BUSINESSES HIT BY CORONAVIRUS, BIZSMART,
Disease spreads, markets falter
TOKYO — Concerns about the coronavirus outbreak’s threat to the world economy grew Saturday, even after President Trump denounced criticism of his response to the threat as a “hoax” cooked up by his political enemies.
China’s manufacturing plunged in February by an even wider margin than expected after efforts to contain the virus shut down much of the world’s secondlargest economy, an official survey showed.
The survey, coming as global stock markets fall sharply on fears that the virus will spread abroad, adds to mounting evidence of the vast cost of the disease that emerged in central China in December and its economic impact worldwide.
The list of countries touched by the virus has climbed to nearly 60, with new cases reported Saturday in Lebanon, Croatia, The Netherlands and Ecuador. More than 85,000 people worldwide have contracted the virus, with deaths topping 2,900.
Many cases have been relatively mild, and some of those infected are believed to show no symptoms at all. Nonetheless, concern is mounting that prolonged quarantines, supply chain disruptions and a sharp reduction in tourism and business travel could weaken the global economy or even cause a recession.
The monthly purchasing managers’ index issued by the Chinese statistics agency and an industry group fell to 35.7 from January’s 50 on a 100-point scale on which numbers below 50 indicate activity contracting.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a $2.5 billion emergency economic package to help fight the virus. Abe said at a news conference that Japan is at critical juncture to determine whether the country can keep the outbreak under control ahead of the Tokyo summer Olympics.
Abe, whose announcement this past week of a plan to close all schools for more than a month through the end of the Japanese academic year sparked public criticism, said the emergency package includes financial support for parents and their employers affected by the closures.
“Frankly speaking, this battle cannot be won solely by the efforts of the government,” Abe said Saturday. “We cannot do it without understanding and cooperation from every one of you, including medical institutions, families, companies and local governments.”
The death rate from COVID-19 was 1.4% in the latest report from Chinese health officials on 1,099 patients with confirmed disease at more than 500 hospitals throughout China.
The report, published Friday by the New England Journal of Medicine, gives a much broader view of the outbreak beyond Wuhan, where it started and where it has been most severe.
Assuming there are many more cases with no or very mild symptoms, “the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%,” U.S. health officials wrote in an editorial in the journal.
That would make the new virus more like a severe seasonal flu than a disease similar to its genetic cousins SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, or MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome.