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The top U.S. government infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, predicted Sunday that 100,000 or more Americans could die from the coronavirus pandemic, 50 times the current death toll. Fauci told CNN that the U.S. could have “millions of cases” of COVID-19, a vast spread of the pandemic in the country, where officials now officially count 124,000 confirmed cases and 2,100 deaths, although both figures are rapidly increasing by the day. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Thomas Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University, both rebuffed suggestions by President Donald Trump that the advice to stay home and social distance with other people to prevent the spread of the coronavirus can be eased. Trump suggested last week that U.S. businesses would be “raring to go” by Easter Sunday in two weeks. Fauci said he would only support any easing of anti-coronavirus protections in lesser-impacted regions of the country if there is increased availability of testing to monitor those areas. But he said, “It’s a little iffy there” currently. A usually busy 7th Avenue is mostly empty of vehicles, the result of citywide restrictions calling for people to stay indoors and maintain social distancing in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, March 28, 2020, in New York.Initial U.S. social distancing recommendations to slow the spread of the virus end Monday, but Inglesby told the “Fox News Sunday” show, “I don’t think we’ve had anywhere near enough time” for the restrictions to have an appreciable effect. “We must hold steady with social distancing.” The pace of the coronavirus toll in the U.S. has been frightening, with the first 1,000 deaths recorded over a month, and the second 1,000 over the last two days. President Donald Trump talks with host Bill Hemmer during a Fox News virtual town hall with members of the coronavirus task force, in the Rose Garden at the White House, March 24, 2020, in Washington.Trump suggested last week that the country can soon safely return to work while continuing to ”social distance ourselves and wash our hands.” Asked whether that would be a viable strategy, Inglesby said, “I don’t think so.” He said if the U.S. workforce, millions of whom are teleworking from home or furloughed by their employers, return too soon, the coronavirus will spread “widely and aggressively. We really should hold the course.” He said any relaxation of protections against the spread of the virus should be a “conditions-based decision.” Inglesby said “it’s not clear to me” when restrictions might have had enough of an effect to gradually return to normal life in the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who is heading Trump’s coronavirus task force, told Fox News in a separate interview, that in the coming days he would “bring data to him” about the advance of the disease. “We’ll open up our country as soon as we can responsibly do so,” Pence said. While the number of the confirmed coronavirus cases is spiraling, Pence said it “should be encouraging to Americans” that of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been tested for the virus in the U.S. only 10% have tested positive. Trump on Saturday floated the idea of imposing a quarantine around the particularly hard-hit New York metropolitan area that includes parts of the states of New Jersey and Connecticut, but backed off the idea. Instead, health officials called on the millions who live in the megalopolis to continue to stay home and practice social distancing — staying at least two meters from other people.  Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy Vice President Mike Pence and Rep. Kevin Brady applaud President Donald Trump during then bill signing ceremony, March 27, 2020.Trump signed a congressionally approved $2 trillion stimulus package on Friday to boost the country’s economic fortunes from the significant damage wreaked by the coronavirus. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox said he would leave it “to the medical professionals” about how soon to fully reopen the country, but he said the cash infusion businesses and about 90% of American families could return the country to economic health again by the July-to-September period, even if the April-to-June period is rocky. Some economists are saying the U.S. has already fallen into a recession and could soon see a 20% unemployment rate and a 24% decline in the country’s economy, the world’s biggest. “I don’t know what these numbers are going to be,” Mnuchin said. But he predicted that within months there would be a “very large” growth in the country’s economy and “low numbers” in unemployment. “We are going to kill this virus,” he said. 
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Voters in Mali went to the polls Sunday to elect members of the 147-seat National Assembly.  The parliamentary election in the war-torn West African country, which should have taken place after President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s 2018 reelection, has been postponed several times since then out of security concerns. New members of the assembly are expected to emerge for the first time since 2013, when Rally for Mali, Keita’s party, gained a substantial majority.   Some 200,000 people displaced by the ongoing violence in northern and central Mali will not be able to vote, because “no mechanism has been established” to facilitate their participation, a government official said. The COVID-19 outbreak has figured in the persistent security fears about the vote. Late Saturday, the country announced its first coronavirus death with the number of infections rising to 18. The abduction Wednesday of the veteran opposition leader Soumaila Cisse has also contributed to such fears.     Cisse, 70, who has been runner-up in three presidential elections, was campaigning in the central area of the country at the time.  Cisse and six members of his team were kidnapped in an attack in which his bodyguard was killed. It is believed that Cisse and his entourage are being held by a jihadist group linked to al-Qaida.  Cisse’s Union for the Republic and Democracy urged supporters on Saturday to go to polling stations in even greater numbers. 
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Pope Francis is backing the U.N. chief’s call for a cease-fire in all conflicts raging across the globe to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. He also said his thoughts are with those constrained to live in groups, citing in particular rest homes for the elderly, military barracks and jails.During his traditional Sunday blessing, the pope called for ‘’the creation of humanitarian aid corridors, the opening of diplomacy and attention to those who are in situations of great vulnerability.’’He cited U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ appeal this past week for a global truce ‘’to focus together on the true fight of our lives’’ against the coronavirus.Francis, as he has throughout most of the coronavirus emergency due to bans on public gatherings, addressed the faithful from his private library in the Apostolic Palace, and not from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square as is tradition. 
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Taiwan’s invitation to American journalists harassed by China to locate here instead would free them from government pressure but distance them from Asia’s hub for international news.Foreign minister Joseph Wu tweeted the invitation Saturday. He mentioned three media organizations whose reporters had been thrown out of China, apparently in response to U.S. curbs against journalists working for state-run Chinese media in the United States.“He said as that as New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post journalists face intensifying hostility in China, I would like to welcome you to be stationed in Taiwan, a country that’s a beacon of freedom and democracy,” ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said, referring to Wu’s tweet.As Wall Street Journal reporters Julie Wernau embraces a colleague before her departure at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, March 28, 2020.Unlike in China, in Taiwan foreign reporters are legally free to interview scholars, ordinary people and government officials without filing applications.Taiwan police seldom interrupt a journalist’s fieldwork, again unlike as in China, and the foreign ministry does not expel reporters over disagreements about their news coverage. China threw out three Wall Street Journal reporters in February because of the news organization’s headline calling China a “sick man of Asia” due to its COVID-19 outbreak.Those protections, typical of a democracy, however, come at the expense of distance from China, the epicenter for Asia news closely followed by American audiences. China was the source of COVID-19 in December. Over the past two years, it has captured attention for its role in the Sino-U.S. trade dispute.Americans, including those based in Taiwan, need visas every time they visit China unless transiting for three to six days in some of the larger cities. If discovered gathering news there without Chinese government permission, they could be expelled, and any China-based colleagues harassed.“It don’t think it’s easy for journalists to make their story if they are not on the ground in Beijing or Shanghai, but if Taipei can be an alternative choice when there’s a situation or scenario, that would be a good thing,” said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan.        
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Italy, the European country hardest hit by the coronavirus, confirmed 10,023 people dead and 92,472 infected as of Saturday.Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte made the announcement Saturday evening in a joint appearance with Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri.On a somewhat positive note, Conte said that on Saturday Italy also had more than 1,400 people who recovered, the highest number to date.Conte said that under the solidarity fund for the municipalities program, which has an advance payment of $4.8 billion, mayors will soon be issuing food vouchers for low-income and poor people facing challenges due to the lockdown of the country and the shutdown of nonessential factories and businesses. Many Italians have seen a drastic decrease of income.Relatives attend the funeral of a woman who died from the coronavirus disease, as Italy struggles to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Seriate, March 28, 2020.”With a Civil Protection order we will add to this fund (the solidarity fund for the municipalities) 400 million euros. We are distributing this fund to the municipalities, but they must use it to support poor people who cannot afford food shopping. With these 400 million that will be distributed to the 8,000 municipalities of our territory it will be possible to issue vouchers and to give food,” Conte said.Local municipalities are obliged to use the fund for food, medicines and other essential goods for citizens of the poorest segments of Italian society.Conte also said that if data collected show a decrease in the intensity of the coronavirus and if it is feasible, schools may open Friday.In Spain, the health ministry confirmed 832 deaths Saturday, bringing the total number of victims to 5,690.  The country has the highest death toll in Europe after Italy.Health authorities said Friday the country was getting closer to the peak of the virus outbreak. In the meantime, hospitals have surpassed their capacities and patients infected with coronavirus continue to arrive, which has forced medical personnel to accommodate them elsewhere.As of Saturday, France had 37,575 confirmed cases of infection and 2,314 deaths, with 319 new deaths in the last 24 hours, health authorities said.Sheep walk back to their shelter near the Mont-Saint-Michel, northwestern France, on March 28, 2020, during a lockdown in France aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19.French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the country has not seen the worst yet, warning that the first 15 days of April will be crucial.”We must all together face a considerable challenge and make an intense effort. An effort that will endure because I want to tell you things with clarity, the fight has just begun. The first 15 days of April will be difficult, even more difficult than the 15 days that have just passed,” Philippe said.Meanwhile, Health Minister Olivier Veran said France had ordered more than a billion protective masks, mostly from China, as the country was running short of the much-needed item to fight the spread of COVID-19.In Germany the number of deaths has been relatively low, compared to other European countries. According to Die Zeit newspaper, Germany had 397 victims – a death rate below 1 percent — as of Saturday, and 53,340 people tested positive for the coronavirus.Experts believe that strict measures, extensive testing and a strong health care system have helped the country to deal more effectively to keep the death toll lower, while the number of infections is high.Germany has closed nonessential services and has banned public gatherings of more than two people until April 20. 
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday he was postponing the state’s April 28 presidential primary to June 23 as its number of coronavirus cases climbed to 53,339 and deaths to 728.“We have been behind this virus from day one. We are waiting to see what the virus does,” Cuomo said at a news conference. “You don’t win on defense. You win on offense. You have to get ahead of this.”The governor has become a leading national voice on the coronavirus pandemic as the state has accounted for roughly a third of the U.S. death toll and half the known cases.Cuomo said he asked pharmacies to begin delivering medications to homes free of charge. He also said President Donald Trump had approved the construction of four additional temporary hospital sites in New York City, adding 4,000 hospital beds.
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The hospital ship USNS Comfort departed from Norfolk, Virginia, Saturday en route to New York to assist with the coronavirus outbreak. President Donald Trump flew to Norfolk on Saturday as it set off. During a speech, he said is considering a two-week quarantine for the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to help officials contain the pandemic. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti has our story.
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Almost all American presidents have faced a crisis while in office, whether it’s a political scandal, natural disaster, economic calamity or terrorism. But not all have the misfortune of having to deal with epidemics and pandemics. Here are some of them and how historians view their performance.Woodrow Wilson – Spanish fluPresident Woodrow Wilson faced the influenza pandemic of 1918-19 that killed 20 million to 50 million people around the world while the United States was fighting in World War I.“Even though President Trump has talked about being at war with the pandemic, in the case of Wilson and the Spanish flu, the United States really was at war,” said Thomas Schwartz, professor of history at Vanderbilt University.FILE – President-elect Woodrow Wilson and President William Howard Taft laugh on the White House steps before departing together for Wilson’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., U.S. in March 1913.The war was the reason Wilson’s administration downplayed the crisis, from the moment the outbreak began until it eventually killed 675,000 Americans.
 
“Woodrow Wilson never made a public statement of any kind about the pandemic,” said John M. Barry, professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and author of The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.
 
“It was an indication of Wilson’s intense focus on the war – that was all he cared about,” Barry said.
 
Like Britain, France and Germany, the U.S. kept the outbreak secret because it didn’t want to show weakness to the enemy. At the height of the outbreak, Wilson sent troops abroad packed into ships that were “cauldrons of virus transfers,” said Max Skidmore, political science professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and author of Presidents, Pandemics and Politics.Eventually a quarter of all Americans became infected, including several who worked at the White House. Many historians believe Wilson himself fell ill. Barry said that during negotiations ahead of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles in Paris, Wilson had “103, 104 fever, violent coughs, and other symptoms that were unique to the 1918 virus.”As states and cities began to order what we now know as social distancing – closing businesses and schools, banning public gatherings – Wilson’s administration continued to downplay the pandemic. Spain, a neutral party in the war, was the only country that reported casualty numbers accurately, hence the name Spanish flu, even though the flu did not originate there.
 Dwight Eisenhower – Asian flu      
 
The H2N2 virus was first reported in Singapore in February 1957 and reached the United States that summer.President Dwight D. Eisenhower was aware of the impending pandemic, Skidmore said, but he initially refused to start a nationwide government-supported vaccination program. “He had faith in the ability of free-market vaccines to take care of the impending crisis,” Skidmore said. “And as a result, the death rate was perhaps about doubled what it might have been otherwise.”FILE – President Dwight Eisenhower speaks during a news conference in Washington, Dec. 10, 1958.In August 1957, Eisenhower asked Congress for $500,000 in funding and authorization to shift an additional $2 million, if needed, to fight the outbreak. He set a goal of 60 million doses of vaccines, enough to vaccinate a third of the population, around 171 million at that time. By early November, about 40 million doses had been given, and the pandemic began losing steam.
 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated the number of deaths from H2N2 at 1.1 million worldwide and 116,000 in the United States.
 Gerald Ford – Swine flu
 
Leaders are often faulted for downplaying crises, but Gerald Ford was accused by some of overreacting.Not long after a soldier died of a new form of flu in February 1976, the U.S. secretary of health, education and welfare announced that the virus could turn into an epidemic by fall.Scientists at the CDC thought it could be even deadlier than the 1918 flu strain. To avoid an epidemic, the CDC said at least 80 percent of the U.S. population would need to be vaccinated, leading Ford to sign emergency legislation for the National Swine Flu Immunization Program, in mid-April. Within a few months, close to 50 million Americans were vaccinated.FILE – U.S. President Gerald Ford rolls up his sleeve and receives a swine flu shot from White House physician Dr. William Lukash, Oct. 14, 1976.Ford took action quickly, but issues with the vaccine caused more problems in the end, Vanderbilt’s Schwartz said. Hundreds of people came down with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, after getting the flu shot.
 
“Ironically,” Skidmore said, “it was the sophistication of the government’s own monitoring system that led them to identify those cases and associate them with the vaccine.”
 
While Ford demonstrated the government’s efficiency in marshaling resources, his massive vaccination program, on top of other political blunders, contributed to Ronald Reagan’s attempt to wrest the Republican nomination from Ford in 1976. Ford lost to Democrat Jimmy Carter later that year.“The general consensus is that he was overreacting,” said Skidmore, who nevertheless lauded the president’s better-safe-than-sorry approach. “He seemed to be convinced, and I think correctly so in retrospect, that it would be far better to have a vaccine and no pandemic, then to have a pandemic and no vaccine.”By the time immunizations began in October, a large outbreak had failed to emerge, and swine flu became known as the pandemic that never was. The experience contributed to the hesitance of some Americans to embrace vaccines, even now.
 Ronald Reagan – the AIDS crisisThe Reagan administration FILE – President Ronald Reagan gestures during a White House East Room news conference, May 22, 1984 in Washington.Reagan’s approach was “certainly not a model for future presidents,” Schwartz said. Part of this is because in the early phase of the outbreak, most of the victims were either homosexuals or drug addicts, groups outside Reagan’s conservative coalition.Despite American gay men showing signs of what would later be called AIDS as early as 1978, Reagan did not publicly use the word “AIDS” until September 17, 1985, well into his second term.“Reagan simply failed to recognize the severity of the AIDS epidemic,” Skidmore said. Reagan also believed that government was the problem, not the solution, so his predisposition was to diminish its role even in crises, Skidmore added.In April 1987, Reagan declared AIDS “public health enemy No. 1.” He allocated $766 million for AIDS research and education, to be increased to $1 billion in fiscal 1988. But he advised sexual abstinence instead of methods of protection.“Let’s be honest with ourselves,” Reagan said. “AIDS information cannot be what some call ‘value neutral.’ After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don’t medicine and morality teach the same lessons?”By the end of Reagan’s presidency in 1989, the United States had suffered 89,343 AIDS-related deaths.
 George W. Bush – AIDS crisis and SARS
 
President George W. Bush has received applause from both Republicans and Democrats for the commitment he made to help fight HIV/AIDS globally and particularly in Africa.His success contrasted with the mixed legacy of his father, George H.W. Bush. During his time in office, the elder Bush signed two important pieces of legislation — the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protected people with HIV and AIDS from discrimination, and the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act, which provided funding for AIDS treatment. But some see a lack of urgency on the part of the administration and criticize Bush for refusing to change a policy that blocked people with HIV from entering the United States.FILE – President George W. Bush, with first lady Laura Bush, makes a statement on World AIDS Day at the White House in Washington, Dec. 1, 2008 in Washington.In 2003, the George W. Bush administration created the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), an initiative to address the global epidemic.“PEPFAR was probably one of the best things in his presidency,” Barry said. “It got pretty much universal applause.”Since its inception, PEPFAR has provided more than $80 billion for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention and research, making it the largest global health program in history focused on a single disease. It is widely credited with having helped save millions of lives, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa.In April 2003, after an outbreak in Asia, Bush signed an executive order adding severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) to a list of communicable diseases that can lead to people being involuntarily quarantined. Eventually more than 8,000 people worldwide became sick with SARS, and 774 died during the 2003 outbreak. In the United States, only eight people had laboratory evidence of the infection.In 2005, the Bush administration created the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, which called for the federal government to maintain and distribute a national stockpile of medical supplies in the event of an outbreak, and an infrastructure for future presidents to learn from and build upon in dealing with their own pandemics.
 Barack Obama – H1N1, Zika and Ebola
 
A few months into President Barack Obama’s first term in 2009, reports started coming in about H1N1, or swine influenza, which was detected first in the United States and spread quickly around the world.According to the CDC, the first case was reported April 15, 2009. The Obama administration assembled a team and declared H1N1 a public health emergency on April 26, six weeks before it was declared a pandemic and before any deaths had been recorded in the U.S.The Obama administration “geared up as soon as the virus surfaced,” Barry said. “They were 100% all in, both in terms of scientific research and trying to generate vaccines and in public health measures.”
 
Six months after that initial declaration, with more than 1,000 American lives lost, Obama declared swine flu a national emergency.
 
The CDC estimated that from April 2009 to April 2010, there were 60.8 million cases of swine flu and 12,469 deaths from it in the United States. The World Health Organization declared an end to the pandemic on August 10, 2010.FILE – President Barack Obama, with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Guinean President Alpha Condé, speaks at the White House in Washington, April 15, 2015, on progress made in the international Ebola response.Four years later, Obama faced another crisis – the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa.Obama activated the CDC Emergency Operations Center in July 2014 to help coordinate technical assistance, including deploying personnel to West Africa to assist with response efforts. The CDC trained almost 25,000 health care workers in West Africa on infection prevention and control practices.Only 11 people were treated for the virus in the U.S. Yet some Republicans criticized Obama for not instituting travel bans from countries where the Ebola outbreak was pervasive.Obama fought a different virus on the home front – Zika, a virus transmitted by mosquitoes. The 2015 Zika outbreak was first recorded in Brazil, and by 2016 about 40,000 cases were reported in the U.S. The Obama administration requested $1.9 billion in emergency federal funding to fight the virus in February 2016, $1.1 billion of which was approved by Congress that September.In 2015, Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, created the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit, a team responsible for pandemic preparedness under the National Security Council, a forum of White House personnel that advises the president on national security and foreign policy matters.In May 2018, during the presidency of Donald Trump, the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit was disbanded. Its leader left the administration, and some of its members were merged into other units within NSC.Lessons learnedHistorians say that in the face of public health crises, presidents who are informed, focused, organized and transparent are most likely to be successful.Skidmore, of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said American presidents can learn from their predecessors, particularly in establishing strong coordination between the federal government and states, and ensuring the private sector is fully engaged. Skidmore said the Obama administration greatly benefited from George W. Bush’s National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, a plan that spanned every department of the federal government, every state and broad swaths of the private sector to stockpile antiviral medications and provide scientists resources to develop vaccines.Schwartz, of Vanderbilt, and Barry, of Tulane, said that leaders must be optimistic and provide hope. But more important, they must be transparent, both to prevent unfounded information from spreading and to create the credibility that will encourage people to follow guidelines instead of being skeptical of their government.
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President Donald Trump floated the idea of a short-term quarantine as early as Saturday affecting residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to stop the spread of coronavirus from reaching states with fewer infections.Trump told reporters at the White House that he had spoken with Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, among others, and that “a lot of the states that are infected but don’t have a big problem, they’ve asked me if I’ll look at it, so we’re going to look at it.”But Governor Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., who has criticized the federal government’s response as his state became the country’s virus epicenter, said the issue had not come up in a conversation he had with Trump earlier Saturday.”I don’t even know what that means,” he said at a briefing in New York. ” I don’t know how that could be legally enforceable, and from a medical point of view, I don’t know what you would be accomplishing. … I don’t like the sound of it.”The federal government is empowered under the law to take measures to prevent the spread of communicable diseases between states, but it’s not clear that means Trump can order state residents to stay put.’Hot spots’
 
But before Trump spoke in Norfolk, Virginia, as a U.S. Navy medical ship left for New York City to help with pandemic response there, he tweeted: “I am giving consideration to a QUARANTINE of developing ‘hot spots,’ New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. A decision will be made, one way or another, shortly.”Trump said the idea of isolating many in the trio of Democratic strongholds in the Northeast was pushed by DeSantis, one of the president’s most outspoken supporters. It came a day after Trump made clear he wanted governors to be grateful when asking for federal support for the pandemic.Trump said people “go to Florida and a lot of people don’t want that. So we’ll see what happens.”In Norfolk, the USNS Comfort, a 1,000-bed hospital ship, had been undergoing planned maintenance but was rushed back into service to aid the city. It is scheduled to arrive Monday at a Manhattan pier a week after its sister ship, the USNS Mercy, arrived in Los Angeles to perform similar duty on the West Coast.President Donald Trump waves as the hospital ship USNS Comfort pulls away from the pier at Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Va., March 28, 2020. The ship is departing for New York to assist hospitals responding to the coronavirus outbreak.Unnecessary, but ‘a good thing’The president acknowledged that making the 140-mile trip to Naval Station Norfolk wasn’t necessary, but said he was doing it to recognize the work of sailors and medical professionals who worked to get the ship out of maintenance more than a week ahead of schedule.”I think it’s a good thing when I go over there and I say ‘thank you,’ ” Trump told reporters Friday. He added he wanted to make the trip to show “spirit for the country.”Trump, 73, is in a high-risk category because of his age, and federal guidance for weeks has advised those in that pool to refrain from non-essential travel of all sorts. He has already tested negative once after close contact with officials who came down with the virus.
 
The trip to Norfolk was Trump’s first trip outside Washington since March 9 and only his second outside the gates of the White House since a March 19 trip to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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A week ago, I was stocking the fridge and pantries in my apartment in Bogota, Colombia, and looking up DIY disinfectant spray recipes. I had every intention to stay put in my adopted home.
 
I moved there five years ago to learn Spanish and never left. My favorite compliment is when Colombians tell me that my accent in Spanish – though obviously gringo – is unmistakably Bogotano. I learned to be a journalist in Colombia, and it’s where my life is.
 
But a week ago, I realized I would have to up-end my life, at least temporarily. And as this novel coronavirus spreads from one country to the next, similar realizations are occurring to everyone I know. You were moving through in life at your normal pace and suddenly you looked up and everything around you was in fast-forward.  
If you’re in China or Italy, the moment when you switched from the old normal to the new may seem like a lifetime ago, but here in the Western Hemisphere, our heads are still spinning.  
 
It hit me when my friends and fellow freelance journalists, Dylan Baddour and Pu Ying Huang, found out that they were stuck in Peru. They had just called it quits on a farewell tour of South America and were about to take a 14-hour bus trip to Lima when they learned that all commercial flights would be grounded until the end of the month.
 
“We were too late, and it happened just like that,” Huang said. They will not be able to get home to Texas until at least next month.
 
This year I need to travel frequently to Seattle to finish a documentary about an asylum-seeking family that I met two years ago on a migrant caravan in Mexico. Seattle (where I need to work) and San Francisco (where my family could host me) are among the most affected areas of the United States, while Colombia had fewer than 100 reported cases a week ago. But I decided that I couldn’t risk getting stuck in Colombia for months and miss the chance to finish my film.
 
Plus, my parents wanted me home. “Families should be together in times of crisis,” is what my dad said when I asked him why it was important to them. So I bought a ticket and packed up everything I would need for an indefinite sojourn in the United States.
 
At the airport in Bogota, I passed through immigration and security in 10 minutes. The airport was much emptier than usual, though my flight was almost full. The woman sitting next to me told me she works in Colombia but was heading home to Taiwan, because of “the situation.”
 
Roughly one in four people I encountered that day was wearing a mask. At baggage claim in Houston I met Michael Jarboe, who had cut short his Spring Break vacation and was re-routing to stay with his girlfriend in San Diego instead of returning to graduate school in New York. He described his day of travel as “surprisingly easy. I guess because people are starting to hunker down and shelter in.”
 
Julio Velez was returning two weeks early from a business trip in Colombia, and described his day as “scary to say the least.”  
 
Ben Cunningham and his wife were heading home to Seattle after a one-week vacation in Mexico. They almost cut their trip short because they thought they had contracted coronavirus, but it turned out to be allergies. “We’re a little paranoid at the moment,” he said.  
 
There were only 29 people on my flight from Houston to San Francisco, where two days earlier, local officials had ordered residents to “shelter in place.” Four days later, Governor Gavin Newsom imposed the same restrictions on all of California, allowing people to leave their homes only for essential activities.  
 
When the nearly empty flight landed in San Francisco, I immediately felt the tension. Some of the people who weren’t already wearing face masks put them on before deplaning. My sister picked me up at the curb; no hugging, just laughs about how the whole car smelled like hand sanitizer.  
 
When I arrived at her house, I showered and immediately put my clothes in the washing machine, and my suitcase in the garage.  
 
After two weeks in quarantine at my sister’s house I’ll be able to see my parents, who are in their mid-60s and therefore at high risk. As a freelancer I don’t have job security, so the next few months come with a lot of uncertainty, but at least now I’m with family.  
 
When I woke up on my first morning back in my hometown, I asked my 5-year-old nephew what the plan was for the day. “We’re going to make chocolate chip cookies,” he told me. I’ve got everything I need for life to slow down for a little while.  
 
 
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The Reverend Joseph Lowery, a key ally of Martin Luther King in the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s, died late on Friday at the age of 98, his family said in a statement.“Our beloved, Rev. Dr. Joseph Echols Lowery, made his transition peacefully at home at 10 p.m., Friday, March 27, at the age of 98. He was surrounded by his daughters,” Lowery’s family said.Lowery was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama in 2009, a few months after he had given the benediction at Obama’s inauguration.Lowery co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King and other black ministers in 1957, to fight segregation across the U.S. South. He served for 20 years as its president before stepping down in 1998.He continued working for racial equality into his 90s.He spoke against South African apartheid, sought better conditions in U.S. jails, pushed for more economic opportunities for minorities, promoted AIDS education and railed against what he saw as government indifference toward the lower classes.Lowery was married to Evelyn Gibson Lowery, who shared his activism, for 63 years before her death in 2013. The Lowery Institute, now known as the Joseph and Evelyn Lowery Institute for Justice & Human Rights, was founded in his honor in 2001 and he was a member of its board.
 
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The U.N. Secretary General says the world’s nations must work cooperatively in the fight against COVID-19, “or else we will be defeated by the virus.”  
 
Antonio Guterres said in an interview Friday on the PBS News Hour he is “worried” that if the virus gets a foothold in Africa, millions of people will die.  “Africa is a continent with very little capacity to respond and I am extremely worried.”
 
The U.N. announced late Friday that 86 members of its staff have the coronavirus.  
 
The United States is now regarded as the epicenter of the worldwide coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China.  
 
Early Saturday, the U.S. had 104, 837 confirmed coronavirus cases, compared with 81,947 in China, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Italy, the epicenter of the virus in Europe, had 86,498 confirmed cases.  The global tally of confirmed cases is 601,478.
 
U.S. President Donald Trump is ready to have the National Guard and the Reserves join in the fight against COVID-19, according to a Defense Department statement Saturday.  
 
The people who are called up would be “persons in headquarters units and persons with heightened medical capabilities.”  
 
According to the statement, officials with the Defense Department and the Department of Health and Human Services would talk with state officials before deploying the National Guard Reserve Component Services.Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, left, Vice President Mike Pence, second from right, and Republican lawmakers applaud President Donald Trump during a signing ceremony of a $2.2 trillion stimulus measure, at the White House, in Washington, March 27, 2020.Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus measure Friday to bolster the economy that is reeling in the aftermath of the coronavirus.
 
Also Friday, Trump said he used government powers under the Defense Production Act to compel General Motors to manufacture ventilators to help COVID-19 patients as the United States became the first country in the world to surpass 100,000 coronavirus cases.
 
“GM was wasting time. Today’s action will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives,” Trump said in a statement.
 
GM, however, released a statement Friday saying it had been working since last week with Ventec Life System to mass produce critical care ventilators for the coronavirus pandemic.
 
“Since Friday, March 20, Ventec and GM teams across manufacturing, engineering, purchasing, legal and others have been tirelessly and seamlessly working together to create and implement a plan for immediate, scaled production of critical care ventilators,” the statement said. 
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A Chinese company offered Friday to replace thousands of faulty coronavirus test kits after Spanish health authorities – desperate for materials to cope with the world’s second highest COVID-19 death toll – complained they did not work as promised.China has sold face masks and other medical equipment through a series of personal contacts with Spanish authorities, including discussions between chief executives of Chinese tech giant Alibaba and Spain’s King Felipe.But the first shipment of 640,000 test kits was found to have “insufficient sensibility” to reliably identify infected patients, according to Health Minister Salvador Illa, who announced Thursday that 58,000 kits had been returned.FILE – This undated file photo provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows CDC’s laboratory test kit for the new coronavirus.The Chinese company supplying the test kits, Shenzhen Bioeasy Technology, said in a statement quoted by Reuters that the incorrect results may have resulted from a failure to collect samples or use the kits correctly.The firm said it had not adequately communicated with clients how to use the kits and would resend them “assuring the sensitivity and specificity needed to help Spain fight against COVID-19.”Spanish medical experts, who have examined the 9,000 kits delivered last week, said they have only a 30 percent probability of detecting the virus.“They are useless,” said Victor Jimenez Cid, a senior professor in microbiology at Madrid’s Complutense University. For a test to be effective it must have a 70 percent to 80 percent probability of detecting the virus, Cid said.The failure of Bioeasy’s testing kits is a painful setback for Spanish medical authorities, who are struggling to cope with more than 64,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 4,900 deaths, second only to Italy.It is also hugely embarrassing to China, which is seeking to rehabilitate a national image tarnished by its faulty early response to the virus in Wuhan by offering assistance to other hard-hit countries.“First they send us the virus, then they sell us the medications to stop it and then defraud us. It’s great for China” said a guest in a panel discussion on a broadcast on the Spanish TV channel La Sexta.An emergency worker wearing a protective suit closes the door of an ambulance transferring a COVID-19 patient in Barcelona, Spain, March 27, 2020.The test is performed by dipping a swab with a sample of a patient’s saliva in a protein extraction that gives color indications of the virus’s presence. The speedy method is essential for emergency examinations by hospitals as well as improvised drive-through facilities that Spanish authorities are setting up to isolate and quickly treat cases of contamination.Until now, Spanish hospitals have relied on slower molecular laboratory testing, which requires specialized personnel and take four hours to produce a result. Tests like those offered by Bioeasy are supposed to produce a diagnosis in 15 minutes.Mass testing methods proved essential in South Korea’s successful effort against coronavirus and they are recommended by the World Health Organization as an essential way of controlling the pandemic’s spread.A priest wearing a gloves to protect against coronavirus waits in front the cemetery chapel during the coronavirus outbreak in Madrid, Spain, March 27, 2020.The Chinese embassy in Spain tweeted that Shenzen Bioeasy is not licensed to sell the product and is not included on a list of “recommended suppliers,” which its ministry of commerce offered the Spanish government.Spain’s health ministry said Bioeasy products have been approved by European Union quality control agencies and that the “specifications of this test, at least of the lot that was received, do not correspond with EU quality certifications.”Officials said the deal with Bioeasy was made through an unidentified intermediary.Health ministry emergency coordinator Fernando Simon said Spain is trying to import 6 million testing kits from China and other EU countries. He also said that “intense efforts” are underway with Spanish biotechnology firms to produce them. 
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A prominent member of the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday issued a highly critical statement on U.S. policy toward Kosovo.Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. Since than the country has been recognized by more than 110 countries, including the United States, but not by Serbia and its ally Russia.House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, a Democrat, said there is something wrong with the U.S. foreign policy toward Kosovo and “we need to correct it.”In his statement, Engel expressed his serious concerns “with the heavy-handed tactics the Trump administration is using with Prishtina,” Kosovo’s capital.Engel was referring to State Department pressure on Prishtina, especially on the government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti, to lift tariffs the country had imposed on Serbia.“This administration turned to economic penalties just a few short weeks after the Kurti government took office. Rather than letting a new government facing a pandemic staff its agencies and set up internal procedures, the U.S. contributed to a political crisis in Prishtina over the tariffs on Serbia,” Engel said.On March 25, after only 50 days in office, the Kurti government did not survive a no-confidence vote in parliament, initiated by its ruling coalition partner, the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK).The government was dismissed following political bickering over whether to declare a state of emergency to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and after Kurti dismissed the LDK internal affairs minister, Agim Veliu.Kurti’s government is expected to continue as a caretaker government, pending creation of a new government.“There are good reasons for Kosovo to lift tariffs, mostly that they are hurting Kosovo more than they are providing leverage to reach a peace deal with Serbia,” Engel said.“Regardless, tariffs are a legitimate tool of a sovereign nation. As such, they’ve been imposed around the world by [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump against friends and foes, alike, for economic and political reasons,” Engel said.Engel said the Trump administration used “overbearing tactics with a friend which relies on our support” instead of working with Kurti government, “as it sought to work with the previous Kosovo government” to forge policies that promote lasting peace and prosperity.“Strong-arming a small democracy is the act of a bully,” Engel said.While Serbian diplomats are campaigning around the world to “derecognize” Kosovo’s independence, and Serbia is purchasing heavy weaponry from Russia and strengthening the relationship with Moscow, the pressure imposed on Prishtina for its tariffs on Serbia has been “decidedly unbalanced,” Engel said.The U.S., he added, should work with European allies “to treat both countries as independent and sovereign partners, applying consistent standards to both sides as we try to restart peace talks.”The arms purchases from Russia require U.S. sanctions on Serbia under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, passed in the aftermath of 2016 Russian interference in U.S. elections, Engel said.“Neither have we imposed those sanctions, nor have we energetically pressed Serbia to end its derecognition efforts,” Engel said.“When U.S. law says we should sanction Serbia due to its security ties with Russia, we should.”    
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U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill Friday to bolster the economy while he also used government powers to compel General Motors to manufacture ventilators to help COVID-19 patients as the United States became the first country in the world to surpass 100,000 coronavirus cases.Trump said Friday he used his power under the Defense Production Act to require GM to “accept, perform and prioritize” federal government contracts to make ventilators.“GM was wasting time. Today’s action will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives,” Trump said in a statement.He made the announcement shortly before signing into law the $2.2 trillion stimulus package after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the legislation earlier in the day to blunt the economic effects of the coronavirus that has battered the economy.The United States is now regarded as the epicenter of the worldwide coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China.By Friday evening, the U.S. had 101,657 confirmed coronavirus cases, compared with 81,897 in China, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Italy, the epicenter of the virus in Europe, had 86,498 confirmed cases. More than 1,500 Americans have died from COVID-19.During debate on the stimulus bill in the House Friday, lawmakers sat a distance apart from each other in the House chamber to comply with health safety advice as they debated before a voice vote, a quick way to approve legislation.The bill, which was previously approved by the Senate on a 96-0 vote, is the biggest fiscal relief package ever considered by Congress. It authorizes direct payments to U.S. citizens within three weeks of becoming law.New York City, the hardest-hit U.S. city and the country’s largest city, had 44,876 cases and 527 deaths as of Friday evening, according to Johns Hopkins. New York officials said the number of cases is growing by at least 3,000 a day.U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams warned Americans on Friday that they could expect cases to surge in other U.S. cities.“We also see hot spots like Detroit, like Chicago, like New Orleans, will have a worse week next week,” Adams said on CBS This Morning.Adams’ warning comes as U.S. states and cities continue to scramble in response to the outbreak. A survey published Friday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that 90 percent of mayors who responded said they don’t have adequate supplies of protective equipment and other essential items, such as face masks for health care workers and emergency responders.Earlier Friday, Trump said he had “a very good conversation” with Chinese President Xi Jinping amid heightened tensions between the two leaders that was triggered by the outbreak in China. But Trump tweeted, “China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!”The tweet was in sharp contrast to Trump’s previous disparaging remarks about how the Asian nation handled the outbreak and to his repeated description of the virus as the “Chinese virus.”In Europe, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tested positive Friday for COVID-19, Downing Street said in a statement.In a video on Twitter, Johnson said he has “a temperature and a persistent cough” and that the symptoms were “mild.” He also said he is “working from home” and is “self-isolating” and added it was “entirely the right thing to do.”The White House said Trump spoke by phone with Johnson Friday and “wished him a speedy recovery.”Other leaders across the globe have also tested positive for COVID-19, including political leaders in Italy, Spain, Australia and Iran.In their first-ever remote vote, EU Parliament members approved a $41 billion package of economic aid to members whose economies have also taken a beating because of the outbreak.Italy reported its largest one-day death toll Friday, announcing 919 deaths. Spain has also been particularly hard-hit, with more than 64,000 cases and more than 4,900 deaths.France announced Friday that it was extending its national lockdown until at least April 15.The coronavirus has claimed nearly 27,000 lives globally, according to Johns Hopkins, which also reported nearly 592,000 cases worldwide.The cruise ship company, Holland America, said Friday that four people have died and another 138 are sick on a ship currently near the Panama Canal but stuck in limbo during the coronavirus pandemic.The company said in a statement Friday that two people aboard the Zaandam ship have tested positive for the coronavirus, while the other sick passengers have complained of flulike symptoms. The company did not say what caused the deaths of the four passengers.China is temporarily closing its borders to all foreign visitors. Nearly all the new coronavirus cases in the past week in China have come from people arriving from overseas.The outbreak appears to have eased in China, and authorities don’t want a resurgence.South Africa and the Saudi cities of Riyadh, Medina and Mecca — the last are two of Islam’s holiest cities — are the latest to go under lockdown.The Associated Press reports U.N. ambassadors from eight countries under United States sanctions — China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Syria and Venezuela — are asking Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to press the U.S. to lift the sanctions so they can effectively fight the outbreak. The ambassadors accused the U.S. of politicizing the pandemic.
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Top U.S. adversaries appear to be coming together, using social media and other cyber means to amplify disinformation regarding the coronavirus, with the intent of harming the United States and hindering efforts to curb the global pandemic.
 
The accusation, from senior State Department officials, focuses on efforts by Russia, China and Iran. No longer content to simply pump out their own false narratives, the three countries have now formed a sort of axis of disinformation, officials say, by echoing and magnifying each other’s information operations.
 
“We’re seeing Russian, Chinese and Iranian state information operations converging around the same disinformation narrative about COVID-19,” Lea Gabrielle, head of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), told reporters in a telephone briefing Friday.
 
“We’re also seeing Russia’s [disinformation] ecosystem promoting narratives advanced by China and Iran,” she said.On the rise
 
U.S. officials declined to say whether the virtual collaboration was intentional or just opportunistic. But officials, including those in the Pentagon and in the U.S. intelligence community, have previously accused each of the countries of ramping up disinformation operations.
 
“The COVID-19 crisis has really provided an opportunity for malign actors to exploit the information space for harmful purposes and really been providing unnecessary distraction from the global community’s focus on this crisis,” Gabrielle said.
 
According to U.S. and European officials, the bulk of the disinformation has focused on blaming the U.S. or the West for the coronavirus outbreak or on the West’s alleged inability to cope with the crisis.
 
European officials say Russian-linked cyber actors have been especially active, trying to trick people into believing the pandemic is a hoax or persuade them to try bogus cures.
 
U.S. officials have also voiced growing concern that the coronavirus pandemic has emboldened China, which is using social media to launch blunt attacks on official social media accounts.More evidence suggests that the virus was not originated at the seafood market in Wuhan at all, not to mention the so called “made in China”. https://t.co/8cRxkSZB3z— Chinese Embassy in South Africa (@ChineseEmbSA) March 16, 2020 
In Iran, senior officials have also echoed false allegations that the U.S. has weaponized the coronavirus.All three countries have pushed back, rejecting the U.S. and European allegations.China, in particular, has accused the U.S. of using language to stigmatize China and discredit its efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic.Still, U.S. officials have not let up in their criticism and say they are working with private sector partners to monitor and track propaganda from all three countries “in real time,” Gabrielle said.
 
Other measures to counter the “global false narratives” include public messaging at home and overseas; diplomatic engagement; and promotion of fact-based information to local audiences through overseas U.S. embassies and consulates.
 
Social media companies such as Twitter tell VOA they have been briefed, broadly on the government’s concerns regarding disinformation.It’s not all public
 
But officials and analysts note the problems go far beyond the major social media platforms, adding that much of the disinformation is not easily visible.
 
“Not all of this disinformation goes viral on Facebook or Twitter,” said Lindsay Gorman, the fellow for emerging technologies at the Alliance for Securing Democracy. “There are other [forums], which include text messages, which include Facebook groups, which include less viral and less public platforms.
 
“Stopping it on one level doesn’t necessarily mean you quell it on another,” she said.
 
A growing number of U.S. lawmakers have been pressing for stronger actions.
 
Earlier this month, two lawmakers urged Twitter, which is blocked in China, to ban all Chinese Communist Party accounts.Two Republican lawmakers -@BenSasse & @RepGallagher- pushing for @Twitter to ban #China communist party accounts“It is clear that Chinese Communist Party officials are using Twitter to disseminate propaganda in the midst of a dangerous global crisis” they write to CEO @jackhttps://t.co/jJXa4AJAUV— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) March 20, 2020 On Thursday, U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, asked the State Department to launch a multilateral investigation into China’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
 
“To refute the CCP’s [Chinese Communist Party’s] dangerous disinformation campaign, [the] United States should work with like-minded democracies, including Taiwan, to produce a definitive account of the origins of the virus, the CCP’s culpability, and how their undue influence undermined the legitimacy of the WHO [World Health Organization] at this critical time,” McCaul wrote.
 
Such calls are resonating with some military officials.“I think any official, Chinese Communist Party or PRC [People’s Republic of China] official, should be banned,” U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Robert Spalding told VOA’s Mandarin service. “I think WeChat, Alibaba, TenCent … all of these platforms ought to be banned as well.”“Every single day, [People’s Liberation Army] and other folks that are being paid specifically by the Chinese Communist Party to do propaganda and influence are in our midst,” he said. “If we won’t allow them physically to be on our soil to coerce our citizens … then why would we ever allow them in our networks and in our data?”Letup appears unlikelySome caution, however, that no matter what Washington does, the slew of disinformation operations targeting the U.S. are unlikely to let up.
 
Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are “using cyber operations much better than they have in the past, and are using [them] in ways that take advantage of asymmetric weaknesses in the United States,” said Ben Buchanan, a fellow at the Wilson Center and author of The Hacker and the State, which looks at the role of cyber operations in global politics.“What we see as a result is this daily, grind-it-out competition between modern nations that is mostly out of view,” Buchanan said.Yuwen Cheng and Zhan Qiao of VOA’s Mandarin service contributed to this report.
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From the sun-soaked beaches of Thailand to the foothills of Mount Everest in Nepal, tourists across Asia are finding their dream vacations have turned into travel nightmares as airlines cancel flights and countries close their borders in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Thousands of tourists escaping cold weather in Europe were scrambling this week to find alternative ways to return home from the Thai island of Phuket in the Andaman Sea.  Ksenia Vostriakova and her friends were scheduled to fly back to Moscow on an April 3 Singapore Airlines flight, but it was among those canceled when the airline slashed its operations. They have booked a flight on Qatar Airways for April 6 and are hoping nothing else changes. “Now we’re really worried that this flight also might be canceled,” Vostriakova said, adding that their Thai visas run out in mid-April. “We might still stay here because everything changes.” Thailand Thailand went under a state of emergency this week as the government gives itself new powers to deal with the virus crisis. The country, which last year welcomed 39 million tourists, announced it was closing its borders to nearly all foreigners. Its national airline, Thai Airways, said it was suspending almost all of its flights. It’s a trend seen around the region and the world. The Airports Council International Asia-Pacific said Friday that 12 major hubs in Asia-Pacific had seen an average decrease in air traffic of more than 80% in the second week of March versus the same period last year. Up to 10,000 tourists are believed to be stranded in Nepal after the government ordered a complete lockdown that halted all flights and road travel to prevent the spread of the virus, the country’s tourism board said. Most businesses and government offices were also shut.  NepalSpring is the tourist season for Nepal when thousands of visitors come to hike the mountain trails. At the Lukla Airport, the only gateway to the Mount Everest region, there were more than 200 trekkers stranded, according to Dhurba Shrestha, an airport official. Even if the highways were open, the closest road is three days trek downhill. Officials were working on arrangements of special flights to at least get tourists back to the capital, Kathmandu. The German government on Friday arranged a rescue flight — a Qatar Airways charter — that left the capital with 305 people on board, mostly German nationals. In Kathmandu’s tourist enclave, visitors could still be found wandering around empty streets. A handful of restaurants and hotels were still open, but most shops were shuttered. Police were blocking locals from moving around but not tourists. “We were supposed to leave on March 21 but we are still in Nepal and waiting for our embassy to help us arrange a flight,” said New Lee Kuan, from Malaysia. Sri LankaThe Indian Ocean island nation of Sri Lanka said that it was ready to help an estimated 18,000 tourists return home either via scheduled flights that are still operating or special charters if required. The country is under a nationwide curfew until at least next week. In Indonesia, more than 2,500 foreign tourists were stranded in Bali, the most famous of the country’s more than 17,000 islands. The government has granted all tourists automatic visa extensions, a move made after long lines formed at immigration offices. “This is good news that helped us a lot,” said Ruben Evert Ernst, a German on vacation with his partner whose visa had been set to expire in a few days. Visitors to Thailand haven’t been so lucky. Hundreds of tourists seeking visa extensions were crowded Friday under a row of awnings next to a makeshift immigration office that’s been set up on the outskirts of Bangkok after throngs formed at the main building. There wasn’t enough room for the tourists to keep their distance and stay in the shade so most were pressed up almost against one another. “I woke up today at 5:30 to get here on time so it’s very stressful,” said Murdoch Baghaie, from Sacramento, California. “I’m supposed to be a tourist enjoying the scenery. Nothing like enjoying Thailand anymore.” Shopping malls, bars, sit-down restaurants, public swimming pools and many other places have all been ordered closed in Thailand. At least for now, Phuket’s beaches remain open. That’s good news for Russian tourist Vitaliy Kurikov, who has been spending his days playing with his son on the white sands of Bang Tao beach. “If they close the beaches, I really don’t know what to do,” he said.  
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