Cases – Deaths – Countries – Death Rate – Incubation – Age – Symptoms – Opinions – News
Coronavirus Cases:
169,515
view by country
Deaths:
6,515
Recovered:
77,753
ACTIVE CASES
85,247
Currently Infected Patients
79,326 (93%)
in Mild Condition

5,921 (7%)
Serious or Critical

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CLOSED CASES
84,268
Cases which had an outcome:
77,753 (92%)
Recovered / Discharged

6,515 (8%)
Deaths

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Total Cases
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Total Coronavirus Deaths
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The charts above are updated after the close of the day in GMT+0. Latest data is provisional, pending delayed reporting and adjustments from China’s NHC.
Useful info:

Symptoms
Incubation Period
Mortality Rate
Age, Sex, and existing conditions of Deaths
COVID-19 Testing Numbers by Country
Confirmed Cases and Deaths by Country, Territory, or Conveyance
The coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting 157 countries and territories around the world and 1 international conveyance (the Diamond Princess cruise ship harbored in Yokohama, Japan). The day is reset after midnight GMT+0. The "New" columns for China display the previous day changes (as China reports after the day is over). For all other countries, the "New" columns display the changes for the current day while still in progress.

Do you think that Italy’s numbers are wrong? Read here

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Country,
Other Total
Cases New
Cases Total
Deaths New
Deaths Total
Recovered Active
Cases Serious,
Critical Tot Cases/
1M pop
China 80,859 +15 3,213 +14 67,752 9,894 3,226 56.2
Italy 24,747 +3,590 1,809 +368 2,335 20,603 1,672 409.3
Iran 13,938 +1,209 724 +113 4,590 8,624 165.9
S. Korea 8,236 +150 75 +3 1,137 7,024 59 160.6
Spain 7,845 +1,454 292 +96 517 7,036 272 167.8
Germany 5,813 +1,214 11 +2 46 5,756 2 69.4
France 5,423 +924 127 +36 12 5,284 400 83.1
USA 3,737 +794 68 +11 73 3,596 10 11.3
Switzerland 2,217 +842 14 +1 4 2,199 256.2
UK 1,391 +251 35 +14 20 1,336 20 20.5
Norway 1,256 +147 3 1 1,252 27 231.7
Netherlands 1,135 +176 20 +8 2 1,113 45 66.2
Sweden 1,040 +79 3 +1 1 1,036 2 103.0
Belgium 886 +197 4 1 881 33 76.4
Denmark 864 +28 2 +1 1 861 2 149.2
Austria 860 +205 1 6 853 1 95.5
Japan 839 +35 24 +2 144 671 36 6.6
Diamond Princess 696 7 456 233 15
Malaysia 428 +190 42 386 9 13.2
Qatar 401 +64 4 397 139.2
Canada 341 +89 1 11 329 1 9.0
Greece 331 +103 4 +1 8 319 5 31.8
Australia 300 +52 5 +2 27 268 1 11.8
Czechia 293 +104 293 2 27.4
Portugal 245 +76 2 243 9 24.0
Finland 244 +19 10 234 44.0
Singapore 226 +14 105 121 11 38.6
Slovenia 219 +38 1 218 3 105.3
Bahrain 214 +2 77 137 2 125.8
Israel 213 +20 4 209 2 24.6
Brazil 200 +49 1 199 2 0.9
Iceland 180 +19 180 1
Estonia 171 +56 1 170 128.9
Ireland 170 +41 2 1 167 6 34.4
Hong Kong 149 +7 4 81 64 4 19.9
Philippines 140 +29 12 +4 2 126 1 1.3
Romania 139 +16 9 130 1 7.2
Egypt 126 +16 2 27 97 1.2
Poland 125 +21 3 13 109 3 3.3
Iraq 124 +14 10 26 88 3.1
Saudi Arabia 118 +15 2 116 3.4
Indonesia 117 +21 5 8 104 0.4
Thailand 114 +32 1 35 78 1 1.6
India 112 +12 2 13 97 0.1
Kuwait 112 +8 9 103 4 26.2
San Marino 109 +8 7 +2 4 98 11
Lebanon 99 +6 3 1 95 3 14.5
UAE 98 +13 20 78 2 9.9
Luxembourg 77 +26 1 76
Chile 75 +14 75 3.9
Peru 71 +28 71 2.2
Russia 63 +4 8 55 0.4
Slovakia 61 +17 61 11.2
South Africa 61 +23 61 1.0
Taiwan 59 +6 1 20 38 2.5
Vietnam 56 +3 16 40 0.6
Pakistan 53 +20 2 51 0.2
Bulgaria 51 +10 2 49 7.3
Brunei 50 +10 50
Croatia 49 +10 2 47 11.9
Algeria 48 +9 4 +1 10 34 1.1
Serbia 48 +2 1 47 1 5.5
Argentina 46 +1 2 44 1 1.0
Panama 43 1 42 10.0
Mexico 43 +17 4 39 1 0.3
Albania 42 +4 1 41 2 14.6
Palestine 38 38 7.4
Ecuador 37 +9 2 35 1 2.1
Costa Rica 35 +8 35 3 6.9
Colombia 34 +10 34 0.7
Georgia 33 +3 1 32 1 8.3
Cyprus 33 +7 33 1 27.3
Hungary 32 +2 1 +1 1 30 3.3
Latvia 30 +4 1 29 15.9
Morocco 28 +10 1 1 26 1 0.8
Belarus 27 3 24 2.9
Armenia 26 +6 26 8.8
Senegal 24 2 22 1.4
Bosnia and Herzegovina 24 +3 24 7.3
Azerbaijan 23 +4 1 6 16 2.3
Moldova 23 +11 23 5.7
Oman 22 +2 9 13 4.3
Malta 21 +3 2 19
Tunisia 20 +2 20 2 1.7
North Macedonia 19 1 18 9.1
Sri Lanka 18 +8 1 17 0.8
Turkey 18 +12 18 0.2
Venezuela 17 +15 17 0.6
Afghanistan 16 +5 1 15 0.4
Lithuania 14 +5 1 13 5.1
Maldives 13 +3 13
Cambodia 12 +5 1 11 0.7
Macao 11 +1 10 1
Dominican Republic 11 11 1.0
Faeroe Islands 11 +1 11
Jordan 10 +9 1 9 1.0
Bolivia 10 10 0.9
Jamaica 10 +2 2 8 3.4
Martinique 10 10
Kazakhstan 9 +3 9 0.5
New Zealand 8 8 1.7
French Guiana 7 7
Liechtenstein 7 +3 7
Paraguay 7 7 1 1.0
Réunion 7 +1 7
Ghana 6 +4 6 0.2
Uruguay 6 6 1.7
Andorra 5 +4 5
Bangladesh 5 2 3
Puerto Rico 5 +1 5 1.7
Rwanda 5 +4 5 0.4
Guyana 4 +3 1 3
Cameroon 4 +1 4 0.2
Ivory Coast 4 +2 4 0.2
Cuba 4 4 0.4
Ethiopia 4 +3 4
Uzbekistan 4 +4 4 0.1
Ukraine 3 1 2 0.1
Burkina Faso 3 +1 3 0.1
Channel Islands 3 3
French Polynesia 3 3
Guadeloupe 3 3
Guam 3 +3 3
Honduras 3 3 0.3
Kenya 3 +2 3 0.1
Seychelles 3 +1 3
Monaco 2 2
Nigeria 2 1 1
Aruba 2 2
Curaçao 2 2
DRC 2 2
Namibia 2 2 0.8
Saint Lucia 2 +1 2
Saint Martin 2 2
Trinidad and Tobago 2 2 1.4
Guatemala 1 1 +1 0 0.1
Sudan 1 1 0
Nepal 1 1 0
Antigua and Barbuda 1 1
Bahamas 1 +1 1
Bhutan 1 1
Cayman Islands 1 1
CAR 1 +1 1 0.2
Congo 1 +1 1 0.2
Equatorial Guinea 1 1 0.7
Gabon 1 1 0.4
Gibraltar 1 1 0
Guinea 1 1 0.1
Vatican City 1 1
Mauritania 1 1 0.2
Mayotte 1 1
Mongolia 1 1 0.3
St. Barth 1 1
St. Vincent Grenadines 1 1
Suriname 1 1
Eswatini 1 1 0.9
Togo 1 1 0.1
U.S. Virgin Islands 1 1
Total: 169,515 12,862 6,515 682 77,753 85,247 5,921 21.7
Highlighted in green= all cases have recovered from the infection
Highlighted in grey= all cases have had an outcome (there are no active cases)
The "New" columns for China display the previous day changes (as China reports after the day is over). For all other countries, the "New" columns display the changes for the current day while still in progress.
ITALY: Italian media are reporting the change in active cases (a lower number) rather than the change in total cases (a higher number), representing it as "newly infected" when, in fact, it represents the "change in active cases." Newly infected, meaning the number of people who have tested positive to the virus in the last day, is the number shown on the table above, which corresponds to the change in total cases in accordance with the international standards set by the WHO and followed by all countries. The change in active cases (what Italian media label as "newly infected") is the result of the following formula: (newly infected) – (new deaths) – (new recoveries). All data, including total cases ("casi totali") is available on Italy’s Dipartimento della Protezione Civile official repository
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Latest Updates
March 15 (GMT)
UK: “As many as 80% of the population are expected to be infected with Covid-19 in the next 12 months, and up to 15% (7.9 million people) may require hospitalization” a secret Public Health England (PHE) briefing for senior NHS officials, seen by the Guardian, reveals

– “A year is entirely plausible. But that figure isn’t well appreciated or understood […] I think it will dip in the summer, towards the end of June, and come back in November, in the way that usual seasonal flu does. I think it will be around forever, but become less severe over time, as immunity builds up,” commented Paul Hunter, an expert in epidemiology
696 new cases in the United States
– All New York City schools will shut down immediately and stay closed for at least 1 month All hospitals will be required to cancel elective surgeries

– Illinois: all bars and restaurants to close to dine-in customers through March 30

– Ohio: all bars and restaurants will close Sunday at 9 p.m. indefinitely ‘This is a once in a lifetime pandemic’ said Gov. Mike DeWine

New deaths include:

– at least 3 new deaths in New York: a 79-year-old woman, a 78-year-old man, and a 53-year-old woman with diabetes and heart disease

– 2 new deaths in King County (WA)

– Death of a female in her 50s in New Jersey

– First death in Oregon: a 70-year-old man in Portland who had tested positive just four days ago and reportedly had other health problems.

New cases include:

– First case in Howard County (MD). County Executive Calvin Ball has declared a state of emergency and announced that The Mall in Columbia and other commercial gathering places will be closed for at least a week

– 32 new cases in King County (WA)

– 2 new cases in Schenectady County (NY), which declares State of Emergency

– First 2 cases in Putnam (NY)

– FIrst case in San Bernardino County (CA): a woman who recently returned from London

– 6 new cases in Suffolk Country (New York)

– 9 new cases in North Carolina, just one day after adding 8. Total now reaches 32

– 4 new cases in Indiana, including the first in Hamilton County. Marion County’s case total has doubled since Saturday from 3 to 6

– 39 new cases and 1 new death in Florida: a 77-year-old from Lee County is the fourth Florida resident to die after testing positive for coronavirus

– 2 new cases in Hawaii (on Maui and Oahu). Details have emerged regarding the latest 2 cases in Kauai: a couple who had traveled from Indiana arriving in Maui on March 2. Shortly after their arrival, one of the visitors developed a fever, shortness of breath and cough and went to an urgent care facility. On March 7, the second visitor also developed symptoms and went to urgent care. A day later, both of the visitors flew to Kauai, staying at the Kauai Marriott, and on March 9, one of the visitors visited again an urgent care facility. Finally, on March 12, the two informed health care workers that they had close contact with an individual who had tested positive for coronavirus. 2 health care workers in Maui and 1 in Kauai are now in self-isolation because they were not wearing protective equipment

– 9 new cases in Utah (Salt Lake County) First case of community spread identified

– 8 new cases in Michigan

– First case in San Luis Obispo County (California): a person over the age of 65 with underlying health conditions who exhibited a fever, cough, and shortness of breath

– 1 new case in Missouri: a person in their 20s who had traveled to Austria

– 2 emergency room doctors (in NJ and WA) are in critical condition after treating patients with COVID-19, according to reports

54 new cases in Canada including:
– 17 new cases in Alberta (3 in Edmonton and 14 in Calgary, with 2 believed to be community spread cases), bringing the total to 56. Alberta is closing all kindergarten-to-Grade-12 schools and daycares in the province

– First case in Kelowna (BC): a passenger on a flight from Vancouver to Kelowna

– 4 in New Brunswick

– 3 in Nova Scotia, all travel-related

– 39 in Ontario marking the biggest single-day increase: 14 in Toronto, 5 in Peel, 5 in Ottawa, 3 in Hamilton, 3 in York Region, 2 in Waterloo, 2 in Durham, 2 in Simcoe-Muskoka, 1 in Niagara, 1 in Haliburton-Kawartha-Pineridge and 1 "pending."

– 3 in Manitoba, a man in his 70s, a woman in her 70s who had recently traveled and a woman in her 50s

– 11 in Québec

1159 new cases in Spain
47 new cases in the Philippines. Today’s deaths:
– a 56-year-old Filipino male who died Sunday night of acute respiratory distress syndrome and reportedly had preexisting asthma

– an 86-year-old American male with travel history from the US and South Korea

– a 40-year-old Filipino male who had no history of travel and no history of exposure prior to the onset of symptoms

– a 64-year-old Filipino male with chronic renal disease who had a history of travel to Greenhills

1 new case in Puerto Rico
3 new cases in Lithuania: all traveled abroad
48 new cases in Czechia
11 new cases in Argentina: a 4-year-old boy from Resistencia who contracted the disease from a relative who tested positive after returning from one of the countries at risk
113 new cases in Norway
27 new cases in Iceland
21 new cases in San Marino
1 new case in Turkey: 7 new cases are from Europe, 3 new cases from the USA, and 2 new cases are relatives of the first case
1 new case in Cameroon: a 34-year-old Cameroonian citizen who arrived from Belgium through Paris. Yesterday, the third case confirmed in the country was a Cameroonian citizen from Italy who arrived on March 7 through Paris. Health Ministry urged passengers of the flights related to the cases to urgently call a dedicated number and quarantine for 14 days
1 new case in Rwanda
36 new cases in Poland
5 new cases in Ecuador
17 new cases in Egypt
13 new cases in Luxembourg, restaurants and cafes close
342 new cases in the United Kingdom. "Getting through this is going to be a national effort. Every single person in this country is going to be affected" said UK’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock, adding that soon every Briton over the age of 70 will be asked to remain at home for up to 4 months and have groceries and vital medication delivered. Wartime-like measures will ask carmakers to produce medical equipment and turn hotels into hospitals
12 new cases in Cyprus
4 new cases in Costa Rica. Ministry of Health announces closure of all bars, clubs, and casinos
838 new cases in France
147 new cases in Sweden
17 new cases in Saudi Arabia
18 new cases in India
5 new cases in Peru
39 new cases in Ireland
11 new cases in Mexico
9 new cases in Iraq: all in the Sulaymaniyah province and connected to each other
12 new cases in Slovakia. State of Emergency declared. All retail stores except food, drugstores, pharmacies, newspapers, post offices, banks, gas stations, and pet food stores will be closed for 14 days. Only necessary surgery will be performed in hospitals. Restaurants will only deliver
2 new cases in Seychelles
924 new cases in Germany
14 new cases in South Africa. President Ramaphosa declares a “National State of Disaster”: a ban is imposed on travel from and to Iran, South Korea, United Kingdom, USA, Germany, Italy and China. In addition to schools being closed and gatherings of more than 100 people prohibited:
– all travellers who have entered South Africa from high-risk countries since mid-February will be required to present themselves for testing

– travellers from medium-risk countries (such as Portugal, Hong Kong and Singapore) will be required to undergo high intensity screening

“Never before in the history of our democracy has our country been confronted with such a severe situation” – President Cyril Ramaphosa

2 new cases in Tunisia: 2 idividuals who had returned from France
3497 new cases in Italy
11 new cases in Serbia
36 new cases in Estonia
70 new cases in Japan
17 new cases in Qatar
12 new cases in Armenia
18 new cases in Chile
50 new cases in Israel: the total number of cases in Israel is now 213, including 18 healthcare workers. The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, confirmed that it was examining the use of its technological capabilities to fight coronavirus. Netanyahu described the virus as an “invisible enemy that must be located." "In all my years as prime minister I have avoided using these means among the civilian public but there is no choice,” Netanyahu said.
38 new cases in Greece: a 53-year-old man who had been hospitalized for several days
3 new cases in Bosnia and Herzegovina
4 new cases in Sri Lanka: 7 people who had returned from Italy and a 45-year old man who had been in Germany with a previously confirmed case
10 new cases in China, Hong Kong SAR
2 new cases in Kazakhstan including a woman in her 60s whose husband had been previously confirmed positive, and a man in his 20s that had arrived from Seoul
10 new cases in Bulgaria
6 new cases in Moldova including a child. Three are imported cases and 8 are community transmitted cases
28 new cases in Romania
5 new cases in Georgia
9 new cases in Vietnam: a 33-year-old Latvian tourist, a 35-year-old German and a 30-year-old Englishman
151 new cases in Austria
1 new case in Oman: one who had traveled to Italy
8 new cases in Colombia
1 new case in Réunion
14 new cases in Russia
12 new cases in Singapore
40 new cases in Slovenia
7 new cases in Croatia
5 new cases in Pakistan
11 new cases in Hungary
155 new cases in the Netherlands
1st case in Congo: a person who had returned from France
2 new cases in Bahrain
49 new cases in Australia: a 90-year-old woman in Sydney and a 77-year-old woman from Noosaville who passed away after traveling to Sydney by plane
236 new cases in Switzerland
32 new cases in Denmark: an 81-year-old patient
57 new cases in Portugal
4 new cases in Azerbaijan
3 new cases in Brunei Darussalam: Bruneians are barred from traveling out of the country as a measure to contain the importation of new COVID-19 cases into Brunei.
Permission for traveling is only applicable for urgent matters
11 new cases in Morocco
5 new cases in Albania: 2 of the cases are doctors
1365 new cases in Iran
6 new cases in Malta
13 new cases in Algeria: an 84-year-old woman
16 new cases in Lebanon
41 new cases in Malaysia
130 new cases in Belgium
1 new case in Maldives: a foreign national from Anantara Dhigu, and 2 persons from the Island Safari boat
7 new cases in Faeroe Islands
70 new cases in Finland. Tracking numbers is no longer meaningful, because not all of those who have symptoms can be tested, said Asko Järvinen, chief of HUS Infectious Diseases
1s case in the Central African Republic: a 74-year-old Italian who had recently been in Milan
1 new case in Côte d’Ivoire
First 3 cases in Guam: 2 people who had traveled to Guam from Manila, and 1 person with no recent travel history, in their 60s
9 new cases in Latvia
3 new cases in Taiwan
4 new cases in Kuwait
7 new cases in Thailand
27 new cases in Indonesia
4 new cases in Afghanistan
107 new cases in South Korea
20 new cases, 10 new deaths (all in Hubei) and 1,370 new discharges occurred in China on March 14, as reported by the National Health Commission (NHC) of China
March 14 March 13 March 12 March 11 March 10
View More News
Archived:

February 2020 Coronavirus News Updates
Timeline:

On February 3, two new cases were reported in Germany, one is the children of a family already infected with the virus.
On February 2, doctors in Thailand said they discovered medical treatment that cured a patient of coronavirus ‘in 48 Hours’
On February 2, a death in the Philippines marked the first death occurring outside of China. It was a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan who was admitted to the hospital on Jan. 25 with fever, cough, and sore throat, developed severe pneumonia but in the last few days “was stable and showed signs of improvement; however, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise." reported the Philippine Department of Health.
On February 2, China shut down another major city as it closed roads and restricted the movement of residents in Wenzhou, a city with a population of 9 million that is located 800 km away from Wuhan, in Hubei province. The Zhejiang province, where Wenzhou is located, has the highest number of confirmed cases outside the Hubei province.
On February 1, the 8th case in the United States was reported (a male in his 20s, in Boston, MA).
On January 31, the first 2 novel coronavirus cases in the UK, [18] the first 2 cases in Russia, [20] and the first case in Sweden and in Spain were reported. Canada reported its 4th case.
On Jan. 31, the United States
declared Coronavirus a Public Health Emergency
issued 14 days quarantine rules for US citizens entering the US from China (mandatory if entering from the Hubei province).
issued an order to deny entry to foreigners who have traveled to China within the past two weeks.
On January 30, the novel coronavirus total case count surpassed that for SARS (which affected 8,096 people worldwide).
On January 30, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a Global Public Health Emergency.
On January 30 CDC confirmed the first US case of human to human transmission[17].
Germany, Japan, Vietnam and the United States have reported cases in patients who didn’t personally visit China, but contracted the virus from someone else who had visited Wuhan, China[15]. These cases of human to human transmission are the most worrisome, according to the WHO[16].
Wuhan (the city where the virus originated) is the largest city in Central China, with a population of over 11 million people. The city, on January 23, shut down transport links. Following Wuhan lock down, the city of Huanggang was also placed in quarantine, and the city of Ezhou closed its train stations. This means than 18 million people have been placed in isolation. The World Health Organization (WHO) said cutting off a city as large as Wuhan is "unprecedented in public health history."[12] and praised China for its incredible commitment to isolate the virus and minimize the spread to other countries.
How dangerous is the virus?
There are three parameters to understand in order to assess the magnitude of the risk posed by this novel coronavirus:

Transmission Rate (Ro) – number of newly infected people from a single case
Case Fatality Rate (CFR) – percent of cases that result in death
Determine whether asymptomatic transmission is possible
How contagious is the Wuhan Coronavirus? (Ro)
The attack rate or transmissibility (how rapidly the disease spreads) of a virus is indicated by its reproductive number (Ro, pronounced R-nought or r-zero), which represents the average number of people to which a single infected person will transmit the virus.

WHO’s estimated (on Jan. 23) Ro to be between 1.4 and 2.5. [13]

Other studies have estimated a Ro between 3.6 and 4.0, and between 2.24 to 3.58. [23].

Preliminary studies had estimated Ro to be between 1.5 and 3.5. [5][6][7]

An outbreak with a reproductive number of below 1 will gradually disappear.

For comparison, the Ro for the common flu is 1.3 and for SARS it was 2.0.

Fatality Rate (case fatality ratio or CFR) of the Wuhan Coronavirus
See full details: Wuhan Coronavirus Fatality Rate

The novel coronavirus’ case fatality rate has been estimated at around 2%, in the WHO press conference held on January 29, 2020 [16] . However, it noted that, without knowing how many were infected, it was too early to be able to put a percentage on the mortality rate figure.

A prior estimate [9] had put that number at 3%.

Fatality rate can change as a virus can mutate, according to epidemiologists.

For comparison, the case fatality rate for SARS was 10%, and for MERS 34%.

Incubation Period (how long it takes for symptoms to appear)
See full details: COVID-19 Coronavirus Incubation Period

Symptoms of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) may appear in as few as 2 days or as long as 14 (estimated ranges vary from 2-10 days, 2-14 days, and 10-14 days, see details), during which the virus is contagious but the patient does not display any symptom (asymptomatic transmission).

Age and conditions of Coronavirus cases
See latest findings: Age, Sex, Demographics of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths

According to China’s National Health Commission (NHC), about 80% of those who died were over the age of 60 and 75% of them had pre-existing health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.[24]

According to the WHO Situation Report no. 7 issued on Jan. 27:

The median age of cases detected outside of China is 45 years, ranging from 2 to 74 years.
71% of cases were male.
A study of 138 hospitalized patients with NCIP found that the median age was 56 years (interquartile range, 42-68; range, 22-92 years) and 75 (54.3%) were men.[25]

The WHO, in its Myth busters FAQs, addresses the question: "Does the new coronavirus affect older people, or are younger people also susceptible?" by answering that:

People of all ages can be infected by the new coronavirus (2019-nCoV).
Older people, and people with pre-existing medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease) appear to be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill with the virus.
Patient who died in the Philippines was a 44-year old male
The patient who died in the Philippines on February 2, in what was the first death occurring outside of China, was a 44-year-old Chinese man from Wuhan who was admitted on Jan. 25 after experiencing fever, cough, and sore throat, before developing severe pneumonia. In the last few days, “the patient was stable and showed signs of improvement, however, the condition of the patient deteriorated within his last 24 hours resulting in his demise." according to the Philippine Department of Health.
Serious Cases of 30 year old patients in France
As of Jan. 29, according to French authorities, the conditions of the two earliest Paris cases had worsened and the patients were being treated in intensive care, according to French authorities. The patients have been described as a young couple aged 30 and 31 years old, both Chinese citizens from Wuhan who were asymptomatic when they arrived in Paris on January 18 [19].

Age and Sex of the first deaths as reported by the China National Health Commission (NHC)
The NHC reported the details of the first 17 deaths up to 24 pm on January 22, 2020. The deaths included 13 males and 4 females. The median age of the deaths was 75 (range 48-89) years.[21]

WHO Risk Assessment: Global Emergency
See full details: WHO coronavirus updates

On January 30, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a Global Public Health Emergency.

For more information from the WHO regarding novel coronavirus: WHO page on Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

Comparisons:
Every year an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 people die in the world due to complications from seasonal influenza (flu) viruses. This figure corresponds to 795 to 1,781 deaths per day due to the seasonal flu.
SARS (November 2002 to July 2003): was a coronavirus that originated from Beijing, China, spread to 29 countries, and resulted in 8,096 people infected with 774 deaths (fatality rate of 9.6%). Considering that SARS ended up infecting 5,237 people in mainland China, Wuhan Coronavirus surpassed SARS on January 29, 2020, when Chinese officials confirmed 5,974 cases of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). One day later, on January 30, 2020 the novel coronavirus cases surpassed even the 8,096 cases worldwide which were the final SARS count in 2003.
MERS (in 2012) killed 858 people out of the 2,494 infected (fatality rate of 34.4%).
Novel Coronavirus Worldometer Sections:
Coronavirus Update
Case statistics and graphs
Death statistics and graphs
Mortality Rate
Transmission Rate
Incubation Period
Age, Sex, Existing Condition
Symptoms
Countries with cases: basic list – detailed list

Countries
More info
Novel coronavirus outbreak may reach peak in one week or about 10 days: expert – Xinhua, Jan. 28, 2020
China’s Xi Jinping pledges to overcome ‘devil’ coronavirus – Financial Times, Jan. 28, 2020
Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China – The Lancet, Jan. 24, 2020
The Age, Sex and Symptoms of China’s Coronavirus Victims – Bloomberg, Jan. 23, 2020
Sources
Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) situation reports – World Health Organization (WHO)
2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the U.S. -. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Outbreak Notification – National Health Commission (NHC) of the People’s Republic of China
Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) – Australian Government Department of Health
Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV: early estimation of epidemiological parameters and epidemic prediction – Jonathan M. Read et al, Jan. 23,2020.
Early Transmissibility Assessment of a Novel Coronavirus in Wuhan, China – Maimuna Majumder and Kenneth D. Mandl, Harvard University – Computational Health Informatics Program – Posted: 24 Jan 2020 Last revised: 27 Jan 2020
Report 3: Transmissibility of 2019-nCoV – 25 January 2020 – Imperial College London‌
Case fatality risk of influenza A(H1N1pdm09): a systematic review – Epidemiology. Nov. 24, 2013
A novel coronavirus outbreak of global health concern – Chen Want et al. The Lancet. January 24, 2020
Symptoms of Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) – CDC
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Opinion on Greta Thunberg
The Black Sabbath singer also talks about going vegan.

During an appearance on Good Morning Britain, Ozzy Osbourne and his wife/manager Sharon talked about fame, regrets, going vegan, Greta Thunberg, politics, and more.

Ozzy has a new album out titled "Ordinary Man." You can check out a part of the conversation below (transcribed by UG):

Those who’ve never been fortunate enough to be a rock star, walking out to a stadium with 80,000 people going crazy, what is that like?
Ozzy: "When you go on stage and you’ve got that audience in your hand and you can feel that love and vibe, there are no drugs, there is no sex, there is no drink, nothing can come close to that feeling for me. "

What do you think about Meghan and Harry leaving Britain, leaving the royal family?
Sharon: "I am sad for Harry. I am very, very sad for Harry because for me, I don’t think that as a couple they gave it a really good shot because 18 months of marriage and trying to find your place within the Windsor family and within the public’s eye, 18 months isn’t enough."

Ozzy: "The thing is: if Harry and the lady are in love and they like what they’re doing, and they’re happy, fine, but they don’t have to stay anywhere."

Sharon: "He’s left his country and I feel very sad, I really do."

Ozzy: "What do you do there? He’s not gonna be king, he’s just gonna be Prince Harry."

Sharon: "Yeah, but he did a lot of good, he did a lot of those charities."

Jeremy Corbyn, he wanted to be family…
Sharon: "I loathe Jeremy Corbyn. I think that Jeremy is the devil, and I think his party… I loathe him."

What do you make of Boris Johnson?
Sharon: "He’s an eccentric. I don’t like what he’s trying to do with the press, doing the Trump thing, ‘You can come in, you can’t, you can.’ If he starts that, oh, it’s over."

This country, America, can it take four more years of Trump?
Ozzy: "When he wins – I’m sure he’s gonna win now, I don’t think there’s anybody else to get there."

Sharon: "All I know is that he’s taken politics down to a level that I don’t think it should be at. I think that you should be able to debate on the subject, not take personal shots. He shoots from the hip, and the thing is he has done some good things, but as far as a representative, I would rather have Obama."

Ozzy: "He gets things, he gets everybody moving, whether you agree with him or not. I don’t understand politicians, they all should form one big huge rock band and see how they play."

Sharon: "Oh, he’d try anything, Trump, if there is an audience."

What do you make of Greta Thunberg?
Sharon: "She’s amazing."

Ozzy: "She’s cool, but why do we have to go, ‘Oh, we’re listening now,’ when all the adults for ages have been going…"

Sharon: "I think because what she states is: ‘You’re all gonna die, but it’s affecting my generation,’ and I think the world needed that from somebody of her age because you know that she must have a huge army of people behind her."

Ozzy: "She didn’t sound like it comes from her. It’s too well put together for a young kid."

You dabbled with being a vegan for two weeks…
Ozzy: "No, half a day. [Laughs] ‘Oh, Ozzy’s vegan! Oh, he’s vegan!’ Get over it. I thought I might as well join the club but, ‘Ah, screw this, get me a bacon sandwich.’"

Ozzy, do you have any regrets about your life?
"We all have regrets. I regret not taking care of my parents more than I did… That thing I was with different women and whatever, I really regret that. The guy that I am now, forget the injury, I’m not that guy anymore, and Sharon always said this about me, I’ve always tried to better myself."

When you do finally leave this earth – god forbid, hope it’s a very long time to come – but when that comes, what would you like your epitaph to be?
Ozzy: "’Bats taste like shit’."

Read more: Ozzy Recalls Reaction to Steve Vai Telling Him Black Sabbath’s 1st Album Is Out of Tune: ‘You Know What, Steve?’

Tweet
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62 COMMENTS SORTED BY BEST / NEW / DATE
B I U ” Smiles @ User

Post a comment
AfroFox 150
a day ago · ❤ gold comment
Ozzy makes more sense than Sharon in this interview.
REPLY
66
devilsreject 10
20 hours ago
That’s really saying something about Sharon when Ozzy makes more sense, doesn’t it? Lol
REPLY
11
AfroFox 150
20 hours ago
Iv’e always thought of her as a closet conservative too. The antithesis of rock n roll.
REPLY
10
intwernet [a] 214
a day ago
Bats taste like shit.
REPLY
31
Eissari 1,880
20 hours ago
They do?
REPLY
2
Skullzy [a] 57
a day ago
Once again, like the alien thing, how is it that Ozzy is the most reasonably minded one out there?
REPLY
45
porterm1984 [pro] 30
a day ago
Because he’s so far above tribalism in politics due to his status and he’s too spaced out to fall for all the BS they are shoveling so he sees it for what it all is.
REPLY
22
sheridancaulin [pro] 10
22 hours ago
I never really had a thought about where Ozzy and Sharon must end up on the political spectrum, but I’m honestly not surprised to see a little evidence that they’re pretty middle-of-the-road. Ozzy doesn’t seem to care enough to lean much in either direction and Sharon just seems to have mobility between sides. It’s kind of nice to see considering that every other celebrity is either hard right or hard left.
REPLY
14
MusicVSgenres 10
15 hours ago
I think most sensible people are middle of the road. I would say I hold majority progressive views but am conservative on a couple of things. I do not choose the views which pander to one of the parties, I hold the view which makes sense for me then I see if any party is able to cater to that.
REPLY
6
tanman [a] 120
11 hours ago
I always kind of assumed Ozzy was left leaning because of the lyrics in Under the Sun. And I am only realizing now that I have never bothered to look into who wrote the lyrics…..
REPLY
0
rtlane28 [a] 61
12 hours ago
Sharon is clearly a liberal. Not sure how you can think she’s middle of the road but your assessment of Ozzy is pretty accurate in my opinion.
REPLY
0
sheridancaulin [pro] 10
12 hours ago
I think she sits in the middle mostly because of two comments. There’s not a lot to go by in here, but she seems to pick who she likes based on the person rather than the party. 1.) She said Trump has done some good things, she just preferred Obama. If we want to talk about hard leaning beliefs, most liberals wouldn’t treat the two in such a laissez-faire way. 2.) She loathes Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn is a part of the Labour Party in the UK which is equivalent to the Democratic party in the US. The labor party often even leans into socialist beliefs, a la Bernie Sanders. So it’s a considerably far left liberal party, as well as all of the representatives in it. She didn’t say she quite liked Boris Johnson either, so that is another good clue that she tends to pick her preferred representatives on an individual basis rather than by party.
REPLY
0
King Bluesy 90
a day ago
Ozzy knows
REPLY
18
zack2k 90
22 hours ago
I’m going to put on my Tombstone: "Ozzy’s right, It needs more than Seasoning."
REPLY
10
JamesMc11 [pro] 190
a day ago
Amazing last words
REPLY
4
AndersVonBlack 330
a day ago
of course Sharon is a tory. boot
REPLY
5
creampuffwar2 [pro] 180
5 hours ago
I thought she was an Osborne
REPLY
3
leon_btd1 [pro] 2,730
23 hours ago
Why is Sharon a tory? Loathing Corbyn does not make her a tory.
REPLY
2
AndersVonBlack 330
23 hours ago
what about her suggests she isn’t a Tory? I doubt she’s green
REPLY
5
leon_btd1 [pro] 2,730
23 hours ago
She does not like Johnson either.
REPLY
2
creampuffwar2 [pro] 180
5 hours ago
Johnson is a dick.
REPLY
4
AndersVonBlack 330
22 hours ago
that’s irrelevant – no one likes Boris haha
REPLY
6
th3.k1dd.31 [pro] 100
19 hours ago
Johnson is the best thing to happen to GB in centuries.
REPLY
19
pakobtv 40
14 hours ago
The last person to enter parliament with honest intentions was Guy Fawkes, mate.
REPLY
9
Sikkii 20
12 hours ago
Well said.
REPLY
0
AndersVonBlack 330
19 hours ago
LOL k.
REPLY
4
soundsabbath [pro] 1,215
21 hours ago
Unfortunatly they do dude
REPLY
0
AndersVonBlack 330
20 hours ago
your probably right.. as shite as he is. oh well, lets put on some Sabbath and move on
REPLY
2
soundsabbath [pro] 1,215
19 hours ago

REPLY
1
dsotm89 [pro] 180
16 hours ago
Bacon sandwich, light on the mustard
REPLY
3
th3.k1dd.31 [pro] 100
19 hours ago
Sharon is obviously unhinged. Crazy how Ozzy is the most sane person after all these years. His interviews show he’s still mentally sound.
REPLY
3
leadingbrande1 [pro] 772
14 hours ago
If you’d been married to Ozzy for 37 years, you’d be unhinged too.
REPLY
2
toxicwaltzer 140
22 hours ago
"She didn’t sound like it comes from her. It’s too well put together for a young kid." I don’t expect Ozzy to do everything on his own either. Does that tell anything on his relevance? Every group has a team and a face. Ozzy is the face and he has a team. Both Ozzy and Thunberg started on their own and gathered support. At this level of popularity, no one can do it alone, certainly not Ozzy, certainly not Thunberg. I don’t know what’s wrong about that.
REPLY
3
suicidehummer [a] 236
16 hours ago
It’s also a well-known fact that Greta started this by herself. She was sitting by herself of the streets of her hometown when she started this.
REPLY
2
DanTheHobbit 80
7 hours ago
Furthermore, who’s to say what young folks can and cannot accomplish? I’ve had teachers and professors who didn’t believe that I could write at the level I did until in-class essays and writing assignments proved them wrong. When I took the GRE in my senior year of uni, I ranked in the 95th percentile (the highest possible) for the writing portion. Greta backs up her beliefs with precocious articulation. Yes, that is rare, but it is not impossible. Having provided the world with evidence of her intellectual capacity, she rightfully garners respect. Detractors take snippets and criticize like utter children unable to digest the totality of her stances. That is nothing new, but many critics render her youth itself as suspect. Superfluous. Productive discourse involves genuine and critical analysis. Those who engage in that simply do not garner the same number of clicks when compared to half-wit talking heads eager to hear their own voices.
REPLY
2
fomalhaut.agrv [pro] 34
6 hours ago
You’re kinda mixing some rhetorical details with your point. An artist and a spokesperson aren’t the same. Could be both, of course, but there’s the artist dimension (professional in this case) and the personal dimension. Greta’s persuasion is political, so she’s putting her self on the media through formal discussion instead of aesthetic sensibilities that go further than logos. pd: sorry if my english is confusing btw.
REPLY
0
nincompoop [a] 141
19 hours ago
Sharon is such an NPC
REPLY
1
suicidehummer [a] 236
16 hours ago
I love the oblivious hypocrisy of parroting a buzzword somebody else made up to prove what an original thinker you are.
REPLY
1
nincompoop [a] 141
10 hours ago
shut up stupid idiot
REPLY
1
tanman [a] 120
11 hours ago
I like arguing with you about the Darkenss being a classic rock band, and I like agreeing with you on this.
REPLY
0
toastytone [pro] 340
20 hours ago
Bats taste like shit 😂
REPLY
1
TobusRex [a] 300
a day ago · ☭ communist rebel
Sick of Ozzie and his loser family, every damn one of them.
REPLY
40
danielcotton [a] 73
a day ago
This is such a weird thing to say.
REPLY
21
D.Phoenix 10
23 hours ago
Charming.
REPLY
8
RedDevil07 [a] 207
19 hours ago
Then why did you click on the article?
REPLY
4
APKD 40
17 hours ago
He clicked on the article to say this.
REPLY
2
Slap-happy 120
12 hours ago
It’s okay, I heard he doesn’t like you much, either.
REPLY
0
unjo88 60
13 hours ago
May you get an incurable case of erectile dysfunction and fart uncontrollably
REPLY
0
rory.bryson [pro] 10
2 hours ago
Ozzy is spot on with those responses.
REPLY
0
jivib28404 10
3 hours ago
NICE
REPLY
0
scrotypole 10
16 hours ago
cool
REPLY
0
MusicVSgenres 10
15 hours ago
Put your finger in me arse. I’m a 55 year old white man from Birmingham like Ozzy. Oh no what have I said, I must be dreaming. Am I going insane? What is happening here?
REPLY
3
scrotypole 10
15 hours ago
cool
REPLY
3
leadingbrande1 [pro] 772
17 hours ago
Ozzy for president!
REPLY
0
dennis.1960 [a] 297
16 hours ago
Cthulhu for President…why settle for the lesser evil?
REPLY
3
creampuffwar2 [pro] 180
5 hours ago
we’d still be settling for the lesser evil
REPLY
0
creampuffwar2 [pro] 180
5 hours ago
didn’t we already go through this? Ozzy still can’t be president.
REPLY
0
APKD 40
18 hours ago
His grave should say "thanks for making me famous post Malone" Hopefully his music will be as memorable as post Malone’s.
REPLY
13
Sikkii 20
12 hours ago
The guy is obviously being sarcastic.
REPLY
1
rtlane28 [a] 61
12 hours ago
I seriously doubt Post Malone will be relevant in 10 years let alone 50 years…..
REPLY
0
APKD 40
12 hours ago
pfft ya sure bud, how old is this ozzy guy 90? and people are just finding out about him now? LOL
REPLY
0
Clubba Lang [pro] 70
an hour ago
*Bob Daisley
REPLY
0
B I U ” Smiles @ User

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USCIS to launch nationwide telework program amid coronavirus spread
Nicole Ogrysko
2 hours ago

More agencies are launching, expanding or loosening prior restrictions on telework, as COVID-19, the illness caused by the current strain of the coronavirus, reached a “pandemic” levels Wednesday.

The U.S. Customs and Immigration Services will implement a nationwide “remote work program,” the agency said in a March 9 letter to the American Federation of Government Employees.

Though USCIS’ telework announcement certainly coincides with growing concerns over COVID-19, the agency’s letter makes no mention of the coronavirus. The launch of a nationwide telework program stems from the agency’s collective bargaining agreements with AFGE, Judy McLaughlin, chief of USCIS’ Labor and Employee Relations Division, said.

“The agency is seeking to establish effective and efficient remote work arrangements to
support a more flexible and agile work environment without diminishing employee performance
or mission accomplishment,” McLaughlin’s letter reads. “The focus and purpose of this change is to establish protocols for effective and efficient remote work agreements as the agency moves toward building a more flexible work environment.”

USCIS management will determine who is eligible for telework, McLaughlin added.

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The agency gave no timeline for when it would implement such a telework program. USCIS did not respond to requests for comment.

As the coronavirus has spread, other agencies have continued to expand or loosen telework requirements in local federal facilities.

The Social Security Administration has reinstated telework and alternative work schedule conditions at select hearing and regional offices in Seattle, Washington, and New York, AFGE said in an email to Federal News Network.

Telework and alternative work schedules are back on at the SSA hearing offices in White Plains, New York, and Seattle. The same is true for several other SSA offices in Seattle, including the agency’s hearings operations regional office, the Office of General Counsel and Office of Quality Review, AFGE said.

The union said SSA hasn’t responded to its requests to reinstate telework at all SSA field and regional offices across the country. The agency implemented a wide variety of changes and cuts to its telework program earlier this month.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s New York division on Tuesday announced unscheduled telework and leave for employees at its New York City office, effective March 10 through March 23.

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“We feel this is a prudent action to protect our workforce from unnecessary risk, and to support our local partners in minimizing the spread of COVID-19,” Pete Lopez, the New York regional EPA administrator, said in a message to employees. “Unscheduled leave and unscheduled telework may be used in conjunction with other leave, as appropriate. We are also reviewing non-essential travel.”

The EPA’s New York City office is still open, and employees are welcome to continue commuting to work, Lopez said. Some EPA employees will be expected to report to the facility anyway to maintain the building and equipment.

“Please work with your supervisor regarding your specific circumstances,” Lopez said. “If you have a telework agreement in place but do not have your laptop and other materials necessary for telework with you, please come into the office to retrieve them and meet with your supervisor before beginning unscheduled telework.”

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is urging all employees to prepare for the possibility of telework but isn’t directing it at this time.

Employees who aren’t currently on a telework plan can fill out a temporary agreement, the FDIC said Tuesday in an email to employees, which the National Treasury Employees Union published.

“Supervisors have been authorized to be flexible in approving telework requests for employees, including requests from employees who might not otherwise be eligible to participate in telework under current FDIC policy,” the agency’s email reads.

At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 74% of its workforce have telework agreements, David Wright, the NRC commissioner, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Wednesday.

“We’re actively engaged on that issue,” Wright said of his agency’s telework program.

When it comes to telework, Congress is attempting to put more guardrails in place around agency programs.

Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), along with Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), have introduced the Telework Metrics and Cost Savings Act. The bill would require agencies to set clear goals on telework participation and then report the cost-savings and other performance metrics.

Any widespread, across-the-board changes to agency telework programs must be justified to Congress.

The legislation already has a House companion, which Reps. Gerry Connolly and Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) introduced last week.

“Thanks to years of implementation in the federal government, we know that telework increases productivity, boosts employee morale and saves taxpayer dollars,” Cardin said Wednesday in a statement. “Emergencies such as the coronavirus outbreak make it clear that workers also may need the option to work from home for safety purposes. We already have the technology to make expanded telework feasible. What we need is for federal agencies to move in the right direction, expanding telework options rather than contracting them.”

Categories: AFGE, All News, Management, NTEU, Unions, Workforce
Tags: Ben Cardin, Chris Van Hollen, Citizenship and Immigration Services, coronavirus, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Social Security Administration, telework, Telework Metrics and Cost Savings Act
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When 200,000 people took to the streets of Philadelphia, the Spanish flu of 1918 found a foothold.
TALE OF TWO CITIES
This chart of the 1918 Spanish flu shows why social distancing works
March 11, 2020

By Michael J. Coren
Climate reporter

In 1918, the city of Philadelphia threw a parade that killed thousands of people. Ignoring warnings of influenza among soldiers preparing for World War I, the march to support the war effort drew 200,000 people who crammed together to watch the procession. Three days later, every bed in Philadelphia’s 31 hospitals was filled with sick and dying patients, infected by the Spanish flu.

By the end of the week, more than 4,500 were dead in an outbreak that would claim as many as 100 million people worldwide. By the time Philadelphia’s politicians closed down the city, it was too late.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
A different story played out in St. Louis, just 900 miles away. Within two days of detecting its first cases among civilians, the city closed schools, playgrounds, libraries, courtrooms, and even churches. Work shifts were staggered and streetcar ridership was strictly limited. Public gatherings of more than 20 people were banned.

The extreme measures—now known as social distancing, which is being called for by global health agencies to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus—kept per capita flu-related deaths in St. Louis to less than half of those in Philadelphia, according to a 2007 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The concept of “flattening the curve” is now a textbook public health response to epidemics, including the spread of Covid-19. Once a virus can no longer be contained, the goal is to slow its spread. Exponential growth in infections leaves health care systems struggling to handle the surge. But with fewer people sick at once (and overall), services aren’t overwhelmed and deaths diminish. This buys time for doctors to treat the flood of patients and researchers to develop vaccines and antiviral therapies.

But it wasn’t always this way, says Richard Hatchett, a physician and head of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations in London, who co-authored the 2007 paper. Social distancing interventions were not always trusted, he wrote in an email; they were widely ignored during flu pandemics in 1957 and 1968. But in the 2000s, several papers including Hatchett’s reanalyzed Spanish flu data to show the efficacy of distancing measures—and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later incorporated them into their outbreak guidance.

The key to effective social distancing, though, is timing.

“I think the critical lesson from both the modeling and the historical work is that the benefits of multiple interventions are greatest if they are introduced early (before 1% of the population is infected) and maintained,” wrote Hatchett, who has also directed medical preparedness in the Obama White House. Distancing measures are less effective once more people have contracted the virus, especially in cases where the vast majority of people are not sick enough to need medical attention.

This outbreak is one of those cases. Only 19% of confirmed cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, become severely or critically ill, reports the CDC. Those with mild symptoms (or none at all) may easily pass the virus on to vulnerable people, particularly those who are older or have pre-existing health conditions. “You can compare the outcomes in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, which used such interventions aggressively from the very start, with what happened in Wuhan and what is happening now in Iran and Italy,” wrote Hatchett. “There is no reason to expect the virus to behave differently in Europe and the US than it has in Asia.”

China and Italy may have waited too long; both were forced to take drastic steps weeks after the first cases were discovered. China’s government locked down nearly 60 million people in Hubei province while restricting travel for hundreds of millions of others. Now Italy is banning public gatherings and imposing travel restrictions for 60 million citizens, a first for a modern democracy.

In the US, these restrictions are just beginning. New York state has closed large gathering spaces and deployed National Guard to disinfect buildings and deliver food in a “containment zone” in New Rochelle just north of New York City.

But social distancing doesn’t have to be draconian. South Korea has adopted a modern version of the St. Louis model; the country never locked its citizens down or quarantined entire cities, but has still managed to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. In recent days, new infections have leveled off thanks in part to thousands of free daily tests and a coordinated government effort that closed schools, canceled public events, and supported flexible working arrangements. “Without harming the principle of a transparent and open society,” South Korea’s Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip told journalists in the South China Morning Post, “we recommend a response system that blends voluntary public participation with creative applications of advanced technology.”

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March 15, 2020, 9:37 p.m. ET
Coronavirus Live Updates: C.D.C. Offers New Guidelines, Fed Slashes Rates and Italian Deaths Jump
New York City schools to close. The Fed cuts rates to near-zero. Italy’s surge in cases and deaths raises urgent questions about its overwhelmed hospitals.

RIGHT NOWThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends no gatherings of 50 or more people in the U.S. for the next eight weeks.

Here’s what you need to know:
The Fed slashes rates to near-zero.
No gatherings of 50 or more for now, urges the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Cuomo says New York City schools will close this week.
California tells residents 65 and older to stay at home as more states add restrictions.
Italy’s deaths jump, Germany closes borders and restrictions multiply around the world.
A top U.S. health official says Americans should be prepared to “hunker down.”
At airports, passengers describe long waits and confusion.
The Fed slashes rates to near-zero.
Image
At a news conference on Sunday afternoon, President Trump congratulated the Federal Reserve for its slashing rates to nearly zero.Credit…Ting Shen for The New York Times
The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to near-zero and unveiled a sweeping set of programs — including plans to snap up huge amounts of government and mortgage-backed debt — in an effort to backstop the United States economy as the spread of coronavirus poses a dire threat to economic growth.

“The coronavirus outbreak has harmed communities and disrupted economic activity in many countries, including the United States,” the central bank said in a statement on Sunday. “The Federal Reserve is prepared to use its full range of tools to support the flow of credit to households and businesses.”

At a news conference on Sunday afternoon, President Trump congratulated the Federal Reserve for its slashing rates to nearly zero.

“It makes me very happy,” he said.

Lowering interest rates is supposed to help goose the economy by making it cheaper for households and businesses to borrow money, which they will hopefully use to buy houses, cars and invest in new plants and equipment.

Besides cutting its key interest rate by a full percentage point, returning it to a range of 0 to 0.25 percent, the Fed said that it would increase its holdings of Treasury securities by at least $500 billion and its holdings of government mortgage-backed securities by at least $200 billion “over coming months.”

“The committee will continue to closely monitor market conditions and is prepared to adjust its plans as appropriate,” it said.

The Fed also encouraged banks to use its discount window, which provides ready access to financing, and said it was “encouraging banks to use their capital and liquidity buffers as they lend to households and businesses.” The Fed also eliminated bank reserve requirements — a suite of efforts meant to free up cash for the banks to keep lending.

No gatherings of 50 or more for now, urges the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Sunday that no mass gatherings with 50 people or more — including weddings, festivals, parades, concerts, sporting events or conferences — be held in the United States for the next eight weeks in one of the federal government’s most sweeping efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The C.D.C. said that its recommendation, which would dramatically change life in the United States for the next two months, does not apply to “the day to day operation of organizations such as schools, institutes of higher learning, or businesses” and added that it was not intended to supersede the advice of local health officials.

“This recommendation is made in an attempt to reduce introduction of the virus into new communities,” it said, “and to slow the spread of infection in communities already affected by the virus.”

And the C.D.C. urged people to take care with even small gatherings. “Events of any size should only be continued if they can be carried out with adherence to guidelines for protecting vulnerable populations, hand hygiene, and social distancing,” its recommendation said. “When feasible, organizers could modify events to be virtual.”

Cuomo says New York City schools will close this week.
New York City’s public school system, the nation’s largest with 1.1 million students, will begin shutting down this week, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said on Sunday, in what is the city’s most aggressive and disruptive effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Public schools in Long Island and Westchester will also close this week, the governor said.

The city and union leaders are working on plans for emergency child care for essential city workers whose children attend public schools. Mr. Cuomo said earlier on Sunday that any decision to close New York City’s schools must include a plan to allow parents who are health care workers to continue to report to hospitals.

More than a dozen states have already closed schools, creating concerns that children may miss meals and parents may not be able to stay home from work. On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said school closures now affect 80 to 85 percent of all schoolchildren in his state.

After Los Angeles Unified School District said that it was closing, school officials said they would open 40 family resource centers to provide child care and meals to students whose parents cannot get out of work. North Carolina closed its public schools on Saturday.

The decision to close New York City’s schools came after the mayor faced increasing pressure throughout the day, including from the governor. Mr. Cuomo said in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday afternoon that the schools should close “as soon as Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“I believe that the New York City schools should be closed, period,” he said. “We also need an immediate plan to provide child care for essential workers and for food programs for the children.”

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The highly influential union that represents New York City’s public health care workers, 1199SEIU, reversed course on Sunday and called on the mayor to close the city’s public schools. The union had been the only major union supporting his decision to keep schools open.

California tells residents 65 and older to stay at home as more states add restrictions.
California called for all people 65 and older to shelter in their homes. Massachusetts moved to ban dining in bars and restaurants beginning Tuesday, effectively closing Boston’s bars for St. Patrick’s Day. And Puerto Rico set some of the strictest measures in the United States, imposing a 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew and closing nonessential businesses.

As the number of coronavirus cases in the United States climbed to over 3,100 across 49 states on Sunday, and after weeks of conflicting signals from the federal government, state and local officials across the nation began enacting stricter measures to try to slow the virus’s spread.

Massachusetts said that beginning Tuesday bars and restaurants would only be able to offer takeout and delivery only, banned gatherings of more than 25 people and ordered all public and private schools to close Tuesday.

“I realize these measures are unprecedented,” Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts said Sunday night, “but we’re asking our residents to take a deep breath and understand the rationale behind this guidance.”

The state of Ohio ordered restaurants and bars to close as of 9 p.m. Sunday, but said it would allow food to be carried out and delivered. Maryland’s governor ordered casinos, racetracks and betting facilities to close “indefinitely.”

Even as public health experts were publicly urging social distancing, Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, went on Fox News and encouraged healthy people to dine out at restaurants. “Likely you can get in easily,” he said. “Let’s not hurt the working people in this country that are relying on wages and tips to keep their small business going.”

And Oklahoma’s governor was criticized on social media after sharing a selfie on Twitter Saturday of him with his children having dinner at a packed food hall in the heart of Oklahoma City. In the since-deleted tweet, he captioned the photo with, “Eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans at the @CollectiveOKC. It’s packed tonight! #supportlocal #OklaProud.”

The scope of the public health crisis became even clearer over the weekend as officials in Louisiana, New York and Virginia reported their first deaths tied to the coronavirus. Only West Virginia was without a single diagnosis.

In the Omaha, Neb., area, officials reported the first known instance of community spread. In Illinois, a nursing facility where a woman tested positive was placed on lockdown. And in Pittsburgh, where the first local cases were announced on Saturday, city leaders urged bars to limit the number of people they allowed inside.

New York City officials advised all members of the United Nations diplomatic community that they should assume they have been exposed to the coronavirus, should practice the “maximum-possible social distancing” and should not expect any special accommodations if they are sickened, according to a memo of a teleconference briefing shared by diplomats.

Two American emergency-room doctors — one in Washington State and one in New Jersey — were in critical condition with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, the American College of Emergency Physicians said on Saturday. Dr. William Jaquis, the organization’s president, said it was unclear whether the doctor in Washington, who is in his 40s, had contracted the virus at the hospital. The physician in Paterson, N.J., who is 70, had been leading his hospital’s emergency preparedness.

Authorities in Texas began preparing judges for the possibility that they may have to be ready to order the quarantine of coronavirus patients who refuse to isolate themselves.

Despite the clearing out of grocery store shelves in recent days, the nation’s biggest retailers, dairy farmers and meat producers said the food supply chain remains intact and has been ramping up to meet the unprecedented stockpiling brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

At the news conference on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Trump said he had had a phone call with chief executives of several food suppliers who said they were committed to staying open through the coronavirus pandemic. He said the call was “very reassuring” and said there was no need to “hoard” essential food supplies.

“You don’t have to buy so much, take it easy, just relax,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re doing great, it all will pass.”

Italy’s deaths jump, Germany closes borders and restrictions multiply around the world.
The coronavirus continued its assault on Italy, the hardest hit country outside of China, with officials on Sunday reporting the number of deaths rose to 1,809 — a 25 percent increase over the day before and the largest one-day uptick yet of any country.

The 368 deaths Italy reported exceeds the highest single-day number China reported at the height of its outbreak. China’s highest daily toll was on Feb. 13, when the country reported 254 new deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

The staggering caseload in Italy topped 24,700, even as the entire country has been locked down for a week, an escalation that is only likely to increase, raising urgent questions about how overloaded hospitals, particularly the hard-hit north, will cope.

The Vatican said on Sunday that its traditional services during the week before Easter, which usually draw tens of thousands of people, would not be open to the public next month, interrupting a historic tradition.

Germany will close its borders with Austria, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the country’s interior minister said on Sunday, following several other European Union member states in restricting the freedom of movement across the continent.

Spain and France announced drastic countrywide restrictions this weekend. The countries are the hardest hit after Italy.

On Sunday, Spanish officials reported nearly 8,000 cases of coronavirus and 288 deaths. The country ordered all residents to confine themselves to their homes — and to leave only to buy food, go to work, seek medical care or assist older people and others in need. The government also ordered all schools, restaurants and bars to close.

The Spanish authorities said that the prime minister’s wife, Begoña Gómez, had tested positive for the virus.

France announced the closing of all “non-indispensable” businesses, including restaurants, bars and movie theaters, after a sharp uptick in coronavirus cases. The number of French cases passed 5,420 on Sunday, with 127 deaths. On Saturday, 300 coronavirus patients were in critical condition — half of them under 60 years of age.

On Sunday, France’s transportation minister said the country would begin reducing plane, train and bus services between cities.

One after another, countries around the world on Sunday continued to implement extraordinary measures as they raced to contain the spread of the coronavirus, closing schools, shuttering restaurants and bars, mandating quarantines and severely limiting travel.

China’s capital, Beijing, is toughening its rules for international arrivals, requiring everyone coming from overseas to spend the mandatory 14-day isolation at a quarantine site that they will be required to pay for.

South Africa declared a national state of disaster, closing schools, shutting down ports and banning gatherings of more than 100 people. South African citizens returning from other some high-risk countries will be tested and face quarantines. The government is strengthening surveillance and testing systems.

Austria banned gatherings of more than five people and imposed steep fines for those who disobeyed a far-reaching curfew. Public parks, sporting fields and restaurants will close from Monday, and fines for violations are up to 3,600 euros. Travelers from Britain, the Netherlands, Russia and Ukraine are being added to a lengthening list of those banned from entering Austria.

Ireland is closing its pubs for two weeks, including on St. Patrick’s Day, and barring gatherings of more than 100 people.

The Netherlands announced a lockdown that will last until April 6, closing schools and child care facilities. Restaurants, cafes, gyms and sporting clubs will also be closed.

Manila, the densely populated capital of the Philippines, went under lockdown. Public gatherings are banned and classes suspended for a month; travel in and out of the Manila metropolitan area is restricted; and soldiers and police officers have set up traffic checkpoints to take people’s temperatures. Some in the country fear a return to a Marcos-style dictatorship.

A top U.S. health official says Americans should be prepared to “hunker down.”
A top health official said on Sunday that stronger efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus would roll out over the next several weeks, a period he characterized as crucial for controlling the outbreak.

Appearing across a number of Sunday morning news programs, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that travel bans enacted last week have helped curb transmission, but that U.S. citizens would have to make personal sacrifices and comply with government guidelines to avoid a “worst-case scenario.”

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Dr. Fauci cautioned, “Americans should be prepared that they are going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing.”

Underscoring the risk that the virus poses to the nation’s front-line medical workers, two emergency medicine doctors, in New Jersey and Washington State, are in critical condition as a result of the coronavirus, the American College of Emergency Physicians said.

While the Trump administration has banned international travelers coming from high-risk countries and regions, such as China, Iran, and much of Europe, Dr. Fauci said domestic travel restrictions hadn’t been seriously discussed.

“I don’t see that right now or in the immediate future,” he said on “This Week.” “But remember, we are very open-minded about whatever it takes to preserve the health of the American public.”

In an interview with Brianna Keilar on CNN, Dr. Fauci said that progress was being made with companies like Walmart and CVS to improve diagnostic and testing capabilities. But he cautioned that disruptions to daily life were likely to continue.

“For a while, life is not going to be the way it used to be in the United States,” he said. “We have to just accept that if we want to do what’s best for the American public.”

Meanwhile, Daniel Goldman, who as the top investigator for the House Intelligence Committee played a leading role in the impeachment of Mr. Trump, has tested positive, a House official confirmed on Sunday.

Mr. Goldman left the committee earlier this month. The panel’s chairman, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, said Sunday that neither he nor any of his other aides were exhibiting symptoms. Mr. Schiff had already canceled public events and directed his staff to work from home.

At airports, passengers describe long waits and confusion.
As the U.S. government rushed on Saturday to implement Mr. Trump’s restrictions on travel from Europe, part of an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, chaos ensued at some of America’s biggest airports.

In Dallas, travelers posted photos on Twitter of long winding lines in the airport. In New York, customs agents in paper and plastic masks boarded a flight from Paris. And in Chicago, where travelers reported standing in line for hours, Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois tagged Mr. Trump in a series of angry tweets about the long waits, saying, “The federal government needs to get its s@#t together. NOW.”

Paige Hardy, an American student who left behind her graduate studies in London because she feared a broader travel ban, said a series of confusing announcements in the air and upon landing in Dallas led to alarm on the plane late Saturday. She posted a video on Twitter of travelers being asked to raise their hands if they had been in mainland Europe. Because of the delay, she also missed her connecting flight.

“It truly felt like an apocalyptic scenario,” said Ms. Hardy, who left many of her belongings behind in England and was unsure whether she would be able to return.

The confusion came as concern spread about the coronavirus pandemic, which has now been identified in more than 2,700 people in the United States and has prompted Mr. Trump to declare a national emergency.

“At this time, we are working quickly with our partners to operationalize a plan which will outline where these travelers will be routed and what the screening process will be,” said Marcus Hubbard, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, said on Twitter that he was aware of the delays and was working to add staffing.

American Airlines said on Saturday that it would suspend almost all of its long-haul international flights beginning Monday in response to decreased demand. The airline said the suspensions would last until at least May 6 and would represent a 75 percent decline in international capacity compared with the same period last year.

Mnuchin will ask Congress to reinstate powers used in 2008 financial crisis.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday that he would ask Congress to reinstate powers that were used during the 2008 financial crisis to support the economy as the coronavirus threatens to grind U.S. business activity to a halt.

The comments suggest that the White House is bracing for a widespread downturn that could harm sectors well beyond the travel and cruise ship industries, and that the federal government could need to return to the type of crisis-era measures that were ultimately scaled back by lawmakers in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

Mr. Mnuchin and Jerome H. Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, have been in daily conversations about how to buttress the economy, which faces the prospect of a deep recession as the coronavirus spreads around the world.

“Certain tools were taken away that I’m going to go back to Congress and ask for,” Mr. Mnuchin said on “This Week” on ABC.

In a separate interview on Fox News Sunday, Mr. Mnuchin made clear that he was talking about regulations that were imposed by Dodd-Frank.

That law, passed in the wake of the worst financial crisis in decades, took away the Fed’s power to lend to individual failing firms or to take assets off their balance sheets, requiring the central bank to extend emergency credit only through broad-based facilities designed to help the financial system as a whole. Congress also took away Treasury’s ability to use a program, known as the Exchange Stabilization Fund, to guarantee money market funds.

Starbucks will serve “to go” only and a French luxury company will make hand sanitizer instead of perfume.
Starbucks said Sunday it was moving to a “to go” model for at least two weeks in the U.S. and Canada to encourage social distancing.

Customers will not be permitted to sit in the cafe or patio areas, but can still walk up and order at the counter, through the Starbucks app, via the drive-through and by delivery. Stores located in communities with high clusters of cases and high-social gathering locations, such as malls and university campuses, will be closed temporarily, the company said in a statement.

LVMH, the French company known for luxury items, said Sunday that it would redirect its cosmetic division to produce mass quantities of hydroalcoholic gel and give it to French health authorities.

The company said in a statement that it would use the facilities where it produces fragrances under the Christian Dior, Givenchy and Guerlain labels to make the sanitizing products starting Monday.

Some retailers have been closing their doors. Nike said on Sunday that it would shut all of its stores in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, New Zealand and Australia from Monday until March 27 to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

Urban Outfitters said on Saturday that it would shut all its stores until further notice, and Apple said it would close its stores outside mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for two weeks.

Under pressure to add stricter restrictions, Britain will ask older residents to self-isolate.
As countries across Europe impose lockdowns and restrict travel, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain is facing a swelling tide of opposition to his government’s more relaxed measures to stem the coronavirus.

In an open letter, nearly 350 scientists and doctors called on him to immediately impose the kind of social distancing steps that countries like Italy, France and Spain have adopted.

They warned that Britain’s approach — in which the government has talked of impending moves like quarantining older residents and closing schools but pushed off the timing for 10 days or longer — was putting lives at risk.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the British broadcaster Sky News that the action plan under consideration including asking Britons over 70 to self-isolate for up to four months to reduce their risk of contracting the virus. The government is also expected to ban large gatherings starting next week and to order people over age 70 to remain at home.

The rate of infection in the country has been climbing as rapidly as elsewhere in Europe. Britain had at least 1,370 confirmed cases and 35 deaths as of Sunday, and the United States this weekend extended its ban on travelers from most of Europe to include those coming from Britain, as well.

On Sunday, Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office also advised against “all but essential travel to the U.S.A., due to restrictions put in place by the U.S. government” on foreign nationals arriving from Britain and Ireland from Monday.

Chinese journalists fight back against government censorship.
As it tightens restrictions on people entering the country, the Chinese government also is leading a sweeping campaign to purge the public sphere of dissent, censoring news reports, harassing citizen journalists and shutting down news sites.

But Chinese journalists, buoyed by an outpouring of support from the public and widespread calls for free speech, are fighting back in a rare challenge to the ruling Communist Party.

The authorities have struggled to rein in coverage of the outbreak, in part because the Chinese public has resorted to innovative methods to preserve a record of what has transpired.

When the magazine Profile published a damning interview with a doctor who was warned not to share information about the virus as it first spread in Wuhan, the article disappeared. But Chinese internet users brought the story back to life, using emojis, morse code and obscure languages to render the interview in ways that would evade censors.

“This time the government’s control of free speech has directly damaged the interests and lives of ordinary people,” said Li Datong, a retired newspaper editor in Beijing. “Everyone knows this kind of big disaster happens when you don’t tell the truth.”

A cruise ship is heading to France with a coronavirus quandary.
An Italian ship on a trans-Atlantic voyage has become the cruise industry’s latest case of possible mass exposure.

The Costa Luminosa isolated 1,427 passengers in their rooms on Sunday afternoon en route to Marseille, France from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Over the past few days, one recent passenger with the infection died, two others were found to have it and three more suspected of having it have been removed from the ship.

One of the infected passengers was so ill that the ship called an ambulance to pick her up during a stop in Puerto Rico, on March 8. Samples from her and her husband were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, delaying the diagnosis until this past Friday. Both were positive.

However, the ship, which is run by Carnival’s Italy-based Costa Cruises, did not increase sanitary protocols or begin testing temperatures until late Saturday afternoon, after receiving confirmation of the two cases from the Puerto Rican government.

“The protection of the health and safety of passengers and crew members is a top priority for Costa Cruises,” the line said in a statement, adding that sanitation levels had been “further raised in order to guarantee the maximum level of hygiene and safety for guests and crew.”

A series of cruise ships have had to confront exposures onboard, and four major lines have announced they would suspend departures from the United States for at least 30 days, allowing those currently at sea to continue. The question is where they will find a port.

The Costa Luminosa was turned away from Antigua and Spain. It is expected to arrive in France on Thursday, where all but the Italians are expected to disembark, and then head to a final stop in Savona, Italy.

Reporting was contributed by Mitch Smith, Mark Landler, Jonathan Weisman, Elisabetta Povoledo, Andrea Salcedo, Austin Ramzy, Tiffany May, Iliana Magra, Cliff Levy, Kristen Danis, Katrin Bennhold, Jason Gutierrez, Mariel Padilla, Robert Chiarito, Isabel Kershner, Mujib Mashal, Raphael Minder, Neil MacFarquhar, Jack Ewing, Najim Rahim, Livia Albeck-Ripka, Hannah Beech, Marc Santora, Julie Bosman, Richard Fausset, Johanna Berendt, Richard C. Paddock, Muktita Suhartono, Elian Peltier, Damien Cave, Javier Hernandez, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Mihir Zaveri, Patricia Mazzei, Frances Robles, Badra Sharma, Annie Karni, Abdi Latif Dahir, Zach Montague, Claire Moses, Nina Siegal, Melissa Eddy, Vanessa Friedman, Vanessa Swales, Monica Davey and Thomas Fuller.

The Coronavirus Outbreak
Answers to your most common questions:
Updated March 14, 2020

What is a coronavirus?
It is a novel virus named for the crownlike spikes that protrude from its surface. The coronavirus can infect both animals and people and can cause a range of respiratory illnesses from the common cold to lung lesions and pneumonia.
How contagious is the virus?
It seems to spread very easily from person to person, especially in homes, hospitals and other confined spaces. The pathogen can travel through the air, enveloped in tiny respiratory droplets that are produced when a sick person breathes, talks, coughs or sneezes.
Where has the virus spread?
The virus, which originated in Wuhan, China, has sickened more than 154,800 in at least 130 countries and more than 5,700 have died. The spread has slowed in China but is gaining speed in Europe and the United States. World Health Organization officials said the outbreak qualifies as a pandemic.
What symptoms should I look out for?
Symptoms, which can take between two to 14 days to appear, include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Milder cases may resemble the flu or a bad cold, but people may be able to pass on the virus even before they develop symptoms.
How do I keep myself and others safe?
Washing your hands frequently is the most important thing you can do, along with staying at home when you’re sick and avoiding touching your face.
How can I prepare for a possible outbreak?
Keep a 30-day supply of essential medicines. Get a flu shot. Have essential household items on hand. Have a support system in place for elderly family members.
What if I’m traveling?
The State Department has issued a global Level 3 health advisory telling United States citizens to “reconsider travel” to all countries because of the worldwide effects of the coronavirus. This is the department’s second-highest advisory.
How long will it take to develop a treatment or vaccine?
Several drugs are being tested, and some initial findings are expected soon. A vaccine to stop the spread is still at least a year away.

A new renewable energy startup company has come up with a low-cost, zero-emissions solution to the thorny issue surrounding what happens when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.

Paradoxically, the more the world embraces clean energy like solar and wind, the more it must embrace something markedly less-clean—diesel fuel or batteries.

In a building cut-off from a reliable grid powered by fossil fuel, diesel generators might be used to cover the hours of darkness when solar panels cease providing electricity. An alternative to this is to store the energy generated from the sun during the day in batteries, but along with representing a serious recycling problem, batteries require rare-earth minerals that are obtained from environmentally-destructive mining operations.

“Batteries are very expensive to store power for a 24 hour period,” says Jonas Eklind, CEO of Azelio, the Swedish energy startup that has potentially solved this problem for good. “If you want to store a lot of renewable energy, the most cost efficient way of storing this is thermal energy.”

In the always forward-thinking countries of Scandinavia, Azelio adapted an old Volvo assembly line factory to manufacture their patented, industry-first thermal energy storage system that will allow people to keep the energy that their standard PV solar panels generate during the day so they can use it in evenings.

And, instead of the critical energy storage component using rare and expensive minerals, the Azelio system uses recycled aluminum, which emits nothing, is much cheaper than lithium, and—as Jonas joked during an interview with GNN—“only lasts 62,000 years.”

Molten Aluminum can Save the Earth
The former CEO of a battery company, Jonas helped start this remarkable energy storage project in 2016 when he came onboard, around the same time Azelio was looking into thermal storage technology.

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“When we started the project, we had a conversion unit that converts high temperatures into electricity,” he said. This device was called a Stirling Generator, and at first they would use biogas from landfills, water purification units—or from manure in a combustion engine to generate electricity—but after running numerous computer simulations on cost and energy capacity, determined that aluminum was the best choice.

Photons absorbed by solar panels on your roof enter into the system where an aluminum alloy is heated so it moves from a solid to a liquid. This allows for the storage of an incredibly dense amount of energy within the material which can be sent as heat into the Stirling Generator and turned into electricity on demand, with zero emissions and at a lower cost.

This is in direct contrast to fossil fuels, uranium rods or pellets, or diesel fuel, because the energy in the aluminum can constantly be melted and hardened again to produce or store energy.

With its high energy density, the material has the ability to store energy for an extended period of time, while the aluminum suffers no degradation in capacity over time.

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Versatile yet Stable
The technology would prove to be ideal in parts of the world where grid reliability is low, like in Southern Africa where Jonas estimates that people only have access to a stable power grid 45% of the time.

Azelio’s thermal storage would allow for people to implement solar into a community, an industry, or just their homes, to defend against failing or unreliable grids, which Jonas says is becoming more and more normal even in the developed world. In his home country of Sweden, during the long winter, trees knock out power all the time, forcing rural communities to switch to diesel generators or similar interventions—sometimes for weeks.

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“Our system can give you decentralized power based on solar and wind so you can build a local micro-grid that provides you with almost everything you need 24 hours a day,” said Jonas.

And one of the really exceptional things about Azelio’s system is that, in theory, it’s as scalable as necessary; from 100 kilowatts per-hour, up to 100 megawatts per-hour, and more. Though it is maximized for solar power, it can easily work the same way for tidal or hydropower, biofuels, and wind.

Most city or town grids are split up into multiple components that feed off of, support, and borrow from one another to remain stable. Like normal solar power that utilizes energy from from the sun and sells the excess into the grid before later buying back from the grid at nighttime, Azelio’s thermal storage can fit into the baseload power of a modern established grid as much or as little as is required—whether that’s 10% of total power needs or 90%.

Azelio technology is inaugurated at the Noor solar power plant in Morroco, March 5, 2020
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Azelio is conducting three verification tests this year—first, in their home country of Sweden, and two others in partnership with renewable energy companies. On March 5th, they inaugurated their thermal storage technology at the massive Noor solar power complex in Morocco, teaming up with Masen, and later this year, they will launch in Abu Dhabi with Masdar. In addition to these, Azelio has received various customer enquiries of a potential value in excess of 16 billion euro, including one customer in California who wants the system both for wind and solar energy.

“In 2025, with what we have promised to the market for the cost of electricity coming out of the system, we can possibly compete with large scale installations where we need to power a whole city.”