With businesses closing their doors and governments urging, and in some cases ordering, weary citizens to hole up at home, the world was swallowing the bitter pill prescribed to fight the coronavirus. President Trump has asked all Americans to limit contact with others for 15 days, and he’s admitted the unprecedented measures being taken around the country could sink the U.S. into a recession.
WATCH LIVE at 11:00 a.m. Eastern: Members of the Coronavirus Task Force give updates from the White House – Watch in the player above.
The growing acceptance by Mr. Trump and other world leaders of the grave threat posed by the COVID-19 disease might help Wall Street rebound from one of its worst days in history, but it remained unclear Tuesday whether the dramatic impositions on society, and government promises to ease the pain, would be enough to dodge dire worst-case scenarios.
Millions of lives and businesses have been derailed. Half a billion children around the world are out of school. Doctors in some of the richest, most developed nations on the planet, including the U.S., warn health systems are ill-prepared to deal with an expected onslaught of patients.
COVID-19 has killed at least 91 of the more than 4,580 people diagnosed with the disease in the U.S. Globally, the death toll was just over 7,100 on Tuesday, with the most aggressive outbreaks still spreading in Europe and Iran.
There has been encouraging evidence from China, South Korea, and now even hard-hit Italy that the strict control measures do work. The White House has made it clear that the request for a 15-day mass-hiatus from public life could be extended, and America’s battle with the coronavirus could drag on until August.
Visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website for detailed information on coronavirus treatment and prevention.
