By Jessie Yeung, Joshua Berlinger, Adam Renton, Meg Wagner, Mike Hayes and Veronica Rocha, CNN
Fred Ridley, chairman of Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, has announced that the 2020 Masters tournament has been postponed.
Ridley said in a statement:
"Ultimately, the health and well-being of everyone associated with these events and the citizens of the Augusta community led us to this decision. We hope this postponement puts us in the best position to safely host the Masters Tournament and our amateur events at some later date."
The European Union has unveiled a series of measures to try to limit the economic impact of coronavirus.
The European Commission says it will direct around $40 billion of funds to fight against the coronavirus crisis. It will also relax rules limiting how much EU member states can spend and borrow and is promising help for small and medium businesses across Europe.
From CNN’s Aleks Klosok
The Giro d'Italia has been postponed due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, race organizers RCS Sport said today.
The Giro is Italy’s most prestigious road bicycle race, and along with the Tour de France and Vuelta a España, it makes up cycling's prestigious three-week-long Grand Tours.
“The organising committee of the Giro d'Italia's Hungarian stages declared the Giro's start could not be held in Hungary at the originally scheduled time,” the organizers said in a statement.
“All parties have agreed that they are determined to work together to enable the Giro d'Italia to depart from Hungary at a later time.”
The Tour had been due to start in Hungary in May. A new date will be announced later.
Your coronavirus questions, answered
South Korea has tested more than 230,000 people for free and set up drive-thru testing weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the US vice president and the Health and Human Services secretary said this week they don't know how many Americans have been tested. But members of both parties say there aren't nearly enough tests available.
There are a few factors for the difference in responses, said Dr. Rob Davidson, an emergency room doctor and executive director of the Committee to Protect Medicare.
"The public health infrastructure and the response to outbreaks and the National Security Council have been gutted by this administration," Davidson said.
Two years ago, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped funding epidemic prevention activities in 39 countries, including China, after the Trump administration refused to reallocate money to a program that started during the government's response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
At that time, former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said the move "would significantly increase the chance an epidemic will spread without our knowledge and endanger lives in our country and around the world."
Another factor involves the tests themselves — including malfunctions, shortages and delays in availability.
In the first few weeks of coronavirus in the US, the CDC was the only facility in the country that could confirm test results.
"We had the ability about five weeks ago to use a WHO — World Health Organization — approved test that's been used in other countries that was available, and that was rejected so we could use a test that was developed here," Davidson said.
After test kits were later sent across the country, some were flawed. "So they go back to the drawing board," Davidson said. "It put us behind by about four or five weeks."
From CNN’s Anneken Tappe
US stocks bounced back from their worst day since “Black Monday” in 1987 on Friday.
Wall Street entered a bear market Thursday, ending an 11-year bull market run.
Here's how things look this morning:
All three indexes extended their gains after the opening bell.
Will warmer weather slow the rate of infection, as it does with the flu? Here's what the experts think.
The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday it is allowing emergency use of a novel coronavirus testing system designed by Roche Molecular Systems “within 24 hours of receiving the application,” the agency said.
This is the first commercially distributed diagnostic test to receive an emergency use authorization during the COVID-19 outbreak, the FDA said.
“Laboratories can immediately run tests on Roche’s high-volume platform, which will greatly increase national testing capacity,” the agency said.
FDA also announced its allowing the New York State Department of Health to authorize some New York laboratories to test for the novel coronavirus after validating their tests. Generally, a lab would have to pursue emergency use authorization through the FDA
The FDA granted this flexibility based on the urgent public health need for additional testing capability, according to a statement.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he decided to close the state's schools after he spoke to experts who told him, “two weeks is too late. Another week is too late.”
All Ohio K-12 public, private and charter schools will close Monday evening through at least April 3.
“You got to try to slow this thing down early,” DeWine said on CNN today. “And even though we only have five confirmed cases, we feel that we could have up to 100,000 people in Ohio right now who are carrying around the coronavirus.”
DeWine added that they actually don’t know if 100,000 people are walking around with coronavirus — but there is some science behind their estimate due to the community spread.
“This thing multiplies, we’re told, every six days,” the governor said.
DeWine said the decision to shut down schools was “gut-wrenching” because so many students rely on getting meals there. He says they are discussing keeping on cafeteria staff and bus drivers and trying to get the food out in the community that way.
He also said they have the capacity for another 1,000 coronavirus test at this time.
From CNN’s Aleks Klosok in London
English Premier League soccer club, West Ham United, has become the eighth team in the league to confirm that they are self-quarantining as a precaution against the coronavirus outbreak.
The club said the decision was made after members of the West Ham United team had been in direct contact with the Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, at their English Premier League game at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium on Saturday, March 7.
Arsenal confirmed yesterday that Arteta had tested positive for coronavirus and that their club staff who had recent contact with him would now self-isolate.
West Ham United join fellow Premier League sides Arsenal, Leicester City, Chelsea, Manchester City, Watford, AFC Bournemouth and Everton in having players either tested for Coronavirus or in quarantine.
All elite soccer in England has since been suspended until at least April 3 as a result of the spread of coronavirus.
