America shuts down
From the Capitol to California, officials are taking aggressive new measures to limit social interactions.
Markets dive, despite dramatic Fed intervention in short-term lending markets to try to calm coronavirus worries
Thursday’s market plunge marked the second time in one week that a temporary, 15-minute halt to trading was triggered to stop a panic
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged over 2,300 points.
Wall Street’s stunning meltdown over the past month has erased almost all of the stock market gains since Trump’s November 2016 election. On Feb. 12, the Dow was up more than 61 percent since his surprise win. Now the total gain is around 11 percent.
Thursday’s decline reflected investor unease with the handling of the crisis by global leaders including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Trump and the emergence of structural problems in financial markets that were overlooked during a record 11-year economic expansion.
De Blasio Declares State of Emergency in New York City:
The number of people who have tested positive continues to climb.
As of Thursday, New York State had confirmed 328 coronavirus cases, with 112 of those added overnight, Mr. Cuomo said. One hundred and forty-eight of the cases were in Westchester County and 95 were in New York City.
In Nassau County on Long Island, 40 people had the virus, with 10 of them hospitalized and one person in critical condition, officials said.
The city could have 1,000 coronavirus cases by next week, the mayor said in making the emergency declaration.
The mayor said that the state of emergency order gives the city the authority to potentially close public transportation, order people off the streets and ration supplies. The city could also establish curfews and close streets to vehicles, he said.
All New York City public school assemblies, plays, after school sports and other activities will be canceled as a result of the spread of virus, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday.
The Archdiocese of New York will close all of its elementary schools next week, “with the possibility of a lengthier closure,” officials said in a statement on Thursday.
The move affects over 19,000 students at 152 Catholic elementary schools in the archdiocese, which stretches from Staten Island north to Dutchess County but does not include Brooklyn or Queens.
The mayor has so far resisted mass school closings, citing extreme hardship for many of the city’s low-income students and their working parents.
“We want our schools to remain open, we intend for our schools to remain open,” Mr. de Blasio said.
The mayor noted that many working parents cannot bring their children to work and do not have child care alternatives. It would not be helpful to close schools and then have students gather en masse in day care care facilities, Mr. de Blasio said.
The first two city-run public schools were closed on Thursday after a parent informed the city that their child had tested positive. It is not clear when the two schools, which share a building in the South Bronx, will be reopened.
New York City is home to the nation’s largest public school system, with 1,800 schools and 1.1 million students, and large-scale closures would inevitably be extremely disruptive.
About 75 percent of the city’s students are low-income, and rely on schools not only for meals, but also for in-school medical clinics, guidance counselors, laundry machines, and many other services.
“There are three things we want to preserve at all cost: our schools, our mass transit system, and most importantly our health care system,” Mr. de Blasio said.
Broadway will go dark for at least a month beginning Thursday, after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced restrictions on public gatherings in an extraordinary step to fight the growing outbreak of the coronavirus.
The governor’s decision to limit gatherings of more than 500 people was a blow to the theater industry, a crown jewel of New York City’s tourist trade. All 41 Broadway theaters have at least 500 seats, and most have more than 1,000.
The restrictions were announced just hours after other cultural institutions including the Metropolitan Museum, the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall announced that they would be suspending visits and performances.
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NCAA scraps March Madness
The global coronavirus pandemic has canceled March Madness, the NCAA said Thursday in a jarring decision that landed one day after the association declared plans to stage its marquee basketball tournament inside empty arenas next week.