Page 2 - ARUBA TODAY

A2 UP FRONT
Thursday 19 March 2020
omy, Trump also said the virus was first detected in San Francisco Bay area. In
Housing and Urban Devel- late December and which the most sweeping mea-
opment Department will has been under lockdown sure of its kind in the U.S.,
suspend foreclosures and for weeks, reported just they are allowed to leave
evictions from public hous- one new case for a second their homes only for food,
ing through April. straight day Wednesday. medicine or exercise.
Two people briefed on the But in a grim illustration of In California, Gov. Gavin
matter said Wednesday the epidemic's shifting cen- Newsom put the National
that Ford, General Motors ter of gravity, the death Guard on alert for humani-
and Fiat Chrysler agreed toll in Italy moved closer tarian duties like ensuring
to close their factories. The to overtaking China's. Italy proper food distribution
two spoke on condition of had more than 2,900 dead and public safety, as some
anonymity because the Wednesday after a re- grocery stores resorted to
closings had not been an- cord one-day total of 475 rationing to control panic
nounced. The move would deaths; China's toll was just buying. But he also said "we
idle about 150,000 workers, over 3,200. have the ability to do mar-
Visitors to the Department of Labor are turned away at the
door by personnel due to closures over coronavirus concerns, who are likely to receive Iran has also been hit espe- tial law" — which gives the
Wednesday, March 18, 2020, in New York. supplemental pay in addi- cially hard, with more than military authority and can
Associated Press tion to unemployment ben- 17,000 cases and 1,100 suspend civil liberties - "if we
efits. deaths. feel the necessity."
Continued from front the world. The U.S. reported more than In releasing the new glob- The Trump administration's
Calling himself a "wartime Around the globe, officials 6,500 cases and at least 116 al infection figures, Johns plan for issuing relief checks
president," Trump said he took increasingly drastic deaths, almost half of them Hopkins University said to Americans calls for the
would sign the Defense measures to fight the epi- in Washington state, where more than 82,000 people payment of $500 billion in
Production Act "in case we demic and the threat of a dozens of residents from a have recovered from the two installments, in April
need it" to deal with an ex- recession. California's gov- suburban Seattle nursing virus, which causes only and May.
pected surge in cases of ernor warned grimly that home have died. mild or moderate symp- The amounts have yet to
the virus. The law gives the martial law could be im- Meanwhile, across the Eu- toms such as fever and be decided but would be
president extraordinary au- posed, while the mayor of ropean continent, desper- cough in most cases, with based on income and fam-
thority to get industries to New York said the city's 8.6 ate travelers choked bor- severe illness more likely in ily size.
expand production and million residents should be der crossings after countries the elderly and those with Meanwhile, miles-long traf-
turn out vital materials. prepared for a near-com- began shutting the doors existing health problems. fic jams spread across Eu-
The news came as scientists plete lockdown. Czech against the coronavirus. Still, scientists have no rope, where leaders have
announced the virus has in- authorities used emergen- And the Trump administra- doubt the true number of closed borders to nones-
fected more than 200,000 cy powers to raid a ware- tion was said to be consid- people infected is higher sential traffic. Tens of thou-
people worldwide and house and seize hundreds ering a plan to turn back all than the 200,000 reported sands of people across the
killed over 8,000, while the of thousands of face masks. people who cross into the by health authorities be- continent were struggling
United Nations warned that With a growing number of U.S. illegally from Mexico. cause of the possibility to return home amid the
the global fallout from the Americans thrown out of Some bright spots that many mild cases have closed borders and dra-
outbreak could cost nearly work by the near-shutdown emerged: Wuhan, the cen- gone unrecognized or un- matic cuts in the number of
25 million job losses around of much of the U.S. econ- tral Chinese city where the reported, and because of flights.
the lag in large-scale test- At one point, trucks were
ing in the U.S., where the backed in Austria up for 28
effort has been marked by kilometers (17 miles) and
bumbling and bureaucrat- cars for 14 kilometers (near-
ic delay. ly 9 miles).
In the first-ever breakdown In Southeast Asia, the
of its kind in the U.S., the causeway between Ma-
Centers for Disease Control laysia and the financial
and Prevention reported hub of Singapore was eerily
that coronavirus deaths quiet after Malaysia shut
in the United States mirror its borders, while the Philip-
what has been reported in pines backed down on an
other countries, with about order giving foreigners 72
4 out of 5 deaths occurring hours to leave from a large
in people 65 and older — part of its main island.
and no deaths in children. Taiwan said that it, too,
The CDC looked at more would ban foreigners from
than 4,200 cases reported entry and citizens would
through Monday. have to quarantine at
The coronavirus is present in home for 14 days.
all 50 states after West Vir- Even tourists on Ecuador's
ginia reported an infection. Galapagos islands — 1,000
In far-flung Hawaii, the gov- kilometers (620 miles) off
ernor encouraged travel- the South American main-
ers to postpone their island land — have been af-
vacations, while Nevada fected. Canadian Jessy
ordered its casinos closed. Lamontaine and her fam-
New York City Mayor Bill ily were stuck there when
de Blasio warned that resi- flights were suspended.
dents should be prepared "I was in tears this morning,"
for the possibility of a shel- Lamontaine said. "I couldn't
ter-in-place order within get any answers from the
days — a near-lockdown airline. I had no money and
like the one covering al- didn't know whether I was
most 7 million people in the going to keep my job."q