A cruise ship turned away from San Francisco will dock in Oakland.
The Grand Princess cruise ship that has been held off the coast of California after 21 people onboard tested positive for the coronavirus will dock on Monday at the port of Oakland, the vessel’s operator said.
Passengers on the ship who require “acute medical treatment and hospitalization” will disembark first and be taken to facilities in California, according to the boat’s operator, Princess Cruises.
Other guests onboard who are California residents will be quarantined in a federal center in the state, the statement late Saturday said. Non-Californians will be taken to federal facilities in other states, the company said.
California has emerged as an early center for the virus in the United States, with about 100 cases in all.
The ship is holding more than 3,500 passengers and crew members; 19 crew members have tested positive for the virus, Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday. They will be quarantined aboard the vessel. Several other passengers who were on the ship on earlier legs of the voyage have also tested positive.
Princess Cruises initially said on Saturday that the ship would dock in Oakland on Sunday. It later amended that statement after what it called a change in planning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Concern over the Grand Princess, which traveled to Hawaii before returning to California, began last week after the death of a 71-year-old man who had been on a previous leg of the cruise, a round trip from San Francisco to Mexico last month.
Princess Cruises also runs the Diamond Princess, the coronavirus-stricken cruise ship that was quarantined off the coast of Japan last month. The virus circulated among the more than 3,700 crew members and passengers who were waiting out a two-week isolation period in the port city of Yokohama, with more than 700 cases identified from that ship.
On Saturday, Japan said that a man from Hong Kong who was a passenger on the Diamond Princess had died of the coronavirus on Friday in Japan, the eight death associated with the ship.
Italy orders a lockdown affecting 16 million people.
Italy’s government is taking the extraordinary step of locking down entire sections of the country’s north, restricting movement for a quarter of the population in a sweeping effort to fight the coronavirus.
“We are facing an emergency, a national emergency,” Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in announcing the government decree in a news conference after 2 a.m.
The move is tantamount to sacrificing the Italian economy in the short term to save it from the ravages of the virus in the long term. The measures will turn stretches of Italy’s wealthy north — including the economic and cultural capital of Milan and landmark tourist destinations such as Venice — into quarantined red zones until at least April 3.
They will prevent the free movement of roughly 16 million people.
Funerals and cultural events are banned under the measures. The decree requires that people keep a distance of at least one meter from one another at sporting events, bars, churches and supermarkets.
The Italian outbreak — the worst outside Asia — has inflicted serious damage on one of Europe’s most fragile economies and prompted the closing of Italy’s schools. The country’s cases more than doubled last week from about 2,500 infections on Wednesday to more than 5,800 on Saturday. Deaths rose to 233.
Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of Italy’s governing coalition’s Democratic Party, said that he was now a patient. “Well, it’s arrived,” he said in a Facebook video from his home. He said he would follow all of the protocols suggested by the authorities, who have urged infected people to self-quarantine.
France is also now one of the main centers of the epidemic in Europe. The health authorities on Saturday reported two more deaths, both in northern France, and 103 new infections, since Friday. France now has 949 cases, including a member of Parliament.
France, Germany and other countries have imposed limits on the export of protective medical equipment, some of which is badly needed but in short supply.
In Spain, over 580 people have the virus, and fatalities reached 13 this weekend. Barcelona officials have called off a marathon scheduled for March 15, but a big street rally on Sunday in Madrid for International Women’s Day was set to go ahead as planned.
The smallest E.U. nation, Malta, reported its first confirmed case on Saturday: a 12-year-old girl recently returned from a vacation in northern Italy. Her condition was described as good.
An attendee at a conference where Trump and Pence spoke tests positive.
A person who attended a conservative conference where President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence spoke last week has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the conference’s host.
The American Conservative Union, which hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, said the attendee was exposed to the virus before the four-day event and tested positive for it on Saturday.
“This attendee had no interaction with the president or the vice president and never attended the events in the main hall,” the group said in a statement. “The Trump administration is aware of the situation, and we will continue regular communication with all appropriate government officials.”
The attendee has been quarantined in New Jersey, the statement said.
Mr. Trump said on Saturday that he was not worried that the infections seemed to be getting closer to the White House.
“I’m not concerned at all,” he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he was spending the weekend.
Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that there was “no indication that either President Trump or Vice President Pence met with or were in close proximity to the attendee.”
Others who spoke at the conference included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia. Also in attendance were Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son.
At the conference, which draws thousands, Mr. Trump gave his administration good grades for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, while his acting chief of staff at the time, Mick Mulvaney, said in a separate speech that journalists were hyping the coronavirus because “they think this will bring down the president.”
Mr. Mulvaney also minimized concerns over the virus. “The flu kills people,” he said. “This is not Ebola. It’s not SARS, it’s not MERS. It’s not a death sentence; it’s not the same as the Ebola crisis.”
What everyone wants to know: What’s the fatality rate?
Understanding how deadly the coronavirus can be is a central factor for governments to gauge how drastic their countermeasures should be and for individuals to adjust their own anxiety.
But the real rate is elusive.
The World Health Organization’s estimate last week of 3.4 percent seemed to shock experts, some of whom said that 1 percent was more realistic.
There are several reasons the right number remains unclear.
Not enough people have been tested. Incomplete testing means the reported death rates probably skew high; if many more cases were detected, the rates would fall. Until last week, people in the United States were tested only if they had traveled to China or had contact with other ill people. Many infected people in the country were not being counted.
The number of coronavirus deaths could be incomplete. Cases where infected people died without being tested might be missed. And people can be infected for a while before becoming sick enough to be at risk of death — which can throw off a short-term calculation.
The rate won’t be the same everywhere. Experts say differences in populations and health systems can raise or lower the death rate by country. For example, there is strong evidence that older people are at a higher risk of dying, so countries with more older people may end up with a higher rate.
The death toll rises after a quarantine center collapses in China.
Ten people died in the collapse of a hotel that was being used as a coronavirus quarantine facility in Quanzhou, a city in China’s southeastern Fujian Province, the government said on Sunday.
Government officials said that about 70 people had been trapped inside the building when it collapsed on Saturday. Thirty-eight people had been rescued as of Sunday afternoon and taken to the hospital. Officials said 23 people were still trapped inside
The People’s Daily, a Chinese state-run newspaper, said that the hotel had collapsed during renovations and that the owner of the building was under police custody.
The five-story hotel, which opened in summer 2018, was designated a quarantine center for people who have been in close contact with suspected coronavirus patients. Of those trapped inside the hotel when it collapsed, 58 had been placed under quarantine, officials said.
The Trump administration sends mixed messages on who can get a test kit.
President Trump said that “anyone who wants a test can get a test” on Friday as he toured the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary, later clarified Mr. Trump’s promise and defended his phrasing.
Mr. Azar said that only those who had gone through a doctor or medical professional could be approved for a test. Mr. Trump’s phrasing, he said, reflected a recent shift in federal regulations.
The C.D.C. lifted all restrictions on testing for the coronavirus on Wednesday. Instead of federal regulators and those shipping the test kits, doctors and professional public health officials now decide who can be tested.
Mr. Azar said Mr. Trump had used “shorthand” to make that point.
Dr. Stephen Hahn, the F.D.A. commissioner, said that more than 5,860 samples had been tested. In addition, more than 1.1 million tests have been shipped to private health labs and hundreds of thousands more are being surveyed for quality at the C.D.C., he added.
Despite Mr. Azar’s assurance that any ill person with a doctor’s recommendation can readily obtain a test, health professionals and patients across the United States have clamored for tests believed to be in short supply.
In California, only 516 tests had been conducted as of Thursday. Health officials in Washington State have more cases than they can process. In New York City, officials have pleaded for more test kits from the C.D.C.
State officials facing a growing number of cases criticized the Trump administration this weekend for what they described as its contradictions. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said that he was “battling” mixed messages, with the president saying that anybody can get a test and the vice president saying that there weren’t enough tests to meet the anticipated demand.
A Starbucks shuts down in Seattle after an employee tests positive.
After a Starbucks employee was confirmed to have the virus on Friday, the company immediately closed the downtown Seattle store and issued a statement saying that it was following health authority guidelines to protect customers and employees.
The company, founded in Seattle in the early 1970s, also said it was taking additional steps to reduce the risk of exposure at its stores, including barring customers from using their own coffee containers.
The coronavirus has hit the Seattle area harder than anywhere else in the United States, with 16 deaths in Washington State, most from a nursing home northeast of the city. The virus and its public health implications have rippled through the community, affecting how and where people work and gather.
Many employees and students at the University of Washington, for example, are working and taking classes remotely.
“Seattle is freaking out,” said Lenny Galaviz as he stopped to take a photograph through a window of the closed store, a Starbucks Reserve.
The Chinese version of the W.H.O. website omits a key mention of traditional medicines.
Those looking to the World Health Organization’s website for guidance on what not to do during the coronavirus outbreak are finding different answers, depending on where they are and which version of the website they visit.
In a Q. and A. about the coronavirus published on Feb. 23, the W.H.O. listed four answers to the question “Is there anything I should not do?”
“The following measures ARE NOT effective against Covid-2019 and can be harmful,” the website reads, before listing smoking, taking traditional herbal remedies, wearing multiple masks and taking medications like antibiotics.
But in the Chinese-language version of the webpage, the reference to “taking traditional herbal remedies” is omitted. The reference also does not appear when a user visits the English-language webpage from within China, though it is listed on the Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish versions of the site.
The discrepancy comes amid a concerted push by the Chinese government to promote traditional Chinese medicine as an effective treatment to the coronavirus alongside antiviral drugs, though there is little clinical proof that the ancient remedies can help combat the disease. In recent years, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has held up traditional Chinese medicine as a source of national pride, and the multibillion-dollar industry has become a valuable soft power export for China.
The W.H.O. has praised China for its response to the coronavirus outbreak, saying the country’s draconian measures may have saved hundreds of thousands of people from infection.
More Times coverage.
The Times is publishing many articles daily on the coronavirus that help inform this briefing. Here is a list of articles from the last day or so.
International:
Italy Locks Down Much of the Country’s North Over the Coronavirus
As Death Toll Mounts, Governments Point Fingers Over Coronavirus
Why the Coronavirus Could Threaten the U.S. Economy Even More Than China’s
Paid to Stay Home: Europe’s Safety Net Could Ease Toll of Coronavirus
The Week in Tech: Welcome to the Age of Mandatory Videoconferencing
Climate:
Coronavirus Could Slow Efforts to Cut Airlines’ Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Culture:
South by Southwest Is Canceled as Coronavirus Fears Scuttle Festival
From Coughing Fits to Closings, Cultural World Girds for Coronavirus
TEFAF Art Fair Carries on. But Business Isn’t Usual.
Lifestyle:
Coronavirus Puts a Wrinkle in Wedding Industry
Help:
How Deadly Is Coronavirus? What We Know and What We Don’t
What Should My Building Be Doing to Prevent Coronavirus?
How to Help Protect a Family Member in a Nursing Home
Reporting and research were contributed by Jason Horowitz, Motoko Rich, Amie Tsang, Kirk Johnson, Andy Parsons, Thomas Fuller, Amy Qin, Tiffany May, Claire Fu, Noah Weiland and Michael Levenson.