Coronavirus Updates: Economic Aid Package Grows to $6 Trillion; First Death of a Child Reported in U.S.
By Ron Brackett and Jan Wesner Childs
2 days ago
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01:09 Coronavirus Update: New York City Is Epicenter; Congress Negotiates Aid Package
Meteorologist Danielle Banks has the latest on the deadly coronavirus outbreak. At a Glance
The Dow Jones Industrial Average saw its biggest single-day gain in decades.
Some 1.3 billion people in India are on lockdown for 21 days.
The number of confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in the U.S. topped 50,700 on Tuesday.
Orlando's Universal Resort announced it would remain closed until April 19.
Olympics officials decided to postpone the Tokyo Games until next year.
The coronavirus economic aid package expected to be approved by lawmakers and the White House has grown to $6 trillion, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said during a press briefing Tuesday evening.
Kudlow said $2 trillion would be appropriated by Congress, and the rest would come from the Federal Reserve.
Officials had previously said the plan would give direct payments of $1,200 to many Americans and another $500 for children. It would also include some $850 billion in assistance to business, states and cities.
Coronavirus task force officials at the press conference also warned that a flood of New Yorkers who have left the state, many of them for Florida, should quarantine in place for 14 days. The comments echoed an earlier plea from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and came as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state was facing a "bullet train" of infections that could put 40,000 people in intensive care.
In a grim milestone on Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Health Department announced that a person there under the age of 18 has died from COVID-19, the first report of a child succumbing to the disease in the U.S.
A news release from the health department said the victim lived in the community of Lancaster, north of the city. No other information was released. There are more than 600 cases of the COVID-19 confirmed in Los Angeles County, with at least 10 of them being children.
“This is a devastating reminder that COVID-19 affects people of all ages,” L.A. County Public Health Department director Barbara Ferrer said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
There were 53,740 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. as of Tuesday night, with more than 700 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. has the third-highest number of reported cases in the world, behind China and Italy,
The number of cases reported globally was at 417,966 Tuesday night. At least 18,600 people have died and more than 104,000 have recovered.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump says he hopes to reopen the entire country by April 12, more than a billion people are under a lockdown order in India, the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo has been postponed and New York's governor said the number of cases there is doubling about every three days. Latest Developments
United States:
-More than 40 residents of one New Orleans retirement community have been infected with COVID-19, and 11 have died, according to WSDU-TV.
-New York continues to be the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S., with more than 25,000 cases of COVID-19, most of them in New York City. At least 210 people have died.
-The governor of Nevada signed an executive order barring the use of chloroquine to treat patients with COVID-19. The drug has been touted by Trump as a treatment for the disease.
-Arkansas and Iowa both reported their first deaths from COVID-19.
-Orlando's Universal Resort announced its theme parks and hotels will remain closed until April 19. The theme park closed on March 15 and plans were to reopen by the end of the month. The announcement came after the mayor of Orange County, which includes Orlando, issued a stay at home order for all residents starting at 11 p.m. Thursday.
-Trump said on Tuesday he hopes the country will be completely reopened by April 12, which is the Easter holiday. Trump made the comments during a virtual town hall on Fox News. While health experts warn that it could be months before it's safe for Americans to return to business as usual, Trump had previously said he prefers the country be fully back up and running in weeks rather than months.
-The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 11.4% in its largest single-day gain since 1933, according to the Wall Street Journal, fueled by news that an agreement would be reached soon on a proposed $2 trillion federal aid plan for workers, businesses and others affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.
-The nation's top ranking military leader warned personnel that the outbreak could last for up to 10 weeks, and possibly later into the summer. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the comments at a Defense Department town hall meeting, according to the AP.
-Three sailors on board the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for COVID-19, the first to have been stricken onboard a ship that is deployed, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly announced in a news conference.
-Tony Award winning playwright Terrence McNally, 81, has died of complications from COVID-19, according to ABC News. McNally was considered one of America’s great playwrights, with Tony Awards for the plays "Love! Valour! Compassion!" and "Master Class" and the musicals "Ragtime" and "Kiss of the Spider Woman."
-Harvard President Larry Bascow and his wife have tested positive for COVID-19, the university announced Tuesday on Twitter. Bascow said in a letter to the Harvard community that he and his wife Adele began feeling symptoms on Sunday. "Neither of us knows how we contracted the virus, but the good news — if there is any to be had — is that far fewer people crossed our paths recently than is usually the case," Bascow wrote. "We began working from home and completely limiting our contact with others on March 14 in keeping with recommendations to adopt social distancing measures."
-Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser will announce more sweeping business closures later today, adding to the list of those that have already been ordered to shut down. "We have virtually shut down economic activity in our city in an effort to contain the spread of the virus," Bowser said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference. She did not say specifically what additional businesses would be affected. Bowser said the district has a total of 137 cases of COVID-19.
-Amazon has temporarily closed a warehouse in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, after employees there tested positive for COVID-19, according to the AP. The number of cases wasn't specified. The company said Tuesday that the warehouse is undergoing “additional sanitization."
-Florida and Louisiana became the latest states to ask for a federal disaster declaration over coronavirus. A disaster has already been declared in at least three other states - California, New York and Washington. Such declarations are common in hurricanes, floods and other severe weather events, and allow the federal government to provide additional aid to state and local agencies. More than 875 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Louisiana, and at least 26 have died, according to Johns Hopkins. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said his state has the most cases per capita of any state besides Washington and New York.
-Oklahoma and Wisconsin became the last states to tell their residents to stay at home or shelter in place, bringing the total to 18 states issuing similar orders. Such restrictions already applied to 142 million people or 42% of the country's population, CNN calculated.
-The World Health Organization said Tuesday that the United States has the potential to become the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. "We are now seeing a very large acceleration in cases in the U.S. So it does have that potential," WHO spokeswoman Dr. Margaret Harris told reporters, according to Reuters.
-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the rate of infection there is doubling about every three days. “We haven’t flattened the curve, and the curve is actually increasing,” Cuomo said, according to The New York Times. He said the state could need as many as 140,000 hospital beds, an increase of about 30,000 from earlier projection. Cuomo said the state had confirmed more than 25,000 cases of COVID-19 as of Tuesday morning.
-Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, says the “attack rate” — the percentage of the population infected with the virus — was nearly one in 1,000 in the New York City area, five times higher than in other parts of the country. New York had 13,119 cases and 125 deaths as of 5 p.m. Monday. “To all of my friends and colleagues in New York, this is the group that needs to absolutely social distance and self-isolate at this time,” Birx said.
Members of Spain's Military Emergency Unit with special equipment to disinfect areas to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, arrive at Abando train station, in Bilbao, northern Spain on Monday, March 23, 2020. Soldiers have found dead bodies in nursing homes.
(AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)
-Holland America's cruise ship Zaandam is heading toward Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with 42 sick people aboard and no way to test them for the new coronavirus. A statement from the company said 13 passengers and 29 crew members have flu-like symptoms. There are 1,243 guests and 586 crew on board, and passengers are being asked to stay in their cabins. The ship, which was cruising from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile, had planned to put in at Punta Arenas, Chile, after Holland America suspended operations because of the coronavirus. However, Chilean officials refused to let passengers disembark, according to the cruise line. The Zaandam is due to reach Florida on March 30.
-On the deadliest day of the coronavirus pandemic so far for Americans, Trump said he wants the country reopened for business in weeks rather than months. "We can’t have the cure be worse than the problem," Trump said at a briefing Monday evening. “We have to open our country because that causes problems that, in my opinion, could be far bigger problems." Monday also was the first day the U.S. reported more than 100 deaths since the COVID-19 outbreak began. Worldwide:
-A scientific advisory panel in France has recommended the country's lockdown order, which began about a week ago, should remain in place for at least six weeks.
-Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Tuesday the “total lockdown” of the country's 1.3 billion population for 21 days, the AP reported. It is the most sweeping order yet among countries that have imposed lockdowns. “To save India and every Indian, there will be a total ban on venturing out of your homes,” Modi said. The country has counted at least 469 cases of COVID-19 and 10 deaths.
-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach agreed to postpone the Tokyo Games until no later than the summer of 2021, according to a tweet from the prime minister's office. It is the first time in modern Olympic history that a global health issue has disrupted the Games, and the postponement comes after several countries announced they would not send teams to Japan during the COVID-19 outbreak.
-Japan had invested more than $10 billion to prepare for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games, according to the New York Times. The Olympics have previously been not held only because of war. The 1916 Summer Olympics were canceled as a result of World War I and the Summer and Winter Games were canceled in 1940 and 1944 because of World War II.
-The head of Italy's civil protection agency says the country may have 10 times more cases of coronavirus than have been officially certified, CNN reports. "For every officially certificated positive, there are 10 non-certified,” Angelo Borrelli said in an interview with La Repubblica. That could mean Italy has more than 630,000 cases instead of the 63,927 confirmed cases reported Tuesday. More than 6,000 people have died. The country raised fines to up to $3,300 for people who break the country's lockdown rules, now in their third week.
-The central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the global outbreak started, said on Tuesday that public transportation would resume within 24 hours and residents would be allowed to leave the city beginning April 8 as infections appeared to be dwindling after a weeks long lockdown.
-In Spain, soldiers disinfecting nursing homes have found residents living among the dead bodies of patients believed to have died from COVID-19, according to the AP. Deaths in the country increased to 2,696 with 39,673 total cases, according to Health Ministry data released on Tuesday. An ice rink in Madrid has been converted into a temporary morgue for victims of the coronavirus. For the latest coronavirus information in your county and a full list of important resources to help you make the smartest decisions regarding the disease, check out our dedicated COVID-19 page.
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