Coronavirus

adjourned its state Assembly till March 29, and Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh declared that schools and colleges will be shut and public gatherings banned as precautionary measures. While there are no positive cases of the disease in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and MP, Karnataka has till now reported five infections, including the first casualty of the disease in India.

The Delhi government too issued a warning against spreading any kind of information about the outbreak in print or electronic media without permission from the Ministry of Health or the state government.

It added that non-compliance by any individual or organisation will be considered a punishable offence.

The national capital, which had announced the suspension of educational institutions on Thursday, also said it was stopping all sports tournaments, including the Indian Premier League 2020.

On Friday, health ministry’s joint secretary Lav Agarwal said at least 4,000 people are under close watch for possible exposure to the contagion. “Contact tracing of these [confirmed] cases is being actively pursued. So far, this has led to the identification of more than 4,000 contacts who have been put under surveillance,” he said. Contact tracing is an important step to restrict community transmission of the disease.

Agarwal added that 42,000 people across the country are under community surveillance.

The Union government on Wednesday had suspended all visas barring a few categories such as diplomatic and employment.

Following the first confirmed death of a Covid-19 patient in India – a 76-year-old man from Kalburgi who had recently returned from Saudi Arabia -- the state government issued an order, saying all schools and colleges will be closed for a week. Separately, all shopping malls, cinema halls, pubs and night clubs too be shut for a week along with public gatherings such as marriages, sporting events and conferences barred, chief minister BS Yediyurappa announced at a press briefing on Friday.

A Google employee in Bengaluru is among the confirmed cases in Karnataka, the software giant said on Friday. “The employee has been on quarantine since then, and we have asked colleagues who were in close contact with the employee to quarantine themselves and monitor their health,” the company said in a statement.

Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, at an emergency meeting of cabinet ministers and senior officials of the state on Thursday, decided to suspend schools and colleges till the end of the month even as any examinations scheduled at the institutes will continue as planned.

The Madhya Pradesh government said classes in all government and private schools will remain suspended until further orders. “Examinations of Class 5, Class 8, Class 10 & Class 12 (of all boards) to take place as per schedule,” the statement read.

Odisha Speaker SN Patro on Friday announced adjournment of the ongoing budget session after a voice vote on a motion moved by government chief whip Pramila Mallik. The motion moved by Mallik said the House may be adjourned till March 29 because of the spread of coronavirus across the world.

Separately, Army sources told news agency PTI that a man who had returned from Italy this week tested positive at the force’s quarantine facilities in Haryana’s Manesar, a town on the outskirts of Delhi. Officials in Maharashtra also said two more people in Nagpur tested positive for coronavirus. ces at ICICI Securities Limited in Mumbai. “Nobody anticipated such a sharp and swift decline.”

Investors experienced a rollercoaster day on other Asia-pacific markets as well. Australian stocks staged a record intraday swing to close up 4.4%. Thailand pared a plunge of 13% to gain 0.3%, and the MSCI Asia Pacific Index gauge trimmed its loss to 1.9% after sinking as much as 6.7%.

Traders cited multiple reasons for the sudden bounce, from simple bargain hunting to short covering, hopes for more stimulus and a potential vaccine being developed by a Canadian company to cure the coronavirus.

“People are probably thinking there will be some kind of policy measures to support markets,” on top of ones already announced, said Tomoichiro Kubota, a senior market analyst at Matsui Securities. “We could see a huge rebound in the short term given how much the market has fallen. But it doesn’t feel like the mid-term downward trend will change. The market will continue to trade in high volatility.”

The Sensex lost 2,919 points, the biggest one-day decline in absolute terms, or 8.18%, on Thursday to a two-year low, a day after the World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus a pandemic and President Donald Trump clamped a ban on travel between Europe and the United States, exempting the United Kingdom. Investors in Indian stocks had lost ₹11,27,160.65 crore on Thursday.

Indian markets also entered bear market territory on Thursday, joining Australia’s S&P ASX 200, Japan’s Topix, the Jakarta Composite, Singapore Straits Times, the UK’S FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and the Dow Jones Industrials Average, having shed 22% from their January peak. A market is defined as being in a bearish grip when it has shed 20% from its peak.

Friday’s slide began after Wall Street experienced its worst session since 1987, with investors spooked that emergency fiscal and monetary stimulus will not be enough to stave the coronavirus from plunging the economy into a recession. The DJIA plunged 2,352.60 points, or 9.9%, to 21,200.62 points. “We are seeing broad-based capitulation,” Joel Ng, an analyst at KGI Securities (Singapore) Pte., said before trading in India was halted. “It’s also a chain reaction from marketwide deleveraging, margin calls and programmed trading funds exacerbating negative market sentiment.”

The worst may not be over yet. The India NSE Volatility Index, the stock market’s fear gauge, is trading at levels not seen since May 2009, signalling market turbulence will likely persist. The rupee rose 0.4%on Friday after falling by as much to 74.5250 per dollar, a record low. Even that relief may not last long.

“Past lows are not a line in the sand,” and there is a risk of the rupee hitting 78 and then 80 per dollar, said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy at

Mizuho Bank Ltd. in Singapore. Such a big sell-off “will ignite major concerns because of the ability of such moves to exacerbate capital outflows.”

Central banks globally have been providing liquidity to calm wild swings in financial markets. In the latest developments, the Bank of Japan will probably expand its stimulus at a meeting next week, people familiar with the matter have said, while the RBI pledged to use its record $481 billion foreign-currency arsenal to stem the market rout. The Bank of Korea is also considering an emergency board meeting and will take steps to stem excessive foreign exchange movements.

“The equity markets have by now priced in at least a technical recession lasting two quarters,” said Eli Lee, head of investment strategy at Bank of Singapore. “The larger question is whether we could see a longer fundamental recession.

RBI said in a statement on Thursday that it was closely monitoring the global situation and “stands ready to take all necessary measures” to ensure the financial markets function normally. The rupee has come under pressure as foreigners unloaded $1.2 billion worth of local bonds and $2.7 billion of shares so far this month, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.

The government’s chief economic adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian said on Friday that the government and RBI were ready to take steps to calm the markets over coronavirus, says chief economic adviser

“The government and regulator will be responding when it will be necessary,” Subramanian told reporters in response to a question whether the government planned relief measures to tackle the recent market rout.

The situation in India will stabilise over the next few weeks as the focus shifts to economic fundamentals such as slowing inflation, growing industrial production and adequate f oreign exchange reserves.

“Stock markets often react with greed and fear. Currently, there is fear because of the coronavirus. It (the decline in stock market) is because of global factors and fear sentiment which I expect to come down in the next few weeks as we get a handle,” Subramanian said.

Oil headed for its biggest weekly drop since 2008 as an unprecedented dual supply-demand shock showed no signs of abating.

Oil futures reversed a loss to rise on Friday while a retaliatory American attack on an Iraqi militia may have lent some support. They’re still down 21% this week as the coronavirus batters demand. Saudi Arabia said earlier in the week that it would boost crude oil output by more than 25% in April, meaning a deluge of new supply.

For the government of an oilimporting nation the collapse in crude prices couldn’t have come at a better time. Lower oil prices can lead to annual savings of $50 billion, said treasury market vet

eran Harihar Krishnamoorthy.