The Dow Jones dropped 2,997.10 points – 12.9 percent – on Monday, to 20,188.52, its biggest dive since the “Black Monday” crash of 1987, and another one of those plunges that fuels the nightmares of stockbrokers on the New York Stock Exchange.
The drop came as President Donald Trump warned at a briefing that the COVID-19 new coronavirus pandemic might not peak in the United States until sometime this summer, possibly July or August.
Recommendations from the White House for containing the pandemic across the US included advisories similar to those in European nations and those in Israel: avoiding discretionary travel, public spaces and gatherings of more than 10 people in any setting.
Last Friday, the Dow leaped back from the brink to rise 1,985 points after its previous drop, following an announcement by the president declaring a national emergency that unleashed $50 billion in funding to help states fight the virus.
At present, 70 people in the United States have died from the coronavirus; of those, 42 were in Washington State, seven were in New York and two were in New Jersey. There were at least 4,040 confirmed coronavirus cases across at least 49 states and Washington DC as of Monday evening, March 16, 2020. The virus has also spread to the American territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.