Tag Archives: panic buying

Unusual weather patterns in India have flooded rice fields destroying seedlings and triggering panic buying

India Rice Ban

Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”

Important Takeaways:

  • India’s rice export ban triggers panic buying at US supermarkets – sparking costs of 20-pound bag to soar from $16 to almost $50
  • India ordered a halt to its largest rice export to calm domestic prices
  • Rice is a staple for more than 3 billion people, and nearly 90 percent of the water-intensive crop is produced in Asia, where the El Nino weather pattern usually brings lower rainfall.
  • But heavy rain in the north of India over the last few weeks has damaged newly-planted crops in Punjab and Haryana states.
  • Paddy fields have been submerged for over a week, destroying seedlings, and forcing farmers to wait before they can replant the rice seeds.
  • Videos and reports shared on social media show shoppers panic-buying in Texas, Michigan, New Jersey Alabama, Ohio, Illinois and California
  • The south Asian country accounts for 40 percent of world rice exports
  • Some stores have hiked the price of a 20-pound bag to $46.99 and have started money-making schemes to capitalize on the panic, according to Business Line.
  • ‘A few desi grocery shops came up with innovative ideas to force customers to spend a minimum of $35-$50 on other items to purchase a single rice bag, which is outrageous,’ a shopper told the outlet.
  • Rice prices in the US have shot up by around 11 percent on average, according to PBS Frontline.

Read the original article by clicking here.

20 inches of Rain in South Florida causing major flooding as panic buying ensues gas stations run out of supplies

Florida 20 inches rain

Luke 21:25 ““And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves

Important Takeaways:

  • Panic buying causes widespread gas station closures in South Florida
  • More than half of gas stations in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area were without gasoline Wednesday after flooding from last week’s massive storm caused a wave of panic buying by drivers topping off their gas tanks.
  • “I would estimate that 80% of [station closings] are due to panic buying,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, which tracks station closings and gas prices.
  • A storm dumped 20 inches of rain on Fort Lauderdale in just one day last Wednesday, causing widespread flooding and some disruptions to operations at Port Everglades in that city, where a significant portion of gasoline for the region comes through a dozen different gas terminals.

Read the original article by clicking here.

British army to start driving tankers as queues for fuel continue

By Guy Faulconbridge

LONDON (Reuters) -British soldiers will start driving tankers to replenish empty pumps, as drivers queued again for fuel after days of shortages, despite Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying the situation was improving.

Britain has been gripped by a rush of panic-buying for almost a week that has left pumps dry across major cities, after oil companies warned they did not have enough tanker drivers to move petrol and diesel from refineries to filling stations.

Business minister Kwasi Kwarteng said 150 soldiers had been mobilized, and would be driving tankers within a few days.

“The last few days have been difficult, we’ve seen large queues. But I think the situation is stabilizing, we’re getting petrol into the forecourts. I think we’re going to see our way through this,” Kwarteng said.

Johnson has sought to quell concerns, saying supplies were returning to normal while also urging people not to panic buy.

A shortage of around 100,000 drivers has sown chaos through supply chains and raised the specter of empty shelves and price increases at Christmas.

Asked if he could guarantee that there would not be problems in the run-up to the busy retail period, Kwarteng said: “I’m not guaranteeing anything. All I’m saying is that, I think the situation is stabilizing.”

By the early morning rush hour there were already long queues of cars in and around London and on the busy M25 orbital motorway circling the capital. Signs were up at some sites announcing no fuel was available.

The gridlock has sparked calls for doctors, nurses and other essential workers to be given priority access to fuel, a move Johnson has resisted.

Industry groups said the worst of the shortages seemed to be in London, the southeast and other English cities. Fights have broken out as drivers jostled.

The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents independent retailers who account for about two-thirds of all the 8,380 UK filling stations, said on Tuesday 37% its members’ stations were out of fuel.

The shortages have added to an air of chaos in the world’s fifth-largest economy, leaving gaps on supermarket shelves. A spike in European wholesale natural gas prices has also tipped energy companies into bankruptcy.

Britain left the EU single market at the start of this year, preventing haulers from recruiting drivers in the bloc. To tackle the shortage, the government has said it will issue temporary visas to 5,000 foreign drivers, a measure it had previously ruled out.

“What we want to do is make sure that we have all the preparations necessary to get through until Christmas and beyond, not just in supplying the petrol stations but all parts of our supply chain,” Johnson said.

Haulers, petrol stations and retailers say there are no quick fixes as the shortfall of drivers is so acute, and transporting fuel demands training and licensing. European drivers may also be reluctant to take up the visa offer, which only lasts until Dec. 24.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Writing by Kate Holton; Editing by Michael Holden and Peter Graff)

As fuel pumps remain dry, UK’s Johnson says plans in place for supply chains

By Michael Holden, Kylie MacLellan and Costas Pitas

LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought on Wednesday to quell public fears as panic-buying left fuel pumps dry across major cities, saying the government was making preparations to ensure supply chains were ready for the run-up to Christmas.

Johnson said the situation at gas stations was improving, though in many regions, hundreds of forecourts remained closed and motorists spent hours hunting for fuel or sat snarled in queues waiting to fill their tanks.

“We now are starting to see the situation improve. We are hearing from industry that supplies are coming back onto the forecourt in the normal way and I would just really urge everybody to go about their business in the normal way,” Johnson said in televised remarks.

Johnson’s comments were his first since the fuel supply problems began at the end of last week when oil companies reported difficulty transporting petrol and diesel from refineries to filling stations.

Opposition Labor leader Keir Starmer accused him and the government of lurching from “crisis to crisis”.

There have been growing calls for doctors, nurses and other essential workers to be given priority in filling their cars to keep hospitals and social care services running, but Johnson said it would be better if “we stabilize it in the normal way”.

SUPPLY CHAINS

An air of chaos has gripped Britain, the world’s fifth-largest economy, in recent weeks as a shortage of truck drivers strained supply chains and a spike in European wholesale natural gas prices tipped energy companies into bankruptcy.

The post-Brexit dearth of truckers has been exacerbated by a halt to truck-driving-license testing during COVID lockdowns as well as people leaving the haulage industry.

It has sown chaos through supply chains and raised the specter of widespread shortages, price increases ahead of Christmas, and a prolonged rise in inflation.

“What we want to do is make sure that we have all the preparations necessary to get through until Christmas and beyond, not just in supplying the petrol stations but all parts of our supply chain,” Johnson said.

To tackle the shortage of drivers, the government has been forced to bring in measures it had previously ruled out, such as issuing temporary visas to 5,000 foreign drivers.

It has also put a limited number of military tanker drivers on standby to be deployed to deliver fuel if necessary.

Haulers, petrol stations and retailers say there are no quick fixes as the shortfall of truck drivers – estimated at about 100,000 – is so acute, and because transporting fuel demands additional training and licensing.

Ministers want businesses to pay more and offer truckers better conditions, rather than count on cheap foreign labor.

“What I don’t think people in this country want to do is fix all our problems with uncontrolled immigration again,” Johnson said. “We tried that for a long time… and in the end people could see it was leading to a low-wage, low-skill approach.”

‘CRAZY’

Industry groups said the worst of the fuel shortages seemed to be in London, the southeast and other English cities. Fights have broken out at some forecourts as drivers jostled for fuel and pictures on social media showed some people filling up old water bottles with fuel.

“I can’t believe it – it’s crazy,” said David Scade, a 33-year-old delivery driver who drove for hours searching for fuel in London. “They keep saying there is no shortage but I suppose everyone is panicking now.”

The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents independent fuel retailers who account for 65% of all the 8,380 UK forecourts, said there were signs the crisis was abating.

“We have conducted a survey of our members this morning and only 37% of forecourts have reported being out of fuel today,” said Gordon Balmer, executive director of the PRA, which had previously reported up to 90% of stations had problems.

“With regular restocks taking place, this percentage is likely to improve further over the next 24 hours.”

Retailers, truck drivers and logistics companies have warned that prices for everything from energy to Christmas gifts will have to rise because of the shortage of truck drivers.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) urged the government to broaden the size and scope of its temporary visa scheme.

“It will take many months before there are enough new British drivers to cover the shortfall,” said Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the BRC.

European drivers have also indicated they would not take up the visa offer, which only lasts until Dec. 24. Some Polish haulers said the offer was laughable and the German freight industry said drivers who left after Brexit would not go back.

(Additional reporting by Ben Makori, James Davey, and Joice Alves in London and Rene Wagner in Berlin; Writing by Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Alistair Bell, Philippa Fletcher, Nick Macfie and Gareth Jones)

U.S. gas stations still shut, prices at 7-yr high in slow recovery from cyberattack

By Stephanie Kelly

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. retail gasoline prices hit seven-year highs on Monday and many filling stations in the Southeast were still without fuel, as the region slowly recovers from a cyberattack on the nation’s largest fuel pipeline.

Last week’s closure of Colonial Pipeline’s 5,500-mile (8,900-km) system was the most disruptive cyberattack on record, preventing millions of barrels of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from flowing to the East Coast from the Gulf Coast. That alarmed drivers, who took to gas stations to fill tanks and jerry cans.

Last week more than 15,000 gas stations were without fuel. Some stations have since been supplied with Colonial once again open. On Monday, 11,667 stations were without fuel, down from 12,466 stations the day before, according to tracking firm GasBuddy.

The closure came just ahead of the Memorial Day holiday weekend at the end of May, the traditional start of peak-demand summer driving season.

The Southeast bore the brunt of the outage, as the region is almost entirely without refineries. Panic buying caused 90% of fuel stations in Washington, D.C. to run out; as of Monday, that figure had dropped to 69%. Outages in North Carolina fell to just over 50%, while outages in South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia were under 50%, GasBuddy said.

The national gas price on Monday rose to $3.045 a gallon, the highest since October 2014, according to data from the American Automobile Association.

“The Southeast will continue to experience tight supply this week as terminals and gas stations are refueled,” said AAA spokesperson Jeanette McGee. “Over the weekend, gas prices started to stabilize, but are expected to fluctuate in the lead up to Memorial Day weekend.”

North Carolina saw an average price increase of 20 cents per gallon from the previous week, according to tracking firm GasBuddy on Monday.

South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia all saw price increases of just under 20 cents per gallon.

Some drivers in the region canceled trips to avoid using their gas supply. Traffic congestion in cities such as Richmond, Virginia; Atlanta; Greenville, South Carolina; and Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina fell last week from the week prior, according to Carol Hansen at location technology company TomTom.

Alpharetta, Georgia-based Colonial is currently shipping at normal rates, though it will take some time for the supply chain to fully catch up, Colonial spokesman Eric Abercrombie said in an email over the weekend.

The company began resuming its regular nomination process on Monday to allocate capacity to companies that use the line.

DarkSide, the group blamed for attacking Colonial Pipeline systems, has said it recently hacked four other companies. A website it used to communicate went dark last week.

Websites tied to two other ransomware groups not connected to the Colonial hack also were unreachable in a likely retreat amid the hunt for perpetrators, Allan Liska, a researcher with cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, said on Sunday.

(Reporting by Stephanie KellyEditing by Marguerita Choy)

Pipeline outage causes U.S. gasoline supply crunch, panic buying

By Laura Sanicola and Devika Krishna Kumar

(Reuters) -Gas stations from Florida to Virginia began running dry and prices at the pump rose on Tuesday, as the shutdown of the biggest U.S. fuel pipeline by hackers extended into a fifth day and sparked panic buying by motorists.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden projected that the Colonial Pipeline, source of nearly half the fuel supply on the U.S. East Coast, would restart in a few days and urged drivers not to top up their tanks.

“We are asking people not to hoard,” U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at the White House. “Things will be back to normal soon.”

Colonial was shut on Friday after hackers launched a ransomware attack – effectively locking up its computer systems and demanding payment to release them – and the company has said it is hoping to “substantially” restart by the end of this week.

But the outage, which has underscored the vulnerability of vital U.S. infrastructure to cyberattacks, has already started to hurt.

About 7.5% of gas stations in Virginia and 5% in North Carolina had no fuel on Tuesday as demand jumped 20%, tracking firm GasBuddy said. Unleaded gas prices, meanwhile, neared an average $2.99 a gallon, its highest price since November 2014, the American Automobile Association said.

In an effort to ease the strain on consumers, Georgia suspended sales tax on gas until Saturday, and North Carolina declared an emergency. The U.S. federal government, meanwhile, has loosened rules to make it easier for suppliers to refill storage, including lifting seasonal anti-smog requirements for gasoline and allowing fuel truckers to work longer hours.

Granholm said there is not a shortage but a gasoline supply “crunch” in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Southern Virginia, regions that typically rely on Colonial for fuel.

Driver Caroline Richardson said she was paying 15 cents more per gallon than a week ago as she refueled at a gas station in Sumter, South Carolina. “I know some friends who decided not to go out of town this weekend to save gas,” she said.

DARKSIDE HACK

The strike on Colonial “is potentially the most substantial and damaging attack on U.S. critical infrastructure ever,” Ohio Senator Rob Portman told a Senate hearing on cybersecurity threats on Tuesday.

The FBI has accused a shadowy criminal gang called DarkSide of the ransomware attack. DarkSide is believed to be based in Russia or Eastern Europe and avoids targeting computers that use languages from former Soviet republics, cyber experts say.

Russia’s embassy in the United States rejected speculation that Moscow was behind the attack. President Joe Biden a day earlier said there was no evidence so far that Russia was responsible.

A statement issued in DarkSide’s name on Monday said: “Our goal is to make money, and not creating problems for society.”

It is unknown how much money the hackers are seeking, and Colonial has not commented on whether it would pay.

“Cyber attacks on our nation’s infrastructure are growing more sophisticated, frequent and aggressive,” Brandon Wales, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said on Tuesday at a Senate hearing on the SolarWinds hack that hit companies and government agencies.

GOVERNMENT STEPS IN

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a waiver on Tuesday that allows distributors to continue supplying winter fuel blends through May 18 in three Mid-Atlantic states to help ease supplies.

North Carolina and the U.S. Department of Transportation, meanwhile, relaxed fuel-driver rules, allowing truckers hauling gasoline to work longer hours. North Carolina and Virginia have both declared a state of emergency.

The U.S. has also started the work needed to enable temporary waivers of Jones Act vessels in response to the cyber attack – something that would allow foreign flagged fuel carriers to move from one U.S. port to another, the Transportation Department said.

There are growing concerns that the pipeline outage could lead to further price spikes ahead of the Memorial Day weekend at the end of this month. The weekend is the traditional start of the busy summer driving season.

Gulf Coast refiners that rely on Colonial’s pipeline to move their products have cut processing. Total SE trimmed gasoline production at its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery and Citgo Petroleum pared back at its Lake Charles, Louisiana, plant, sources told Reuters.

Marathon Petroleum is “making adjustments” to its operations due to the pipeline shutdown, a spokesman said without providing details.

While the pipeline outage is having big short-term consequences in some regions, some experts believe the longer term impact will be small.

“Markets will go crazy, but two weeks later no one knows it happened,” said Chuck Watson, director of research at ENKI, which studies the economic effects of natural and other disasters.

(Reporting by Laura Sanicola, Stephanie Kelly and Devika Krishna Kumar; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Paul Simao, Cynthia Osterman and Grant McCool)

Britain tells shoppers food is plentiful but supermarkets fret about next week

By James Davey

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain said there was plenty of food in the shops on Tuesday but industry groups repeated warnings of shortages of some fresh produce from next week unless freight routes to mainland Europe are swiftly restored.

Interior minister Priti Patel said Britons should not be concerned despite Tesco and Sainsbury’s, Britain’s two biggest supermarket groups, raising the alarm on Monday that gaps could start to appear on fruit and vegetable shelves within days.

Freight from France is being disrupted as part of a wider suspension of travel links with Britain to try to curb a new faster-spreading strain of COVID-19.

“I don’t think anybody should be worried – there is plenty of food in our shops,” Patel told LBC radio.

British supermarkets are facing record Christmas demand due to COVID-19 restrictions on the hospitality industry and on travel and there are fears of panic buying.

“UK shoppers need have no concerns about food supplies over Christmas, but impacts on local on-shelf availability of certain fresh foods look likely from next week unless we can swiftly restore this link,” said Ian Wright, CEO of the Food and Drink Federation, which represents over 300 food and drink businesses.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC), which represents more than 170 major retailers including the big supermarkets, is also concerned about supplies shortly after Christmas, highlighting possible shortages of salad, vegetables and fruit, including raspberries and strawberries.

“The borders really need to be running pretty much freely from tomorrow to assure us that there won’t be any disruption,” Andrew Opie, the BRC’s director of food and sustainability, told BBC radio.

He noted that 90% of the lettuces consumed by Britons and about 70% of soft fruit comes through the Channel ports at this time of year.

TESTING

The BBC cited France’s Europe Minister Clément Beaune as saying that Britain and France would announce a deal to restart freight by Wednesday. One option is to roll out mass testing for truck drivers.

“Whatever is agreed, we need to be careful it doesn’t add too much friction to the supply chain which in itself causes disruption by causing delays to the drivers whilst they’re being tested,” said Opie.

Though large queues again snaked around supermarkets across Britain on Tuesday and some shelves were stripped bare, food retailers said they had not seen any major changes in customer buying behavior.

Opie said supermarkets had expected and planned for Christmas queues.

“You need to remember these are the busiest days for shopping…and remember all the stores are still operating all of their COVID protocols, which means you can’t get as many people into a supermarket as you would do normally,” Opie said.

“We’re not seeing the sort of excessive buying in any kind of volumes that we saw around that period in sort of mid-March,” he added.

(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Alexander Smith and Louise Heavens)

U.S. grocery meat supply to improve soon, after virus-fueled demand surge: Tyson Foods

By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Demand for U.S. meat at grocery stores will likely exceed supplies for at least another week, the chief executive of Tyson Foods Inc told Reuters on Thursday, as the coronavirus pandemic fuels panic buying among shoppers.

Food manufacturers say overall meat supplies are ample to feed the millions of Americans hunkering down in their homes after state and local governments closed schools, bars and restaurants in an escalation of “social distancing” policies aimed at containing the virus.

But a surge in demand for products from chicken and beef to dry pasta at supermarkets has left store shelves and meat cases empty, alarming consumers.

“Once we are able to replenish supplies, which is probably going to take another week or so, then I think that we’ll be back in better equilibrium between supply and demand,” Tyson CEO Noel White said in an interview.

He later added: “In the short term, being a matter of weeks, there are some imbalances that exist.”

The “imbalances” are more demand than supply in sectors like retail stores, White said. The total amount of beef, pork and poultry available in the United States is up about 2% to 3% from last year, he said.

Orders for meat from grocery stores were significantly higher than usual through the weekend, after demand began to shift away from restaurants last week, White said.

“The demand hit very quickly,” White said. “The order fill rate has improved. It’s still not where we would expect it to be.”

Increased buying at supermarkets has lifted overall demand for meat, although the increase has been largely offset by reduced demand from restaurants, White said. Demand from casual dining restaurants, in particular, has suffered, though fast-food restaurants continue to benefit from strong drive-through traffic, he said. Tyson is the largest U.S. meat supplier and counts companies like McDonald’s Corp as customers.

To meet increased retail demand, Tyson has shifted processing facilities to produce food for grocery stores instead of restaurants, White said. The company is running slaughterhouses at full capacity and on weekends, he said.

U.S. cattle futures have dropped sharply on concerns slaughterhouses will close if the novel coronavirus spreads among workers.

To avoid shutdowns, Tyson has begun taking employees’ temperatures at two processing facilities and is expanding the practice to all U.S. workers, according to the company. It expects deliveries of several thousand thermometers on Thursday, White said.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

UK puts military on standby as coronavirus shuts down swathes of London

Reuters
By Guy Faulconbridge and Kylie MacLellan

LONDON (Reuters) – The United Kingdom put 20,000 military personnel on standby, closed dozens of underground train stations across London and Queen Elizabeth left the city for Windsor Castle as the coronavirus crisis shut down whole swathes of the economy.

As the coronavirus outbreak sweeps across the world, governments, companies and investors are grappling with the biggest public health crisis since the 1918 influenza pandemic, panicked populations and imploding financial markets.

Against a background of panic buying in supermarkets and the biggest fall in sterling for decades, the British government moved to quash rumors that travel in and out of London would be restricted.

“There is zero prospect of any restriction being placed on traveling in or out of London,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman told reporters.

He said police were responsible for maintaining law and order and there were no plans to use the military for this purpose, though the government put military reservists on formal notification.

But dozens of underground train stations across the capital were due to be closed and an industry source said supermarkets were expecting police support amid the fears that London was facing a virtual shutdown.

After ordering the closure of schools across a country that casts itself as a pillar of Western stability, Johnson on Wednesday said the government was ruling nothing out when asked whether he would bring in measures to lock down London.

Johnson has asked the government to come up with plans for a so-called lockdown which would see businesses closed, transport services reduced, gatherings limited and more stringent controls imposed on the city.

Queen Elizabeth on Thursday left the capital for her ancient castle at Windsor. The monarch has also agreed to postpone the planned state visit by Japanese Emperor Naruhito in June.

LONDON CLOSING?

London’s transport authority said it would close up to 40 underground train stations until further notice and reduce other services including buses and trains. The line between Waterloo station and the City of London financial district would be closed.

“People should not be traveling, by any means, unless they really, really have to,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan said.

Britain has so far reported 104 deaths from coronavirus and 2,626 confirmed cases, but UK scientific advisers say more than 50,000 people might have already been infected.

Britain faces a “massive shortage” of ventilators that will be needed to treat critically ill patients suffering from coronavirus, after it failed to invest enough in intensive care equipment, a leading ventilator manufacturer said.

With the world’s fifth largest economy coming to a standstill, the pound on Wednesday plunged to its lowest since March 1985, barring a freak “flash crash” in October 2016. On Thursday the pound was down 0.5% at $1.1570.

British shoppers were queuing around the block early on Thursday morning to buy basic supplies such as bottled water and tinned goods ahead of an expected toughening of measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak.

Supermarkets have been forced to limit purchases after frantic shoppers stripped shelves. Outside one Sainsbury’s supermarket in central London on Thursday, a huge queue had formed ahead of opening, with people standing calmly in the rain.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Additional reporting by Dylan Martinez, Kate Holton and Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Michael Holden and Giles Elgood)

Fed cuts rates and NYC, LA close restaurants to fight coronavirus

By Lindsay Dunsmuir and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With panic buying on Main Street and fear-driven sell-offs on Wall Street, the U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates to near zero on Sunday in another emergency move to help shore up the U.S. economy amid the rapidly escalating coronavirus pandemic.

The mayors of New York City and Los Angeles ordered restaurants, bars and cafes closed, with takeout and delivery the only options for food sales. Movie theaters, small theater houses and concert venues were also ordered closed as the U.S. death toll from the outbreak hit 65.

“The virus can spread rapidly through the close interactions New Yorkers have in restaurants, bars and places where we sit close together,” said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We have to break that cycle.”

For the second time since the financial crisis of 2008, the Fed cut rates at an emergency meeting, aiming for a target range of 0% to 0.25% to help put a floor under a rapidly disintegrating global economy.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who had openly pressed the Fed for further action, called the move “terrific” and “very good news.”

Store shelves have been stripped bare of essentials, schools closed and millions of jobs in jeopardy as businesses temporarily shut their doors.

“We’re learning from watching other countries,” Trump said. “It’s a very contagious virus … but it’s something that we have tremendous control of.”

Trump has faced criticism at home and abroad for sometimes downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus and overstating his administration’s ability to handle it.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said the United States was entering a new phase of coronavirus testing but tempered the president’s optimism.

“The worst is yet ahead for us,” Fauci said, a warning he has issued frequently in the past week. “It is how we respond to that challenge that is going to what the ultimate end point is going to be.”

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said testing for coronavirus was expanding with more than 2,000 labs across the country ready to process tests and 10 states operating drive-through testing.

The United States has lagged behind other industrialized nations in its ability to test for the coronavirus. In early March, the Trump administration said close to 1 million coronavirus tests would soon be available and anyone who needed a test would get one, a promise it failed to keep.

With limited testing available, U.S. officials have recorded nearly 3,000 cases and 65 deaths, up from 58 on Saturday. Globally more than 162,000 are infected and over 6,000 have died.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Sunday recommended that events with gatherings of 50 or more people over the next eight weeks be postponed or canceled.

DON’T HOARD

The White House appealed to Americans not to hoard as the coronavirus spreads, reassuring them that grocery supply chains were strong.

Trump held a phone call on Sunday with 30 executives from grocery stores including Amazon.com Inc’s <AMZN.O> Whole Foods, Target Corp <TGT.N>, Costco Wholesale Corp <COST.O> and Walmart Inc <WMT.N>, the White House said.

“Have a nice dinner, relax because there’s plenty, but you don’t have to … you don’t have to buy the quantities,” Trump said. “We’re doing really, really well. A lot of good things are going to happen.”

Trump tested negative for coronavirus, his doctors said on Saturday, as the president extended a travel ban to Britain and Ireland to try to slow the pandemic.

Trump’s spokesman, Judd Deere, said temperature checks will be conducted on everyone who enters the White House grounds, beginning Monday morning.

Travelers returning to the United States and being screened for the coronavirus were met by long lines and massive delays at some major airports, prompting federal officials to deploy more staff and Trump to appeal for patience.

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, squaring off in a Democratic debate, blasted Trump’s handling of the coronavirus and touted their own plans to deal with it.

In their first one-on-one debate, the two Democratic contenders to face Trump in the November election said the Republican president had contributed to worries about the pandemic by minimizing the threat before declaring a national emergency on Friday.

CLOSURES EXPAND

The U.S. containment measures have so far been mild compared to the nationwide lockdowns imposed in Italy, France and Spain.

“I think Americans should be prepared that they are going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Even though Americans are not barred from going to the movies, ticket sales in North America fell to their lowest level in more than two decades this weekend, according to measurement firm Comscore.

Democratic New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that schools in New York City, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties would close from Monday, and he called on Trump to mobilize the Army Corps of Engineers to create more hospital beds.

Cuomo had been criticized for not closing schools as other states have done, given that New York has a large cluster of coronavirus cases.

A clinical trial to evaluate a vaccine designed to protect against coronavirus will begin on Monday, the Associated Press reported, citing an unnamed U.S. government official.

It would take a year to 18 months to fully validate any potential vaccine, the AP added, citing public health officials.

(For an interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus, open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.)

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu, Lindsay Dunsmuir, Andrea Shalal, Nandita Bose, Matt Spetalnick, Humeyra Pamuk, John Whitesides, Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Lisa Shumaker and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Diane Craft, Lincoln Feast and Gerry Doyle.)