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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 2020
California, New York give stay at home order
Other states will
also consider action
By TIM SULLIVAN and
NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press
California, New York and
Illinois on Friday ordered
all residents to stay in their
homes unless they have vital
reasons to go out, restrict-
ing the movement of more
than 70 million Americans in
the most sweeping measures
taken yet in the U.S. to con-
tain the coronavirus.
The governors of the three
states acted in a bid to fend
off the kind of onslaught that
has caused the health system
in southern Europe to buckle.
The lockdowns encompass
the three biggest cities in
America — New York, Los
Angeles and Chicago — as
well as No. 8 San Diego and
No. 14 San Francisco.
“No, this is not life as
usual,” New York Gov.
Andrew Cuomo said as the
death toll in the U.S. topped
200, with at least 35 in his
state. “Accept it and realize it
and deal with it.”
Cuomo said that starting
Sunday, all workers in non-
essential businesses must stay
home as much as possible,
and all gatherings of any size
will be banned in the state of
over 19 million people. Cal-
ifornia likewise all but con-
fi ned its 40 million residents
Friday in the biggest lock-
down in the nation.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker
announced a similar order set
to take effect on Saturday for
the state’s 12.6 million people.
Exceptions were made for
essential jobs and errands,
such as grocery shopping and
obtaining medicine, as well as
for exercise.
The lockdowns sent
another shudder through the
markets, where many fear a
recession is a near certainty.
Stocks tumbled on Wall
Street, closing out their worst
week since the fi nancial cri-
sis of 2008. The Dow Jones
John Minchillo/AP Photo
A bicycle delivery worker wears a protective face mask as he rides through a sparsely populated
Times Square in New York on Friday.
Industrial Average fell more
than 900 points, ending the
week with a 17% loss.
The increasingly drastic
measures in the U.S. came
as gasping patients fi lled the
wards of hospitals in Spain
and Italy, and the global death
toll surpassed 11,000, with the
virus gaining footholds in new
corners of the world.
Italy, the hardest-hit coun-
try in Europe, reported 627
new deaths Friday, its big-
gest day-to-day rise since the
outbreak began, and said new
cases also shot up. Italy now
has seen over 4,000 deaths —
more even than China — and
47,000 infections. The soar-
ing numbers came despite a
nationwide lockdown.
The World Health Orga-
nization noted the epidem-
ic’s dramatic speed, point-
ing out that it took more than
three months to reach the fi rst
100,000 confi rmed cases but
only 12 days to reach the next
100,000. As of Friday, Johns
Hopkins University counted
more than 260,000 infections
worldwide.
Across the U.S., gover-
nors and public health offi -
cials watched the crisis in
Europe with mounting alarm
and warned of critical short-
ages of ventilators, masks and
other protective gear at home.
As promised earlier in
the week, President Don-
ald Trump offi cially invoked
emergency wartime authority
to try to speed production of
such equipment.
But while the government
has vowed to fi x the botched
roll-out of widespread virus
testing, laboratories reported
serious shortages of test sup-
plies such as swabs and chem-
ical components.
There are “acute, serious
shortages across the board”
for supplies needed to do the
tests, said Eric Blank, of the
Association of Public Health
Laboratories, which rep-
resents state and local health
labs.
Late Friday, Blank’s
group and two other public
health organizations recom-
mended that testing be scaled
back due to “real, immedi-
ate, wide-scale shortages.”
The groups said only patients
with COVID-19 symptoms
who are elderly, have high-
risk medical conditions or are
medical staff should be tested.
Countries frantically pre-
pared for a deluge of patients
in the coming weeks.
In Britain, the govern-
ment asked 65,000 retired
nurses and doctors to return
to work. A convention cen-
ter and hotels in Madrid were
being turned into fi eld hospi-
tals for nearly 10,000 patients.
France’s military worked to
build a makeshift medical
center in the hard-hit town
of Mulhouse. The U.S. read-
ied military hospitals for civil-
ian use, and more than 4,000
National Guard members
were deployed in 31 states
to help distribute food, scrub
down surfaces and help in
other ways.
Trump also announced the
closing of the Mexican border
to most travel but not trade.
That brings it in line with the
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GET A PERMIT – Permits are required for all new
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obtaining all necessary permits.
In Britain, the category of
vital workers includes doc-
tors, nurses and paramedics
— and also vicars, truckers,
garbage collectors and jour-
nalists. In New York, people
venturing outside will have to
stay at least 6 feet apart. And
while they will be free to go
out to get some exercise to
keep their sanity, there will be
no “playing basketball with
fi ve other people,” Cuomo
said.
“These provisions will be
enforced,” the governor said.
“These are not helpful hints.”
The Federal Reserve
moved Friday to pump huge
amounts of cash into the
fi nancial system to ease dis-
ruptions that have escalated
since the viral outbreak.
The New York Federal
Reserve Bank said it will offer
$1 trillion of overnight loans
a day through the end of this
month to large banks. That
is in addition to $1 trillion
in 14-day loans it is offering
every week.
The Trump administration
announced Friday that states
can cancel federally required
school testing this year to pro-
tect students and teachers, a
measure that some states had
requested as they shut down
schools over the coronavirus
pandemic.
Trump also announced that
federal student loan holders
can get their payments paused
for 60 days if they submit a
request with their loan ser-
vicing company. It adds to
Trump’s earlier promise to
suspend loan interest during
that period, which is being
done automatically.
restrictions on the Canadian
border earlier this week. The
income tax fi ling deadline
was also moved from April 15
to July 15.
“We’re about to enter into
a new way of living here in
Los Angeles,” Mayor Eric
Garcetti said as California
went into lockdown. “What
we do and how we do it and
if we get this right will deter-
mine how long this crisis
lasts.”
The streets of America’s
cities were quieter than nor-
mal Friday — even in many
of those communities not
under lockdown — but not
empty.
In New York, Edjo
Wheeler said he knew two
people very sick with fl u-like
symptoms, which can indicate
the coronavirus.
“That makes me walk
around with my hands in
my pocket to make sure I’m
not touching things,’ said
Wheeler, 49, who runs a non-
profi t art center. He added: “If
everyone doesn’t cooperate
it’s not going to be effective.”
The virus has struck at
the very identities of many
countries: closing down
cafes, restaurants and bou-
levard life in France, ending
la dolce vita in Italy, shutting
down England’s pubs and the
ceremonial changing of the
guard at Buckingham Pal-
ace, wrecking sales of tulips
in Holland and shuttering the
Statue of Liberty in the U.S.
Governments are trying
to balance locking down res-
idents with the need to keep
food, medicine and other
essentials fl owing.
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