Coronavirus Updates: House Delays Vote On Coronavirus Bill, Prince Charles, Heir To British Throne, Tests Positive

Summary:

• Prince Charles tests positive for coronavirus
• House delays stimulus-bill vote until tomorrow
• Singapore, Tokyo report largest daily jump in new cases
• Lombardy cases report another decline
• Global total ~438k, 19,600 deaths
• Spain deaths pass mainland China total
• 1/3 of global population facing movement restriction
• Spain asks NATO for assistance
• France issues 100,000 fines
• Deal struck on $2 trillion US rescue bill
• Germany, Japan scramble to pass their own rescue legislation
• US case total ~55k, death toll ~750
• Indian governor defies lockdown
• Pakistan PM facing “increased pressure” to impose lockdown
• Switzerland tightens borders
• Putin tells Russians to stay home
• Bank of Spain warns about economic fallout
• Taiwan announces 19 new cases
• WHO expresses concerns about US outbreak
• 3 Navy sailors test positive
• Britain’s NHS recruits more than 150k volunteers overnight
• UK shuts Parliament Wednesday night
• Mali becomes 44th African country to confirm COVID-19

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Update (1145ET): Cuomo has dedicated most of Wednesday’s press conference to slamming the federal government – both the White House and Capitol Hill – for not doing enough to help his state.

Cuomo said that he is short on equipment and cash by massive margins, particularly if cases continue to outpace the worst-case projections. Cuomo said the state will need an estimated 40,000 ICU cases, but has only 3,000 ICU beds. As far as ventilators are concerned, the federal government has offered 4k, but Cuomo believes he needs 30k to be completely prepared.

Though the pace of the outbreak has slowed thanks to early containment measures in Westchester and Long Island, as well as the city, many are anxious that New Yorkers leaving the state might carry the virus with them.

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Update (1130ET): Lombardy reported another drop in new cases on Wednesday, according to local health officials.

https://twitter.com/northherofx/status/1242832191647875073

The region saw declines in both new cases (dropping from 1,942 to 1,643) and new deaths (from 400 to 296).

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Update (1120ET): After a clip of him begging the federal government to release more ventilators from its stockpile to New York State, promising to ‘personally deliver’ the ventilators to the next state once the apex of New York’s outbreak had passed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is preparing to hold his Wednesday news conference:

Holding a briefing with updates on #Coronavirus. WATCH LIVE: https://t.co/Z3IdQirL3Y

— Archive: Governor Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) March 25, 2020

So far, Cuomo said the number of New Yorkers hospitalized with serious respiratory illnesses due to COVID-19 is outpacing projections, which is…not good.

• N.Y.’S CUOMO: NEED FOR HOSPITALIZATIONS EXCEED PROJECTIONS
• N.Y. GOV. CUOMO: ‘HAVE NOT TURNED’ TRAJECTORY, HIT APEX

Meanwhile, the US case total is right around 55k (just above or just below, depending on whose data one uses), and the death toll is right around 750 (once again, either slightly above or below).

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Update (1117ET): Though it’s widely expected and a mere formality at this point, German lawmakers said Wednesday that they’re ready to suspend the constitutional ‘debt brake’ before blowing out the budget deficit with a massive stimulus package to be introduced before the eurogroup during tomorrow’s meeting.

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Update (1040ET): After the Senate departed on a “well-deserved break”, the House gaveled out a quick session on Wednesday without passing the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, suggesting that the vote on the bill won’t come until tomorrow.

A Democratic leadership aide told CNN that the House still has emergency convening authority and can quickly come back into session today, but that it’s “more likely” the House vote would wait until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, by CNN’s count, 1/3 of the global population is under lockdown as of Wednesday morning, largely thanks to India’s decision to bolt the country closed.

Across, India, officials laid out the strictures of the new lockdown: Essential services like ATMs, gas stations, grocery stores and pharmacies would remain open, though a strict requirement for all ‘nonessential’ workers to remain home with one or two exceptions per day has made India’s lockdown among the most strict.

The issue is the pockets of extreme population density in India’s slums, which would be ideal breeding grounds for the virus if it were ever to take hold.

As the outbreak worsens in Spain, which is just behind the US now in terms of confirmed cases, while its death toll has already surpassed the ‘official’ numbers from mainland China, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez has reportedly asked NATO for help.

France, meanwhile, has been under lockdown for a week, and has also been ramping up enforcement with increasing numbers of fines: the country has handed down more than 100k fines already.

Now who’s holding the country hostage?

Nancy Pelosi is *actually* doing what the media and Democrats accoused McConnell of doing last week. Note the sudden lack of outrage. https://t.co/M6OrVgbDqv

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) March 25, 2020

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Update (1000ET):  The global case total has climbed to around 438,000, with roughly 19,600 deaths.

The president of an interest group representing French hospitals said the number of individuals who have died due to the outbreak in France is “much higher” than official figures reflect.

“We only know the data provided by hospitals… The increase in the official data is already major, but the absolute numbers would no doubt be effectively much higher if we aggregated what is happening in retirement homes as well as the people who die at home,” Frederic Valletoux, president of the French hospitals federation, said on France Info radio.

Over in Singapore, the city-state situated on the tip of peninsular Malaysia that has been widely celebrated for its efforts to contain the virus early, has just confirmed another 73 cases on Wednesday, its largest daily jump yet. Among other steps, Singapore closed its borders to most foreigners back in January.

Still, most of the cases are imported, as officials blame the decision to lift some restrictions on travelers for the resurgence in new cases. The new figures bring the number of confirmed cases to 631. Among these new cases, 38 are imported. Out of the 35 local cases, 27 are linked to previous cases, while 8 are unrelated, according to Yahoo News Singapore.

Even Iran is worried about a second wave, as the first wave of infections, which Iranians helped spread all around the region, hammered the country.

The Swiss government said Wednesday it would expand its border controls to include all countries in the EU’s Schengen open border zone. The move comes after Switzerland last week introduced controls at its borders with Italy, France, Germany, Austria and Spain and all countries not in the Schengen zone.

“Since midnight, the tightened entry requirements have also been applied to flights from all remaining Schengen states with the exception of the Principality of Liechtenstein,” the government said in a statement.

The Schengen area is a 26-country passport-free zone.

As more countries unfurl lockdown orders around the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on all residents to stay home next week, while announcing that a vote on constitutional reforms that had been set to take place on April 22 would be postponed.

While President Trump presses Americans to get back to work by Easter, Putin tells Russians “health, life and safety of the people is an absolute priority for us,” as Russian authorities count 658 total confirmed cases of the virus on Wednesday, with 163 of them new cases reported within the last day. Putin addressed Russians directly in a speech on Wednesday.

In Pakistan, the government of Pakistani PM Imran Khan has been criticized for not declaring a national lockdown – Khan has argued it would harm 25% of Pakistani workers who are the poorest and most vulnerable. However, the Pakistani military has taken steps to combat the outbreak, while flights have been cancelled and highways have been closed.

Pakistan crossed the 1,000-case threshold on Wednesday, and has recorded at least 7 deaths.

After the Senate voted to pass the stimulus bill, lawmakers went on recess for just under a months, leaving the House to pass the bill it has in its hands now, or leave Americans badly in need of money high and dry.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Portugal increased 27% to 2,995, up from 2,362. That compares with a daily increase of 15% reported on Tuesday and a 29% gain on Monday. The total number of deaths increased by 10 to 43.

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The American press and the progressives who make up most of its journalists have so far focused on how the novel coronavirus will inevitably harm the poor and vulnerable. But so far, that’s not what we’ve seen – at least not in the West. Connecticut’s Fairfield County and New York’s Westchester County, two havens for wealthy businessmen, doctors, lawyers and other rich professionals, have been especially hard hit by the virus, both becoming hot zones in their own right.

Over in the UK, the Royal Palace announced Wednesday morning that Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, has tested positive for the virus.

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This is hardly a new trend. Since the start of the crisis, numerous government officials from Iran, to Canada, to the US and over in Europe, have caught the virus, as have famous professional athletes and others who travel. Dozens of politicians and leaders have tested positive (and that’s just in Iran).

During the early hours of Wednesday morning, Democrats finally dropped enough of their ‘Green New Deal’-type demands to strike a deal on the $2 trillion “largest bailout package in American history”. In addition to a $500 billion pool of ’emergency liquidity’ for American corporations that will be administered by the Fed and a $367 billion loan program for small businesses, the legislation will include a one-time $1,200 transfer to all Americans making less than $70,000 a year.

Mitch McConnell celebrated the news in an early-morning tweet, and promised that legislation would pass in the early morning.

At last, we have a deal.

After days of intense discussions, the Senate has reached a bipartisan agreement on a historic relief package for this pandemic.

We’re going to pass this legislation later today.

— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) March 25, 2020

As President Trump pushes to bring the economy back on-line by Easter, close American ally South Korea, a country lauded for its swift and widespread testing program that managed to test roughly 10,000 a day, agreed to send the US spare medical equipment in response to Trump’s request for ‘reagents’ – a critical component for COVID-19 tests that was missing or damaged in the first iteration of the CDC’s test.

The number of confirmed cases in the US had topped 55k by Wednesday morning, with 55,225 cases exactly as of 7amET, according to Johns Hopkins. The number of deaths climbed to 782.

Yesterday, the WHO warned that the rapid number of confirmations in the US would soon qualify it as the new ‘epicenter’ of the global outbreak, and on Wednesday, the organization reiterated that warning.

After Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte threatened Italians who break the quarantine with possible prison time as the numbers of new cases and deaths continued to climb despite the government’s best efforts – Italy’s mortality rate, at roughly 10%, is the highest in the developed world – Spain released some unpleasant news.

Spanish authorities warned on Wednesday that they expect the crisis to worsen, despite imposing strict measures in line with what Italian officials have adopted. As WSJ explained, one reason why quarantine orders in the west haven’t been as effective in suppressing the outbreak is that officials aren’t taking enough time to trace the contacts of confirmed cases.

Many foreign governments that initially ruled out lockdowns, saying they wouldn’t work in democracies, are now implementing similar, though less draconian, restrictions, but without corresponding efforts to identify and isolate cases, WSJ said.

Europe’s fourth-largest economy has been struggling with the second-worst outbreak on the continent after Italy. The outbreak, which accelerated following an International Women’s Day march in Madrid earlier this month, claimed 738 Spanish lives on Tuesday, according to figures released Wednesday morning by Spain’s public health officials. That’s the largest daily jump in deaths yet, bringing Spain’s death toll to 3,434, an increase of 27% over Tuesday’s figures.

Spain now has 47,610 cases in total. In mainland China, 3,281 people have died, according to the ‘official’ numbers. Top Spanish health official Fernando Simon said Wednesday that he expects the number of Covid-19 cases to continue increasing in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Spain, the country’s central bank and a constituent of the ECB said coronavirus outbreak mitigation measures have caused severe disruptions of the economy since March, and the impact on jobs will most likely be very significant in the near-term.

Once Prince Charles was confirmed positive for COVID-19, attention turned immediately to the Queen: The Monarch “remains in good health”, according to palace officials. Charles and his wife Camilla are now isolating in Scotland.

In other UK news, HMG is planning on shuttering Parliament beginning Wednesday night in another effort to slow the spread.

In recent days, speculation about Japan’s relatively small number of confirmed COVID-19 cases ranged from Japanese culture being a mild form of ‘social distancing’ to other quirks of life in modern Japan that have potentially helped to defend its people from viral outbreaks like the novel coronavirus. But on Wednesday, officials in Tokyo confirmed 41 new cases, the biggest daily jump in Japan since the crisis began, Nikkei reports.

In other Japan-related news, officials announced that the Diamond Princess cruise ship is expected to leave Yokohama port on Wednesday after scientists confirmed that samples of the virus had apparently survived on the ship for weeks.

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Taiwan’s government announces 19 new cases on Wednesday, all imported, bringing the total number of infected people on the island to 235. Thailand health officials report 107 new coronavirus cases, bringing its total to 934.

China’s re-opening continued on Wednesday, with officials in Beijing warning local party functionaries around the country not to tamper with the data anymore (enabling Chinese officials to act quickly to stop a resurgence). After announcing yesterday that the Wuhan lockdown would end on April 8, health officials said they now expect to resume domestic passenger flights to and from Wuhan starting on the same date, April 8, when travel restrictions placed on the original epicenter of the viral outbreak are to be lifted.

Another sign of business (almost) as usual! The neighborhood counterfeit DVD shop is now open— with #coronavirus prevention measures. Wonder if the seller would register their own name since they deal in… oh, NVM. 🤔😐 #China pic.twitter.com/zRXLvNA216

— Eunice Yoon (@onlyyoontv) March 25, 2020

Following the US deal on the coronavirus package, parliaments in Germany and Japan continued to battle over their own fiscal stimulus packages, according to CNN.

Britain’s National Health Service announced that it is waging a “war on coronavirus” and called for a quarter of a million volunteers. Overnight, nearly 200k registered via the NHS’s website. Meanwhile, the death toll from coronavirus in the United Kingdom jumped on Tuesday by 87 to a total of 422 on Wednesday – the biggest daily increase since the crisis began.

In the latest news from the Pentagon, three Navy sailors aboard a ship in the Pacific Ocean tested positive for the new coronavirus, officials said Tuesday, becoming the first example of sailors testing positive for the virus while at sea. Per Stars & Stripes, the number of ventilators in the government reserve designated to strengthen overwhelmed hospitals in the event of a national medical crisis is critically low, according to the Center for Public Integrity. That number – 16,600 in the Strategic National Stockpile – is a small supplement to the national health system’s estimated 160,000 ventilators, which are mostly already in use.

India, the world’s second-most populous country, went into lockdown Wednesday, suspending all nonessential services and severely restricting movement to halt the spread of coronavirus cases. But not all officials equally respected the order: hours after the lockdown’s start, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state in north India, Yogi Adityanath, participated in a ceremony at a temple marking the start of a nine-day Hindu festival, highlighting the challenge the nation of 1.3 billion faces in implementing the drastic containment measures.

अयोध्या करती है आह्वान…

भव्य राम मंदिर के निर्माण का पहला चरण आज सम्पन्न हुआ, मर्यादा पुरुषोत्तम प्रभु श्री राम त्रिपाल से नए आसन पर विराजमान…

मानस भवन के पास एक अस्थायी ढांचे में 'रामलला' की मूर्ति को स्थानांतरित किया।

भव्य मंदिर के निर्माण हेतु ₹11 लाख का चेक भेंट किया। pic.twitter.com/PWiAX8BQRR

— Yogi Adityanath (मोदी का परिवार) (@myogiadityanath) March 25, 2020

Photos and videos shared by Adityanath on Twitter show him performing rituals surrounded by police and local officials. Later, addressing the gathering, he asked citizens to follow the government lockdown directives, which explicitly ban religious ceremonies, among other things, for 21 days.

As doctors get a better sense of mortality across the world, they found that the mortality rate in Italy is nearly 10%, while fatalities in France were just 4.3%, while in Germany and Austria, the number dead is 0.4%. The number of cases in Germany climbed to 31,554 on Wednesday, compared with 149 deaths.

Finally, in Africa, Mali has reported its first coronavirus cases, becoming the 44th country to record a case in Africa which has seen its spread speed up in recent days. Health experts have warned that Africa is the region least prepared to deal with the pandemic because of widespread equipment shortages and generally weak healthcare infrastructure. The continent now has roughly 2,400 cases and many countries have implemented stringent social distancing restrictions.

And as President Trump continues to push a common malaria drug for treatment of COVID-19, a brief study in France found that the malaria drugs Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine (an analogue of Hydroxychloroquine) had little additional benefit while treating infected patients, BBG reported.