BANGKOK
(AP) — With borders slamming shut, schools and businesses closing and
increasingly drastic restrictions on movement in place, tens of millions
of people were hunkered down Tuesday, heeding government calls to
isolate themselves and slow the spread of the new coronavirus.
From Southeast Asia to Europe to the Americas, people found their lives upended by lockdowns and social distancing.
Shoppers
in Malaysia stood in long lines to stock up at picked-over
supermarkets. Commuters in the Philippines waited in huge traffic jams
at checkpoints set up to take their temperatures before entering the
capital city. Officials in seven San Francisco Bay Area counties issued a
sweeping shelter-in-place mandate, ordering millions of residents to
stay at home and go outside only for food, medicine and outings that are
absolutely essential.
The
cancellations of treasured holidays and community events continued to
build, with Thailand saying it was calling off its water festival in
April and the organizers of the so-called “most exciting two minutes in
sports”— the Kentucky Derby — reportedly prepared to announce the delay
the horse race for the first time since World War II.
Fresh
moves to contain the virus came even as Wuhan, the central Chinese city
where the virus was first detected late last year and which has been
under lockdown for weeks, reported just one new case on Tuesday.
The
fronts in the battle have clearly shifted outside China, with its
caseload now outnumbered by those outside its borders. And Spain is now
the fourth-most infected country, surpassing South Korea, where new
cases have been subsiding.
With
the number of cases worldwide topping 181,000, a surge of patients in
Madrid’s hospitals fueled worries across Europe of what lies ahead.
Pleas went out to funnel masks and ventilators to places struggling with
soaring caseloads.
“There
is no easy or quick way out of this extremely difficult situation,”
Mark Rutte, the prime minister of the Netherlands, said in the first
televised speech by a Dutch premier since 1973.
The
virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough,
for most people, but severe illness is more likely in the elderly and
people with existing health problems. More than 79,000 people have
recovered from the illness.
Nevertheless
a growing sense of crisis has roiled financial markets. Shares reversed
early losses in Asia on Tuesday after the U.S. stock market plunged to
its worst day in more than three decades and huge swaths of many
economies came to a standstill as businesses and travel shut down due to
the outbreak.
Only
China, Italy and Iran have more infections than Spain, where the number
increased by roughly 20%, to 9,191 and fatalities rose to 309,
according to the Spanish Health Ministry. It switched to a new reporting
system, so the actual number may be higher.
A
somber Rutte told viewers “a large part” of the Netherlands’ 17 million
people are likely to contract the virus. So far, 1,413 people have
tested positive and 24 have died. The government closed schools,
restaurants and bars and banned gatherings of more than 100 people.
Countries
from Canada to Switzerland, Russia and Malaysia announced sharp new
restrictions on the movement of people across their borders.
“We
have a window of time at the moment to slow the spread of the virus,”
said Ulrike Demmer, a spokeswoman for Germany’s government, which
reversed its earlier insistence that border controls would not work. It
imposed new limits on crossings with France, Austria, Switzerland,
Denmark and Luxembourg, after German infections increased by more than
1,000 over 24 hours.
Malaysia
banned foreign travel and is allowing only essential services to stay
open. France allowed people to leave home only to buy food, go to work,
or do other essential tasks, restrictions President Emmanuel Macron said
were heightened because people hadn’t complied with earlier guidelines
and “we are at war.”
India
shut down the Taj Mahal to visitors. Most schools and entertainment
facilities were already closed across India, the world’s second-most
populous country with 1.3 billion people.
The
first confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported in Somalia, which has
one of Africa’s weakest health systems after nearly three decades of
conflict.
As
the pandemic expanded its reach, China and South Korea were trying to
hold their hard-fought gains. China is quarantining new arrivals, who in
recent days have accounted for an increasing number of cases, and South
Korea starting Thursday will increase screenings of all overseas
arrivals.
Infections
have continued to slow in South Korea’s worst-hit city of Daegu. But
there’s concern over a steady rise of infections in the Seoul
metropolitan area, where new clusters have emerged.
Italy
reported another jump in infections, up more than 3,000 to 27,980. With
2,158 deaths — including 349 more in just the last 24 hours — Italy now
accounts for well over a quarter of the global death toll. Cases,
however, slowed in Lombardy, the hardest-hit region.
In
the United States, officials urged older Americans and those with
chronic health conditions to stay home, and recommended all group
gatherings be capped at 50 people. Americans returning from abroad
encountered chaotic airport health screenings that clearly broke all
virus-fighting rules against having packed crowds close together.
School
closings in 56 countries kept more than 516 million students home, the
United Nations said. New York City joined those ranks Monday, closing a
school system with 1.1 million students.
Still, some countries have resisted more stringent measures to contain the virus.
In
Britain, bars and restaurants remained open and there was no ban on
large events. The prime minister’s spokesman said closing schools hadn’t
been ruled out, but “the scientific and medical advice is that that’s
not a step which we should be taking at this point in time.”
A
senior official from South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Kwon Jun-wook, urged people to take the virus seriously and
follow recommended precautions.
“In
a similar way to how the Sept. 11 attacks completely changed people’s
perception about security, quarantine authorities like us believe the
daily lives of all the people around the world will be changed because
of COVID-19,” Kwon told a briefing Tuesday. “From now on, if you are
sick, you should voluntarily rest to prevent a spread to others.”
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Associated
Press journalists Aritz Parra in Madrid, Adam Geller in New York, Mike
Corder in Amsterdam, Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Frank Jordans in Berlin,
Jill Lawless in London, Colleen Barry in Milan, Italy, Ken Moritsugu in
Beijing, Kim Tong-hyung and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, Eileen
Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi contributed
to this report.
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The
Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education.
The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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