In a brief Oval Office address, President Trump laid out\u00a0his plan\u00a0to respond to the COVID19 crisis that’s rapidly spreading fear across the global economy.<\/p>\n
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President Trump announced his decisions to stem the spread of the coronavirus across the world.<\/p>\n
Despite that\u00a0The White House had to correct some of Trump’s statements following his address, he started saying that the United Stated will be suspending most travel from Europe for 30 days. The restrictions do not apply to Britain. He also\u00a0imposed a 30-day ban on foreigners who have been in the 26 countries that make up the European Union\u2019s Schengen Area in the previous two weeks. The limits take effect Friday at midnight and will exempt American citizens and permanent legal residents and their families, although they could be funneled to certain airports for enhanced screening.<\/p>\n
The State Department also issued an advisory<\/a>\u00a0telling Americans to \u201creconsider travel\u201d to all countries because of the global effects of the coronavirus. It is the department\u2019s second-strongest advisory, behind \u201cdo not travel.\u201d<\/p>\n Donald Trump also said that the IRS will be instructed to push back the April 15 tax payment deadline. He\u00a0called for low interest loans for small businesses and a payroll tax cut from Congress.\u00a0The president added that he planned to soon announce emergency action to provide financial relief for workers who fall ill or need to be quarantined. He stated\u00a0that health insurance companies had agreed to extend insurance coverage to cover coronavirus treatments as well as waive related co-payments.<\/p>\n According to The New York Times<\/a>, the president, sitting behind the Resolute Desk with his arms crossed, finally appeared to be acknowledging the severity of the virus, calling it a \u201chorrible infection\u201d and acknowledging that Americans should cut back on travel that was not necessary.\u00a0It signaled a break from the business-as-usual attitude he had been trying to project as recently as Tuesday, when he urged Americans to \u201cstay calm\u201d and said the virus would soon go away.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a financial crisis,\u201d President Trump said. \u201cThis is just a temporary moment in time that we will overcome as a nation and a world.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,\u00a0issued a disturbing warning during a White House briefing Tuesday<\/a>\u00a0saying Aericans everywhere need to change the way they live their lives, because “When the infections will come — and they will come, sorry to say, sad to say — we want to be where the infection is going to be, as well as where it is.” Up until March 12th, there are\u00a0more than 1,000 cases of the novel coronavirus\u00a0in the United States, according to the state and local health agencies, governments and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and CNN reporting<\/a>.<\/p>\n On markets<\/strong><\/p>\n The\u00a0stock market\u00a0has been on red numbers for the past few weeks amid growing worries of the coronavirus outbreak, and now that President Trump has announced his travel ban<\/a> and\u00a0governments are announcing differing responses to the ongoing outbreak, the stocks have plunged once more.<\/p>\n A shock move by President Donald Trump Wednesday to halt travel from Europe shook investors already panicked about the prospects of a global recession on the back of the pandemic. U.S. stock indexes resumed trading on Thursday after being halted for 15 minutes, as the S&P 500 benchmark plummeted 7% and triggered an automatic cutout shortly after the opening bell.\u00a0All three main indexes have now fallen over 24% from their intraday record highs hit in February.<\/p>\n CNBC reports<\/a> that large companies and retailers like Apple and Nike have made headlines during the coronavirus outbreak, as investors anxiously await news on whether the virus will impact the companies\u2019 abilities to make sales. Just on March 12th, The New York Stock Exchange was temporarily suspended after recording a 7% drop on opening. The Dow Jones, an index of 30 of the largest companies in the United Staes, dropped more than 1,600 points, or 7%, and the S&P 500 fell a similar amount. Trading resumed after 15 minutes, The Scotsman adds<\/a>.<\/p>\n Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve staff economist who\u2019s now with the Washington Center on Equitable Growth, spoke to Vox and said<\/a>:<\/p>\n “The economy is reacting to the coronavirus. As of [Wednesday, March 11th] morning, stock prices were down almost 20 percent. And this is just from three weeks ago. This is a very rapid contraction and we\u2019re flirting with what\u2019s called a bear market. That\u2019s where you hit the 20 percent mark. This is a very swift descent and a sign that we\u2019re in a frightening economic situation.”<\/p>\n I want to add one thing about stock prices, because we\u2019ve seen them jump up and down and the markets are gyrating at this point. The markets are telling us a few things. The most important thing is that they don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on, and these are professionalswho are supposed to know what\u2019s going on. But this makes sense since there\u2019s a lot of uncertainty about how the crisis will unfold (…) events are moving quickly and anybody that tells you that they know what the hell is going on is lying.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n On customer habits<\/strong><\/p>\n As uncertainty over coronavirus continues to grow, consumers are becoming more cautious about shopping in public places and are utilizing online shopping as a means of getting necessities, per\u00a0Rimma Kats from eMarketer<\/a>.<\/p>\n On sports\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The N.B.A. will suspend its season<\/a>\u00a0after a Utah Jazz player was found to have tested positive for the coronavirus.\u00a0In a statement, the league said it\u00a0“will use this hiatus to determine next steps for moving forward in regard to the coronavirus pandemic.”\u00a0The NBA has billions in revenue at stake through TV deals, ticket sales, merchandise, and more. No one is quite sure what’s going to happen next, including commissioner Adam Silver.\u00a0The NCAA men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball tournaments will be played\u00a0without public fans<\/a>\u00a0this year out of coronavirus concerns.<\/p>\n In the football pitch, as Italy is the nation most-affected by the killer bug, with the\u00a0entire country now on complete lockdown<\/a>, the Serie A could be suspended entirely – with no winner in the hotly-contested race for the title. In Spain, Real Madrid\u00a0confirmed in a statement<\/a>\u00a0that one of its basketball players had tested positive for the coronavirus, and as the\u00a0basketball team shares a training facility with its soccer team, the club has decided to suspend sporting operations. Per the New York Times, the European soccer\u2019s governing body said it would meet next week to determine the fate of this summer\u2019s European championship, a sprawling tournament in which 24 teams would visit 12 countries. The Champions League, the richest, grandest tournament in club soccer, faces an uncertain future after Real Madrid became the latest of Europe\u2019s elite teams to go into quarantine. More than a dozen competitions in Europe and the Americas have already said they will temporarily suspend play.<\/p>\n For baseball, the Major League Baseball (MLB) is\u00a0expected to suspend operations<\/a><\/span>\u00a0following a conference call about how to respond to the ongoing novel coronavirus outbreak,\u00a0according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, despite all of this, the largest disruption the coronavirus could have on a public event could still be to come, because The Independent reports<\/a> that\u00a0Seiko Hashimoto, Japanese Olympics minister, has admitted that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics may have to be postponed.\u00a0“The contract calls for the games to be held within 2020. That could be interpreted as allowing a postponement,” said Ms Hashimoto in response to a question in parliament.<\/p>\n On cultural and public events<\/strong><\/p>\n Colleges and universities across the United States and the world are\u00a0deploying measures\u00a0to limit the spread of coronavirus. Harvard, for instance, has asked its students not to return to campus after vacations.<\/p>\n Coronavirus fears have affected major events like SXSW, BTS\u2019s \u201cMap of the Soul Tour\u201d, Mariah Carey\u2019s Hawaii concert,\u00a0Khalid\u2019s Free Spirit World Tour,\u00a0Stormzy\u2019s \u201cHeavy Is the Head World Tour\u201d, Green Day and Avril Lavigne concerts, as well as Pearl Jam, Ciara, Madonna, KISS, Louis Tomlinson, Zac Brown and\u00a0The Metropolitan Opera in New York.<\/p>\n Austin Mayor Steve Adler officially canceled SXSW on March 6<\/a>, while\u00a0The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers canceled its annual conference in Los Angeles. Organizers pulled the plug on the year\u2019s biggest trade show for video games (E3) on March 11. The\u00a0Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo\u00a0was\u00a0cut short\u00a0due to coronavirus concerns as there are more than a dozen confirmed cases in the Houston area as of March 11.\u00a0RuPaul\u2019s DragCon LA\u00a0has\u00a0officially been canceled this year<\/a>.\u00a0Facebook also decided to cancel its annual\u00a0F8 developers conference<\/a>\u00a0in San Jose, California, scheduled for May 5-6.<\/p>\nThe COVID19 effects<\/h1>\n