The number of new virus cases in China dropped to its lowest level in six weeks Monday and hundreds of patients at the outbreak’s epicenter were being released, while a grimmer reality set in elsewhere, with swelling infection numbers and growing dread that no area could fend off the illness.
Clusters of infections in South Korea, Italy and Iran continued to expand and COVID-19 was raising distress and reshaping routines around Europe and across the Atlantic in the United States.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warned that the world economy risked contracting this quarter for the first time since the international financial crisis more than a decade ago.
Major cities including Jakarta, New York and Berlin grappled with their first recorded cases.
Schools emptied across Japan, mobile hospitals were planned in Iran, and the Mona Lisa, accustomed to droves of staring tourists, hung in a vacant room of the shuttered Louvre in Paris.
“Just about everywhere, the cases are rising quite quickly in a number of countries,” said Ian Mackey, who studies viruses at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Malaysia and Portugal were the newest places to detect the virus. More than 60 countries around the world — including nine of the 10 most populous— have found infections, with a global count of nearly 89,000 people affected by the illness.
Even as alarms grew louder in much of the world, Monday brought positive signs from China, where the outbreak started.
China’s economy delivered hopeful cues, with mainland Chinese stock benchmarks charging back 3% and data showing progress in restoring factory output after weeks of disruptions related to the outbreak. – AP
