athletes. '' The championships had originally been scheduled to be held in Hangzhou from February 12 to 13.
The 14th Chinese National Winter Games ' official opening ceremony was scheduled for February 16. However, the Games have now been postponed.
The Hong Kong Marathon is an umbrella event for three races -- 10 kilometers, half and full marathon. Some 74,000 people had signed up to compete in the February 8 and 9 races but they have now been canceled.The 2020 League of Legends Spring tournament -- scheduled to begin on February 5 -- and the 2020 Legends Development League have both been postponed.Other Olympic sport qualifiers affected include the Asian and Oceanic boxing event, which was moved from Wuhan to Jordan, and women's basketball, which has had its qualifying competition switched from Fuhan to Serbia.The first Winter X-Games to be held in China have been postponed. The event was scheduled to take place from February 21-23 in Chongli.The International Ski Federation has confirmed that the downhill and super-G men's alpine skiing World Cup races, which were due to take place on February 15 and 16, have been canceled. | business |
Daily briefing: Highest-resolution images ever taken of the Sun show roiling plasma | Hello
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This is the highest-resolution image of the Sun ever taken.
Credit: NSO/NSF/AURA
Highest-resolution images of the Sun ever
The
first images from the world’ s most powerful solar telescope show churning plasma
in amazing detail. The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii can study objects as small as 35 kilometres across, from a distance of 150 million kilometres. The telescope will also make the most precise measurements of the Sun’ s magnetic field, including the first-ever magnetic measurements in the corona.
Nature | 4 min read
‘ Unprecedented’ locusts in East Africa
Hundreds of millions of
desert locusts, in swarms larger than cities, are ravaging East Africa
. Kenya has been the worst hit — it has not seen locusts on this scale for 70 years — but the infestation has also struck Ethiopia and Somalia. Desert locusts (
Schistocerca gregaria
) have been breeding in large numbers because of unusual weather patterns, including heavy rains. Aid agencies are appealing for urgent help, including dropping pesticides from the air.
BBC | 3 min read
Wuhan coronavirus outbreak
Coronaviruses take their name from their crown-like shape.
Credit: Getty
Map shows spread of virus across the globe
• Researchers have built
a map and dashboard for tracking the worldwide spread of the coronavirus outbreak
. The downloadable data set is collected from sources including the World Health Organization, official sources in China and Dingxiangyuan, a social network for health-care professionals that provides real-time information on cases. (
Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering
)
• Some observers are
calling for a temporary ban on selling wild animals for food in China to be made permanent
— and brought to bear worldwide. “ Humans are getting sick from eating or being exposed to wildlife in these markets; wildlife populations are being depleted as they are poached and hunted for these markets; and economies and the poor are harmed as the mass culling of animals in response to these outbreaks increase the cost, ” says veterinarian Christian Walzer. The new coronavirus is believed to have emerged from a wildlife market in Wuhan, China. (
The Guardian | 6 min read
)
• Stay up to date with
the latest news on the outbreak on
Nature
. (
13 min read
, continuously updated)
Features & opinion
This is not the worst of all possible worlds
The worst-case climate scenario agreed by scientists was a dystopian future without any climate mitigation, leading to nearly 5 °C of warming by the end of the century. “ Happily — and that’ s a word we climatologists rarely get to use ” — [ that scenario ] becomes increasingly implausible with every passing year, ” write climate scientists Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peters. They call time on its misuse as ‘ business as usual’ and urge policymakers to use
a more-realistic baseline of around 3 °C of warming above pre-industrial levels
— which would still be a “ catastrophic outcome ”.
Nature | 9 min read
Sources: Historical data: Global Carbon Budget ( 2019); SSP data: ref. 19/J. Rogelj
et al. Nature Clim. Change
8
, 325–332 ( 2018) /SSP Database ( v2); IEA data: Ref. 7
How to talk so non-scientists will listen
When it comes to sharing scientific findings, “ facts and evidence rarely help as much as scientists think ”, says science communicator Craig Cormick. To open the door to understanding,
tell a good story and link your research to shared values
, rather than firing off facts.
Nature | 5 min read
Better work-life balance for better research
The outdated scientific culture of
overwork, stress and exploitation isn’ t good for scientists, their safety or the quality of their research output
, argues chemist David Smith. To turn things around, we should choose lab leaders without “ snap judgements based on scientific background, ‘ parentage’ or papers published and citations gained, and focus instead directly on the qualities and ideas of the candidates themselves, ” he says.
Nature Chemistry | 9 min read
Quote of the day
“ The reassurance, such as it is, comes from the fact that the products are mostly ineffective. ”
Most dietary supplements don’ t do anything, and the ones that do are potentially dangerous, says physician Peter Lurie, the president of the food-and-health watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest. (
The Washington Post
) | science |
China coronavirus: how many papers have been published? | Coronaviruses ( artist’ s impression) have a crown-like halo.
Credit: Pasieka/Science Photo Library/Getty
More than 50 research papers have been published on the new Chinese coronavirus in the past 20 days, as scientists rush to understand the pathogen and how it spreads.
The virus, known as 2019-nCoV, causes a serious respiratory illness and has so far infected more than 7,700 people in China and killed at least 170, authorities report. It has also spread to 15 other countries. The infection is thought to have originated in a food market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has been on lockdown — with travel into and out of the city restricted — since 23 January.
Source: Analysis by Nature news team
The escalating outbreak has prompted a flurry of research activity on the coronavirus, which emerged in humans in December and is new to science.
Nature
searched for studies about the virus using the terms ‘ coronavirus’ or ‘ ncov’ on the preprint servers bioRxiv, medRxiv and ChemRxiv, as well as on Google Scholar, the discussion forum virological.org, scholarly-activity tracker Altmetric and the websites of institutions that had published preliminary research reports on the subject. As of 30 January, at least 54 English-language papers on the coronavirus have been published, over half in the past seven days ( see ‘ Coronavirus research’).
What you need to know about the novel coronavirus
More than 30 are on preprint servers, and a handful have appeared in peer-reviewed journals, including
The Lancet
and the
Journal of Medical Virology
. The search did not include Chinese-language journals.
Several of the papers contain estimates of how rapidly the virus spreads, or the length of its incubation period — how long after being infected with the virus people start to experience symptoms.
Other studies focus on the virus’ s structure or genetic make-up — information that could be used to identify drug targets or develop a vaccine. Researchers have also published genomic data on the virus on online platforms such as GISAID or GenBank, but
Nature
’ s analysis did not count these data uploads. | science |
Part of yield curve inverts as 3-month rate tops 10-year | The bond market sent a recession signal on Thursday as China's fast-spreading coronavirus reignited fears of an economic downturn.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dipped four basis points to 1.546%, falling below the three-month Treasury rate briefly, inverting part of the yield curve that the Federal Reserve watches closely. Bond yields move inversely to prices. The three-month Treasury yield was last trading at 1.554%
The so-called yield curve inversion has been a strong sign since 1950 that a recession is coming in the next 12 months. A more widely monitored part of the yield curve — the gap between the two-year and 10-year yields — inverted last summer when the U.S.-China trade war escalated.
But the Federal Reserve has been known to watch the three-month and 10-year yield gap as well.
`` Some of this narrowing is certainly due to worries about the virus but also on the belief within the Treasury market that a growth inflection higher of note in 2020 is not going to happen, '' Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group, said in a note.
Yields extended losses even after data showed the U.S. economy grew 2.1% in the fourth quarter, matching expectations of economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
The Fed held interest rates steady at its meeting this week. The decision followed three consecutive reductions to borrowing costs in 2019.
During a press conference following the rates decision, Fed chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank is `` very carefully monitoring '' the situation with the fast-spreading coronavirus.
Chinese health officials confirmed there had been 7,711 cases of the deadly pneumonia-like virus at the end of Wednesday, with 170 deaths.
The coronavirus, which was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has since spread to other major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Macao and Hong Kong.
Financial markets have been spooked by the outbreak, with investors trying to assess the potential economic fallout.
The World Health Organization's ( WHO) Emergency Committee is set to reconvene on Thursday, with officials poised to decide whether the international spread of the virus constitutes a global health emergency.
The U.S. Treasury is set to auction $ 45 billion in four-week bills and $ 45 billion in eight-week bills on Thursday.
— CNBC's Sam Meredith contributed reporting. | business |
WHO declares China coronavirus a global health emergency | The World Health Organization said the fast-spreading coronavirus that's infected more than 8,200 people across the world is a global health emergency — a rare designation that helps the international agency mobilize financial and political support to contain the outbreak.
The announcement comes just hours after the U.S. confirmed its first human-to-human transmission of the virus, which has killed more than 200 people in China and has now spread to at least 18 other countries.
Since emerging less than a month ago in Wuhan, China, the coronavirus has infected more people than the 2003 SARS epidemic, which sickened roughly 8,100 people across the globe over nine months. As of Thursday, there are at least eight cases in four countries, outside of China, of human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus.
`` Over the past few weeks we have witnessed the emergence of a previously unknown pathogen that has escalated into an unprecedented outbreak, '' WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a news conference at the organization's Geneva headquarters on Thursday. `` We must act together now to limit the spread. ''
WHO defines a global health emergency, also known as a `` public health emergency of international concern, '' as an `` extraordinary event '' that is `` serious, unusual or unexpected. ''
[ To see the latest updates on the coronavirus, visit CNBC's live blog here. ]
`` Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems and which are ill-prepared to deal with it, '' Tedros said.
He urged the public to remain calm, saying WHO wasn't recommending `` measures that unnecessarily interfere with international trade or travel. '' He said China was doing everything it could to contain the outbreak. `` This is the time for facts, not fear. This is the time for science, not rumors. This is the time for solidarity, not stigma, '' he said.
`` To the people of China and to all of those around the world who have been affected by this outbreak, we want you to know that the world stands with you, '' Tedros said. `` We must remember that these are people, not numbers. ''
In a separate news conference Wednesday, Tedros said the `` continued increase in cases and the evidence of human-to-human transmission outside of China are, of course, most deeply disturbing.... Although the numbers outside China are still relatively small, they hold the potential for a much larger outbreak. ''
The number of confirmed cases is likely to grow, health officials said. There are more than 12,100 suspected cases in China that are either awaiting test results or haven't been tested yet, on top of the 8,137 that have already been confirmed in the country, according to WHO and China state media data released Thursday. Although the coronavirus doesn't appear to be as deadly as SARS, which had a mortality rate of about 11%, it is spreading significantly faster. The WHO data shows there are roughly 1,400 people in China who are severely ill.
The illness produces a range of symptoms, with about 20% of the patients developing severe illnesses, including pneumonia and respiratory failure, he said. WHO officials said it's transmitted through human contact, in droplets through sneezing or through touching germs left on inanimate objects.
WHO doesn't enact global health emergencies lightly. The international health agency has only applied the emergency designation five times since the rules were implemented in the mid-2000s. The last time WHO declared a global health emergency was in 2019 for the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo that killed more than 2,000 people. The agency also declared global emergencies for the 2016 Zika virus, the 2009 H1N1 swine flu, and the 2014 polio and Ebola outbreaks.
One of the criteria used to determine whether the coronavirus is an international health threat is whether the disease spreads locally once it arrives in new parts of the world, `` and that's a nuanced and important distinction to make, '' Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's health emergencies program, told reporters on a call last week.
The other main criteria is whether it's already interfered or will likely interfere with trade and travel, he said. The WHO committee's goal, he said, is to contain an outbreak without needlessly disrupting economic activity just by declaring a global health crisis.
WHO declined at two emergency meetings last week to declare the virus a global health emergency.
Tedros said Thursday that the declaration doesn't mean the agency has a `` vote of no confidence in China. '' He congratulated the Chinese government for its efforts to contain the outbreak despite the potential economic effects.
Declaring an emergency allows Tedros to make recommendations to other nations and coordinate an international response, including whether countries should impose travel or trade bans. It can also mobilize public health resources and galvanize public and political action, said Lawrence Gostin, a professor and faculty director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.
`` It signals that the world must be on the alert for a major event, '' Gostin said.
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that usually infect animals but can sometimes evolve and spread to humans. The new virus is similar to the flu and can cause coughing, fever, breathing difficulty and pneumonia. | business |
South Africans in Wuhan lockdown call for evacuation | Nearly 60 million people are under partial or full lockdowns in cities in China as the Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread across Asia and the rest of the world. At least 170 people are dead, and more than 7,700 cases have been confirmed in mainland China since the outbreak began in December.
Several countries, including the US and Japan, have flown hundreds of their citizens out of the city.
South African Pieter Viljoen, who traveled with a colleague to Wuhan for a business conference before the city's transport lockdown began, said the authorities in South Africa and its embassy in Beijing have not provided support or information about plans to repatriate them.
South Africa's embassy in Beijing also declined to help when his company made private arrangements to secure a flight to get them out of the country and requested assistance and documentation to begin their evacuation process, he says.
Viljoen said dozens of South Africans caught in the city's lockdown have also complained about the South African government's lack of communication in a WeChat group created to share information about the situation.
`` We are not getting any real assistance. The only information from the South African embassy is that we must comply with local authorities. In terms of leaving Wuhan, there has been no effort or communication about evacuation, '' Viljoen said.
Viljoen said he has remained in his hotel, which has shut down operations partially since the movement restriction put in place to help check the spread of the deadly virus.
Supermarkets and grocery stores around his hotel in Wuhan's Optics Valley area are running out of supplies, he said.
`` You have only these small supermarkets where you can get food right now because of the complete lockdown. You can't move around from one district to another, so supplies are not readily available, '' Viljoen told CNN on telephone.
South Africa's embassy in Beijing declined to comment on Viljoen's allegations and directed CNN's request for comment to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation ( DIRCO).
The embassy had closed on January 26 for the Lunar New Year holiday and full operations only resumed Thursday, according to DIRCO. Emergency contact numbers manned by embassy staff were available for citizens in need of assistance to call during the holiday, the department added.
DIRCO spokesman Clayson Monyela told CNN on Thursday that the South African government and its health ministry was working on all requests. However, they must also consider travel and quarantine measures imposed by Chinese authorities to prevent the spread of the virus.
`` We are not ignoring their plight, and we are quite aware of the need for speed to assist our citizens in Wuhan. We are liaising with the mission in Beijing to see how we can respond to the situation within the present context, '' Monyela said.
South Africa's opposition party, the Democratic Alliance ( DA), which said it was in touch with more than 100 South Africans in China, called on the foreign ministry to address the `` dysfunction '' at the county's embassy in China, which it said had affected efforts to help stranded citizens.
`` The Department needs to ensure that its mission is able to communicate and allay fears by providing clear and helpful communication and assistance at the same standard of other countries that have heeded the call, '' it said in a statement Wednesday.
Uncertain future
Despite growing calls for repatriation, South Africa's Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on Wednesday said there were no plans to fly its citizens out as Chinese authorities have the outbreak under control.
`` The Chinese government has assured us that there is no evidence to necessitate the evacuation of foreign nationals living in Wuhan city, and they have called for calm in this respect, '' Mkhize said.
He added that they have been assured by the Chinese government that foreign nationals who fall sick will be treated in the same way as Chinese citizens.
South African Jessika Bailing says she feels neglected by her country's government.
The 23-year-old English teacher, who moved from South Africa to Wuhan last year, said while many countries are racing to get their citizens out of the city, authorities in South Africa were reluctant to make such arrangements.
`` I 've watched other countries ' governments go above and beyond to evacuate their citizens and then we are faced with that kind of response from our government, how can one not feel abandoned? '' Bailing said.
`` The South African government may be putting things into place or trying to find some solutions to get the South Africans in Wuhan evacuated but neither me nor any other South African I have been in contact with feels that they are, '' she added.
Dustin Emslie says he's disappointed by the South African government's response to the situation.
`` I didn't really expect the government to evacuate us, I just hoped there would be more concern for South African citizens abroad, '' he said.
Emslie, who has lived in Wuhan for six years, said he would leave with his Chinese wife and 3-year-old daughter, only if the whole family will go.
`` If I had to leave, it would only be if they could come with me to South Africa. There is no way I 'm just going to abandon them here, '' he said.
He says while locals and expatriates have been trying to cope with the restrictions. The uncertainty about when the lockdown will end has been the hardest to bear.
`` We have no idea when this epidemic will end. It could be months that we are under lockdown here in Wuhan, '' he wrote in a text message.
# KenyansinWuhan
Many Kenyans trapped in Wuhan have also taken to social media under the hashtag # KenyansinWuhan asking their government to evacuate them from the city.
A Kenyan student at the Wuhan University of Technology, who wanted to stay anonymous due to his status as a foreign student, said he now fears for his safety as the coronavirus death toll continues to rise.
`` Imagine not being able to open the door to a friend because you don't know if they are infected; it is freaking me out, '' he said.
He also said that buses, taxis, and ride-hailing apps were not working, and the only way to get around was on foot or by bicycle.
Antony Waigwa, a Kenyan student at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan told CNN that Chinese authorities have been providing free food and electricity for many students at the institute since the lockdown.
State-owned telecoms company China Unicom has also given access to free internet services so that students can communicate and inform authorities about any development while the movement restriction lasts.
`` Insurance companies have also removed limits to our cover so we can get treated till we fully recover if we contract the disease, '' Waigwa told CNN.
In a statement sent to its citizens living in China on Tuesday, the Kenyan embassy in Beijing said that the Chinese authorities had assured foreign governments not to panic and evacuation was not necessary at this stage.
The repatriation process could also take two weeks as Chinese authorities will only facilitate evacuation when foreign nationals have met all quarantine processes, including 14 days of no contact with the virus, the statement said.
It added that though the coronavirus outbreak is `` severe '', the embassy was confident in the Chinese government's efforts to contain it.
The spread of the virus has prompted some airlines to cancel flights to China, and several countries have placed people traveling from Wuhan under quarantine.
The Ivory Coast put a student who had returned from Beijing with coronavirus symptoms under observation on Saturday pending her test results.
The Nigerian government on Thursday said it will begin screening Chinese nationals traveling to the West African nation for the virus. Ethiopia and Kenya have placed passengers returning from areas hit by the virus under isolation. The World Health Organization on Tuesday said there had been no confirmed cases on the continent. | business |
Amazon ( AMZN) Q4 2019 earnings | Shares of Amazon climbed as much as 11% in extended trading on Thursday after smashing earnings expectations for the fourth quarter.
The company's market cap surged above $ 1 trillion after hours on the back of the powerhouse earnings report. In doing so, it joined Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft, which have all crossed the trillion-dollar threshold. Amazon first reached a $ 1 trillion market cap in September 2018.
Here are the key numbers:
Revenue grew 21% to $ 87.44 billion for the quarter, which indicates the company's investments in speedier shipping are leading to more purchases. Last quarter, Amazon claimed customers shopped at record levels during the holiday season and said it quadrupled both one-day and same-day deliveries over the period.
The company also gave upbeat guidance for the first quarter, saying it now expects to report revenue between $ 69 billion and $ 73 billion. Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky told CNBC's Josh Lipton that the company doesn't `` have any visibility '' on whether the coronavirus will impact its first quarter results. Many U.S. companies have warned the deadly virus could weigh on their business, while others such as Google have limited operations in China, where the majority of cases have been reported.
In the earnings release, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said `` more people joined Prime this quarter than ever before '' and that the company now counts more than 150 million paid Prime members around the world. Amazon last gave an update on Prime subscribers in April 2018, saying it had more than 100 million members in the program.
As expected, Amazon's worldwide shipping costs increased significantly during the quarter, climbing 43% year over year to $ 12.9 billion. The company said in its last earnings report in October that it would spend $ 1.5 billion during the holiday shopping season to expand one-day and same-day delivery.
On the earnings call, Olsavsky said costs associated with rolling out the program came in `` slightly under '' $ 1.5 billion during the fourth quarter. Amazon will spend $ 1 billion more on the initiative in the first quarter and `` again in [ the second quarter ] we 'll start to lap this, '' Olsavsky added. He expects the costs to become more efficient as delivery volume grows alongside new transportation modes, such as additional routes and zip codes.
Despite Amazon's growing investments, the company's net income rebounded during the quarter. Its net income grew 8% year over year to $ 3.27 billion, which topped analysts ' expectations of $ 2 billion. Amazon's net income slid 26% during the third quarter as a result of costs tied to ramping up one-day delivery.
Amazon's subscription services revenues have climbed steadily over the past several quarters. Revenue from subscription services, which includes Prime membership fees, as well as Music Unlimited and Prime Video Channels, came in at $ 5.24 billion for the quarter, up 32% from the year-ago period. In the earnings release, Amazon said Music Unlimited subscribers grew more than 50% in 2019.
Aside from retail, Amazon's cloud business reported $ 9.95 billion in sales, up 34% from the year-ago quarter. That beat analysts ' expectations of $ 9.81 billion, but it was still a slight deceleration from the third quarter, when Amazon Web Services ( AWS) saw revenue growth of 35%. AWS operating income was $ 2.6 billion, up 19% from the year-ago period and above consensus estimates of $ 2.45 billion.
Amazon's `` other '' category, which is primarily made up of its advertising business, generated $ 4.8 billion in revenue during the quarter, which is a 41% increase from the year-ago period.
Amazon's physical-store sales, which is mainly comprised of Whole Foods, saw its revenue decline 1% year over year to $ 4.36 billion. | business |
World Health Organization declares coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern |
Last week, the organization said the virus did not yet constitute the emergency declaration. But with rising numbers and evidence of person-to-person transmission in a handful of cases outside of China, WHO leadership called the committee back together over concerns of a larger outbreak down the line.
`` The main reason for this declaration is not because of what is happening in China, but because of what is happening in other countries, '' WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday. `` Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it. ''
WHO defines a public health emergency of international concern as `` an extraordinary event '' that constitutes a `` public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease '' and `` to potentially require a coordinated international response. '' Previous emergencies have included Ebola, Zika and H1N1.
Committee chairman Dr. Didier Houssin said the decision to recommend the declaration to WHO leadership was almost unanimous -- citing a growing number of cases in China, an increase in the number of countries impacted, and that `` some countries have taken questionable measures concerning travelers. ''
Houssin said that declaring the coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern would allow WHO to better coordinate the international response and hold nations to account if they overstep the organization's standards -- which may pertain to travel, trade, quarantine or screening.
Ghebreyesus commended China for its actions to limit the spread of the virus, saying that `` we would have seen many more cases outside China by now -- and probably deaths -- if it were not for the government's efforts.
`` Let me be clear: This declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China, '' Ghebreyesus said. `` On the contrary, WHO continues to have confidence in China's capacity to control the outbreak. '' | business |
Tesla Model 3 production delayed in Shanghai because of coronavirus outbreak |
Elon Musk's Tesla factory in China just got up and running. Now its vehicle production there
will be delayed because of the
deadly Wuhan virus outbreak
.
Beijing has
taken extraordinary measures
to try and contain the outbreak, including placing major cities on lockdown and extending the Lunar New Year holiday. Officials in Shanghai, where Tesla's China factory is located, extended the holiday period from January 30 to February 9.
`` At this point, we're expecting a 1 to 1½ week delay in the ramp ( up) of Shanghai-built Model 3 due to a government-required factory shutdown, '' Tesla's chief financial officer Zachary Kirkhorn said during an earnings call Wednesday.
Kirkhorn said the hit to Tesla earnings will be limited because profits from the China-made cars are still in the early stages. He added that the company is also keeping an eye on whether there will be supply chain disruptions for Tesla's California-made cars.
The company on Wednesday posted it first annual profit, topping Wall Street's forecasts. Shares in
Tesla
(
TSLA
)
jumped 11% in after hours trading in New York.
Tesla posts first annual profit
Read More
The coronavirus has killed 170 people so far and sickened more than 7,000 people across China, with dozens more cases confirmed in countries such as the United States, Germany and Japan.
Tesla is among a growing number of businesses feeling the effects of the coronavirus outbreak. Fellow car makers
Toyota
(
TM
)
and
Geely
(
GELYF
)
— which owns
Volvo
(
VOLAF
)
— said their factories across China will remain closed through February 9 to comply with the extended holiday.
Restaurants such as
McDonald's
(
MCD
)
,
Starbucks
(
SBUX
)
and
Yum China-owned
(
YUMC
)
KFC and Pizza Hut have closed thousands of stores across the country. Major airlines including British Airways,
American Airlines
(
AAL
)
and
United
(
UAL
)
have decreased flights to and from mainland China, or suspended them altogether.
Disney
(
DIS
)
shuttered its parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong, as museums and major attractions including the Forbidden City remain closed.
Tesla's ambitious China strategy
Tesla's factory shutdown comes just weeks after the company
began delivering its first Shanghai-made Model 3
cars to the public in China, an important step in Musk's bold strategy to pick up a big slice of the world's biggest
car market.
Speaking at a ceremony to mark the first deliveries earlier this month, Musk announced that Tesla will also make the Model Y, its lower-priced SUV, at its new Shanghai factory. It also plans to open a design center in China with the aim of creating an `` original car '' for sale in markets around the world.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the delay in China-made Model 3 cars `` is a containable near term risk, '' given the Shanghai factory is just starting to ramp production.
`` We do not believe the coronavirus will have a longer term overhang for Musk ( and Tesla) in this key region with China, the fuel on the growth engine, '' he said. Ives has a buy rating on Tesla stock with a bull case valuation of $ 900. Shares in Tesla closed at $ 581 in New York on Wednesday.
Musk remains bullish on China, saying during Wednesday's
earnings call that Tesla has seen a `` pretty big fundamental efficiency gain '' by making affordable Model 3 cars `` on the continent where the customers are. ''
Earlier this month, Tesla slashed the starting price of its Shanghai-made Model 3 sedan to 323,800 Chinese yuan ( $ 46,680) from 355,800 yuan ( $ 51,290). With government subsidies, the cost could drop to as low as 299,050 yuan ( $ 43,110).
`` We were trying to make the cars as affordable as possible as fast as possible (...) while still being at least a little bit profitable and grow a company like crazy, '' Musk said on Wednesday.
-- Laura He contributed to this report. | general |
European Union task force holds its first summit on fighting Russian disinformation | International experts gathered in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the evolving nature of the disinformation challenge within the EU, with an eye to mapping future threats and diagnosing areas of vulnerability, as well as identifying new solutions to the steep challenge.
`` We are not seeking one magical instrument that will solve the problem, '' said European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová, adding that the EU was looking to come up with cross-sector strategies to counter disinformation campaigns, particularly from Russia and China.
`` As a person who grew up in a communist regime, I know what it means to be surrounded by lies and manipulation... this is here again with a strong intensity, '' Jourová, who is from the Czech Republic, said. `` This is not a wakeup call; it is a call to arms. ''
Today, disinformation is deployed across an array of issues, she said, from migration, to health -- most recently with the coronavirus -- the climate change debate and suppressing participation in the electoral process.
Tackling disinformation
Jourová outlined efforts the EU has taken to tackle the threat thus far, including the new Rapid Alert System -- a network launched last year to notify governments about Russian interference efforts before they multiply and spread. Criticisms that the network is not nearly as rapid as it should be underlines the obstacles that the EU faces in coordinating efforts across members states. Thornier still is the task of tackling disinformation emanating from within the EU itself.
`` We are increasingly concerned by disinformation from actors in member states -- some campaigns are driven by profit and others are driven by useful idiots, '' Jourová said, calling to increase the cost of malign campaigns, ramp up regulation and compel social platforms to provide more transparency on political advertising.
The Commission has proposed €2.5 million ( $ 2.8 million) for a digital media observatory bringing together fact-checkers and academic researchers to fight disinformation, and €60 million over 2021-2027 to support `` quality '' journalism, but experts at the summit said that wasn't nearly enough.
`` The resource imbalance in this field is huge, we are outperformed by a billion to one from the digital industry when it comes to understanding these systems, so oversight needs to be funded to a much, much larger extent, '' said Sebastian Bay, a researcher at the Swedish Defence Research Agency and former senior expert at the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence.
`` Hearing the Vice President talk about a 60 million here, 2 million there... we need to talk about billions of euros... if we're going to regulate an industry that earns hundreds of billions. ''
Kremlin-backed propaganda
Europe has been working to expose Kremlin-backed propaganda campaigns for years -- but in 2014, after Moscow annexed Crimea and backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, it became obvious that the battlefield had shifted: information warfare was moving online.
The EU's East StratCom Task Force was launched in 2015, a year before Russia interfered in the United States presidential election, to better forecast and respond to the Kremlin's attempts to sway voters and chip away at European unity, especially in former Soviet states.
Russia maintains that it has not and does not interfere in the domestic politics of other countries.
Still, after authorities linked Russian groups to misinformation campaigns targeting Brexit, as well as elections in France and Germany, the race is on to figure out a longer-term fix.
Germany has already put a law in place to fine tech platforms that fail to remove `` obviously illegal '' hate speech, while France has passed a law that bans fake news on the internet during election campaigns. Some critics have argued that both pieces of legislation jeopardize free speech. Russia denied interference in all of these instances.
Just this month, Ukraine's Ministry of Culture proposed a bill to fight disinformation, which would level criminal punishment against those who spread it, as a Russia-backed insurgency in the country's east rages on. Press freedom watchdogs have expressed concern that the draft law would allow the state to infringe on independent media.
Alya Shandra, editor-in-chief at Euromaidan Press and a speaker at the conference, said that while maintaining a free press and functioning democracy was crucial, that alone was not enough to compete with Russia.
`` We can't close our eyes to the fact that, as we are here trying to do our best to maintain a democratic society, at the same time there is a country that wants to destroy us, to subvert our societies from within, '' Shandra said. `` If we focus only on our efforts to strengthen democracies, the threat is evolving and finding new ways to attack our information ecosystem. ''
Lessons for Washington
Europe's ongoing fight offers insights for other countries, particularly the US, where intelligence officials anticipate Russia will try again to meddle in the presidential race. In many ways, Europe has taken a tougher approach than Washington in holding social media companies responsible for the misinformation shared on their platforms.
As a result, Facebook, Twitter and Google, which are all signatories to the European Commission's code of practice against disinformation, took steps ahead of the EU elections last year to increase transparency on their platforms, including making EU-specific political advertisement libraries publicly available, working with third-party fact-checkers to identify misleading election-related content, and cracking down on fake accounts.
European officials say they didn't see any evidence of Russian interference in the vote, but that does not mean that member states can be complacent.
In a report issued after the EU elections, the European Commission said it was clear that the measures taken as part of a joint action plan against disinformation, as well as efforts from civil society to raise awareness of the threat, contributed to deterring attacks and exposing disinformation.
`` Increased public awareness made it harder for malicious actors to manipulate the public debate, '' the report said. `` However, there is no room for complacency and the fight against disinformation must continue. '' | business |
Futures pare losses after fourth-quarter GDP report | U.S. stock index futures pared some losses on Thursday after data showed domestic economy rose at a 2.1% annualized rate in the fourth quarter, in line with expectations.
Futures were lower earlier as investors fretted over the economic impact of a fast spreading coronavirus in China.
At 8:36 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 158 points, or 0.55%. S & P 500 e-minis were down 19.5 points, or 0.6% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 35.5 points, or 0.39%.
Moments before the data, Dow e-minis were down 179 points, or 0.62%. S & P 500 e-minis were down 22 points, or 0.67% and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 46.25 points, or 0.51%. ( Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva) | business |
Xi Jinping wants to be both feared and loved by China’ s people | IF CENSORS IN communist-led regimes are good for anything, it is spurring creativity. With a new coronavirus stalking China, netizens have been heaping praise on “ Chernobyl ”, an American-made television drama about the Soviet Union’ s worst nuclear disaster. Their aim is to sneak discussion of the outbreak onto China’ s tightly policed internet. In less hectic times censors would swiftly stamp out such impertinence. For the parallels with the reactor explosion in 1986, and the official cover-up that followed, are painful for China’ s Communist Party bosses, whose system of government was cribbed from Soviet designs. But pointed comparisons keep popping up on China’ s social media. One urges Chinese viewers to learn from “ Chernobyl ” that a free flow of information offers more security than aircraft-carriers, Moon landings and other signs of superpower might. Another contrasts a soothing interview granted to state television by the governor of Hubei, the province where the epidemic began, with a speech by the hero of “ Chernobyl ”, a Soviet scientist, about the costs of official lies.
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Parallels are likely to continue in the real world. Back in the 1980s, Kremlin leaders scapegoated local officials and engineers, coolly blaming them for the disaster and denying a wider cover-up. In recent days, Chinese state media have dropped heavy hints that the mayor of Wuhan, the industrial city where the virus was first detected, will lose his job. When Li Keqiang, China’ s prime minister, was appointed to oversee virus-control work, cynics suggested that his role was to take the fall should the outbreak spark a pandemic—in effect, to protect President Xi Jinping.
As it happens, censors should be relieved that Chinese netizens are focusing on the ills of Soviet collective leadership. It would be more dangerous if online critics were to start exploring a historical parallel closer to home, namely the way that in Chinese history natural disasters undermined an emperor’ s claim to rule. More than one dynasty fell after catastrophes signalled that Heaven had withdrawn its favour. It was not only seen as ineptitude when a ruler was unable to protect his people from floods or famine—or, as in the second century during the Han dynasty, from repeated outbreaks of disease ( probably smallpox and measles) that killed perhaps a third of the population. Such bungling showed that the emperor lacked virtue and deserved to be overthrown, people said.
Modern-day Chinese may not believe that a rampaging coronavirus signals divine anger with Mr Xi. Still, the party chief has a great deal at stake in this crisis, precisely because large claims are made about his wisdom, which is now taught in schools and studied by party members as Xi Jinping Thought. Every day, state media credit Mr Xi with personally guiding China to ever-greater prosperity, modernity and global clout. No leader has amassed such individual power since Mao Zedong, or been so lavishly praised. Chinese intellectuals accuse Mr Xi of claiming the mantle of an emperor. They point to Mr Xi’ s speeches praising traditional Chinese culture, and lauding codes of morality and deference to imperial authority, as handed down by Confucius and other sages.
The result is an awkward hybrid. On the one hand, officials make claims about the efficiency of collective party leadership that would be familiar to any Soviet apparatchik. To them, populist insurgencies sweeping the West are proof that multiparty elections, a free press and other forms of democratic accountability are sources of chaos and dysfunction. As they describe it, China’ s system is a meritocracy that selects highly competent experts to run the country, with a track record of correcting their own mistakes. Yet at the same time, the party’ s propagandists lay claim to a very different form of legitimacy, involving the people’ s love for and trust in one man, Mr Xi. So sweeping is their praise of him that it leaves essentially no room for the idea that Mr Xi could make a serious mistake.
This convoluted claim to legitimacy can be heard in the context of the current coronavirus outbreak, as leaders insist that their system of government is ideally suited to tackling the disease. On January 28th Chinese leaders hosted the head of the World Health Organisation ( WHO), a UN body that played an invaluable role in demanding transparency in 2003 after China’ s initial cover-up of the extent of an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ( SARS), which led to many avoidable deaths. Wang Yi, the foreign minister, assured the WHO’ s boss, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, that China would be more resolute this time thanks to “ the strong leadership of the party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core and the strong advantages of the socialist system ”, as well as its experience of SARS.
It is too simplistic to assume that all bad things that happen in China must harm Mr Xi. The virus outbreak could end swiftly, amid worldwide praise for the bravery of China’ s doctors and nurses, the self-discipline of the public and the resolve of Chinese leaders, albeit after a slow start. If the crisis does not end well, scapegoats will be found, and underlings punished. That alone would not have to shake Mr Xi’ s authority, which can always be shored up with repression, still greater ideological discipline and nationalist propaganda. But a botched response to the virus would lay bare tensions inherent in the party’ s hybrid claims to legitimacy.
Mr Xi’ s China is two things at once. It is a secretive, techno-authoritarian one-party state, ruled by grey men in unaccountable councils and secretive committees. It also claims to be a nation-sized family headed by a patriarch of unique wisdom and virtue, in a secular, 21st-century version of the mandate of Heaven. If forced to choose between those competing models, bet on cold, bureaucratic control to win out. For Mr Xi and his team learned their own lesson from the Soviet Union’ s fall, five years after the Chernobyl disaster. Expressions of public love for Mr Xi, the “ People’ s Leader ”, are all very well. But keeping power is what counts. ■
Published since September 1843 to take part in “ a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress. ”
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2021. All rights reserved. | business |
Opinion: Coronavirus shows disease prevention needs to be a policy priority | Dr. Sten Vermund is dean of the Yale School of Public Health, the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health and professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine. He has founded two non-governmental organizations fighting the HIV epidemic in Africa. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more
opinion
on CNN.
( CNN)
As the coronavirus continues to
accelerate its spread
through China, the US, and a host of other countries, global scientists have accelerated their work to
develop a vaccine
, effective antiviral drugs and, more immediately, contain the Wuhan 2019-nCoV strain from spreading further. The Chinese government has reportedly taken a stopgap measure by
treating
coronavirus patients with HIV drugs -- an oral two-pill combination of antiretroviral drugs along with an inhaled medication.
Coronaviruses, like HIV, are
RNA viruses
. China learned from prior coronavirus epidemics ( SARS and MERS) to repurpose antiretroviral and antiviral medications for partial treatment of this newest global health scare, which
may have made the leap
to humans from
Chinese snakes or other animals
. This is a perfect illustration of why long-term epidemic preparedness and investment matters. Investing in one epidemic can have an impact that spans other diseases, future years, distant continents and disparate health systems.
Sten Vermund
We need the kind of visionary, proactive leadership that will make global health and disease prevention a priority. Unfortunately, the current administration
disbanded
its health security team in 2018 and has repeatedly
suggested cuts
to the very government agencies and programs that fight epidemics. As cases of coronavirus have begun popping up around the US, some presidential candidates have been silent on this issue -- though to their credit,
others
have called attention to the issue of preventing infectious diseases.
Elizabeth Warren recently released a
plan
to prevent and contain infectious diseases, and Joe Biden published an
op-ed pledging
to `` reassert U.S. leadership in global health security. '' Other
candidates
have
called
attention to the issue.
The President has acknowledged the challenges that the US faces but
specific plans
are unclear: Voters and journalists alike would do well to ask the administration and the many candidates who seek office in 2020 to outline their plans to fight coronavirus and prevent other pandemics. It is not enough to enact emergency spending measures in the middle of an outbreak -- we need consistent, robust leadership around these issues before the next crisis hits.
Read More
The World Health Organization should sound the alarm on Wuhan coronavirus
I have seen the importance of preparedness first-hand in four decades of public health and medical research and teaching, first in tropical diseases and then on HIV and AIDS. When Ebola arrived in the densely populated city of Lagos, Nigeria, in July 2014, for example, many of us thought that thousands would die in that mega-city, and spread globally. Nigerian and international experts have
documented
the benefits accrued from these prior disease control and prevention investments, building laboratory capacity. In part, as a consequence of these investments, Nigeria was able to contain the virus to just
19 cases
and stop it from spreading further.
How? In part because the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief ( PEPFAR) and the global Polio Program had been making
important investments
in Nigeria for years -- most notably a laboratory training program and a modern virology laboratory at Lagos University Teaching Hospital.
The existence of that infrastructure, and the highly trained technicians that emerged from it, meant that teams of Nigerian specialists were able to
trace the outbreak
to a single air traveler from Liberia. In addition, the specialists were able to test Ebola samples in their own labs
instead of flying them
out of the country. The simple technological investments that the US and others made to fight HIV and polio in Nigeria ended up being a key reason why the country was so effective in containing Ebola.
What it will take to stop the Wuhan coronavirus
This is the approach we need to take for global health: an investment in one epidemic is actually an investment in health structures that can fight whatever comes next. Acute care investments can be redeployed for chronic disease control and then can be available for the next acute emergency.
Whoever becomes our next president will have the power to shape the world's response to both current and future infectious pandemics. Currently, pandemic-related global health program spending is just
0.19% of the US budget
; a doubling of that investment would be a good start to face our present and future challenges. We need a sustained and substantial presidential commitment towards global control of infectious threats, including some of today's biggest infectious killers, HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
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History has shown that the right investments can make all the difference. Instead of short-sighted, last-minute funding for a disease already at pandemic levels, we can contain and prevent outbreaks from turning into global emergencies. What we can not do is cut funding or personnel as soon as the crisis is over, or isolate infectious disease responses so that lessons from one are not applied to another.
The question is, can our our next president meet this challenge? Let us all ask these questions of all our candidates on the campaign trail. | general |
Coronavirus: ASU student starts petition to cancel classes |
A student at Arizona State University has started a petition to cancel classes after someone from the university was
confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus
.
ASU freshman Taskina Bhuiyan, who is majoring in microbiology, started the
petition on Change.org
, and it had more than 21,000 signatures as of Wednesday evening.
This map tracks the coronavirus in real time
It is unclear whether the infected person is a student or staff member. The
Arizona Department of Health Services ( ADHS)
identified the person only as a `` member of the Arizona State University community who does not live in university housing. ''
The person recently returned from Wuhan, China, where the virus is believed to have originated.
`` As part of our case investigation, individuals who may have been exposed to the patient will be notified by public health and provided with proper follow-up, '' ADHS communications director Chris Minnick told CNN.
Read More
The ADHS said the patient is not severely ill. The patient is being kept in isolation to prevent the illness from spreading, according to the health department.
`` ASU is monitoring the coronavirus situation daily and working closely with federal, state and county health authorities, '' a spokesman for the university told CNN. `` We are following the health protocols prescribed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and reinforced by state and county health officials. Because the immediate risk to the general public from coronavirus at this time is believed to be low, classes are in session and the university is open for business. ''
Bhuiyan said she and her friends created the petition because they believe ASU is not being transparent with its students, and they would like ASU to take the right steps to disinfect areas that could be at risk and to set up sanitizing stations around campus.
Students have a right to know where the infected individual visited, she said, so they can choose to avoid those areas.
Bats, the source of so many viruses, could be the origin of Wuhan coronavirus, say experts
`` In the email, ASU said that they are following CDC protocols and advised students to wear a mask, keep their hands clean, not to touch our face, etc., '' Bhuiyan told CNN.
`` However, ASU is not implementing those protocols, '' she said. `` The majority of the people are still walking around with no masks. Stores near the campus are all sold out of masks and hand sanitizers, which is also making it hard for the students and staff to follow CDC protocols. ''
Another spokesman for the university, Jerry Gonzalez, said the school has not directed students to wear masks. He said ASU has made masks available to students who have flu-like symptoms as a precaution and to protect others.
`` It appears that what she ( Bhuiyan) is talking about came from hoax screenshots of supposed emails from university leaders that were going around, '' the spokesman said. `` Those were fake. ''
He urged people to use
the university's official coronavirus page
for information and be wary of information posted on social media.
Bhuiyan said attendance is mandatory at ASU and students risk failing classes if they skip them. As a science major, Bhuiyan said she has labs she can not miss, and she wants ASU to be more lenient with its attendance policy.
`` I do not think that we should have to choose between failing a class or compromising our health and wellbeing, but ASU is not giving us any other options at the moment, '' Bhuiyan said.
The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out an advisory
Tuesday recommending travelers avoid `` all nonessential travel '' to China. The university issued a travel restriction for all faculty, students and staff.
More than 6,000 people around the world
have been infected, and at least 132 people have died as a result of the virus.
`` Students are nervous, '' Bhuiyan said. `` We are even more nervous since ASU is not providing us with anymore updates. I understand that they do not want to cause a panic amongst the students and faculty. However, they need to let us know the severity of the situation because most students are still not taking this matter as seriously as they should be. '' | general |
Ikea shuts down all mainland China stores over coronavirus |
Ikea is shutting down all of its stores across China as the deadly
Wuhan coronavirus outbreak escalates
.
The furniture store will `` temporarily close '' its dozens of brick-and-mortar stores in mainland China starting Thursday, a spokeswoman for Ikea China said in a statement.
`` We will pay close attention to the epidemic situation, and the stores will be closed until further notice, '' she said, adding that Ikea's online shopping service will continue to operate.
Ikea has 30 stores across China, including one in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, according to the company's website.
In China, Ikea is a popular place for shoppers to
nap and hang out for long periods of time
on the many bed, sofa and furniture displays. Such shopping habits would be counterproductive to containing the coronavirus, as experts and officials advise people to avoid crowded areas.
Read More
The coronavirus could be much worse for China's economy than SARS
The coronavirus outbreak has killed 170 people and sickened more than 7,000 people in China so far, with dozens more confirmed cases in countries such as Canada, Japan and Australia. The Chinese government has taken unprecedented measures
to try to contain the virus, including placing millions of people in major cities on lockdown and extending the Lunar New Year holiday.
Ikea is just the latest company to feel the effects of the outbreak. Restaurants such as
McDonald's
(
MCD
)
,
Starbucks
(
SBUX
)
and
Yum China-owned
(
YUMC
)
KFC and Pizza Hut have closed thousands of stores across the country. Electric car maker
Tesla's
(
TSLA
)
brand new Shanghai factory
has halted production
due to a government-ordered shutdown.
Disney
(
DIS
)
parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong are shuttered, as museums and major attractions such as the Forbidden City remain closed.
The virus could hit China's economy hard. The country's GDP growth could slow by a percentage point this quarter — or even more — because of the outbreak, according to Zhang Ming, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Science, a major Beijing brain trust. His assessment was published Wednesday in a Chinese financial magazine.
-- Laura He contributed to this report. | general |
An American who was evacuated from Wuhan tried to leave base |
An American who
flew out of China on a chartered flight
tried to leave a Southern California military base where authorities have been monitoring nearly 200 people for coronavirus symptoms, health officials said.
The unidentified person has been ordered to stay in quarantine at the March Air Reserve Base until the `` entire incubation period or until otherwise cleared, '' Riverside County Public Health said in a statement Thursday.
The incubation period will be 14 days.
`` This action was taken as a result of the unknown risk to the public should someone leave MARB early without undergoing a full health evaluation, '' the agency said.
Nearly 200 Americans
arrived Wednesday at the military base
from Wuhan, the epicenter of the deadly
coronavirus outbreak
in China, and were asked to stay for at least three days so they can be monitored for coronavirus symptoms.
Read More
US health officials had said they will not issue a blanket quarantine for the evacuees, but some have agreed to stay at the base voluntarily longer than 72 hours.
Jarred Evans,
one of the 195 passengers
from Wuhan, said he `` will stay as long as I need '' at the military base. Earlier on Thursday, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials held a briefing for passengers.
`` You're not obligated to leave ( when the 72 hours are up), so they're saying that the best thing for you, your people, your family and the community is to stay as long as possible, '' Evans said.
Evans told CNN he was not aware that a passenger tried to leave the base.
Passengers are taking precautions
The passengers are wearing protective masks and are spending some time outdoors.
`` We're all still taking major precautions. So it's not like we're around here hugging each other and shaking hands and things like that, '' Evans said.
None of the passengers have showed signs
of sickness but they will be monitored for fewer and other symptoms at least twice daily, said Dr. Chris Braden of the CDC.
7,000 people held on cruise ship in Italy as Wuhan coronavirus fears spread
If any demand to go home during the initial 72-hour monitoring period, health officials will discuss their options and may issue an individual quarantine if they believe the person poses a danger of infecting others, Braden said.
Coronavirus has killed at least 213 people
and infected nearly 8,000 others
in China, most of them in the hardest-hit city of
Wuhan
. Outside mainland China, there are 108 confirmed cases, including five
in the United States.
More evacuation flights for US citizens in Wuhan will be arranged, the US State Department said. Those flights will leave Wuhan on or around Monday; further details weren't immediately available.
American describes panic in Wuhan
Before landing in the US on the chartered flight, Evans spent more than a week
holed up in his apartment
in Wuhan as coronavirus raced through the city. During that time, he said, residents sent panicked messages, warning others to take precaution.
This is where Wuhan coronavirus cases have been confirmed worldwide
`` It hit fast and... it just was very hectic for, like, three days straight, '' he said. `` I got the news from my Chinese friends saying, 'Hey, stay inside. Wear a mask. Don't go outside, stock up on some food 'cause this is going to get serious. ' And as you can see, it's very serious. ''
And through it all, it felt surreal, like a bad dream as the city got cut off from the rest of the nation.
`` When you're there and there's no transportation, no trains, no subways, no planes, the military is blocking off each and every aspect of the road. No Ubers, nothing. Mom and pop stores are closed. You think to yourself, like, is this real? Is this a movie? Is this a nightmare? '' he said.
The New York-native moved to Wuhan to play American football in a Chinese league. When the US Embassy announced it was evacuating diplomats, their families and some US citizens this week, depending on space availability, he had only five hours to get to the airport, he said.
And when their flight arrived in the United States -- first in Anchorage, Alaska, for fueling before making its way to the military base in California -- there was a huge sense of relief among passengers, mixed with some
apprehension that some people may have contracted
the virus.
`` Everyone was clapping. No one was shaking hands, that's for sure... but we were clapping, '' he said.
Passengers need monitoring for 14 days
Evans and the other passengers will be held for three days, but that will not be the end of the monitoring process.
This map tracks the coronavirus in real time
If health officials
determine they don't pose a danger and can go home
, they will still need to be monitored by local officials for the 14-day incubation period, Braden said. Those staying near the base can choose to remain there for the 14 days.
`` If anyone demands to leave right now, that is where all of the partners... would come together and talk about what needs to be done, '' said Dr. Nancy Knight, the CDC's director of global health protection. She noted that US marshals are on hand to ensure everyone's safety.
Before they arrived in California, the passengers were also screened in Alaska when the flight landed Tuesday night in an isolated area of the Anchorage airport's north terminal, which handles international flights, airport manager Jim Szczesniak said.
The CDC will work with airport officials to clean the terminal, and there are no international flights scheduled at the airport until May, he said.
US and states work to combat epidemic
As more cases of the virus
are confirmed worldwide,
the White House announced a new task force that's meeting daily to discuss the threat of the coronavirus.
The task force will help monitor and contain the spread of the virus, and ensure Americans have
accurate and up-to-date health and travel information
, it said.
Meanwhile, states are pushing for more action.
As coronavirus spreads, so does online misinformation
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee asked US federal health officials to expand screenings to passengers returning to the United States from China at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where the country's first confirmed case of the deadly virus entered. Inslee wants the CDC to collect passengers ' health history and temperature readings.
`` There is a lot we don't know about the virus, it's called 'novel ' for a reason, '' Inslee said. `` We know there are multiple infections in China and we hope ( the CDC) will extend that ( testing). ''
In Hawaii, the state closest to the coronavirus outbreak, officials are urging residents to avoid discretionary trips to China.
`` Not only because of the health threat but because... travel is very much disrupted, '' Hawaii Health Director Bruce Anderson said
There are currently no cases of coronavirus in Hawaii, and officials said there's minimal risk to people on the islands.
The State Department has issued an advisory asking Americans not to travel to Wuhan while the virus has an impact.
CNN's Nicole Chavez, Cheri Mossburg, Eliott C. McLaughlin, Jen Christensen, Shelby Lin Erdman and David Culver contributed to this report | general |
Twitter finally rolls out its election disinformation reporting tool to U.S. users | As the country gears up for a bruising presidential election year, Twitter has finally announced that users in the U.S. will be able to report misleading content about elections.
The reporting tool, which is currently used to alert the platform's moderators of spam, harassment, or even self-harm, will be expanded to include the option to flag as misleading text, images, and videos in tweets about elections or voting.
The tool has been in use since last year in other regions, rolling out first for elections in India and the European Union in April 2019, and in use again for the U.K. general election in December.
It's designed to counter things like people spreading false or misleading information that might stop or discourage people participating in elections — like incorrect dates for polling day, wrong information about requirements for voter registration or identification, or potentially even tweeting that polls have closed in a state or county when they haven't.
We’ re turning on a tool for key moments of the 2020 US election that enables people to report misleading information about how to participate in an election or other civic event. pic.twitter.com/BxHAiLSWjG
— Twitter Safety ( @ TwitterSafety) January 30, 2020
In the 2018 election, Twitter shut down over 10,000 accounts sharing vote-suppressing content, such as a 4chan-spearheaded campaign encouraging Democratic men not to vote in order to make women's votes `` count more ''. This tool makes this kind of content easier for anyone to report.
This reporting flow isn't intended to help people report false or misleading that is designed to push voters towards or away from voting for a certain candidate or party — so using it to flag a tweet saying Elizabeth Warren or Donald Trump eats Kentucky fried baby bald eagles for breakfast won't do much. ( If a candidate, individual, or party wanted to buy an ad on Twitter touting their policy on Kentucky frying baby bald eagles, they wouldn't be allowed to, though.)
SEE ALSO: Twitter's Election Labels return to help you make sense of 2020 elections
Other examples, like the U.K. Conservative Party changing their verified Twitter account name to make it look like a more neutral `` fact check '' during a leaders ' debate, have been cited as the kind of misinformation where Twitter vows to take `` more decisive action '' on a case by case basis.
The tool will be turned on for `` key moments '' during the U.S. election cycle rather than being available through the year.
Mashable approached Twitter to clarify what the fact-checking process will be when it comes to verifying or disqualifying election-related information shared by users in a timely and accurate fashion, but had not received a reply by the time of publication.
It's the second anti-disinformation safety announcement Twitter has made in the space of a day, after announcing an adjustment that puts authoritative information about the coronavirus epidemic at the top of results when users search for the term, as it does when people search for `` vaccination. '' | tech |
WHO declares Wuhan coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern |
The World Health Organization has declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, after an emergency meeting on Thursday.
The decision came after cases of human-to-human transmissions were confirmed outside China, where the outbreak started. A first such case was confirmed in the United States on Thursday, following a case in Germany earlier this week.
The number of cases of the virus, which has killed at least 213 people, shot up to more than 8,100 in mainland China alone by Thursday evening. That is a higher number of infected people than the number who caught SARS worldwide during the 2002-2003 epidemic. However, the current case fatality rate for Wuhan virus is around 2% --
significantly smaller than SARS ' 9.6% mortality rate
.
While the virus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December, there are now more than 100 cases in
20 other countries and territories
spanning Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East. India and the Philippines were the latest to confirm the virus had reached their shores.
Thousands of people were held on a cruise ship in Italy on Thursday and Russia closed off its borders with China as global fears continued to grow over
the rapidly spreading Wuhan coronavirus
.
The Costa Smeralda docked in the Civitavecchia port near Rome on Thursday.
Read More
On Thursday, 7,000 people, including 1,000 crew, were confined to a cruise ship in a port near Rome as a couple was being tested for the virus. A spokesperson for Costa Cruises told CNN that a 54-year-old woman aboard the cruise ship was suffering from a fever and that she and her husband were both being tested. Italian news agency ANSA and public broadcaster RAI reported that the woman and her husband were from Hong Kong and were being kept separately in solitary confinement in the hospital section of the cruiseliner.
The Costa Smeralda cruise ship is now docked at Civitavecchia port, a coastal town northwest of Rome. It had arrived from Palma de Majorca, Spain, as part of its tour of the western Mediterranean.
The test came back negative, the Italian Ministry of Health said Thursday night, but it was unclear when the passengers will be allowed to disembark.
Border closures
Several countries are repatriating their citizens from China and multiple air carriers have suspended flights to the country.
Russian state media reported Thursday that Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin had signed an order to close Russia's border with China in the Far East in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus.
`` An order has been signed today, it is in the works. Today we will inform everyone accordingly about the relevant measures to close the border in the Far Eastern region and other measures that have been taken by the government, '' Mishustin said, RIA reports.
Russia's Far Eastern Federal District shares a land border with China, Mongolia and North Korea. Thursday's announcement comes after several Russian tour operators and charter flight companies suspended flights to China.
Russia will also limit its railway service with China from Friday, TASS reported.
In the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong, where only 10 cases have been confirmed, the government has closed a high-speed rail station that would usually connect the city to China's mainland. Hong Kong has introduced new limits it says will cut the amount of mainland Chinese travelers coming to the city by 80%.
A CNN correspondent described Hong Kong as a ghost town, with empty shops and streets at a time that Chinese New Year celebrations usually light up the city. Instead, people lined up for more than three hours to collect surgical face masks to help keep them safe from the virus.
Several countries, including the United States, Japan and some in the European Union, are
evacuating their citizens from Wuhan
. The United Kingdom was given the green light to fly nationals home in the early hours of Friday morning after a long delay.
Multiple major air carriers are also canceling flights to and from parts of China, including British Airways, American Airlines, Air Canada, KLM, Lufthansa and United. The moves follow travel guidance from multiple governments advising against `` nonessential '' travel to the country.
Across Asia and elsewhere, strict checks and screening have been put in place for all travelers arriving from China -- though this may be ineffective as scientists previously warned that the virus can be spread while patients are asymptomatic.
Quarantine city
As the number of confirmed cases of
the Wuhan coronavirus
continues to grow worldwide, the city at the heart of the outbreak marks a week since it was first
placed under lockdown
.
All 31 provinces and regions
within China have now reported cases of the virus, including Tibet, which had instituted strict checks on travelers and shutdown tourist sites in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to stop its spread to the region.
Some 60 million people across Hubei, the province of which Wuhan is the capital, are on some level of lockdown, and many travelers from the region have been ordered to self-quarantine, holed up in their apartments or hotel rooms for days on end.
In Wuhan itself, 11 million people are marking a week on lockdown with no sign of immediate relief. Nor is there firm evidence that their sacrifice has been worth it, with the virus spreading around the country and scientists warning that other major cities could soon become self-sustaining epidemics.
Online, people trapped in their houses have been
uploading videos and photos
showing various ways they are staying busy -- staging makeshift Lunar New Year lion dances in their apartments, exercising, and urging others to keep their spirits up. But as the lockdown stretches on, such positivity may be harder to come by, particularly as some begin to feel the lost wages or business.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday
ordered
the People's Liberation Army to aid in `` winning the battle against the novel coronavirus epidemic. '' Military medical teams have already been sent to Wuhan and soldiers are also aiding with transporting supplies to the stricken city.
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Medical staff wearing protective suits ride down an escalator at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport on Wednesday, March 18.
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Hasidic Jewish men take part in a
`` social distancing '' minyan
in New York on Tuesday, March 17.
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A patient in a biocontainment unit is carried on a stretcher in Rome on March 17.
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A pedestrian walks a dog through a quiet street in New York on March 17.
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People gather to collect free face masks in New Delhi on March 17.
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Dermot Hickey, left, and Phillip Vega ask a pedestrian in New York to take their picture on a thinly trafficked Fifth Avenue on March 17. Many streets across the world are much more bare as people distance themselves from others. In the United States, the White House has advised people
not to gather in groups of more than 10.
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Students at the Attarkiah Islamic School wear face masks during a ceremony in Thailand's southern province of Narathiwat on March 17.
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People wait outside a Woolworths store in Sunbury, Australia on March 17. Australian supermarket chains announced special shopping hours for the elderly and people with disabilities so that they can shop in less crowded aisles.
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A member of Spain's Military Emergencies Unit carries out a general disinfection at the Malaga airport on Monday, March 16.
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Displaced families near Atme, Syria, attend a workshop aimed at spreading awareness about the coronavirus.
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French President Emmanuel Macron is seen on a screen in Paris as he announces new coronavirus containment measures on March 16.
France has been put on lockdown,
and all nonessential outings are outlawed and can draw a fine of up to €135 ( $ 148). Macron also promised to support French businesses by guaranteeing €300 billion worth of loans and suspending rent and utility bills owed by small companies.
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A police officer checks the temperatures of bus passengers at a checkpoint in Manila, Philippines, on March 16.
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Flowers are stored prior to their destruction at a flower auction in Aalsmeer, Netherlands, on March 16. Lower demand due to the coronavirus outbreak is threatening the Dutch horticultural sector, forcing the destruction of products.
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Two nuns greet neighbors from their balcony in Turin, Italy, on Sunday, March 15.
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Pope Francis, inside the Church of San Marcello in Rome's city center,
prays at a famous crucifix
that believers claim helped to save Romans from the plague in 1522.
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Passengers wait for their flights at Marrakesh Airport in Morocco on March 15.
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US Vice President Mike Pence takes a question during a White House briefing about the coronavirus on March 15.
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A Sea World employee sprays disinfectant in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Saturday, March 14.
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People wait in line to go through customs at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on March 14. Travelers returning from Europe say they were
being made to wait for hours
at US airports, often in close quarters, as personnel screened them for the coronavirus.
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Hundreds of people lined up to enter a Costco in Novato, California, on March 14. Many people have been stocking up on food, toilet paper and other items. As a response to
panic buying,
retailers in the United States and Canada have started limiting the number of toilet paper that customers can buy in one trip.
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A member of the White House physician's office takes a media member's temperature in the White House briefing room on March 14. It was ahead of a news conference with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
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Reporters in Arlington, Virginia, sit approximately 4 feet apart during a briefing by Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie on Friday, March 13.
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People walk past a closed Broadway theater on March 13 after New York canceled all gatherings over 500 people.
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Body temperatures are scanned as people enter the Buddhist temple Wat Pho in Bangkok, Thailand, on March 13.
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A Costco customer stands by two shopping carts in Richmond, California, on March 13.
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A teacher works in an empty classroom at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain.
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A woman looks at an empty bread aisle in Antwerp, Belgium, on March 13.
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Employees of the Greek Parliament wear plastic gloves ahead of the swearing-in ceremony for Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
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A motorcyclist drives through disinfectant sprayed in Jammu, India, on March 13.
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Workers prepare to construct an additional building on a hospital on the outskirts of Moscow.
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Paul Boyer, head equipment manager of the NHL's Detroit Red Wings, wheels out equipment bags in Washington on Thursday, March 12. The NHL is among the sports leagues that have suspended their seasons.
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Students leave Glacier Peak High School in Snohomish, Washington, on March 12. Beginning the following day, schools in the Snohomish school district planned to be closed through April 24.
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An Uber Eats delivery biker stands at a deserted Piazza di Spagna in Rome.
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People at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, watch a live broadcast of US President Donald Trump on March 12. Trump announced that, in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, he would
sharply restrict travel
from more than two dozen European countries.
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Workers in protective suits disinfect Istanbul's Dolmabahce Palace on March 11.
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A person wearing a face mask walks outside of a shopping mall in Beijing on March 11.
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Police officers restrain the relative of an inmate outside the Sant'Anna jail in Modena, Italy, on March 9.
Riots broke out
in several Italian jails after visits were suspended to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
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Medical staff in Wuhan, China, celebrate after all coronavirus patients were discharged from a temporary hospital on March 9.
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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on March 9.
Stocks plummeted
as coronavirus worries and an oil price race to the bottom weighed on global financial markets.
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Rescuers search for victims at the site of a
collapsed hotel
in Quanzhou, China, on March 8. The hotel was being used as a coronavirus quarantine center.
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The Grand Princess cruise ship, carrying at least 21 people who tested positive for coronavirus, is seen off the coast of San Francisco on March 8.
The ship was being held at sea.
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Sumo wrestlers attend a tournament in Osaka, Japan, that was being held behind closed doors because of the coronavirus outbreak.
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A couple rides a bicycle at a park in Seoul, South Korea, on March 7.
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A volunteer from Blue Sky Rescue uses fumigation equipment to disinfect a residential compound in Beijing on March 5.
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Airmen from the California National Guard drop coronavirus testing kits down to the
Grand Princess cruise ship
off the coast of California on March 5.
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Municipal workers are seen at the Kaaba, inside Mecca's Grand Mosque. Saudi Arabia emptied Islam's holiest site for sterilization over coronavirus fears, an unprecedented move after the kingdom suspended the year-round Umrah pilgrimage.
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Passengers react as a worker wearing a protective suit disinfects the departure area of a railway station in Hefei, China, on March 4.
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Teachers at the Nagoya International School in Japan conduct an online class for students staying at home as a precaution against the spread of coronavirus.
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Soldiers spray disinfectant throughout a shopping street in Seoul.
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A Muslim worshipper attends a mass prayer against coronavirus in Dakar, Senegal, on March 4. It was after cases were confirmed in the country.
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People wear face masks in New York's Times Square on March 3. New York reported its first case of coronavirus two days earlier.
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A security guard stands on the Shibuya Sky observation deck in Tokyo on March 3.
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US President Donald Trump, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence, left, and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, speaks during a meeting with pharmaceutical executives and the White House coronavirus task force on March 2. Throughout
the meeting,
Trump was hyperfocused on pressing industry leaders in the room for a timeline for a coronavirus vaccine and treatment. But experts at the table -- from the administration and the pharmaceutical industry -- repeatedly emphasized that a vaccine can't be rushed to market before it's been declared safe for the public.
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Medical staff stand outside a hospital in Daegu, South Korea, on March 1.
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Healthcare workers transfer a patient at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, on March 1. The long-term care facility is linked to confirmed coronavirus cases.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits a London laboratory of the Public Health England National Infection Service.
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Tomoyuki Sugano, a professional baseball player on the Yomiuri Giants, throws a pitch in an empty Tokyo Dome during a preseason game on February 29. Fans have been barred from preseason games to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
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Commuters wearing masks make their way to work during morning rush hour at the Shinagawa train station in Tokyo on February 28.
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Medical staff transport a coronavirus patient within the Red Cross hospital in Wuhan on February 28.
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Inter Milan plays Ludogorets in an empty soccer stadium in Milan, Italy, on February 27. The match
was ordered to be played behind closed doors
as Italian authorities continue to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak.
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A bank clerk disinfects banknotes in China's Sichuan province on February 26.
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A child wearing a protective face mask rides on a scooter in an empty area in Beijing.
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A Catholic devotee wears a face mask as he is sprinkled with ash during Ash Wednesday services in Paranaque, Philippines, on February 26.
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People disinfect Qom's Masumeh shrine in Tehran, Iran, on February 25.
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A worker in Daegu stacks plastic buckets containing medical waste from coronavirus patients on February 24.
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Paramedics carry a stretcher off an ambulance in Hong Kong on February 23.
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People attend a professional soccer match in Kobe, Japan, on February 23. To help stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, the soccer club Vissel Kobe
told fans not to sing, chant or wave flags
in the season opener against Yokohama FC.
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A team of volunteers disinfects a pedestrian bridge in Bangkok, Thailand.
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A man rides his bike in Beijing on February 23.
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Hospital personnel in Codogno, Italy, carry new beds inside the hospital on February 21. The hospital is hosting some people who have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus.
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Doctors look at a CT scan of a lung at a hospital in Xiaogan, China, on February 20.
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A sales clerk wears a mask as she waits for customers at a hat shop in Beijing on February 18.
Small companies that help drive China's economy
are worried about how much damage
the coronavirus outbreak will cause to business.
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Buses carrying American passengers arrive at the Haneda Airport in Tokyo on February 17. The passengers
were leaving the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship
to be repatriated to the United States.
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A medical worker rests at the isolation ward of the Red Cross hospital in Wuhan on February 16.
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Authorities watch as the Westerdam cruise ship approaches a port in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, on February 13. Despite having no confirmed cases of coronavirus on board, the Westerdam was refused port by four other Asian countries before being allowed to dock in Cambodia.
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A worker has his temperature checked on a shuttered commercial street in Beijing on February 12.
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Beds are made in the Wuhan Sports Center, which has been converted into a temporary hospital.
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A child rides a scooter past a police officer wearing protective gear outside the Hong Mei House in Hong Kong on February 11. More than 100 people evacuated the housing block after four residents in two different apartments tested positive for the coronavirus.
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Relatives of quarantined passengers wave at the Diamond Princess cruise ship as it leaves a port in Yokohama, Japan, to dump wastewater and generate potable water. Dozens of people on the ship
were infected with coronavirus.
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The Deneway branch of the County Oak Medical Centre is closed amid coronavirus fears in Brighton, England, on February 11. Several locations in and around Brighton were quarantined after
a man linked to several coronavirus cases in the United Kingdom
came into contact with health-care workers and members of the public.
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A police officer, left, wears protective gear as he guards a cordon at the Hong Mei House in Hong Kong on February 11.
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A worker wears a protective suit as he waits to screen people entering an office building in Beijing on February 10. China's workforce is
slowly coming back to work
after the coronavirus outbreak forced many parts of the country to extend the Lunar New Year holiday by more than a week.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping has his temperature checked during an appearance in Beijing on February 10.
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Photojournalists wearing face masks take photos of a bus carrying passengers after they disembarked from the World Dream cruise ship in Hong Kong on February 9.
More than 5,300 people were quarantined on two cruise ships
off Hong Kong and Japan.
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People participating in a Lunar New Year Parade in New York City hold signs reading, `` Wuhan stay strong! '' on February 9.
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A shopper walks past empty shelves at a grocery store in Hong Kong on February 9. China's Ministry of Commerce
encouraged supermarkets and grocery stores
to resume operations as the country's voluntary or mandatory quarantines began to take an economic toll.
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A worker wearing a protective suit uses a machine to disinfect a business establishment in Shanghai, China, on February 9.
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Workers in protective gear walk near the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Yokohama on February 7.
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People in Hong Kong attend a vigil February 7 for
whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang.
Li, 34, died in Wuhan after contracting the virus while treating a patient.
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A woman grieves while paying tribute to Li at Li's hospital in Wuhan on February 7.
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The Anthem of the Seas cruise ship is seen docked at the Cape Liberty Cruise Port in Bayonne, New Jersey, on February 7. Passengers were to be screened for coronavirus as a precaution, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CNN.
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A light installation is displayed by striking members of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance and other activists at the Hospital Authority building in Hong Kong on February 7.
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Passengers are seen on the deck of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked at the Yokohama Port on February 7.
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Flight attendants wearing face masks make their way through Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok on February 7.
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Workers check sterile medical gloves at a latex-product manufacturer in Nanjing, China, on February 6.
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A woman wears a protective mask as she shops in a Beijing market on February 6.
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This aerial photo shows the Leishenshan Hospital that is being built in Wuhan to handle coronavirus patients.
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A passenger shows a note from the World Dream cruise ship docked at the Kai Tak cruise terminal in Hong Kong on February 5.
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A mask is seen on a statue in Beijing on February 5.
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An ambulance stops at a traffic light in front of the Grand Lisboa Hotel in Macao. The virus turned China's gambling mecca
into a ghost town.
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A dog in Beijing wears a makeshift mask constructed from a paper cup.
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Striking hospital workers in Hong Kong demand the closure of the border with mainland China on February 4.
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The Diamond Princess cruise ship sits anchored in quarantine off the port of Yokohama on February 4. It arrived a day earlier with passengers feeling ill.
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A medical worker wearing protective gear waits to take the temperature of people entering Princess Margaret Hospital in Hong Kong on February 4.
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Medical workers in protective suits help transfer patients to a newly completed field hospital in Wuhan.
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People wearing protective overalls talk outside a Wuhan hotel housing people in isolation on February 3.
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A man stands in front of TV screens broadcasting a speech by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam on February 3. Lam said the city would shut almost all border-control points to the mainland.
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A colleague sprays disinfectant on a doctor in Wuhan on February 3.
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Commuters in Tokyo walk past an electric board displaying dismal stock prices on February 3, the first business day after the Chinese New Year. Asia's markets recorded their
worst day in years
as investors finally got a chance to react to the worsening coronavirus outbreak.
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Medical workers move a coronavirus patient into an isolation ward at the Second People's Hospital in Fuyang, China, on February 1.
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Children wear plastic bottles as makeshift masks while waiting to check in to a flight at the Beijing Capital Airport on January 30.
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Passengers in Hong Kong wear protective masks as they wait to board a train at Lo Wu Station, near the mainland border, on January 30.
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A volunteer wearing protective clothing disinfects a street in Qingdao, China, on January 29.
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Nanning residents line up to buy face masks from a medical appliance store on January 29.
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Lyu Jun, left, a member of a medical team leaving for Wuhan, says goodbye to a loved one in Urumqi, China, on January 28.
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A charter flight from Wuhan arrives at an airport in Anchorage, Alaska, on January 28. The US government chartered the plane to bring home US citizens and diplomats from the American consulate in Wuhan.
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South Korean President Moon Jae-in wears a mask to inspect the National Medical Center in Seoul on January 28.
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Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, center, attends a news conference in Hong Kong on January 28. Lam said China will stop individual travelers to Hong Kong while closing some border checkpoints and restricting flights and train services from the mainland.
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Workers at an airport in Novosibirsk, Russia, check the temperatures of passengers who arrived from Beijing on January 28.
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Alex Azar, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, speaks during a news conference about the American public-health response.
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Two residents walk in an empty park in Wuhan on January 27. The city remained on lockdown for a fourth day.
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A person wears a protective mask, goggles and coat as he stands in a nearly empty street in Beijing on January 26.
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Medical staff members bring a patient to the Wuhan Red Cross hospital on January 25.
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People wear protective masks as they walk under Lunar New Year decorations in Beijing on January 25.
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Construction workers in Wuhan begin to work on a special hospital to deal with the outbreak on January 24.
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Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, speaks to reporters on January 24 about
a patient in Chicago
who had been diagnosed with the coronavirus. The patient was the second in the United States to be diagnosed with the illness.
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A couple kisses goodbye as they travel for the Lunar New Year holiday in Beijing on January 24.
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Workers manufacture protective face masks at a factory in China's Hubei Province on January 23.
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Shoppers wear masks in a Wuhan market on January 23.
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Passengers are checked by a thermography device at an airport in Osaka, Japan, on January 23.
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People wear masks while shopping for vegetables in Wuhan on January 23.
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A militia member checks the body temperature of a driver in Wuhan on January 23.
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Passengers wear masks as they arrive at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, Philippines, on January 23.
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A customer holds boxes of particulate respirators at a pharmacy in Hong Kong on January 23.
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Passengers wear masks at the high-speed train station in Hong Kong on January 23.
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A woman rides an electric bicycle in Wuhan on January 22.
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People in Guangzhou, China, wear protective masks on January 22.
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People go through a checkpoint in Guangzhou on January 22.
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Medical staff of Wuhan's Union Hospital attend a gathering on January 22.
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Health officials hold a news conference in Beijing on January 22.
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Outside of Hubei, infections are predicted to continue growing for weeks, if not months. Researchers at Imperial College London
have estimated
that at least 4,000 people were infected in Wuhan by January 18, almost a week before the lockdown began.
Their model
suggests a low national figure of 20,000 infections by the end of the month,
potentially
as high as 100,000.
Speaking to state media Tuesday
, Zhong Nanshan, one of China's leading respiratory experts and a hero of the 2003 fight against SARS, said he expected the peak to come in up to 10 days.
`` It is very difficult to definitely estimate when the outbreak reaches its peak. But I think in one week or about 10 days, it will reach the climax and then there will be no large-scale increases, '' Zhong said.
CNN's David Culver, Yong Xiong, Natalie Thomas and Steven Jiang in Beijing; and Helen Regan, Pauline Lockwood, Carly Walsh, Eric Cheung, Yuli Yang, Chermaine Lee, Alexandra Lin, Isaac Yee, Angus Watson and Sophie Jeong in Hong Kong contributed reporting. Angela Dewan and Gianluca Mezzofiore reported from London, while Livia Borghese reported from Rome. | general |
Google launches 'SOS Alert ' with WHO in response to the coronavirus | Whenever global tragedy strikes, people on the internet rush to exploit it.
The spread of the deadly coronavirus is no different, with fake stories going viral in an attempt to accomplish who knows what. Google, however, wants no part of that, and today announced a new feature in collaboration with the World Health Organization that will hopefully both reduce the spread of misinformation and get valuable information to those in need.
`` Today we launched an SOS Alert w/ @ WHO, to make resources about # coronavirus easily accessible, '' wrote the company's communication team.
`` When people search for related info on @ Google, they’ ll find the alert atop results page w/ direct access to safety tips, info, resources & Twitter updates from WHO. ''
Today we launched an SOS Alert w/ @ WHO, to make resources about # coronavirus easily accessible. When people search for related info on @ Google, they’ ll find the alert atop results page w/ direct access to safety tips, info, resources & Twitter updates from WHO.
— Google Communications ( @ Google Comms) January 30, 2020
Now, when you Google information on the coronavirus, you're shown an `` SOS Alert '' notification at the top of the page.
SOS.
Image: screenshot / google
Interestingly, clicking that alert does nothing. However, if you scroll down you 'll see the previously mentioned safety tips and resources.
One such tip, `` Clean hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub, '' might seem obvious, but every single fact-based recommendation helps.
Ah, here it is.
Image: screenshot / google
Twitter, for its part, announced yesterday that it will tweak its search results to combat coronavirus-based disinformation.
This combined effort shows how quickly tech companies can move to fight disinformation when they are incentivized to do so. Let's all keep that in mind over the course of the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign. | tech |
Apple rumored to release a stack of new gadgets in 2020. Here's what we know. |
We know from multiple reports that Apple is planning to launch an affordable, 4.7-inch smartphone, likely dubbed the iPhone SE 2, this March.
But what about all the other gadgets the company is working on for the near future? Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has a list ( via MacRumors), and it's an interesting one.
First, the usual suspects.
Apple reportedly plans to launch new iPads with a triple rear camera and 3D sensing support, paving the way for better augmented reality ( AR) applications. The iPads should arrive as early as March.
The company will also launch new MacBooks, although it's unclear whether there will be a new MacBook Pro or a new MacBook Air. A new 13-inch MacBook Pro with a scissor-switch keyboard mechanism ( like the one seen in Apple's recently released, 16-inch MacBook Pro) appears more likely, but we may also see both.
SEE ALSO: Report: Apple to unveil new, cheaper iPhone 'as early as March '
While new iPads and MacBooks are business as usual for Apple, the rest of Kuo's list is more interesting as it includes some entirely new devices — and perhaps even a resurrection of the company's cancelled AirPower charging mat.
Starting with that one, Kuo claims Apple is working on a `` small wireless charging mat. '' Details are absent, so it's hard to speculate on just how close to AirPower this thing will be. All we can say is that there are numerous third-party products which perform a similar function to the AirPower, so perhaps Apple will do something similar to one of those.
Another interesting gadget on the list are `` high-end headphones. '' Details are, again, absent, besides Bluetooth support. We 've heard about Apple working on Apple-branded headphones from Bloomberg early last year, though it's hard to say whether this is the same product. Headphones are an incredibly crowded market, but Apple has shown it can lead the way with AirPods, and the `` high-end '' bit indicates these could be very interesting.
Finally, Apple is apparently working on Ultra Wideband tags, possibly called AirTags. These would be tiny gadgets that you could attach to any item and then track its location, similar to the ones produced by Tile.
Kuo also mentioned the possibility of the coronavirus outbreak postponing some of these products — something we 've reported on recently — or even cause them to have different ( weaker) specs. | tech |
First case of person-to-person transmission of Wuhan virus in the US confirmed |
The husband of an Illinois woman with Wuhan coronavirus is now infected with the illness, and is the first confirmed case of person-to-person transmission of the virus in the United States, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Thursday.
Wuhan coronavirus cases top 8,000 as countries step up evacuation efforts
`` I want to emphasize that the risk of this novel coronavirus to the general public in Illinois remains low, '' Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health,
said in a written statement
on Thursday. She added that local, state and federal health officials are working to identify people who have had close contact with the case in order to minimize further spread of the virus.
`` We will continue to keep the public fully informed as additional information becomes available, '' she said.
The husband, a Chicago resident in his 60s, is the second confirmed case of the virus in the state.
The woman, who is in her 60s, is the first confirmed travel-associated case in Illinois and was diagnosed after returning from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak originated. She is `` doing quite well '' and remains hospitalized primarily for isolation, doctors told reporters during a telebriefing with reporters on Thursday.
Read More
The husband, who did not travel to China, was admitted more recently to the hospital and has some underlying medical conditions, but is stable.
Everything travelers need to know about Wuhan coronavirus
`` Given what we 've seen in China versus other countries, CDC experts have expected to find some person-to-person spread in the United States, '' CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said during Thursday's telebriefing.
`` Based on what we know now, our assessment remains that the immediate risk to the American public is low. ''
The Illinois Department of Public Health said the husband was in close contact with his spouse over a long period of time while she was symptomatic. Symptoms can include fever, cough and shortness of breath.
`` We know coronaviruses are most likely to spread through close personal contact, and we know this second patient had close contact with his wife after she began to develop symptoms, so it's not totally unexpected that he acquired the virus, '' Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said in the written statement on Thursday.
`` This is exactly why public health has been monitoring him closely, and why we monitor any close contacts of confirmed cases, '' she said. `` This does not change our guidance that the risk to the general public remains low at this time. People in the community do not need to change their behavior based on this news; for example, they don't need to cancel events, avoid mass gatherings, or wear gloves and masks in public. ''
This is where Wuhan coronavirus cases have been confirmed worldwide
Public health officials are investigating locations the second patient visited over the past two weeks and any people he may have had close contact with, state officials said.
Public health and medical professionals are taking an aggressive approach in identifying and actively monitoring people who were in contact with both the second patient and his wife in an effort to reduce the risk of additional transmission. A CDC team also remains in Illinois to support those efforts, according to the state.
In the United States so far, with this latest case, there are a total of six confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to the CDC. One case is in Arizona, one in Washington state, two in California and two in Illinois. The CDC said Wednesday that 165 people in the United States have been under investigation for the virus. Sixty-eight had tested negative and 92 results were pending.
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In mainland China, at least 170 people have died and more than 8,100 cases have been confirmed as the virus continues to spread.
`` If you are a traveler who has recently returned from the impacted area, we want you to be vigilant with the symptoms and signs of this coronavirus, '' Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during the teleconference.
`` Wash your hands, cover your cough, '' Messonnier said. `` For the rest of the American public right now, we understand that folks are concerned. '' | general |
LG Display looks to a more positive 2020 on OLED demand, shares rise | The forecast comes after a rough year for the South Korean company that saw a prolonged decline in liquid crystal display ( LCD) panel prices, a management shake-up, and costs from restructuring and strategy changes.
The company has said it will halt domestic production of LCD TV panels by the end of the year and is now investing heavily in OLED displays that are generally thinner and allow more flexibility in device design than LCDs.
`` In the second half of the year, revenue from our large OLED panels will rise steeply in line with the increase in production from ( the firm's) Chinese OLED fab, '' LG Display's Chief Financial Officer Suh Dong-hee said on an earnings call.
The company, which recently became a plastic-OLED display vendor for Apple Inc's latest iPhones, has said it expects to kick off mass production at its China OLED factory some time in the March quarter.
LG Display has not yet closed any of its Chinese factories since the outbreak of a new coronavirus which has killed over 200 people in the country and infected thousands, the company said, adding the matter increased uncertainty on the LCD supply side.
The company posted a loss of 422 billion won ( 275.11 million pounds) in the October-December quarter, compared with an operating profit of 279 billion won a year earlier.
Analysts expected a 578 billion won loss, according to Refinitiv SmartEstimate.
LCD panel prices have been falling for two-and-a-half years in a market crowded with Chinese makers. The glut has forced LG Display and rival Samsung Display - a unit of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd - to cut output, a move analysts said could take some pressure off prices this year.
Prices have risen slightly since late December, but on Thursday, Samsung Electronics said it nevertheless expected the business to remain weak in 2020.
`` South Korean display makers including LG Display could benefit from a recent uptick in LCD prices, but LG Display will likely speed up its transition to OLED business as the global LCD market has long been suffering from a supply glut, '' said analyst Kim Chul-joong at Mirae Asset Daewoo Research.
Shares of LG Display were up 4.4% as of 0230 GMT, compared with the broader KOSPI 'S 0.4 gain.
By Heekyong Yang | business |
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