Americans face orders to 'stay at home'

Efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus in the United States on Tuesday prompted more business closures and people faced directives requesting or ordering them to stay home.

The US death toll hit 85, with more than 4,660 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Worldwide, more than 7,150 people have been killed by the virus.

In Europe the virus case count has climbed to more than 50,000 and more than 2,000 people have died.

More than 27,000 people have contracted the infection and 2,470 deaths have been reported in Italy — the most affected country outside Asia.

The European Union on Tuesday proposed a 30-day shutdown of nonessential travel into the bloc from other countries — an urgent attempt to keep internal borders as open as possible to promote European solidarity. But on Tuesday, nations within the bloc continued to close themselves off from their neighbors.

In the US, more cases are expected in the coming days as the government ramps up testing. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the city was rushing to add more hospital beds.

Two hundred nurses employed by an interstate health system in New York and Connecticut have been out of work since potentially being exposed to coronavirus patients. The health care workers from Nuvance Health will remain sidelined until they can obtain coronavirus tests to determine if they were infected, according to the Hartford Courant, citing Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont.

Dozens of retailers in the US closed and more followed late on Monday and into Tuesday. Some companies said they would continue to pay hourly employees. But many employers and employees across the country faced another growing crisis: surviving financially.

Employees are faced with the fear of being exposed to the virus and the fear of running out of money as their employers close down and can't afford to pay them while closed.

The threat of going under for a business, individual or family has become so severe that Senator Mitt Romney of Utah called for the government to cut a $1,000 check immediately to every American.

"People don't have reserves, they live hand-to-mouth" said Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel-winning economist. "People won't be able to pay their rents, landlords won't be able to pay their oil bills, the whole system could break down."

In Washington, momentum reportedly is growing for more direct aid to workers who have been laid off or had their hours reduced. Senators considered a House-passed bill that would provide sick leave to American workers who need to stay home because of the virus and bolster unemployment insurance. It is unclear how quickly it will act.

In the San Francisco area, six counties ordered the area's more than 6.5 million residents to stay at home unless absolutely necessary until at least April 7. The directive, the most drastic yet in the US, went into effect on Tuesday.

A curfew is being considered for New York City and neighboring New Jersey residents have been asked not to leave their homes from 8 pm until 5 am by Governor Phil Murphy. "We want everyone to be home - and not out," he said.

As President Donald Trump on Monday urged Americans to avoid groups of 10 or more and to refrain from eating in restaurants, governors and mayors announced their own sweeping measures to contain the virus, amid stalled testing and a warning from the surgeon general that the US could face a situation similar to Italy, Europe's worst-affected country where there is a nationwide lockdown.

On Monday, Trump said he isn't planning a nationwide curfew, despite earlier reports that the administration may implement it.

At a news conference with members of the coronavirus task force, Trump also said that the US "may be" heading for a recession and suggested that the outbreak could last until July or August, just one day after he said the virus was under control.

In South Korea, among the hardest hit countries outside of China where the virus started, there were signs on Tuesday that the country may be headed toward recovery. The overall number of cases appears to be slowing down after swift implementation of mass scale testing and tracking of confirmed patients' movements, officials said

Officials reported 84 new cases of coronavirus, a relatively small number compared with earlier in its massive outbreak in February when a cluster of a few dozen cases mushroomed into more than 5,000. Two people also died in the past day, bringing the country's total death toll to 81, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In China, authorities imposed stringent measures on travelers entering from abroad, including forced quarantine after authorities reported 21 new infections in mainland China on Tuesday, and said 20 of them were in people who had recently entered the country from abroad.