Stay-at-home orders in major states mark next phase of U.S. coronavirus crisis
LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state, Illinois and Connecticut yesterday followed California in directing tens of millions of people to stay at home in the most sweeping U.S. social-distancing measures yet imposed for the escalating campaign to curb transmission of the coronavirus.
The unprecedented restrictions, impacting more than 75 million people, or nearly a quarter of the U.S. population, order most workplaces to close and require residents to remain inside except for trips to grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and other “essential businesses.”
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said he planned to issue similar directives within the next 24 hours.
“To avoid the loss of tens of thousands of lives we must order an immediate shelter-in-place,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said on Friday, using a term that has commonly referred to self-protection measures exercised during mass shootings. Illinois, which includes Chicago, has recorded 585 cases of the disease including five deaths.
Even as a growing number of ordinary Americans came under orders to keep to themselves, the pandemic crept closer to the highest levels of power in the nation’s capital.
An aide to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, leading the White House task force formed to battle the outbreak, tested positive for the virus, but neither President Donald Trump nor Pence have had close contact with the individual, Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller said in a statement on Friday.
The five states where governors have banned or will soon ban nonessential businesses and ask residents to stay home account for about 31% of the U.S. economy, the world’s largest.
In New York City’s Central Park, several bikers and joggers were on the pathways, mostly alone but a few in pairs.
“It’s real and it’s scary, I hate it,” said physical therapist Kerry Cashin, 49, of the stay-at-home order. “I feel like I always knew it was going to go this way, but it made me scared.”
Just two dozen people milled outside Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, home of the Oscars and normally teeming with hundreds of tourists.
Zane Alexander, 27, said he was on his way to pick up his last paycheck “until Lord knows when.” He had been working on a medical marijuana dispensary’s street team, but the group was disbanded until further notice. (Reuters) - Curacao state-owned oil refinery Refineria di Korsou (RdK) yesterday seized an oil storage terminal on the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire over a payment dispute with Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA oil firm, a RdK official said.
Curacao will seek Dutch court approvals to sell Bonaire Petroleum Corp (BOPEC), which is owned by PDVSA, and its 10-million barrel storage terminal if no payments are received, said Marcelino de Lannoy, managing director of RdK.
De Lannoy, who disclosed the seizure in a video statement, did not detail the amount of money PDVSA owed RdK and could not immediately be reached for further comment. Neither PDVSA nor BOPEC General Manager Reginald Pinto responded to requests for comment.
PDVSA and the Venezuelan government have missed billions of dollars in payments to creditors in recent years as the once-prosperous OPEC nation’s economy unraveled, putting many of its overseas assets at risk of seizure.