Global coronavirus cases: infections outpace China cases

coronavirus infections China cases  

first it was Wuhan then Italy in Spain now the decisions to lock down cities has reached the United States with New York and Los Angeles shutting down bars and restaurants and some schools now follows a surprise announcement' 

 The US Federal Reserve on Monday that it was cutting interest rates and injecting billions of dollars to encourage spending despite this Asian markets have closed down and there have been sharp force to in the European market since opening the French government has warned the situation there is deteriorating very fast it is considering with us and now follow Italy and Spain into lockdown.

 We do have some good news though in Seattle the first human trial for a potential coronavirus vaccine is starting later so let's go live to Dulles Airport near Washington DC Gary O'Donoghue was there for us Hugh Schofield joins us from Paris Gary if I can start with you tell us a bit more about the measures that are in place where you are but also in.

New York and Los Angeles yes we're starting to see substantial major shutdowns of the public school system here that's the state-run school something like 2/3 32 million children are now being told to stay at home for at least a couple of weeks and possibly longer so that's going to be a huge have a huge impact into a course on them and their their parents.

Six states have now banned bars and clubs and restaurants from opening other than for delivery purposes other states like like what like here in the District of Columbia where Washington is banned made made certain restrictions on what you can do in those places we're going to hear later on today whether there's going to be any further sort of social distancing or quarantine type restrictions.

The president can take those powers to himself at the moment the Center for Disease Control is recommending that there should be no gatherings of no more than 50 people at any one time that's a recommendation it can't make rules in that sense in terms of the numbers Lucy just finally. 

We have more than 3,500 cases here in the United States now sixty-five people have lost their lives and the virus has reached 49 out of the 50 states and hugely you in Paris what measures are being taken in France well as we've been reporting today's the day in which the raft of measures comes into effect which include the closure of schools nurseries and universities but also it's the first day working day in which the closure of shops non-essential shops the cafes restaurants and so on has hit hit so today is the first time in Paris that we've really feeling that life is changing and changing really drastically. 

but the question is that enough because 

What we've seen in the last few days isn't is a sudden acceleration of measures announced one after the other and there's a certainly a feeling that we're detecting here in government circles that things may still not be enough morn may need to be done there was a lot of irritation we're told over

 The weekend when government ministers saw pictures of Parisians out idling together in parks along that along the river send in groups as if nothing had had changed and at the same time have come a very very severe angry warnings from doctors saying you still don't get it out there we've got to change the way we live and that may be why tonight president macron has arranged another televised announcement and all sorts of rumors going around now about 

What that might contain with top of the list of those rumors the notion that he may and that's a much tougher form of confinement a la Spain or Italy so Gary while we're talking about presidential announcements there have been lots of conflicting messages in the US around the coronavirus from the president as well how would you judge the levels of trust in what the government scientists and experts are saying in the US the moment I think people are listening I think they're listening pretty carefully but as Hugh was saying.

I think the authorities are trying to work out you know when and how to deploy these different kinds of restrictions because the risk of course is that if you do if you do too many small things people won't do the big things and I think that's one of their fears so I think they're hesitating for example around the issue of domestic travel whether or not to ban that outright or to restrict it to the only the most small the smallest number of cases they're looking clearly at issues of greater amounts of working from home. 

How much will they impose that will have to see potentially later on today and meanwhile Congress is trying to put some legislation through to give some help to people who will be losing their jobs or maybe off sick because you have to bear in mind in this country there's no statutory sick pay you don't get paid if you're sick in this country buy-rite many companies do do it but you don't get it by right and Congress is trying to rectify that at least for some workers not for all Hugh has been heartbreaking to look at the pictures.

 The situation initially with the health system on its knees and under so much pressure how well-equipped is the French medical system to cope with what's to come well it's well-equipped and it's a good system you know it's a generously funded system and everyone is pretty proud.