Coronavirus increasingly takes over daily lives, roils markets

Seoul: The Coronavirus pandemic has taken over daily lives around the globe, overwhelming hospitals, shuttering schools and offices, halting US presidential campaign rallies and world sports while increasing fears about the financial toll.

The intensifying spread of COVID-19 beyond Asia has dashed hopes about a quick containment, even with travel and social events curbed drastically. And political leaders were among those infected or quarantined due to potential exposure.

Asian markets were sinking further on Friday, after US stocks had their greatest losses since the Black Monday crash of 1987 and bad European results.

Benchmarks in Japan, Thailand and India sank as much as 10 per cent. Losses in mainland China, where the virus is subsiding, were less severe. In the United States, Congress neared a deal with the Trump administration on a sweeping aid package with sick pay, free testing and other resources to help reassure anxious Americans and calm markets, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

People fretted over the health risks to the elderly, threatened jobs and dwindling savings while caring for children staying home from shuttered

schools. While Washington scrambled to shape an economic rescue package, the EU pushed back against President Donald Trump's sharp restrictions on travel from Europe to the US, slamming Trump's "unilateral" decision and declaring the virus a "global crisis, not limited to any continent, and it requires cooperation".

The spread of the virus in Europe, North America and the Middle East has drawn contrast with waning epidemics in the hardest-hit nations in Asia.

China, where the outbreak emerged late last year, still accounts for more than 60% of global infections.

Meanwhile, the French presidency said on Friday that the G7 will hold an extraordinary meeting via videoconference next week to bolster the international response to the coronavirus outbreak and has also proposed enhanced EU border

control.