With battered economies, coronavirus is rewriting realities of life

While the new coronavirus has extended its reach across the world, definite geographic clusters of infections were emerging

Update: 2020-03-01 06:55 GMT
President Donald Trump, center, speaks about the coronavirus in the press briefing room at the White House on Saturday, Feb. 29 (AP image)

Amid fears about where the next outbreak of a fast-spreading new virus would appear, infections and deaths continued to rise across the globe ,leading to empty streets , shaking economies and rewriting the realities of daily life.

Tourist sites across Asia, Europe and the Mid-east were deserted, and governments closed schools and banned big gatherings.

While the new coronavirus has extended its reach across the world, definite geographic clusters of infections were emerging, with Iran, Italy and South Korea seeing rising cases.

Meanwhile, United States recorded its first Coronavirus case in Washington where a man in his 50s had underlying health conditions.

Additional cases in the United States are likely, but healthy individuals should be able to fully recover

US President Donald Trump

The list of countries touched by the virus climbed to nearly 60, with Ireland and Ecuador reporting their first case on Saturday. More than 86,000 people worldwide have contracted the virus, with deaths topping to 2,900.

Many cases of the virus have been relatively mild, and some of those infected apparently show no symptoms at all, this can allow for easier spread, and worries are 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.

As governments scramble to control the spread and businesses wrestled with interruptions, researchers are working to  understand the disease better and  reported that the death rate may be lower than initially feared as more mild cases are counted.

There's growing evidence of the vast cost and economic turmoil of the disease that emerged in central China in December.

A new report shows a sharp decline in Chinese manufacturing in February after efforts to contain the virus shut down much of the world's second-largest economy. The survey comes as global stock markets fall sharply on fears that the virus will spread abroad.

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