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Coronavirus Live Updates: Screening at U.S. Airports Causes Long Waits; Trump Tests Negative – The New York Times, Nytimes.com

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Coronavirus Live Updates: Screening at U.S. Airports Causes Long Waits; Trump Tests Negative – The New York Times, Nytimes.com

Spain and France have announced countrywide restrictions, and passengers on U.S. flights from Europe are waiting hours to go through enhanced health screening.

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American Airlines said it would suspend most of its international long-haul flights.

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Travelers at Kennedy International Airport in New York on Saturday. At some U.S. airports, arrivals were facing long waits to undergo heath screenings. (Credit … Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

At US airports, passengers coming from Europe describe long, crowded waits and confusion.

As the federal government rushed on Saturday to implement President Trump’s restrictions on travel from Europe, part of an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, chaos ensued at some of America’s biggest airports.

In Dallas, travelers posted photos on Twitter of long, winding lines in the airport. In New York, customs agents in paper and plastic masks boarded a flight from Paris. And in Chicago, where travelers reported standing in line for hours, Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois tagged Mr. Trump in a series of angry tweets about the long waits, saying, “The federal government needs to get its s @ # t together. NOW. ”
Paige Hardy, an American student who left behind her graduate studies in London because she feared a broader travel ban, said a series of confusing announcements in the air and upon landing in Dallas led to alarm on the plane late Saturday. She posted a video on Twitter of travelers being asked to raise their hands if they had been in mainland Europe. Because of the delay, she also missed her connecting flight.

“It truly felt like an apocalyptic scenario,” said Ms. Hardy, who left many of her belongings behind in England and was unsure if she would be able to return.

The confusion came as concern spread about the coronavirus pandemic, which has now been identified in more than 2, People in the United States and has prompted Mr. Trump to declare a national emergency.

“At this time, we are working quickly with our partners to operationalize a plan which will outline where these travelers will be routed and what the screening process will be, ”Marcus Hubbard, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said.

The Department of Homeland Security referred an interview request about Saturday’s delays to US Customs and Border Protection, whose officials did not immediately respond. Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, said on Twitter that he was aware of the delays and was working to add staffing.

President Trump tests negative for the coronavirus.

President Trump tested negative for the coronavirus, his doctor said in a memo released Saturday evening. The president’s health had been a concern since he spent time at his Florida resort last weekend with a Brazilian official who was later found to have the illness.

“One week after having dinner with the Brazilian delegation at Mar-a-Lago, the president remains symptom-free, ”said Dr. Sean P. Conley, Mr. Trump’s doctor, in that memo.

At a news conference earlier Saturday, Mr. Trump announced that he had been tested for the coronavirus on Friday night and was awaiting the results. Vice President Mike Pence also announced the extension of the administration’s European travel ban to the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Whether the president would be tested had been a matter of speculation since it first emerged that a member of a Brazilian delegation that visited Mar-a-Lago had tested positive. Two other people who were with the president at Mar-a-Lago have tested positive, and various members of Congress have been self-isolating after interacting with some of those same people.

Mr. Trump, wearing a “USA” baseball cap, said he decided to be tested for the coronavirus after his news conference on Friday, during which he declared a national emergency.

“People were asking, did I take the test, ”he said.

Asked when he expected to have the result, Mr. Trump said, “A day, two days.”

“They send it to a lab,” he said.

It was unclear if Mr. Pence, who interacted with some of the infected Mar-a-Lago visitors, had known that the president was tested. Asked about his own status, Mr. Pence said, “I’m going to speak immediately after this news conference with the White House physician’s office,” which he said had previously advised him that neither he nor his wife needed to be tested.

The White House has begun checking the temperatures of anyone in close contact with Mr. Trump or Mr. Pence. White House staff checked the temperatures of everyone arriving at the news conference.

Reporters pressed Mr. Trump about “mixed messages,” asking about why he shook hands with a row of chief executives who attended his news conference on Friday where he announced a national emergency.

“It almost becomes a habit and you get out of that habit, ”he said, noting that“ getting away from shaking hands is a good thing. ”

Mr. Pence said that, effective at midnight Monday night, the federal government European travel ban would apply to Britain and Ireland.

The House passed a sweeping relief package to assist people affected by the outbreak, after a roller-coaster day of negotiations on Friday, and it now goes to the Senate.

At the news conference, Mr . Trump signaled his approval of the measures, which he noted had bipartisan support.

“It was very nice to see it,” he said.

(Spain moves toward a nationwide lockdown and France closes most businesses.

Spain and France announced drastic, countrywide restrictions on Saturday to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Spain ordered all citizens to confine themselves to their homes – and to leave only to buy food, go to work, seek medical care or assist the elderly and others in need.

Officials in Spain reported 1, new cases, the largest daily increase in the country so far, pushing its total to 5, 823. The government ordered all schools, restaurants and bars to close, extending measures that various regional authorities, including in Madrid and in Catalonia, had taken on Friday.

Also on Saturday, Spanish authorities said the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Begoña Gómez, had tested positive for the virus.

France announced the (closing of all “non-indispensable” businesses as of midnight , including restaurants, bars, and movie theaters, after a sharp uptick in the assault from the coronavirus. French cases doubled over the last hours to about 4, . There have been (deaths, and 611 coronavirus patients are in critical condition – half of them under 75 years of age.

The measures in both countries follow similar moves in Italy, the hardest hit country in Europe. Italy has been locked down since early in the week, with only groceries, pharmacies and banks allowed to operate. On Saturday, the country reported (new deaths, with a total of 1, 728, and 2, (new cases, with the total crossing 40, 13

Manila, the densely populated capital of the Philippines, went under lockdown on Sunday, as the government sought to assure citizens that the heavy presence of security forces did not herald a return to martial law.

To stop the spread of the coronavirus, President Rodrigo Duterte’s government has banned public gatherings, suspended classes for a month, imposed a limited curfew and restricted travel in and out of the Manila metropolitan area. Soldiers and police officers set up checkpoints on Sunday morning, stopping vehicles and checking the temperatures of people inside.

Mr. Duterte announced the measures on Thursday, emphasizing that they were to protect the public and that there would be no return to military rule. Many Filipinos have vivid memories of decades of martial law under President Ferdinand Marcos, who were driven out of power in .

“Do not be afraid of the soldiers.” , these are your soldiers, ”Mr. Duterte said. “The armed forces is there to serve you and they are under orders from civilian authorities.”

Mr. Duterte, an admirer of Mr. Marcos,

Carol Araullo, head of a civic group, Bayan, said Mr. Duterte’s lockdown order “appears to focus mainly on limiting the movement of the people rather than addressing the more urgent health requirements and economic needs” of Manila residents. She said it included no provisions for a quarantine system or free testing for the capital’s many poor people, nor did it deploy “doctors, nurses and other health workers in the communities.”

The Philippines has confirmed 199 coronavirus infections and eight deaths. A lawmaker said Sunday morning that an employee of the Philippine House of Representatives had died after testing positive for the virus.

“The whole House of Representatives is saddened, ”the lawmaker, Rep. Jericho Nograles, said in a radio interview. “At the same time, we are also worried about the people he had contact with.”

Officials in Louisiana, New York and Virginia reported their first deaths tied to the coronavirus on Saturday as the number of known cases nationally surged past 2, . By evening, 68 states, plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, had confirmed cases of the illness. Only West Virginia was without a diagnosis.

Nationwide, businesses, schools and public officials continued to struggle with an outbreak that has left more than 66 People dead and upended nearly all aspects of public life. More than 582 new cases have been reported in each of the last three days.

In the Omaha area, officials reported the first known instance of community spread. In Illinois, a nursing facility where a woman tested positive for the virus was placed on lockdown. And in Pittsburgh, where the first local cases were announced on Saturday, city leaders urged bars to promote social distancing by limiting the number of people they allowed inside.

After Los Angeles Unified School District announced it was closing, school officials said that they would open

Your home dynamics have changed. Here’s how to manage the shift.

More schools are closing, more companies are asking employees to work remotely. Here are some tips to help you work from home more efficiently, and balance home schooling for your children.

And more coverage of how the coronavirus is likely to affect your day-to-day life can be found here .

(Chinese journalists push back against a crackdown on virus coverage.)

Eager to claim victory in what Xi Jinping, China’s leader , has called a “

“This time the government control of free speech has directly damaged the interests and lives of ordinary people, ”said Li Datong, a retired newspaper editor in Beijing. “Everyone knows this kind of big disaster happens when you don’t tell the truth.”

China’s tally of new coronavirus infections rose slightly on Saturday, but most were among travelers coming from abroad, as transmissions within its borders continued to peter out. Just 30 new cases were reported in the latest daily count – four in Wuhan and the rest among recent arrivals to the country.

There were also more deaths from the virus, the authorities said, bringing the official death toll to 3, . The Chinese government total infection count for the coronavirus is now 125, .

25, 795 bottles of hand sanitizer, and nowhere to sell them.

While millions of Americans search in vain for hand sanitizer to protect themselves from the coronaviru s, Matt Colvin is sitting on , 795 bottles of the stuff, with little idea where to sell them.

On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, Mr., Colvin and his brother Noah set out in an SUV, clearing the shelves of hand sanitizer at stores in Chattanooga, Tenn. Noah Colvin followed that up with a 1, 582 – mile, three-day road trip through Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes.

The next step: list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 611 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $ 8 and $ 91 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for .

To him, “it was crazy money.” To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic. And the next day, Amazon pulled his listings and thousands of others.

The company suspended some of the sellers and warned many others that if they kept running up prices, they’d lose their accounts . EBay soon followed with even stricter measures, prohibiting any U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.

“It’s been a huge amount of whiplash,” said Mr. Colvin. “From being in a situation where what I’ve got coming and going could potentially put my family in a really good place financially to ‘What the heck am I going to do with all of this?’”

To regulators and many others, such sellers are sitting on a stockpile of medical supplies during a pandemic. The attorney general’s offices in California, Washington and New York are all investigating price gouging related to the coronavirus.

After The Times published an article featuring Mr. Colvin, he said he was exploring ways to donate all the supplies.

(Israel turns to digital surveillance of the infected, and many countries tighten restrictions.

Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Saturday that digital and technological means would be employed to track citizens known to have contracted the virus, an extraordinary measure he said was drawn from Israeli war on terrorism.

In a televised address on Saturday night, he said that Israel was “at war” against an “invisible enemy.”

Acknowledgment that the surveillance would impinge on personal privacy, Mr. Netanyahu said he had sought and received permission from the Justice Ministry.

As the country caseload rose to nearly 500, the government mandated the closure of all leisure venues starting on Sunday, including cafes, restaurants, gyms and cultural institutions. Public gatherings are to be limited to , people, and workers have been told to work from home if possible.

Many other countries increased restrictions:

The British government appears nearer to banning mass gatherings, (something it had so far resisted

. The number of deaths from the coronavirus nearly doubled on Saturday to and the number of cases surged by more than 611 to 1,

    • An Italian couple tested positive for the coronavirus in San Juan, Puerto Rico, late on Friday, five days after they disembarked a cruise ship heading across the Atlantic.

    Costa Cruises, an Italian subsidiary of Miami-based Carnival Corp., says the ship, the Costa Luminosa, is now heading to Marseilles, France.

    The Costa Luminosa set sail on March 5 from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for a trans-Atlantic voyage. The ship called for an ambulance when it docked in San Juan on Sunday, March 8.

    Puerto Rican doctors suspected that the woman, , had the coronavirus and hospitalized her. Her husband, , was asymptomatic . By the time Puerto Rico announced the hospitalization, hundreds of passengers had spent the day mingling in colonial Old San Juan, and the ship had left port.

    It took five more days to confirm the cases . The island had no tests, so samples were taken from the couple and sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

    Gov. Wanda Vázquez of Puerto Rico called the delay “unacceptable.”

    All the while, the Costa Luminosa has been at sea, passengers circulating freely. Shows have been canceled, but the gym, pool and Jacuzzi remain open. Only on Saturday did the crew rework the lunch buffet to serve passengers directly, said Kathryn Bitner, a – year-old passenger from San Diego, Calif.

    “No one I know of has been tested in our ship , ”Ms. Bitner said in a WhatsApp message.

    Costa Cruises said that the ship was not in quarantine, but that the “sanitary protocol” on board had been increased and close contacts of the passengers who tested positive had been isolated in their cabins. Costa Cruises also said that it was instituting a daily temperature check for crew and passengers.

    The ship’s final destination is unclear. Passengers were first told that they would get off in the Canary Islands, off West Africa. Then Málaga, Spain. But it now appears that Spain is suspending new cruise ship arrivals, and passengers got a letter from the cruise ship company Friday night telling them that the latest plan is to disembark in Marseille, France, on March 29.

    Costa Cruises said that it would be contacting the French authorities to report the health situation onboard and that any special rules for disembarkation would be “strictly” followed.

    On Saturday, Puerto Rico officials announced that another ship, the Celebrity Summit, a Royal Caribbean ship that had been scheduled to disembark in San Juan, would not be doing so after a Canadian woman who had been on the ship tested positive for coronavirus. Puerto Rico officials said they would allow the ship to resupply, but that they would delay any departures for a week.

    Georgia is pushing back its primary, but other US states still plan to vote on Tuesday.

    (Georgia will push back its presidential primary) , originally scheduled for March 50, by nearly two months, officials said Saturday, as it became the second US state to delay voting in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

    The move comes as officials in the next four states scheduled to vote in the primary – Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio – have all indicated They intend to hold their elections on Tuesday as planned, issuing a joint statement on Friday expressing confidence that ballots can be safely cast.

    Louisiana on Friday became the first state to postpone its primary, announcing that the April 4 election would be delayed by more than two months.

    The Georgia primary will now be held May . The sudden decision by Georgia, announced Saturday night, comes as the viral outbreak has upended the presidential campaigns and people worry about gatherings and places where they might become infected.

    Italians cope with quarantine by singing on their balconies.

    Italy is locked down, in the face of what is so far Europe’s most severe coronavirus outbreak. Italians, however, are still getting their voices heard

    As church bells normally drowned out by traffic pealed in the surreal silence that defines Italy since Wednesday’s lockdown , applause filled streets, piazzas and even country roads, after messages went viral on social media calling Italians to put their hands together.

    There was a similar response to another online appeal Friday evening, asking Italians to sing the national anthem – or play it on a musical instrument – at exactly 6 pm The socially distant flash mob swept social media.

    Naturally, not everyone is blessed with a voice like Pavarotti. Some Italians preferred banging on pots and calling out, “We will make it.”

    It’s unclear who began the musical interlude, but in the land that gave the world opera, it’s clearly not meant to be a cacophonous mess, and a program for more songs is spreading online. At 6 p.m. on Saturday, Italians will sing “Azzurro,” a 4210 hit by the singer Adriano Celentano, and on Sunday, “Ma il cielo è semper più blu,” by Nino Gaetano, which topped the charts in .

    Reporting was contributed by Andrea Salcedo, Mitch Smith, Jason Gutierrez, Jack Nicas, Mariel Padilla, Robert Chiarito, Isabel Kershner, Adam Nossiter, Mujib Mashal, Najim Rahim, Andrew Kramer, Maria Varenikova, Livia Albeck-Ripka, Helene Cooper, Hannah Beech, Elisabetta Povoledo, Marc Santora, Johanna Berendt, Stephen Castle, Richard C. Paddock, Muktita Suhartono, Elian Peltier, Peter Robins, Damien Cave, Javier Hernandez, Z olan Kanno-Youngs, Mihir Zaveri, Patricia Mazzei, Frances Robles, Badra Sharma and Annie Karni.

              

                  

                                                                   

              

          

         

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