Virus crisis ebbs in China, spreads fear across the West
Travelers Meredith Ponder, left, and Coleby Hanisch, both of Des Moines, Iowa, wear masks to remind them not to touch their faces as they ride a train at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in SeaTac, Wash. Six of the 18 Western Washington residents with the coronavirus have died as health officials rush to test more suspected cases and communities brace for spread of the disease. All confirmed cases of the virus in Washington are in Snohomish and King counties. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Employees wearing protective gear spray disinfectant to sanitize a passenger bus as a preventive measure against the coronavirus in Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Ukrainian Chief sanitary and epidemiological doctor Viktor Liashko has just reported its first confirmed case of the new COVID-19 coronavirus, saying a man who recently arrived from Italy was diagnosed with the virus. (AP Photo/Mykola Tys)
A woman has her temperature checked and her hands disinfected as she enters the Palladium Shopping Center, in northern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Iran's supreme leader put the Islamic Republic's armed forces on alert Tuesday to assist health officials in combating the outbreak of the new coronavirus, the deadliest outside of China. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A Carabinieri (Italian paramilitary police) officer on patrol at former military hospital Baggio, which reopened a ward to hospitalize patients recovering from the COVID-19 virus, in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, March 2, 2020. The strain on Lombardy's health system has forced authorities to seek to bring doctors out of retirement, accelerate graduation dates for nursing students, and incorporate doctors and hospital beds from the private sector to ease the strain on public hospitals. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)
Shoppers wearing face masks and gloves shop at the Palladium Shopping Center, in northern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Iran's supreme leader put the Islamic Republic's armed forces on alert Tuesday to assist health officials in combating the outbreak of the new coronavirus, the deadliest outside of China. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People wearing face masks and gloves shop at the Palladium Shopping Center, in northern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Iran's supreme leader put the Islamic Republic's armed forces on alert Tuesday to assist health officials in combating the outbreak of the new coronavirus, the deadliest outside of China. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Ambulances are parked to transport patients with mild symptoms of the coronavirus in Daegu, South Korea, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. China's coronavirus caseload continued to wane Tuesday even as the epidemic took a firmer hold beyond Asia. (Lee Moo-ryul/Newsisvia AP)
Hundreds of people line up to buy face masks to protect themselves from the coronavirus in front of a department store in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. China's coronavirus caseload continued to wane Tuesday even as the epidemic took a firmer hold beyond Asia, with three countries now exceeding 1,000 cases and the U.S. reporting its sixth death. (Hong Hae-in/Yonhap via AP)
A tourist wearing a protective mask takes a photo with the Olympic rings in the background Tuesday, March 3, 2020, at Tokyo's Odaiba district. The spreading virus from China has put the Tokyo Olympics at risk. The Olympics are to open on July 24 - less than five months away. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A tourist wearing a protective mask takes a photo of flower blooming Tuesday, March 3, 2020, at a park in Tokyo. The number of infections of the COVID-19 disease spread around the globe. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People line up to buy face masks to protect themselves from the new coronavirus in front of Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. China's coronavirus caseload continued to wane Tuesday even as the epidemic took a firmer hold beyond Asia. (Hong Hae-in/Yonhap via AP)
Staff members check students' body temperatures upon their arrival at Jakarta Nanyang School in Serpong on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Indonesia confirmed its first cases of the coronavirus Monday in two people who contracted the illness from a foreign traveler. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
Commuters walk along a sidewalk as a poster celebrating the Tokyo 2020 Olympics is seen in foreground, Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Tokyo. The Japanese government has indicated it sees the next couple of weeks as crucial to containing the spread of COVID-19, which began in China late last year. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
A masked man looks out near a national flag outside a traditional medicine hospital in Beijing on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Mushrooming outbreaks in the Mideast, Europe and South Korea contrasted with optimism in China, where thousands of recovered patients were going home and new virus cases drop to a new low. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
South Korean army trucks spray disinfectant as a precaution against the coronavirus on a street in Ulsan, South Korea, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. China's coronavirus caseload continued to wane Tuesday even as the epidemic took a firmer hold beyond Asia. (Kim Young-tae/Yonhap via AP)
Workers wearing protective gears spray disinfectant as a precaution against the coronavirus at a bus garage in Gwangju, South Korea, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. China's coronavirus caseload continued to wane Tuesday even as the epidemic took a firmer hold beyond Asia. (Shin Dae-hee/Newsisvia AP)
South Korean soldiers wearing protective gears walk to spray disinfectant as a precaution against the new coronavirus in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. China's coronavirus caseload continued to wane Tuesday even as the epidemic took a firmer hold beyond Asia. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
An airline agent wears a protective mask while printing out boarding passes at an airport check-in at the Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport, in Santiago, Chile, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. The health ministers of Argentina and Chile confirmed their respective country's first case of the coronavirus on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
A board above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the closing number for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Tuesday, March 3, 2020. The DJIA dropped 785 points and bond prices surged after an emergency interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve failed to reassure markets racked by worries that a fast-spreading virus outbreak could lead to a recession. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020, file photo, people wearing face masks sits on a bench in Milan, Italy. Health officials say passengers who flew on a jet with a Georgia man who later tested positive for the COVID-19 virus were never screened based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At a Tuesday, March 3, 2020, news briefing, local health officials said the 56-year-old Fulton County man had traveled to Atlanta from Milan, Italy, on Feb. 22 and didn’t show symptoms of the disease until a few days after his flight. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)
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)
PARIS (AP) — 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.
“We are concerned that countries' abilities to respond are being compromised by the severe and increasing disruption to the global supply of personal protective equipment, caused by rising demand, hoarding and misuse,” said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “We can't stop COVID-19 without protecting our health workers.”
Deaths in Italy surged to 79, making it the deadliest reported outbreak outside China. Twenty-three members of Iran's Parliament and the head of the country's emergency services were reported infected. South Korea expanded drive-thru testing and confirmed hundreds of new cases. And in Spain's Basque region, at least five doctors and nurses were infected and nearly 100 health care workers were being held in isolation.
The mushrooming outbreaks contrasted with optimism in China, where thousands of recovered patients were going home and the number of new infections has been dropping.
Worldwide, more than 93,000 people have been infected and over 3,100 have died, the vast majority of them in China. The number of countries hit by the virus exceeded 70, with Ukraine and Morocco reporting their first cases.
Virus clusters in the United States led schools and subways to sanitize and spread fears among nursing home residents, who are especially vulnerable. The number of the infections in the U.S. topped 100 and the death toll climbed to nine. All of the deaths were in Washington state, and most of them were residents of a Seattle-area nursing home.
The U.S. Federal Reserve announced the biggest interest-rate cut in over a decade to try to counter the expected damage to the economy, and stocks rose briefly on Wall Street in reaction before slumping again. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the virus “will surely weigh on economic activity both here and abroad for some time.”
Other Group of Seven countries appeared reluctant to follow suit with their own cuts, probably because many of their interest rates are already near or below zero.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave health care workers the OK to use an industrial type of respirator mask often used to protect construction workers from dust and debris.
Iran's supreme leader ordered the military to assist health officials in fighting the virus, which authorities said has killed 77 people. Among the dead are a confidant of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s former ambassador to the Vatican and a recently elected member of Parliament.
Iran’s judiciary chief, Ebrahim Raisi, said some people are stockpiling medical supplies for profit and urged prosecutors to show no mercy. “Hoarding sanitizing items is playing with people’s lives, and it is not ignorable,” he said.
France's president announced the government will take control of current and future stocks of face masks to ensure they could go to health workers and coronavirus patients, and the finance minister warned that binge-shopping for household essentials could trigger shortages. The country reported a total of more than 200 cases and four deaths.
“In this period we’re going through — we have entered a phase that will last weeks and, undoubtedly, months -– it is indispensable to have clarity, resilience, sangfroid and determination to stop the epidemic” French President Emmanuel Macron said during a visit to the government's virus crisis center.
South Korea confirmed another 142 cases Wednesday morning, raising its total to 5,328, the second-highest in the world. At drive-thru virus testing centers, workers dressed head-to-toe in white protective suits leaned into cars with mouth swabs to check for the virus. Troops sprayed disinfectant on streets and alleys across the city.
In China, the count of new cases dropped again Wednesday, with just 119 reported. It is still by far the hardest-hit country, with over 80,000 infections and about 95% of the world's deaths.
“We scrutinized this data and we believe this decline is real,” said WHO outbreak expert Maria Van Kerkhove, who traveled to China as part of a team from the U.N. agency. She said the extraordinary measures taken there, including the lockdown of more than 60 million people, had a significant effect on the direction of the outbreak.
“We believe that a reduction of cases in other countries, including Italy, Korea, Iran, everywhere, that this is possible,” she said.
China's ambassador to the United Nations said the country is winning its battle against COVID-19. “We are not far from the coming of the victory,” Zhang Jun said.
In Japan, questions continued to build about the fate of the Olympics.
The country's Olympic minister, Seiko Hashimoto, said Japan is “making the utmost effort” to proceed with the games' opening on July 24 in Tokyo. But she told parliament that the country's contract with the International Olympic Committee specifies only that the games be held in 2020, meaning they could be postponed to later in the year if necessary.
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Hinnant reported in Paris. Contributors include Martin Crutsinger and Christopher Rugaber in Washington; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Maria Cheng in London; Matt Sedensky in Bangkok; Nicole Winfield and Frances D'Emilio in Rome; Aritz Parra in Madrid; Chris Grygiel in Seattle; Kim Tong-Hyung and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea; Stephen Wade in Tokyo; Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
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Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak