Getty Image / MATT HARTMAN / Contributor
The fast-spreading coronavirus is now in more than 40 countries. The latest coronavirus update shows that there are 82,464 confirmed cases in 48 countries, along with 2,807 deaths, giving COVID-19 a mortality rate of 3.4%. The coronavirus has recently spread into Georgia, Greece, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Romania, Sri Lanka, and Brazil, the first case in South America.
There are now more new coronavirus cases outside of China for the first time since the outbreak started in December, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
South Korea now has 1,766 confirmed cases, the second-most confirmed cases of coronavirus after mainland China. Iran has 245 cases, including Masoumeh Ebtekar, a vice president in the Islamic Republic. Japan has 894 cases, including 705 from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship. Japan’s education ministry has decided to close 34,800 schools nationwide, affecting 12.8 million students.
The Chinese city of Qianjiang, which is in the coronavirus epicenter of Hubei province, is offering people 10,000 yuan, equivalent to $1,426, to anyone who reported their COVID-19 symptoms or others.
This graph shows how much faster coronavirus is spreading versus Ebola, MERS, SARS, and Swine Flu.
Coronavirus vs SARS/MERS/Ebola/Swine Flu 😬 https://t.co/iRmeV0kWoI
— Dave Jones (@WelshGasDoc) February 25, 2020
On Thursday, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California is monitoring 8,400 people for potential cases of coronavirus. Health officials are showing caution for these 8,400 because they arrived in the Golden State from China.
“We knew this was inevitable,” Newsom said at a press conference. “We’re not just preparing — we’ve been actively participating in addressing this issue for many months, aggressively.”
“Since February 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California,” according to the state health department. “They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others,” officials said.
There are already 33 individuals who have already tested positive for COVID-19 in California, five of which have been moved out of the state.
It has been revealed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initially declined to test a California patient for coronavirus. UC Davis Medical Center said that a patient was transferred in from another hospital on February 19 with a suspected viral infection, according to The Hill.
The CDC declined to test the patient for COVID-19 because they had not recently traveled to countries that had outbreaks or had not been in contact with anyone infected with the respiratory virus. The CDC finally tested the patient on Sunday, February 23, and the tests came out on Wednesday as positive.
There were several workers at the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento who were exposed to the coronavirus patient, and they were instructed to stay home and monitor their temperatures.
San Francisco declared a state of emergency because of the coronavirus. There were 608 people were being monitored in Massachusetts, with 377 of those were released without symptoms after a two-week quarantine. The Virginia Department of Health is monitoring two people with potential symptoms of the virus, including one person in Northern Virginia, according to WAMU.
The stock market plummeted again on Thursday, after global fears over the coronavirus and potential to paralyze supply chains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 1,200 points on Thursday, down 4.4%. Wall Street watched the market close at 25,766.64, which is shaping up to be the single worst week for the index since 2011.
The Nasdaq dropped over 400 points, losing 4.6%. The S&P 500 fell 137.63 points, or 4.4%, its largest one-day percentage decline since August 28, 2011.
“Global economic growth is likely to be the worst this year since the Great Recession as headwinds from the coronavirus and other factors build,” according to Bank of America. Gross domestic product growth worldwide is projected to slow to 2.8% for 2020, which would be the first sub-3% figure since the financial crisis of the late 2000s.
BREAKING: It was a brutal day on Wall Street. The Dow closed down more than 1,100 points, or 4.4%, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were also both down more than 4%. The Dow is pacing for its worst week since the financial crisis. https://t.co/Pobl2kXA4T pic.twitter.com/TxUg6b8k47
— CNBC (@CNBC) February 27, 2020
A few companies escaped the wrath of the coronavirus. Netflix, Clorox (cleaning products) and Gilead Sciences (who are making a COVID-19 vaccine) were some of the few companies who did well this week as the stock market tanked.
Speaking of Clorox, cleaning supplies were flying off the shelves in stores in Hawaii. Despite there not being any confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Hawaii, stores in Oahu had empty shelves.
“The essentials toilet paper, paper towels, bottles of water, soap, a lot of Clorox stuff, cleaning supplies. I figure with all the coronavirus scare and everything, it’s better to be safe than sorry,” said Honolulu resident Keane Zakimi.
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