China has reported no new locally transmitted coronavirus cases for the first time since the pandemic began, marking a major turning point in the global battle to contain Covid-19.
POTUS45 on Wednesday signed into law a coronavirus relief package that includes provisions for free testing for Covid-19 and paid emergency leave.
The Senate had earlier Wednesday approved the House-passed bill. The move allowed the upper chamber to devote its full attention to passing the next relief package in response to the coronavirus crisis.
Washington POTUS45 said Friday he was declaring a national emergency -- "two very big words" -- to free up $50 billion in federal resources to
President Donald Trump set out to steady a rattled nation and a diving economy in a solemn Oval Office address, but instead sowed more confusion and doubts that he is up to handling the fast-worsening coronavirus crisis.
The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.
There are 118,000 cases, more than 4,000 deaths, the agency said, and the virus has found a foothold on every continent except for Antarctica.
"We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. And we have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled at the same time," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.
Italy has imposed the most draconian lockdown outside mainland China as it attempts to control Europe's biggest outbreak of the novel coronavirus, restricting the movements of more than 10 million people in the northern part of the country.
Iran will temporarily release 54,000 people from prisons and deploy hundreds of thousands of health workers as officials announced a slew of measures to contain the world's deadliest coronavirus outbreak outside China.
New York - The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates by half a percentage point on Tuesday, a bold attempt to give the US economy a jolt in the face of concerns about the coronavirus outbreak.
It was the first unscheduled, emergency rate cut since 2008, and it also marks the biggest one-time cut since then. The new benchmark interest rate is a range of between 1% and 1.25%.
The U.S. reported on Saturday its first death from the coronavirus in King County in Washington state.
Jamie Nixon, a public information officer with the Washington State Department of Health, said that a patient in the state has died from the infection. The patient was a man in his 50s with underlying health conditions, who was tested at the Washington State Public Health Lab, according to U.S. health officials.
POTUS45 on Wednesday placed Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the US government response to the novel coronavirus, amid growing criticism of the White House's handling of the outbreak.
