COVID-19 News from Around the Web

The U.S. government is rushing protective equipment to states, packing dozens of flights and hundreds of trucks with supplies for medical workers who will be on the front lines of the coronavirus fight. But the pandemic has exposed some of the stockpile’s shortcomings: The cache isn’t designed to be a long-term solution to monumental demand, and some state officials are complaining that the deliveries are falling far short of what’s needed or include expired items. The Strategic National Stockpile was created in 1999 to respond to bombings and biological, chemical and nuclear attacks. It maintains caches of pharmaceuticals, medical supplies and vaccines in secret locations around the nation. It has never confronted anything on the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first real use came in the anthrax-by-mail attacks following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but it was the 2009 H1N1 pandemic that prompted the largest use to date, said Christopher McKnight Nichols, associate professor of history at Oregon State University. “The SNS as designed and funded cannot and will not be able to fully accommodate the needs of the entirety of the American people,” Nichols said. The system “is designed to help buy time” and prioritize areas of greatest need, he explained.

Bowing to increasing pressure to do so, President Trump announced Wednesday he would use a law dating back to the early years of the Cold War to address serious shortages of supplies needed for responding to the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. The DPA is a law that has its origins in the War Powers Acts of World War II, which granted the executive branch broad powers to direct industrial production for the war effort. Those authorities were allowed to expire when the war was over, but in 1950, after Soviet-backed North Korea invaded South Korea, President Harry Truman revived those lapsed powers by persuading Congress to enact the DPA. But this is not a war — this is a health crisis. How does the DPA relate to the coronavirus pandemic? The law contains a section that authorizes the president to control the production and distribution of scarce materials deemed "essential to the national defense." In his executive order, Trump specifically cites protective equipment (presumably face masks) and ventilators as meeting the criteria in this provision.

Some cancer surgeries are being delayed, many stent procedures for clogged arteries have been pushed back and infertility specialists were asked to postpone helping patients get pregnant. Doctors in virtually every field are scrambling to alter care as the new coronavirus spreads. Medical groups issued advice this week on how hospitals and doctors should adapt as beds and supplies are pinched and worries rise about exposing patients to possible infection. That includes canceling elective surgeries, including many for slow-growing or early-stage cancers, which many people would consider not elective at all.

Officials are stepping up their warnings to younger Americans about the coronavirus, because they can more easily spread the virus without having symptoms and now because new evidence shows the potential for some younger people to suffer severely from it. At White House briefings this week, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator for the White House's coronavirus task force, has expressed concerns that not everyone is taking social distancing guidance to heart. "We are asking every single American, no matter what your generation, from Z and up to X, and millennials in between, to really ensure that you're following these guidelines," Birx told reporters on Tuesday. "We hear every night of people who are not in work, moving that time into bars and other areas of large gatherings. If we continue with that process, we will fail in containing this virus."

Amazon says that a worker at its delivery station in Queens, New York, has tested positive for novel coronavirus and that the facility is being temporarily shut down so that it can be disinfected. With a huge number of people in the U.S. now working from home and practicing social distancing in efforts to reduce the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, Amazon has seen a massive flood of orders. To meet the demand, the company announced earlier this week that it planned to hire 100,000 more part-time and full-time employees at its fulfillment centers and as part of its delivery network. It also said it would temporarily increase its pay by $2 an hour in some regions. Although scientists are still studying how long the new coronavirus, known officially as SARS-CoV-2, can live on various surfaces, in a paper published Tuesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that on cardboard "no viable SARS-CoV-2 was measured after 24 hours." "It feels like we are crossing in the middle of a battlefield." More than 2,500 people have died in about four weeks in Italy. With over 31,500 confirmed cases, the country's doctors and nurses — particularly in the hardest-hit cities in the north — are struggling to keep up. They're running out of beds, equipment and even people, particularly as more health care workers catch the virus.

"I have never seen so many people die together before my eyes," said a nurse from one of the main hospitals in Bergamo, a city in northern Italy.

The United States and Canada agreed Wednesday to temporarily close their shared border to nonessential travel to confront the coronavirus pandemic, bringing a halt to tourism and family visits but leaving the flow of trade intact.The announcement by President Donald Trump came as his administration prepared to immediately return to Mexico all people caught illegally crossing the southern U.S. border. Trump said he would announce that step “very soon,” perhaps as early as Wednesday.

Africa should “prepare for the worst” as the coronavirus begins to spread locally, the World Health Organization’s director-general said Wednesday, while South Africa became the continent’s new focus of concern as cases nearly doubled to 116 from two days before. South Africa’s health minister, Zweli Mkhize, this week called that kind of rate “explosive” in the country with the most cases in sub-Saharan Africa. Fourteen of the latest cases were from local transmission — and six were in children under 10. Though the pandemic is in its early days on the continent, health experts have warned that even facilities in Africa’s richest nation could be overwhelmed by the virus’ spread. “I think Africa should wake up. My continent should wake up,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who comes from Ethiopia. Crowded conditions in poor areas could lead to even faster transmission, experts say. Countless South Africans continue to pack into commuter trains and minivan taxis. But the annual pilgrimage of the Zion Christian Church, which attracts about 3 million people, was cancelled.

China Reports No New Domestic Cases, But Battles Coronavirus Imported From Abroad. China's National Health Commission announced 34 new cases contracted elsewhere and imported from abroad to the country's mainland. New imported coronavirus infections hit a record of 21 in the Chinese capital of Beijing, data showed on Thursday, piling pressure on authorities to screen out infected passengers and isolate suspected cases.

The rapidly deteriorating health of the financial markets is being driven by a contagion of fear and uncertainty about a global pandemic that’s infecting the economy in ways that seemed unfathomable just a month ago. Most experts now believes a U.S. recession is inevitable, with its severity the only question left to be determined. “It’s a fait accompli,” said Michael Yoshikami, CEO of Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, Calif. No wonder the S&P 500 now stands roughly 30% below its peak after a mind-boggling four weeks like no other in the financial markets. The pummeling would have been even worse if not for several robust, although short-lived, rallies that were fueled by hopes that the government might come up with a financial antidote that would prevent the fallout from the corornavirus outbreak from becoming as bad as it is now. The market’s wild swings have been exacerbated by the computerized trading programs that hedge funds create to wager on the financial market’s up and downs. Those algorithms, coupled with the lightning speed of today’s computer programs, can vastly accelerate the momentum of selling frenzies, as well as seemingly irrational buying binges. Human behavior, though, is more predictable. Just as people are hoarding non-perishable groceries, hand sanitizers and other goods they need while being forced to stay at home to stem the spread of the COVID-19 disease, investors have been fleeing the stock market as they build stockpiles of cash in conservative investments viewed as safe havens in times of financial turmoil.

The strong US dollar is slamming global capital markets like a sledgehammer today," wrote Stephen Innes, global chief markets strategist at AxiCorp. That merely signals more [US dollar] strength to come as the buying frenzy continues," he added.

Esteemed restaurant company Union Square Hospitality Group is slashing its workforce by 80% and laying off around 2,000 people in the wake of coronavirus-related restaurant closures. The cuts — which will affect employees in both the company's restaurants and home office — came as a result of "a near complete elimination of revenue," the New York-based USHG said in a statement.

World finance leaders tried to lift confidence with emergency measures to pour cash into panic-stricken markets on Thursday, as investors everywhere dumped assets, switching to dollars amid the escalating coronavirus pandemic. In the United States, the Federal Reserve rolled out its third emergency credit program in two days, aimed at keeping the $3.8 trillion money market mutual fund industry functioning if investors made rapid withdrawals. On Sunday, the Fed slashed interest rates to near zero and pledged hundreds of billions of dollars in asset purchases, while President Donald Trump’s administration drew up a $1 trillion stimulus and rescue proposal. The desperate state of industry was writ large in Detroit, where the big three automakers - Ford Motor Co (F.N), General Motors Co (GM.N) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) (FCAU.N) - confirmed they would be shutting U.S. plants, as well as factories in Canada and Mexico.

Over the past few days, social media has lit up with reports, picked up by some media outlets, that taking drugs like ibuprofen to ease COVID-19 symptoms could actually worsen the progress of the illness. But most infectious disease experts say there's no good scientific evidence at this point to support that claim.

Editor's note (19 March 2020): Since the publication of this article, the World Health Organization has updated its advice on the official Twitter account: "Based on currently available information, WHO does not recommend against the use of ibuprofen."

Perhaps the biggest challenge for kids will be staying active, while at the same time staying socially distant, says pediatrician Dr. David Hill. He says families should get outside, but avoid playgrounds where kids come into close contact with one another. "Definitely take a walk. Definitely go to the park. Definitely ride bikes," says Hill, "But if a crowd starts to form — as unsocial as it seems — back away a little bit. Find your own space."