What's Happening: Virus closes schools, but Louvre reopens
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, center, eats a pizza with French Ambassador to Rome Christian Masset, right, and pizza maker Gino Sorbillo, in Sorbillo's restaurant, in Rome, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. According to reports, Di Maio invited the French ambassador for a pizza after French channel Canal plus broadcast a satirical video of a fake Italian pizza maker coughing on a pizza and calling it "Corona Pizza". (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, center, eats a pizza with French Ambassador to Rome Christian Masset, right, and pizza maker Gino Sorbillo, in Sorbillo's restaurant, in Rome, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. According to reports, Di Maio invited the French ambassador for a pizza after French channel Canal plus broadcast a satirical video of a fake Italian pizza maker coughing on a pizza and calling it "Corona Pizza". (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
A man wearing a mask walks past a billboard depicting lightning in Beijing on Wednesday, March 4, 2020. The mushrooming outbreaks in other countries contrasted with optimism in China, where thousands of recovered patients were going home and the number of new infections dropped to the lowest level in more than six weeks. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A man wearing a face mask walks past an entrance sign for Bank underground train station backdropped by the Royal Exchange building in London, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. British authorities laid out plans Tuesday to confront a COVID-19 epidemic, saying that the new coronavirus could spread within weeks from a few dozen confirmed cases to millions of infections, with thousands of people in the U.K. at risk of death. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
South Korean army soldiers wearing protective gears spray disinfectant as a precaution against the new coronavirus on a street in Gyeongan, South Korea, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. (Kim Hyun-tae/Yonhap via AP)
South Korean army soldiers wearing protective gears move to spray disinfectant as a precaution against the new coronavirus in Gyeongan, South Korea, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. (Kim Hyun-tae/Yonhap via AP)
This Feb 27, 2020, photo released by Louis Wang, shows his work desk with laptop and textbooks at home in northeast China. Wang, a middle school history teacher in northeast China, said his workload has ballooned due to the arduous process through which online classes must be approved. Chinese schools turning to online learning during a virus outbreak are running into the country's ubiquitous and often arbitrary internet censorship. (Louis Wang via AP)
Army soldiers wearing protective suits spray disinfectant as a precaution against the new coronavirus at a shopping street in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. The coronavirus epidemic shifted increasingly westward toward the Middle East, Europe and the United States on Tuesday, with governments taking emergency steps to ease shortages of masks and other supplies for front-line doctors and nurses. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
An Indian students wears a self-made mask and listens to a teacher at a government school in Hyderabad, India, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. A new virus first detected in China has infected more than 90,000 people globally and caused over 3,100 deaths. The World Health Organization has named the illness COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)
Austrian rescue personnel checks the body temperature of persons during an informal meeting of oil ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Roland Zak)
In this picture taken on March 1, 2020 a child rides his bicycle outsited a closed Allianz Stadium in Turin, northern Italy. The Italian Cup semifinal between Juventus and AC Milan scheduled for Wednesday, March 4, 2020 in Turin has been postponed indefinitely as part of measures to stop the spread of the virus outbreak in Italy. (Marco Alpozzi/LaPresse via AP)
In this picture taken on March 1, 2020 a padlock locks a gate of the Allianz Stadium in Turin, northern Italy. The Italian Cup semifinal between Juventus and AC Milan scheduled for Wednesday, March 4, 2020 in Turin has been postponed indefinitely as part of measures to stop the spread of the virus outbreak in Italy. (Marco Alpozzi/LaPresse via AP)
Local and tourists walk along a nearly empty St. Mark's square in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. G-7 countries say they are ready to take action to cushion the economic impacts of the new coronavirus outbreak, a statement that comes after a few days of wild market swings. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A student wearing a face mask sits in the library of the Politecnico University in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. Italy's virus outbreak has been concentrated in the northern region of Lombardy, but fears over how the virus is spreading inside and outside the country has prompted the government to close all schools nationwide for two weeks. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)
In this picture taken with a slow shutter speed, far smaller crowds than usual of Muslim pilgrims circumambulate the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Wednesday, March 4, 2020. The coronavirus outbreak disrupted Islamic worship in the Middle East as Saudi Arabia on Wednesday banned its citizens and other residents of the kingdom from performing the pilgrimage in Mecca, while Iran canceled Friday prayers in major cities. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
More school closures and the suspension of business travel are among the steps being taken around the world to fight the spread of the new coronavirus.
These are some of the latest developments Wednesday:
SCHOOLS, PRAYER DISRUPTED
Italy is closing schools nationwide after reporting more than 3,000 cases of the new virus and more than 100 deaths. In the United States, some schools in Washington are considering the possibility of having to teach students online as the state's death toll reached 10. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia banned pilgrimages to the holy city of Mecca. Iran canceled Friday's Islamic prayers in major cities. In Israel, the chief rabbi is urging observant Jews to refrain from kissing mezuzot, small items encasing a prayer scroll that are posted by Jews on doorposts.
DEATH-RATE MATH
The World Health Organization says 3.4% of people known to have had the new virus globally have died so far. But it's too early to know if the death rate for the virus is really that high. When viruses pop up in new places, the first to get counted are often the sickest. And health authorities think many people with mild cases of COVID-19 are still going uncounted right now. With SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, about 10% of patients died. On average, the seasonal flu's death rate is about 0.1%.
CRUISE SHIP RECALLED
A cruise ship is being called back to San Francisco after a “small cluster” of former passengers in Northern California were confirmed to have the new virus. That included a Mexico cruise passenger who became the first person with COVID-19 to die in California. The chief medical officer of The Grand Princess says guests who sailed on the Feb. 11-21 voyage and are currently on the ship need to stay in their rooms until they are cleared by medical staff.
SOUTH KOREA SEEKS HOSPITAL BEDS, NORTH KOREA CLAIMS ZERO CASES
The South Korean city of Daegu is short of thousands of hospital beds for patients, while neighboring North Korea says it doesn't have any cases. But experts say the virus may already be circulating in North Korea, which also shares a border with China, where the virus first appeared. Meanwhile, tiny Liechtenstein and the remote Faroe Islands off Europe reported their first cases Wednesday.
MONA LISA SMILES AGAIN
The Louvre Museum in Paris has reopened after managers promised measures to ease workers’ fears about catching the virus from visitors who come from around the world. The measures include distributing more disinfectant gels and giving staff more time to wash their hands. Additionally, staff will only need to stand at the entrance to the room where Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” is displayed, rather than inside. The museum will also stop accepting cash payments because of worries banknotes could harbor the virus
AIR TRAVEL BLUES
Demand for air travel may be about to take another hit, as companies including Amazon and Nestle ask employees to curb business trips The International Air Transport Association says January had the slowest monthly year-over-year growth since April 2010. And the group says that's only the beginning of the traffic impacts it expects since major travel restrictions in China related to the virus did not start until late January. On Wednesday, United Airlines said it will freeze hiring and ask employees to volunteer for unpaid leave as it struggles with weak demand for travel because of the new virus outbreak.
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