The lights of Time Square do not illuminate anyone. Not a soul is seen in the usually crowded Grand Central train station. Only a handful of people take photos of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the city’s great tourist attractions that doesn’t sleep.
Efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus have virtually paralyzed the city, which has become one of the epicenters of the virus.
Almost 2,000 people were hospitalized in the state for the virus and there have already been 114 deaths, Governor Andrew Cuomo said Sunday. More than 15,000 tested positive, including 9,000 in the Big Apple.
The streets were already deserted before compulsory confinement began last Sunday at eight o’clock at night, which requires that all non-essential employees remain at home. Any meeting of people that is not essential is also suspended.
The impact of these measures is evident in Manhattan.
No one photographs the Bull of the Stock Market, another of the great tourist monuments of the city and the busy subway trains transport just a handful of passengers, almost all with masks.
The lights of Broadway theaters remain on despite the functions being suspended until mid-April. Sign that the show will continue.
Bags sink
Announcements by the US Federal Reserve, which made $ 300 billion available to “support the flow of credit to employers, consumers, and businesses,” were not enough to stem declines in European stock markets or Wall Street.
On the New York Stock Exchange, around 15:40 GMT the Dow Jones fell 4.52% and the technological Nasdaq fell 3.08%.
For their part, the European stock markets, battered by uncertainty about the United States’ economic plan against the coronavirus and warnings of negative results from large companies, closed the session in red, although during the day they briefly recorded slight gains.
The CAC-40 in Paris ended the exchanges with losses of 3.32%, the Dax 30 in Frankfurt lost 2.10% and the FTSE-100 in London lost 3.79%.
The Madrid IBEX-35 fell 3.31% and the FTSE MIB closed with slight losses of 1.09%. “The deepening of the health crisis” and “the absence of a US relief plan” had a very negative influence at the beginning of the day, summarized David Madden, an analyst at CMC Markets.
Following the wake of global markets, the Sao Paulo stock exchange deepened its decline on Monday with losses of more than 7%.
The Ibovespa index showed volatility in the morning, with losses ranging between 2.5% and 4.5%, but at 12:41 local time (15:41 GMT) the negative trend was accentuated and the fall reached 7.08%.
Asian stocks closed ahead of Fed announcements with a sharp decline, with the exception of Tokyo.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index lost 4.4% while in Sydney the stock market fell 5.6% and in Wellington 7.6%, responding to New Zealand’s decision to enact general containment.
In Singapore, the stock market fell 7.5% and Seoul 5.5%. In Shanghai losses of 3.11% were registered and the also Chinese Shenzhen Stock Exchange fell 4.26%.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange was an exception and closed green thanks to the weak yen and the SoftBank Group, which announced an ambitious plan to divest assets and buy shares.
Unprecedented falls
The euro on the other hand gained ground to the dollar, after the announcements of the Fed, despite the fact that the day had begun at its lowest point in relation to the greenback in three years.
DRAMA
Morgue.
The concessionaire company of the Ice Palace in Madrid has ceded its facilities to be able to house the bodies of those killed by Covid-19 while waiting for the funeral homes to take care of them, according to municipal sources told Europa Press.
Advance.
The list of countries that decide to confine their citizens grows every day, the last one was the United Kingdom yesterday, but despite having more than 1.8 billion people in the world subjected to a gigantic quarantine, the pandemic continues to kill and advance inexorable way.
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