Hong Kong Reports Largest Surge In Infections Yet As Experts Warn ” We’re On The Edge Of All-Out War” With COVID-19: Live Updates

When historians look back at this time, we suspect that
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s landmark decision to order more than
40 million Californians to remain at home on Thursday night will be
remembered as an important demarcation point – the beginning of a
more heavy handed response as it becomes increasingly clear that
too many Americans are simply ignoring the government.

So far, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and President Trump have insisted
that they have no plans to issue lockdown orders. But with the
number of confirmed cases expected to soar in the coming days and
over the weekend, the situation is certainly evolving rapidly, and
rumors about other states considering preemptive lockdowns
(remember, the whole point is to stay “ahead of the curve”)
continue to circulate.

Over the past week, central bankers around the world have
slashed rates, stepped up bond buying programs, promised to expand
their back-stopping of credit markets and – most importantly –
urged the politicians in charge to do their part and pass massive
fiscal stimulus. Late last night, the Senate passed a $1 trillion
package that will feature direct transfers to many Americans.

In the US, futures are pointing higher amid mounting hopes for a
second straight close in the green. The improved sentiment is
ostensibly due to the latest wave of central bank interventions.
But that didn’t stop a team of economists at Bank of America from
releasing a new note calling for a global recession, with GDP
growth dropping to 0% for the year in 2020. Explaining the shift in
their thinking, the team wrote: “Our first piece on the virus shock
was titled ‘Bad or worse’; now we amend that to ‘Really bad or much
worse.'”

The World breathed a sigh of relief Thursday night when China
reported no new domestically-transmitted cases of the coronavirus
for a second straight day. Meanwhile, Reuters just reported that
the foreign ministers of South Korea, China and Japan have held a
video conference on Friday to discuss cooperation on the
coronavirus pandemic as concerns grow about the number of infected
people arriving in their countries from overseas, threatening to
set off a second wave of infection. The State Department is doing
its part: It issued a ‘Level 4’ travel warning last night advising
Americans not to travel abroad, and for any Americans still outside
of the country to either come home, or ‘shelter in place’.

Unfortunately, it appears the dreaded ‘second wave’ of
infections is already looming over Hong Kong.

After reporting 14 new cases in a single day earlier this week,
a surprisingly large jump for a city that was widely praised for
its swift and heavy handed response to the outbreak (proving that
the city had retained the hard-learned lessons of SARS), Hong Kong
on Friday reported a record jump in new cases as the city-state
braces for a wave of new illnesses, many involving travelers from
abroad and the HK residents they’ve infected.

Friday’s surge of 48 cases is the largest daily jump since the
outbreak began; it’s equivalent to roughly a quarter of all cases
confirmed in the city previously, according to
the SCMP.

Even as the virus swept through parts of China and elsewhere in
the region, Hong Kong managed to largely control its outbreak. Now,
as life in the financial center had begun to return somewhat to
normal, the wave of new cases is worrying experts who say it could
lead to widespread community transmission. The city now has more
than 250 confirmed infections.

The new confirmed cases take the city’s total number to 256,
and a top microbiologist said Hong Kong might be on the edge of an
all-out “war” against an explosion in infections.

The Centre for Health Protection said 36 of the latest round of
infected people, aged between four and 69, had a travel history.
One of the local cases is a taxi driver who had picked up
passengers from the airport.

When asked whether the government should ban non-locals from
entering the city, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the centre’s
communicable disease branch, said all the fresh infections were
residents, except one – an Australian who had been to the United
States and Portugal. He was transiting at the airport and sent to
hospital after feeling unwell.

As the paper explained, thousands of people returned to the city
this week, and the spike in new cases prompted the city’s
government to announce new quarantine measures requiring anyone
arriving from abroad to self-isolate for 14 days, measures that
have also been implemented by China. Also in China, the People’s
Daily reports that catering halls and shopping malls are reopening
in Beijing.

Meanwhile, Spanish authorities announced Friday morning that the
death toll in the country has broken above 1,000 as citizens near
the end of their first full week under an enforced lockdown.

There has been no shortage of bitterly ironic headlines during
this outbreak (remember when Rudy Gobert licked all those
microphones?). But overnight, Altria Group – one of the largest
tobacco companies in the world (it was better known as Phillip
Morris before it rebranded a few years back) – said Howard A.
Willard III, its Chairman and CEO, has tested positive for
COVID-19.

Let’s hope he’s not a smoker.