Donald Trump has spent his Monday attacking former President Barack Obama and the “fake news” media for its coverage of the deadly coronavirus outbreak, claiming the stock market’s morning plunge was the result of negative news coverage.
After spending a weekend golfing with Washington Nationals players, the president lambasted Barack Obama’s administration and compared the coronavirus to the common flu. US health officials began to warn that older Americans and people who are sick may be at risk of contracting the illness, as at least 30 states confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the stock market took a major hit on Monday morning as fears of a potential global pandemic continued to grow, causing trading to be temporarily halted for the first time since 1997.
Coronavirus fears and a crash in oil prices sent a shudder through financial markets on Monday, with stocks plummeting so fast on Wall Street that they triggered the first automatic halt in trading in over two decades.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 7.8 percent, and European markets entered a bear market, registering their heaviest losses since the darkest days of the 2008 meltdown, as the damage mounted from the crisis that has closed factories, schools and stores and led to travel bans and unprecedented quarantines.
"The market has had a crisis of confidence," said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Baird.
The market slide came as Italy, the hardest-hit place in Europe, began enforcing a lockdown against 16 million people in the north - a quarter of the population - with masked police officers and soldiers checking travellers' documents. The turmoil is expected to push Italy into recession and weigh on the European economy.
In the US, a cruise ship with a cluster of coronavirus cases that forced it to idle off the California coast for days arrived at the port of Oakland as officials prepared to start taking passengers to military bases for quarantine or get them back to their home countries.
The Grand Princess had more than 3,500 people aboard - 21 infected with the virus.
The escalating crisis combined with an intertwined development - plummeting oil prices - to drag down the market. The price of oil sank nearly 20% after Russia refused to roll back production in response to virus-depressed demand and Saudi Arabia signalled it will ramp up its own output.
While low oil prices can translate into cheaper fuel, they wreak havoc on energy companies and countries that count on petroleum revenue, including the number one producer, the US.
Additional reporting by Associated Press. Read The Independent's live updates as they came in below:
The president spent his weekend with both current and former Washington Nationals players at his golf clubs in Florida as federal officials prepared to receive the passengers and changed their tone on the latest developments surrounding the mysterious illness responsible for over 3,500 deaths worldwide.
He seemed to have harsh words when his predecessor went golfing amid the Ebola outbreak (because, of course, there is always a tweet when it comes to Donald Trump) -
US health officials have begun to warn that older Americans and people who are sick may be at risk of contracting the illness, as at least 30 states confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the stock market was predicted to take a major hit on Monday morning as fears of a potential global pandemic continued to grow.
Donald Trump will not attend this year’s St Patrick’s Day lunch on Capitol Hill – because Nancy Pelosi will be there.
The lunch, hosted by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has been held every year since 1983 and has only been skipped by presidents four times since then, Politico reports. The last time it happened was when George W Bush decided not to attend in 2003, shortly before the start of the Iraq War.
White House spokesman Judd Deere told Politico: “Since the Speaker has chosen to tear this nation apart with her actions and her rhetoric, the president will not participate in moments where she so often chooses to drive discord and disunity, and will instead celebrate the rich history and strong ties between the United States and Ireland at the White House on 12 March.
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham went on Fox News earlier this morning to slam Democrats and the media for covering the deadly coronavirus, as more than 30 states confirm cases across the country.
"I just want to stress to politicians and the media to stop using this as a tool to politicize things and to scare people," she said.
The press secretary added: "It's not responsible. This is not the time for this. People need to be looking to the CDC for guidance. People need to be washing their hands, treating this like the flu, making responsible choices. This is absolutely not the time to be trying to scare people to gain political points or make headlines."
A White House official confirmed the meeting, and it is expected the president's aides will lay out options from which he could choose steps to guard against an election-year economic lull that could cost him a second term.
Mr Trump is scheduled to return to the White House around 3:45 p.m.
As he arrived in Orlando, a reporter traveling in his travel pool filed a dispatch from the central Florida city's airport saying the president was shaking hands with a group of supporters who cheered wildly as he stepped of Air Force One. Public health experts have warned hand-shaking is a leading way to spread the virus, which Mr Trump has downplayed as not as serious as the flu, or influenza.
"At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!" he advised his fellow Americans.
The chairman of the US’s most important conservative conference, CPAC, has called for calm after reports he was exposed to a person infected with coronavirus before shaking hands with Donald Trump.
Matt Schlapp, who chairs the American Conservative Union, sent his message cautioning against panic as it emerged that an attendee at February’s conference had tested positive for the virus.
Writing on Twitter, Mr Schlapp told conference attendees that all was well.
“Woke up today and all the Schlapp’s are healthy. Same for entire CPAC staff …
“The State of Maryland did 2000 screenings around the Gaylord [conference venue] and found nothing concerning. We have no symptoms. Stay calm USA! Check your temp, if elevated call your doc.”
American healthcare systems could be overwhelmed by a need for hospital beds and breathing machines in intensive care units under a growing coronavirus threat.
US health officials suggest that a surge in demand for inpatient care could impact 200,000 to as many as 2.9 million patients, though there are fewer than 100,000 intensive care unit beds available, according to the American Hospital Association, and other reports estimate there are as few as 45,000.
The US Department of Health and Human Services reported that an estimated 64,000 people will also need medical ventilation amid a mild Covid-19 outbreak, but the country's hospital systems have only "about 62,000 full-featured ventilators on hand and an additional 8,900 in the national stockpile".
In a press conference held later in the day by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, officials encouraged New Yorkers to telework if they could and avoid using mass transit when possible.
The officials stressed that “subways remain safe” for travel and that trains are being cleaned on a daily basis, adding: “We will get you where you need to go safely.”
Here's my latest:
A third Princess cruise ship is being kept at sea due to coronavirus concerns.
The Caribbean Princess was scheduled to dock in Grand Cayman on Monday, but passengers and crew will be required to stay onboard and receive coronavirus testing.
Concern over potential viral spread on the ship began when Caribbean Princess officials learned that two crew members working on the ship had transferred from a ship in California on which a guest tested positive for the virus.
The ship is currently under a "no sail" order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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