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Spread of virus picks up speed on multiple continents.
In South Korea, Iran, Italy, France, Germany and now the United States, health officials are trying to stem the growing coronavirus epidemic, tracing all those who had come into contact with infected patients, even as they struggled to get a handle on how far the virus had spread.
To date, the American authorities have reported a total of 90 cases nationwide, with two fatalities, both of them older adults with underlying health problems. But a genetic analysis of the virus in Washington State, where the deaths occurred, suggested that the illness could have been spreading within the community for as long as six weeks before the first case was detected.
The coronavirus, now present on every continent except Antarctica, has infected nearly 90,000 people, killing more than 3,000.
In China, where the epidemic erupted and where the overwhelming majority of cases have been identified, officials continue to get the spread under control. They reported 202 new cases — the lowest daily total since January.
But in South Korea, where the second-largest outbreak is located, the number rose on Monday to more than 4,300 nearly double the caseload on Friday. The rate of increase was even faster in Europe, where officials warned residents to prepare for large outbreaks.
And in Iran, the scale of the largest outbreak in the Middle East remained unclear, with the government confirming 1,501 cases and public health experts expressing concern that the official numbers were unreliable.
The first cases were also reported in Jordan and Senegal.
As coronavirus cases show up around the globe, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development cut its outlook for 2020, suggesting that global growth could be cut in half if infections spread more widely outside China.
U.S. officials scramble to assess risk as infections mount.
Officials around the United States raced to assess the risk to schools, medical centers and businesses on Monday, after the country recorded its first two deaths attributed to the coronavirus over the weekend.
Both of the people who died lived in Washington State, and one had been a resident of a nursing home in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, which has become the focal point of fears that the virus may have been spreading for weeks undetected. The total number of cases nationwide jumped 35 percent over the weekend, to 90.
The new cases included a woman in Manhattan who contracted the virus while traveling in Iran, and a Florida man with no known contact with countries or people affected by the recent outbreaks. Late Sunday, Florida declared a public health emergency after he and another person tested positive for the virus — even as Vice President Mike Pence, tapped to lead the federal response to the crisis, sought to calm the public’s nerves.
Officials in Washington State said on Sunday that the second person who died, a man in his 70s with underlying health conditions, had been at the EvergreenHealth hospital in Kirkland. That is the same hospital where officials identified the United States’ first coronavirus death on Saturday, a man in his 50s.
On Monday, officials in Illinois announced that a woman in her 70s, the wife of a man who was previously diagnosed, had also tested positive for the virus. The new cases included a mix of people who had traveled to high-risk countries and those who were believed to have contracted the disease domestically.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott urged federal health officials to effectively delay the release of more than 120 people whose 14-day quarantine at a San Antonio military base was scheduled to end on Monday. They noted that an infected person who had been isolated, then tested negative twice after treatment, was released in the San Antonio area and later tested positive.
Mr. Abbott and the commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services called on the C.D.C. to provide the state with an explanation of what went wrong, and with a written rationale for releasing the people, who had been evacuated from the Diamond Princess luxury cruise ship in Japan.
[Do you know anyone who lives or works at Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash.? If so, please email our reporter, Mike Baker, at mike.baker@nytimes.com.]
Nations should not give up on containing the virus, W.H.O. says.
The head of the World Health Organization, said Monday that the coronavirus could still be contained around the world, but that “the window of opportunity is narrowing.”
Asked at a news conference about concerns that the virus was no longer containable, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the organization, said the W.H.O.’s message has remained consistent: Countries should take a “comprehensive approach” that tries to contain the virus.
“Of course we can have concerns and worries, it’s understandable, but let’s really calm down and do the right things, and use the window of opportunity to contain this outbreak,” he said.
He added, without identifying countries, that “in some places we are not seeing the level of response that we expected.” For that reason, he said, the W.H.O. was reminding the world “that the window of opportunity is narrowing and that we still have to do our best to catch up.”
Dr. Tedros said that there were “positive signals” that nations could contain the virus, such as the dozens of countries with fewer than 100 cases. He also cited the slowdown of infections in China as a sign that the virus could be contained.
“There is a point in any epidemic where you believe you can no longer contain the virus, or like it was influenza and you have to shift your resources to saving lives,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, the executive director of the W.H.O.’s health emergencies program. “Now W.H.O. does not believe that we’re there yet.”
Campaign rallies are “very safe,” Trump says.
Campaign rallies, which draw thousands of people who pack together, are “very safe,” President Trump said on Monday.
Though businesses and nonprofit groups are canceling large gatherings over coronavirus fears, Mr. Trump and his Democratic challengers continue to hold them.
The president is scheduled to hold a rally on Monday evening in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the 8,600-seat Bojangles’ Coliseum.
“Well, this was set up a long time ago and others are,” Mr. Trump said from the Oval Office, where he appeared alongside President Iván Duque Márquez of Colombia, who was visiting.
“You could ask that to the Democrats,” he continued. “They’re all having rallies, that’s what they’re doing, they’re campaigning.” He added: “I think it’s very safe.”
Though the number of cases in the country is growing, Mr. Trump said that there were still “not very many in the United States.”
Stocks rally as traders look for economic help.
Stocks rose on Monday, snapping back after a wave of selling that had led to one of the worst weeks for global markets since the 2008 financial crisis.
Traders are hoping that the world’s governments and central banks will step in to help a global economy slammed by the outbreak of the coronavirus. As governments have raced to contain it, factories have been shut and businesses squeezed across the globe. Companies are also readjusting annual profit expectations, and economists are lowering forecasts for global growth.
The rebound on Monday came after more policymakers signaled that they were ready, if needed, to act to stabilize the economy.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank issued a joint statement saying that the groups “stand ready to help our member countries address the human tragedy and economic challenge” posed by the virus, particularly “poor countries where health systems are the weakest and people are most vulnerable.”
Still, signs of caution remained. Yields on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond fell to 1.09 percent. The drop, driven by rising bond prices, suggests that investors are still looking for safe places to park their money, as well as a growing expectation that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates to support the economy.
Rising expectations that some of the world’s major oil producers will agree to production cuts appeared to steady oil prices on Monday.
Officials from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia are expected to meet in Vienna this week to try to halt plunging oil prices, which sank about 14 percent last week alone.
Coronavirus kills an adviser to Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei.
An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader died from coronavirus illness on Monday, state media reported — the first fatality of a top Iranian official from the scourge that has hit the country especially hard and made it a hub of contagion in the Middle East.
The adviser, Mohammad Mirmohammadi, 71, is a member of the Expediency Council, which provides advice to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 80. It was unclear from state media accounts whether Mr. Mirmohammadi, who died at a Tehran hospital, had been in direct contact with Ayatollah Khamenei when he was contagious.
The state media accounts also said Mr. Mirmohammadi’s mother had died in recent days from the coronavirus and an uncle — his mother’s brother — was being monitored in quarantine for possible infection.
At least six other members of the hierarchy in Iran, including a vice president who is the top woman official in the country, have fallen ill from the coronavirus.
The Health Ministry reported at least 1,501 confirmed cases in the country as of Monday — nearly four times as many as on Friday. The ministry said at least 66 people had died from the infection, the highest toll outside of China, where the coronavirus outbreak began two months ago.
The World Health Organization, which has sent a team to Iran to help the government cope with the crisis, reported on Monday that a staff member in Iran had tested positive for the virus. The W.H.O. did not identify the staff member but said on Twitter that “he has mild disease.”
A Manhattan woman is New York State’s first confirmed case.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Sunday confirmed New York State’s first case of the coronavirus, saying that a woman contracted the virus while traveling in Iran and was in New York isolated in her home.
“The patient has respiratory symptoms, but is not in serious condition and has been in a controlled situation since arriving to New York,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement.
A New York state official said that the positive case was in Manhattan. The case is the 32nd tested from New York. All previous cases had tested negative.
New York’s state lab was granted the ability to test for the virus on Saturday after an appeal from Mr. Cuomo.
“There is no reason for undue anxiety — the general risk remains low in New York,” the governor’s statement said. “We are diligently managing this situation and will continue to provide information as it becomes available.”
Early on Monday, the governor told CNN that he expected “community spread,” but urged calm.
In an earlier appearance, on CBS This Morning, he said the woman who had contracted the virus was a “unique case.” She was a health care worker, he added, so “she knew to take precautions and stay in a controlled situation.”
The European Union moves to high alert.
The European Union raised its alert level from moderate to high on Monday as the number of cases continued to soar and infections cropped up in more places across the Continent.
The coronavirus has now spread to 18 of the 27 member states, with more than 2,200 confirmed cases of infection, according to bloc officials, costing member states about $1 billion a month in lost tourism revenues.
In a news conference, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, praised European coordination in the crisis and urged calm. Announcing the new level of risk, she said, “In other words, the virus continues to spread.’’
Still, she added, the union was not considering shutting borders.
In Italy, the epicenter of the European outbreak, the number of new infections jumped on Monday to 1,835 — more than double the number on Friday — with 52 deaths. The government announced plans to inject billions of dollars into the economy to mitigate the effects of the virus.
The economics commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni of Italy, said that the bloc would consider Rome’s request for flexibility on European Union fiscal rules on debt, “in the spirit of solidarity and understanding.”
Elsewhere, the authorities in Berlin and Moscow reported their first cases of the virus.
An infected man in Berlin has been placed in isolation in the city’s main research hospital, where was said to be in stable condition.
In France reported that it has had 178 cases since January — three times as many as it had on Friday — and at least two deaths. The Louvre remained closed to visitors on Monday as museum officials discussed how to handle large crowds in ways that would limit the potential spread of the virus.
The virus affects the Chinese military.
The coronavirus epidemic, which led China to lock down some 700 million people, has also had an impact on one of the country’s most important and powerful institutions: the People’s Liberation Army.
China’s military, the world’s largest, with more than two million troops, has been forced to suspend its regular training exercises and postpone its spring recruitment, senior commanders said in Beijing on Monday.
China, on paper, still maintains a conscription force, with two years of compulsory service for most young men. But in practice, the military recruits enough volunteers to fill most of its ranks.
The military has reported no cases of the coronavirus, officials said, adding that the steps had been taken as a precautionary measure to ensure that the country’s forces remained at full strength.
“Through our vigorous, orderly and effective prevention and control measures, the troops can have very orderly training and life and be in a good state of combat readiness,” said Maj. Gen. Chen Jingyuan, director general of the Medical Service Bureau of the Central Military Commission’s Logistic Support Department.
The armed forces have dispatched more than 4,000 medical workers to Wuhan, where the epidemic has hit hardest, and also opened up 63 military hospitals across the country to civilian patients.
The Louvre remains closed as cultural institutions review protocols for crowds.
The world’s most visited museum, the Louvre in Paris, was shut for the second day in a row on Monday after staff members refused to work out of concern over the coronavirus.
The Louvre had already been forced to close on Sunday after workers used their “right to withdrawal” under French law, which allows employees to stop work in cases of imminent and serious threats to safety or health.
The museum logged more than nine million visitors in 2019, with nearly three-quarters of those coming from abroad, mainly China and the United States, as well as from other European countries, particularly Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The French government has banned all indoor gatherings larger than 5,000 people in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus. There have been 130 cases and two deaths in France since the end of January.
The Paris book fair, for instance — one of the biggest literary events in France, scheduled for the end of March — has been canceled.
The authorities say that the Louvre is not covered by the ban because, although tens of thousands of visitors walk through every day, it is not a single enclosed space.
That has not allayed the fears of museum staff, however, who noted that some rooms were regularly packed with visitors in close quarters.
Cultural institutions elsewhere across Europe were also feeling the impact. In Italy, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the country’s premier opera house, was among the venues that announced on Sunday that performances were suspended until at least March 8, after a government decree limiting public gatherings was extended.
In Venice, the Teatro La Fenice opera house said it would broadcast on YouTube a chamber music concert scheduled for Monday.
Which is worse, coronavirus or flu?
The coronavirus and the flu are often compared these days. But what are their basic similarities and differences?
So far, the coronavirus seems to be deadlier. On average, the seasonal flu strain kills about 0.1 percent of people who become infected. Early estimates of the death rate in the coronavirus outbreak’s epicenter in Wuhan, China, have been around 2 percent.
The rate could fall if it turns out that many cases aren’t detected because they are so mild or even symptom-free.
As with influenza, the coronavirus is most dangerous to people over the age of 65, or who have chronic illness or a weak immune system.
So far in the current season, the flu has sickened more people than the coronavirus. In the United States, there have been 32 million cases of flu, several hundred thousands of hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths, according to the C.D.C. By contrast, about 88 people in the United States have been infected with the new coronavirus, and there have been two deaths.
One area where the two ailments diverge is treatment. There is no approved antiviral drug for the coronavirus, but several are being tested. For those infected with any viral illness, doctors recommend rest, medicine to reduce pain and fever, and fluids to avoid dehydration. For the flu, doctors can offer four prescription medicines and they tend to work best within a day or two of when symptoms start.
There are no coronavirus vaccinations available, but one may be available in a year or two. Flu vaccines are widely available and generally 40 percent to 60 percent effective.
Church leader at the center of South Korea’s epidemic offers an apology.
Lee Man-hee, the founding leader of the church at the center of South Korea’s explosive coronavirus outbreak, bowed in supplication at a news conference on Monday and apologized amid growing anger at his handling of the crisis.
“I have never imagined this kind of thing would happen,” Mr. Lee, 88, said in a choking voice during a nationally televised news conference. “I am still trying to understand how this could happen.”
Mr. Lee called the news conference after Seoul and other cities asked prosecutors to investigate him for potential criminal charges, including murder through willful negligence. They accused Mr. Lee and his Shincheonji Church of Jesus of contributing to the nation’s rising death toll — 22 as of Monday — by impeding the government’s efforts to fight the outbreak.
Among other things, the church was accused of failing to provide a full list of its members fast enough for the government to track them down for testing.
By Monday, South Korea reported more than 4,000 total cases. At least 60 percent of the cases were among members of a Shincheonji branch in Daegu, a city in southeast South Korea, and people they had been in contact with.
Mr. Lee denied the accusations against his group, saying that his church was fully cooperating with the government.
Reporting was contributed by Steven Erlanger, Melissa Eddy, Marc Santora, Anton Troianovsky, Elisabetta Povoledo, Steven Lee Myers, Clair Fu, Russell Goldman, Sheri Fink, Mitch Smith, Richard C. Paddock, Aurelien Breeden and Rick Gladstone.
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