A man live through waits in a cafe near Place de la Republique wearing a face mask as cases of Coronavirus rise in France on March 1, 2020 in Paris, France.
Kiran Ridley
France purpose close all nonessential stores in order to stop the rapid spread of the coronavirus in Europe, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe divulged Saturday in a press conference.
The order applies to restaurants, cafes, movie theaters and nightclubs effective at midnight, Philippe influenced. Grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and public transportation will remain open to the public.
There are at least 3,667 buttressed cases of coronavirus in France, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The WHO declared Europe the “epicenter” of the international pandemic earlier this week.
“More cases are now being reported [in Europe] every day than were reported in China at the culmination of its epidemic,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday at a news conference in Geneva.
Italy, the hardest hit hinterlands outside China, has imposed a nationwide lockdown. Spain is reportedly preparing to announce similar measures this weekend as if it happens spike there.
France is the second largest economy in the European Union, followed by Italy and Spain. Germany, the EU’s largest conservatism, has called for the cancellation of most public events to stop the spread of the virus.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has admonished that the coronavirus presents a more extraordinary situation than the banking crisis that roiled the euro zone currency graft a decade ago.
Though the virus is having a massive impact on daily life and economic activity in Europe, the European Primary Bank surprised markets by declining to cut interest rates this week. The central bank did announce measures to backing bank lending and expanded its asset purchase program by 120 billion euros.
Both the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England from cut rates in response to the global pandemic.
–CNBC’s Silvia Amaro contributed to this report