One of the United States’ top disease experts says Americans and Europeans should be prepared not to do the things they could do just a few months ago before the coronavirus outbreak.”It doesn’t matter if you’re in a state that has no cases or one case. You’ve got to start taking seriously what you can do now that if and when the infections will come,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief Anthony Fauci said Tuesday. “And they will come, sorry to say, sad to say.”Fauci used hockey great Wayne Grtetzky as a metaphor for how to deal with an infectious disease — Gretzky doesn’t go where the puck is going, he goes where the puck is going to be.”We want to be where the infection is going to be as well as where it is,” Fauci said.He said it is “no surprise” that the coronavirus outbreak appears to be subsiding in Asia while it grows in the United States and Europe, saying this has been the history of outbreaks of infectious diseases.The number of confirmed cases in the United States skyrocketed Tuesday to 975 — up 400 in just one day. At least 30 have died.The coronavirus outbreak is affecting two major global institutions headquartered in the United States.National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci steps away from the podium during a news conference on the coronavirus in the press briefing room at the White House, Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020, in Washington.The Untied Nations headquarters has closed its doors to the public — a move likely to disappoint millions of tourists who visit New York City.In Washington, The World Bank and International Monetary Fund will hold what it calls a “virtual format” for its annual Spring meeting next month.In a normal year, about 10,000 people convene at World Bank headquarters for the talks, just blocks from the White House.The bank is also restricting access to its headquarters from anyone who has been to China, Iran, or Italy in the past two weeks as well as those with a cold, fever, or showing flu-like symptoms.Also Tuesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission became the first federal agency to ask its Washington employees to work from home after a staffer was treated for the coronavirus.In Iran, the spread of the virus to all of the country’s provinces has caused more hardship for an economy in recession since 2018 thanks to toughening U.S. sanctions and government mismanagement.A VOA Persian TV viewer in Iran who called in to the Tuesday edition of the network’s Straight Talk show and said he was in Tehran described the local economy as bleak. “Restaurants, coffeeshops, ice creameries, kabob houses and barber shops are closed, and places like theaters and malls with high volumes of visitors are empty,” the man said. “People are scared of getting infected and dying.”VOA could not independently verify the caller’s exact location.Meanwhile, Burkina Faso, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and Turkey all reported their first coronavirus cases and Germany reported its first death Tuesday.A British junior health minister, Nadine Dorries, became the first lawmaker in the U.K. to be diagnosed.As of late Tuesday, the number of coronavirus cases worldwide was nearly 119,000 with more than 4000 deaths.The World Health Organization says 110 countries report at least one confirmed case.VOA Persian’s Shahram Bahraminejad contributed to this report.
…