• Twenty-eight people in the US have died from the coronavirus: 23 in Washington state, two in Florida, two in California, and one in New Jersey.
• The US has reported more than 870 coronavirus cases in total across 36 states. 
• That tally includes 46 people who were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan and three people who were evacuated from China.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US has reported 28 deaths from the coronavirus as of Tuesday: 23 in Washington state, two in Florida, two in California, and one in New Jersey.

In total, the country has reported at least 870 cases of the coronavirus across 36 states and Washington, DC. The US is seeing a rising number of cases of "community spread"— patients with no known exposure to the virus or travel history to countries where outbreaks have been reported.

Because county- and state-level health authorities are reporting the latest case counts before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does, Business Insider is tallying those local reports and updating this story live to give a comprehensive picture of where — and to what degree — the coronavirus is spreading in the US.

The virus, which originated in Wuhan, China, in December, causes a respiratory disease known as COVID-19. Over 4,200 people have died and 118,101 others have been infected — around 80% of whom are in China. Cases have been recorded in more than 100 countries.

For the latest global case totals, death tolls, and travel information, see Business Insider's live updates here.

Here's everything we know about the coronavirus in the US — in the list below, states are ordered by their number of cases.

Note: This post was last updated at 3 p.m. ET.

Twenty-eight people have died from the coronavirus on US soil.

California's deaths were a woman in her 60s in Santa Clara County and a female patient at Kaiser Permanente in Placer County.

Florida announced two deaths on Friday: one in Lee County and one in Santa Rosa County.

Washington has reported 23 deaths. The first — a man in his 50s who had chronic underlying health issues — was reported February 29 at EvergreenHealth, a hospital in Kings County, Washington.

Two of the Washington patients died February 26, but their diagnoses were confirmed posthumously on Tuesday, making them the earliest known coronavirus fatalities in the US. 

New Jersey announced its first death on Monday: a man in his 60s.

One person who died in California was likely exposed to the coronavirus on the Grand Princess cruise ship. That passenger had disembarked, but at least 21 people who remained onboard tested positive.

Of those who tested positive, 19 were crew members and two were passengers. It is still unclear how many of the infected people are from the US, so they do not yet factor into the country's total number of cases.

The ship has docked at the Port of Oakland. The healthy US passengers will be quarantined for 14 days at military bases in California, Texas, or Georgia. 

Of the people currently onboard, 62 were on the last voyage with the person who died in California.

Washington has confirmed nearly 180 cases of the virus and 23 deaths. More than 50 residents of a nursing facility in King County have tested positive.

Thirteen of the Washington deaths have been among residents of the long-term care facility, called Life Care Center.

Most of the deaths in Washington have occurred in King, Snohomish, Spokane, and Pierce Counties, as well as several others. 

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency on February 29.

New York has reported more than 170 cases. At least 50 cases are linked to a male attorney from Westchester.

New York's first case was a 39-year-old Manhattan healthcare worker who had recently traveled to Iran.

The second New York case, confirmed Tuesday, was a 50-year-old male attorney from Westchester who works in Manhattan. Business Insider confirmed the identity of the patient, a married father of four.

The man's wife, 14-year-old daughter, and 22-year-old son were all diagnosed with the virus, along with his rabbi, neighbor, friend, that friend's wife, and three of their four children. In total, the man has been linked to around 54 cases. Westchester County has 108 patients as of Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo enforced a one-mile "containment area" around New Rochelle, believed to be the epicenter of the state's outbreak, in a bid to halt the spread of the virus.

Patients have also tested positive in Rockland County, Nassau County, Saratoga County, Ulster County, and Suffolk County. New York City has reported 36 cases.

State officials declared a state of emergency on March 7. 

California has confirmed more than 140 cases.

More than three dozen cases are in Santa Clara County, where the state reported its second death on Monday.  

Los Angeles County has at least 16 cases, including two medical professionals who screened passengers at Los Angeles International Airport, while San Francisco County has about 13 patients. 

California declared a state of emergency on March 4 after the first death from coronavirus in the state.

The other cases in California were either passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was quarantined in Japan or evacuees from Wuhan.

Japanese authorities imposed a 14-day quarantine on that cruise ship last month after a person tested positive for the coronavirus, but at least 700 people wound up with COVID-19.

328 Americans who were on the ship were flown back to the US. On the evacuation flight, 14 citizens who had tested positive for the virus flew in an isolation box, while others who'd been on the ship sat in a separate area. More than 30 others got sick.

In total, the US coronavirus case count includes 46 cases among passengers who had been on the Diamond Princess. Three evacuees from Wuhan also tested positive for the coronavirus.

The infected passengers from the cruise ship were taken to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska and to the Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. 

Passengers who tested negative were quarantined at two US military bases: the Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, and the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Most have been released.

Massachusetts has reported 92 coronavirus cases as of Tuesday.

Only one of the coronavirus cases in the state is confirmed. The other 91 are presumptive, officials wrote on the Department of Public Health's website.

The first case, a man in his 20s who lives in Boston, had recently returned from Wuhan. Massachusetts confirmed that case on February 1. 

Gov. Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency on Tuesday after the number of COVID-19 cases surged from 42 to 92.

Health officials in Georgia have reported 17 cases.

Officials said six cases have been confirmed and 11 cases are presumed positive.

On Monday, a daycare teacher tested positive for coronavirus in Cobb County. 

Colorado has confirmed 16 cases.

The latest cases were confirmed on March 9 and include two women in their 70s and one woman in her 30s. All of them have had no known contact with an infected person.

The 16 total cases includes 15 presumptive positive cases and one indeterminate case that was counted as positive, officials said.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, urging the federal government to increase states' ability to test people for COVID-19.

"We're acting quickly and decisively because the quicker we can respond, the quicker we can protect the most vulnerable," Polis said, according to an ABC affiliate in Denver.

New Jersey has reported 15 cases and its first coronavirus death.

Governor Phil Murphy and Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver on Tuesday announced New Jersey's first COVID-19 death. The man was a Bergen County resident in his 60s. 

"Our prayers are with the family during this difficult time," Murphy and Oliver said in a statement. "We remain vigilant to doing all we can — across all levels of government — to protect the people of New Jersey."

The state has a total of 15 cases of coronavirus, Department of Health officials wrote on Twitter.

Murphy announced the state's first coronavirus case — a man in his 30s who was hospitalized at Hackensack University Medical Center in Bergen County — on March 4. The man is a healthcare worker who lives in Manhattan but has an apartment in Fort Lee.

Florida health officials have confirmed 14 positive cases and two deaths.

The first patient was a man in his 60s in Manatee County. At least 14 others have tested positive.

Oregon has reported 14 cases as well, most of which are in Washington County.

The first patient is an adult in Washington County who tested positive for the virus at Kaiser Permanente Westside Medical Center. Officials said the patient worked at the Forest Hills Elementary School in Clackamas County and appeared to have acquired the virus through community spread.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency on Monday.

Texas has reported at least 13 coronavirus cases.

The greater Houston area has identified 12 cases so far, including a female staffer at Rice University.

An evacuee from Wuhan who had been quarantined in isolation at a medical facility in San Antonio was briefly released from isolation then re-admitted hours later after one of their tests was "determined to be weakly positive."

The patient's first two tests had come back negative, which prompted the CDC to release them. After the third test's positive results, CDC officials retrieved the patient and placed them back into medical isolation. 

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg called the incident"unacceptable."

Illinois has confirmed 11 cases.

The first Chicago case, a woman in her 60s, traveled to Wuhan in December to care for her elderly father. She returned to Chicago on January 13, then infected her husband. 

The third and fourth cases — a  husband and wife in their 70s — were reported on March 2. 

A Chicago man in his 60s was the first patient in the area without a travel history to a place with an outbreak or contact with another COVID-19 patient.

Pennsylvania has confirmed 11 cases as of Tuesday.

Eight of the cases are in Montgomery County, just outside Philadelphia. 

Iowa has confirmed eight cases, including three who were recently on a cruise in Egypt.

Virginia confirmed eight presumptive positive cases on March 10.

The Virginia Department of Health announced that the two most recent Virginia patients were from two different parts of the state.

The cases include an Arlington resident in their 60s, a Fairfax resident in their 80s, and a marine living on the Quantico marine corps base. The cases are not believed to be related.

A couple that went on a Nile River cruise in Egypt also tested positive for the virus as did someone who went to Christ Church, in Washington, DC, where the reverend was infected by COVID-19.

Seven coronavirus cases were confirmed in North Carolina. Two patients tested positive after recent trips.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services confirmed five new cases on Monday, all of whom are from Wake County. All of them attended the BioGen conference in Boston, Massachusetts. 

The first patient is being isolated in their Wake County home. North Carolina officials said the person contracted the virus after visiting the Life Care Center in the Seattle area.

The second patient tested positive after traveling to Italy in late February.

Officials declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.

Seven cases have been reported in South Carolina.

State officials announced three new cases on Monday. 

Tennessee has seven cases as of Tuesday.

The state confirmed its first case last week: a 44-year-old man who recently traveled out of state. He was diagnosed in Williamson County, part of the Nashville metropolitan area. Health officials said he returned from an out-of-state trip less than a week ago. 

Williamson County closed its schools for disinfection on Friday and Monday.

A patient being treated in Memphis prompted officials to put more than 70 others in quarantine, according to WMC-TV. The people in isolation include an employee of the Shelby County School District, a University of Tennessee faculty member, and two students from the Southwest Tennessee Community College.

Arizona has confirmed six cases, including a member of the Arizona State University community.

The Arizona Department of Health Services said the state's toll includes four presumptive positive cases. 

The state's first confirmed patient had recently traveled to the US from Wuhan. Health officials said he belonged to the Arizona State community, but did not live in university housing.

In total, the state has three patients in Maricopa County, two in Pinal County, and one in Pima County. One female healthcare worker in her 40s passed the virus to two family members. 

Indiana's six cases include a child from Hendricks County.

The child's diagnosis prompted the closure of a local elementary school, Hickory Elementary School in Avon, until early April.

Kentucky has six cases.

Three cases were confirmed in Harrison County. Two patients were reported in Jefferson County and one in Fayette County. 

"We are now up to six positive cases and folks, we're going to have more," Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said on Monday. "That doesn't mean we're not ready, we are, and it doesn't mean that people should overly worry."

Maryland has confirmed six cases, four of which are in Montgomery County.

Gov. Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency on March 5.

New Hampshire has reported five cases. The first patient was told to stay isolated, but attended an event at Dartmouth business school.

The first patient is an employee at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire. The patient recently traveled to Italy and was told to isolate after testing positive for the virus. But on Friday, the patient attended a private event at Dartmouth's business school.

The event had around 175 to 200 attendees, NBC reported. Those who came in close contact with the patient are being asked to stay home for two weeks. 

Nevada has reported four cases. The latest case, reported on Monday, is a man in his 30s who recently traveled to Santa Clara, California.

The first patient had recently travelled to Washington state and Texas. The second patient — a man from the Reno area — recently traveled on the Grand Princess cruise ship. He is being isolated at home. 

Louisiana has reported three presumptive positive cases of the coronavirus as of Tuesday.

Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the state's first presumptive positive case, a Jefferson Parish resident, on Monday. That was followed by two more patients, both of whom live in Orleans Parish, on Tuesday.

"At this point in our investigation, we believe the first presumptive positive" case is "not travel-related and was community acquired," said Dr. Alex Billioux, assistant secretary of the Office of Public Health.

Minnesota has three cases. One patient recently traveled on a cruise ship as well.

Health officials reported the first case on March 6. The patient, a Ramsey County resident, developed symptoms on February 25 after going on a cruise. They are being isolated at home. 

The Minnesota Department of Health said the second patient was likely exposed to the virus on a trip to Europe in late February.

On Tuesday, health officials announced a third case: an Anoka County resident in their 30s who was likely contracted the virus after coming into contact with international travelers.

Ohio has three cases.

Governor Mike DeWine announced three positive cases on Monday. All three are from Cuyahoga County and the patients are in their 50s.

Two patients were recently on a cruise in Egypt, while the third was at an AIPAC conference in Washington DC.

Rhode Island had three cases as of Monday.

Two patients — a man in his 40s and a teenager— had recently traveled to Italy, France, and Spain, according to state officials.

The third case is a woman in her 60s who had direct contact with a COVID-19 patient in New York.

Wisconsin has reported three confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Wisconsin's first case was a patient with a history of traveling to Beijing. The patient tested positive on February 5 and was released from isolation on February 28.

State officials confirmed the second and third patients on Monday and Tuesday.

Connecticut has two cases, the second case of which was confirmed on Monday.

Two healthcare employees who work in Connecticut but live in New York have also tested positive. Both patients — a Danbury Hospital employee and a doctor at Bridgeport Hospital — are counted in New York's total. 

Gov. Ned Lamont on Monday prohibited Connecticut state employees from traveling on state business. 

Hawaii has reported two cases, including a passenger on the Grand Princess cruise ship.

Governor David Ige announced on Friday that a Hawaii resident on the ship had tested positive. 

On Sunday, the state health department said an elderly man from Oahu tested positive as well. The man had recently returned from Washington state.

Utah has reported two COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday.

The state's second case is a patient over 60 years old, Department of Health officials said on Tuesday. The person is hospitalized in "serious, but stable, condition." Doctors believe they picked up the virus while traveling outside Utah and the US.

The first patient was a Davis County man in his 60s who tested positive for COVID-19 on March 6. Officials say he likely became infected while on the Grand Princess cruise. (His voyage predated the current trip left in limbo off the coast of California.)

Some states have only reported one case so far.

Only one person has tested positive for COVID-19 in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Vermont, officials say.

Officials in Washington, DC, confirmed a reverend as the city's first case on March 7.

A reverend at Christ Church in Georgetown became the first person in the nation's capital to test positive for coronavirus. Officials have since urged hundreds of churchgoers to self-quarantine to help control the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a press briefing that the patient, a man in his 50s whose symptoms began in late February, had no history of international travel.

He wasn't admitted to a DC hospital until March 5.

In total, the US government has evacuated around 800 Americans from Wuhan, China.

They've all been quarantined at US military bases, and many have been released.

The US has barred foreign nationals who've been in China within the prior 14 days from entering the country.

US citizens who have been in China's Hubei province within the prior 14 days can be quarantined for up to two weeks.

COVID-19 is marked by symptoms like fever, coughing, and difficulty breathing.

The coronavirus family is a large group of viruses that typically affect the respiratory tract. Coronaviruses can lead to illnesses such as the common cold, pneumonia, and SARS. A recent study from the Chinese Center for Disease Control found that around 80% of coronavirus cases in China have been mild.

The CDC recommends that all travelers frequently wash their hands with soap and water and scrub for at least 20 seconds. They should refrain from touching their eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands.

Aylin Woodward, Lauren Frias, Sarah Al-Arshani, and Morgan McFall-Johnsen contributed reporting for this story.

• Read more:

The coronavirus has pandemic 'potential' as it spreads in South Korea, Italy, and Iran, according to WHO

One key indicator will tell us when the coronavirus outbreak is winding down — but we're not seeing it yet

A day-by-day breakdown of coronavirus symptoms shows how the disease, COVID-19, goes from bad to worse

• Matt Mochary coaches some of Silicon Valley's most famous venture capitalists and startup founders, advising them on everything from strategy to conflict resolution.
• The "CEO coach" appeared as a guest of Harry Stebbings on the podcast The Twenty Minute VC on Monday to share how he counsels founders and investors
• When Stebbings asked Mochary how he could better add value to the company boards he joined, Mochary cautioned him to be wary before joining a company board, because it could be the death of a great investor.  
• Instead, Mochary advises that investors support CEOs by leveraging their network to make introductions and connect their portfolio companies to other investors, customers and new recruits.   
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Matt Mochary has taken on an unusual mantle in Silicon Valley: CEO coach. 

His clients includes some of Silicon Valley's most respected investors and most promising startup founders, like Benchmark partner Peter Thenton, Sequoia Capital partner Pat Grady, and Brex's young co-founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi. 

But the CEO coach has a controversial stance against joining a board of directors, which is typically a common occurrence for venture capitalists choosing to invest in a young startups. 

"Boards are the death of every great investor," Mochary warned, appearing as a guest of Harry Stebbings on the podcast The Twenty Minute VC on Monday. 

Stebbings, who co-founded and works at the European venture fund Stride, had broached the topic by referencing Mochary's clients, and asking how investors like him could best add value for the companies whose boards he had just joined. 

What Stebbings got instead was a warning to avoid a career-ending move. 

"If you sell [a commitment] to founders, then when they take your money, you'll join their board and be on their board forever, know that you have just ended your career," Mochary told Stebbings. 

The logic is simple to the CEO coach, who reasons that board meetings simply take up too much time. A board meeting occurs at least four times a year, and can last up to a whole day, he said. And once an investor joins more than one board, its time-sucking properties multiply.

"Now you're on 4, but imagine when you're on 10, and then 15 and then 20, and you've made this commitment to be on them forever," he said. "You have zero time to look for and make new investments." 

Adding more value 

Joining a board of directors is also just not the best way to add value, Mochary noted.

"What's valuable to CEOs is the support they want," Mochary explained. "Usually its not strategic thinking, because you have very little information about the company," he added, noting that a startup founder knew the ins and outs of their own company far better than an outside party. 

Instead, he said VCs should leverage their networks to better help startup founders. 

"You have a network and they need introductions - warm introductions - to customers, to other investors, to recruits," Mochary said. "That's the most valuable thing to CEOs."  

Mochary has been on both sides of the dealmaking table: he started off as an investor, and moved on to co-found and sell two of his companies.

Before Mochary's latest gig as CEO coach, a topic on which he has also written a book, he also co-directed and co-produced an award-winning documentary, and founded a non-profit that trains ex-convicts as truck drivers, to bring them into the workforce.

SEE ALSO: An investor became a VC during the dot-com bust and cofounded European fund Atomico just before the financial crisis. Here are his 3 big lessons to startups and investors for surviving tough times.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos reportedly just spent $165 million on a Beverly Hills estate — here are all the ways the world's richest man makes and spends his money

• Glamping, or "glamorous camping," has become an increasingly popular camping alternative over the last decade for travelers looking to venture off the beaten path and unplug in comfort. 
• "The Trailer Pond," a collection of five vintage camper trailers located on an organic vineyard in southern California's Paso Robles, is a well-kept glamping secret.
• Dating back to the 50s and 60s, the trailers can accommodate two people each and be booked individually or as a whole. Rates start at $250 per night.
• The Trailer Pond allows visitors to experience Paso Robles away from the crowds. Both the New York Times and Travel+Leisure named Paso Robles a top destination to visit in 2020.
• In addition to being able to book any of the vineyard's tastings and experiences, guests can hike through the 130-acre property, swim in a private pond, and watch movies under the stars.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SEE ALSO: Travel & Leisure just released its list of the 50 best places to travel in 2020. Here's a look at the 7 US destinations that made the list.

NOW READ: California's stunning 'Field of Light' looks like thousands of glowing fireflies have invaded the countryside

Tinker Tin Trailer Company, a vintage trailer rental company, has partnered with family-owned-and-operated Alta Colina Vineyard in Paso Robles, California, to create the "Trailer Pond."

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

Located up the hill from the vineyard's tasting room, it consists of five vintage trailers that can be rented overnight.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

Paso Robles, together with iconic southern California road trip destinations such as Highway 1, Big Sur, and Hearst Castle, form San Luis Obispo County. In the third quarter of 2019, the county drew a record 2.1 million visitors.

Source:Pacific Coast Business Times

Adding to the tourist draw, the New York Times and Travel+Leisure named Paso Robles wine country a top destination to visit in 2020.

Source: Business Insider; Business Insider

A rival to Napa, Paso Robles is known for its more than 300 vineyards and this year will witness the opening of a brand new 16,000-square-foot food hall. Artist Bruce Munro's Fields of Light exhibition, open through June 30 in Sensorio, has also been a popular draw.

Source: Business Insider; Business Insider

The trailers at Alta Colina, which date back to the 50s and 60s, allow guests the chance to soak up the beauty of Paso Robles away from the crowds.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

"We wanted to give our guests a chance to camp in our little pieces of American history without having to stand in line to get a spot at our local parks," Tinker Tin co-founder Jaime Holm told Business Insider.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

The trailers can accommodate up to two people each, be rented individually or altogether, and require a two-night minimum stay. Individual trailer rates start at $250 per night and guests must be 21 or older.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

The Trailer Pond is part of a growing number of "immersive" glamping experiences that offer travelers the option to engage in wellness-focused activities, according to Arizton, an advisory and intelligence research company.

Source:Business Insider; Arizton Advisory & Intelligence

Thanks to plugged-in travelers who are increasingly seeking relaxing and de-stressing experiences, Arizton estimates that glamping will be a $1 billion industry by 2025.

Source:Business Insider; Arizton Advisory & Intelligence

While each trailer comes with a full-size bed, icebox, linens, and a coffee maker, they are distinct in character.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

The 1962 Aristocrat trailer features brightly painted cabinets and colorful wall hangings ...

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

... whereas the 1958 Kenskill Deluxe features a more neutral palette.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

The 1956 Jewel is completely original, from the flooring to countertops and appliances.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

Each "icebox," the 1950s and 60s term for a refrigerator, comes with blocks of ice to keep food fresh and, importantly, wine chilled.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

Guests can hike through the surrounding 130-acre property, book a vineyard tour, or simply relax at the campsite while drinking organically grown Rhône-style wines.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company; Alta Colina

Groups that rent out the entire pond are able to purchase add-on experiences ranging from morning yoga sessions on the dock to wine-blending classes to movie nights under the stars and catered dinners.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

The sunset views are quite something ...

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

... as are the views when the sun goes down.

Source:Tinker Tin Trailer Company

• Five Republican officials have self-quarantined after they came into contact with a person who had the coronavirus at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
• They are Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Doug Collins, Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Paul Gosar, and incoming White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
• GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert was also told he was in contact with the individual who tested positive, but Gohmert refused to quarantine himself.
• Democratic Rep. Don Beyer also self-quarantined on Tuesday after interacting with a friend in Washington, DC, who tested positive for coronavirus.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

At least five Republican lawmakers and officials have decided to enter a precautionary self-quarantine after coming into contact with a coronavirus patient at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland last month.

They are Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Doug Collins, Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Paul Gosar, and incoming White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Rep. Louie Gohmert was also told he was in contact with the individual who tested positive, but Gohmert refused to quarantine himself.

On Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia announced that he will self-quarantine after interacting with a friend in Washington, DC, who recently tested positive for the virus.

All of the Republican lawmakers except Gohmert say they have no symptoms but are quarantining out of an abundance of caution.

But at least two of them— Congressmen Matt Gaetz of Florida, and Doug Collins of Georgia — have had direct contact with President Donald Trump since their exposure, raising concerns about the president's safety.

Meadows, meanwhile, will be out until Wednesday, his spokesperson said in a statement.

CPAC alerted attendees on Saturday that one of its employees had tested positive for coronavirus after the event. The annual gathering of conservatives attracted thousands of people, including some members of Congress, "several" of whom came into contact with the patient, the Associated Press reported.

On Monday, Collins announced he would self-quarantine"out of an abundance of caution" after CPAC notified him he was at the conference with the patient who tested positive for the coronavirus.

His announcement came after he joined President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for a tour and coronavirus press conference last week at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. Photos show Collins and Trump shaking hands after Air Force One landed at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia.

Collins spoke at CPAC on Thursday, February 27 on a panel called "The Coup: Rosenstein & Comey- The Empire Strikes Back."

Collins said, "I feel completely healthy and I am not experiencing any symptoms."

Another House Republican, Matt Gaetz of Florida, announced that he had been tested for the coronavirus after learning that he also came into contact with the infected individual at CPAC.

He learned that he may have been exposed to the virus while traveling from Florida with President Trump on Air Force One on Monday, the New York Times reported. Gaetz then sat alone in a separate section of the plane was escorted to a waiting car upon landing at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

Gaetz received a test and was awaiting results while he self-quarantined. He has also closed his Washington, D.C. office.

Previously, Republican Senator Ted Cruz announced he would self-quarantine at home in Texas, as did Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, who stayed at home in Arizona to wait out the 14-day incubation period for COVID-19.

Asked Monday if the Capitol should close temporarily due to the threat of coronavirus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "At this time there is no reason to do so."

Gosar announced on Sunday that he had self-quarantined at his home in Arizona until the two-week incubation period for the coronavirus ended. Three other staffers who had come into contact with the infected CPAC attendee had also self quarantined, but none were exhibiting symptoms, communications director Ben Goldy told Insider. Meanwhile, the D.C. office had closed until next week.

Goldy, along with his other colleagues, worked from home on Monday and communicated primarily through text, emails, and conference calls. While constituent meetings in Washington had been suspended, the office's other functions continued.

"We're surprisingly more prepared than you would expect...we're managing pretty well," Goldy told Insider, noting that Gosar was introducing a bill today, and could do so electronically. "Years ago you wouldn't have been able to do this."

While in quarantine, Gosar had "stocked up on breakfast food and Lysol wipes and things" and was in a "great mood", according Goldy.

But the congressman apparently also had "life and mortality" on his mind, tweeting (possibly in jest) on Monday that he would "rather die gloriously in battle than from a virus." An image from the 2018 South Korean historical action film "The Great Battle" accompanied the tweet.

"In a way it doesn't matter," Gosar wrote. "But it kinda does."

Goldy assured Insider that Gosar "is taking the entire process very seriously."

Read more: Trump is reportedly fixated on keeping the number of official US coronavirus cases as low as possible — despite indications the disease has spread wider than he wants

Trump shakes hands with Florida fans as he suggests new coronavirus shouldn't be treated any differently than the flu

SEE ALSO: CDC staffers only found out about a suspected case of the coronavirus at the agency when Trump told reporters

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: There's a formula to winning the Oscars, and it's all in the statistics

• The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has formed a "COVID-19 task force" that wants to quadruple the Bay Area's testing capacity, the organization announced Tuesday.
• The philanthropic group, funded by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, plans to buy additional diagnostic machines, which it said will be in place starting March 16.
• The task force will also include members from Stanford University and UCSF.
• The announcement comes as the US continues to lag behind other countries in testing people for the coronavirus disease.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is forming a coronavirus "task force" with "the aim to quadruple the Bay Area's COVID-19 testing and diagnostics capacities," the organization announced Tuesday.

"We're funding the acquisition of state-of-the-art FDA approved COVID-19 diagnostic machines that will significantly increase the Bay Area's ability to test and diagnose new cases. We're also bridging connections between clinical labs at Stanford and UCSF to help distribute the testing load throughout the area," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative said it expects to have the machines ready by March 16. However, tests will only be made available to symptomatic patients with doctor approvals, per public health official guidance, the organization said.

"As the coronavirus epidemic continues to grow, our ability to rapidly test and diagnose cases is critical," Chan Zuckerberg Biohub co-President Joe DeRisi said in a statement. "Procuring these new diagnostic machines will have a significant impact on our ability to respond to the outbreak in a more streamlined way."

The task force includes members from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub, two groups funded by Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan, as well as scientists from Stanford University and the University of California San Francisco.

The task force's formation comes as the US remains severely limited in its capacity to test individuals for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that fewer than 2,000 Americans have been tested, while South Korea — a country with less than one-sixth the population of the US — has tested more than 189,000 people.

SEE ALSO: An employee at the Zuckerberg Chan Initiative tested positive for coronavirus

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos reportedly just spent $165 million on a Beverly Hills estate — here are all the ways the world's richest man makes and spends his money

• Cuup is a lingerie startup with five minimalist, supportive bra styles that are all $68.
• I've been testing The Plunge ($68) for four months now — and it's become my favorite option for weekends and weekdays.
• The mesh-like material is lightweight and airy, but surprisingly resilient and supportive. It molds to your shape, flattering your natural silhouette and creating a perfectly seamless fit.
• You can order The Plunge in six colors and in band sizes 30-38 and cup sizes A-H. I recommend ordering your true size. 

I first came across Cuup, a three-year-old lingerie startup founded by Free People alum, as an ad on Instagram. 

At a glance, it looks pretty much like any other direct-to-consumer (D2C) intimates brand: no-frill minimalist styles, negligible airbrushing, sundrenched product shots, and colorways with names like clay, grass, and merlot. 

And, despite being a 32E, it's exactly these sheer, natural-looking, barely-there styles that I find myself most drawn to. They stay out of the way, they don't trap heat, and they make me feel like my most unaltered self.

But, they also tend to forgo support and functionality. Cuup's five essential styles are all priced at $68 — a relatively justifiable expense for a comfortable bra you can wear every day, but impractical for anything that'd be best described as a lounge bra.

The caveat is that Cuup's unlined bras are supposed to represent a rare sweet-spot — a daily bra that combines the look and feel of a bralette with the support of any other underwire bra.

Intrigued, I contacted the company and set up a fitting. And, for the last four months since, I've been wearing their sheer, deep-V style, The Plunge ($68) on repeat.

I'll get into the nitty-gritty below, but the short debrief is this: The Plunge has quickly become my go-to bra. It's unexpectedly supportive while also being sexy and practical. If you're looking for something sleek and airy, but need the support of underwire, this is a great option to consider.

Right now, The Plunge comes in six colors: four core colors (black, blush, taupe, and leopard) and two limited edition colors (grass and merlot). It's also available in band sizes 30-38 and cup sizes A-H. You'll find matching underwear in four styles, including a bikini ($18) and high-waisted briefs ($18).

Materials

Since Cuup's mesh fabric is airy and semi-sheer, I was surprised by how supportive it is — it's like a military-grade pantyhose. It lifts and softens out my natural shape for modesty (though you'll probably want to skip wearing this to work if the shirt is light-colored or tight; there's some nipple visibility), and doesn't add any bulk. The underwire is functional, but ultimately forgettable, which I'm grateful for. 

The supportive materials are aided by The Plunge's deep-V neckline and wide band, which helps create a seamless fit for bottom-heavy breasts without padding or sagging. 

I wouldn't want to wear this bra on a run, but it's been perfect for my everyday life. I've worn it everywhere — from the office to date nights — and under pretty much everything that I own. 

However, it's worth noting that, since I'm in my mid-twenties, I don't need as much support as I likely will later in life — and I typically have luck with V-shaped necklines. So, this may not be adequate support for some larger cup sizes or as perfect of a fit for different shapes. 

Sizing 

I recommend ordering your standard size. If you flip-flop frequently between sister sizes, I'd suggest prioritizing the one with a smaller band. If there's a con that I've found, it's that the band may be stretching out slightly faster than my non-mesh styles.

Cuup has a few fit resources if you need additional help. Its site technically has an on-site chat feature, but it really just sends an email to customer service for you (the wait time is stated to be within 24 hours); a more accurate option is to schedule a 20-minute fitting online. Or, if you're local to New York City, visit in-person at their SoHo office. Appointments aren't scarce — as I write this, there are six available time slots left today. But you can also feel good about going with your typical size since I scheduled an in-person fitting and walked out with what I would have ordered online anyway (my true size, with a smaller band).

If you try a bra that isn't the right style or fit, you can easily try another. The company offers free returns and exchanges. And you can use the company's fit video here to verify if it's the right fit at home. 

The bottom line

Overall, Cuup's The Plunge is a lightweight yet supportive everyday bra that's both sexy and functional. It's quickly become my go-to, and I favor it for weekends as much as weekdays. I love that the mesh molds to my body for a perfect fit that softens and lifts without covering my natural shape. And, for a barely-there bra that can transition from work to a night out, it's a great use of $68 in my opinion.

As an e-commerce reporter, I test dozens of products in a given month that are marketed as the latest-and-greatest. In reality, they're a mix of terrible, excellent, and everything in-between. So, when I spend my own money, I tend to buy the very best of what I've been exposed to in the past three years  — the softest underwear, the most seamless exercise earbuds, and the most comfortable weekday flats. Cuup is one brand that I'll personally be buying more of — including The Plunge in more colors. And when my friends ask me what internet-blackhole find I'm most excited about at the moment, I'll be telling them about this. 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A Georgetown professor explains how Martin Luther King Jr. 'has been severely whitewashed'

• The coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan, China, has killed more than 4,000 people and infected over 116,000.
• The virus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, has spread to more than 100 other countries.
• More than 900 deaths have been reported outside mainland China, including 28 in the US. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

At least 118,100 people around the world have been infected with the coronavirus as of Tuesday, and more than 4,200 have died as outbreaks continue to spread around the world.

China has seen a drop-off in its rate of new cases, but the virus has gained momentum in other parts of the globe. More than half of the people infected have since recovered.

The new coronavirus — which causes a disease known as COVID-19 — had affected every province and region in China as well at least 109 other countries. Nearly 900 people have died outside mainland China.

The US has reported more than 870 cases and confirmed 28 coronavirus deaths: 23 in Washington state, two in Florida, two in California, and one in New Jersey.

Here's everything we know.

SEE ALSO: The US has reported 28 coronavirus deaths among more than 870 cases. Here's what we know about the US patients.

DON'T MISS: Here are the symptoms of the deadly Wuhan coronavirus and when you should be worried

The coronavirus has killed at least 4,262 people.

"The people who are likely to die first will have other illnesses," Adrian Hyzler, the chief medical officer at Healix International, which offers risk-management solutions for global travelers, told Business Insider in February.

A large proportion of those who have died appear to have been elderly or had underlying health conditions.

It had infected some 118,101 people as of Tuesday.

The vast majority of cases — almost 80% — are in China.

This chart shows the rate at which the coronavirus has spread.

The World Health Organization said on Monday that the threat of a coronavirus pandemic "has become very real."

"Now that the coronavirus has a foothold in so many countries, the threat of a pandemic has become very real," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press briefing.

But he added: "It would be the first pandemic in history that could be controlled. The bottom line is we are not at the mercy of the virus."

The WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a global public-health emergency on January 30. That designation has been used five times since it was created in 2005.

Cases have been confirmed in more than 100 countries beyond China.

Outside China, cases have been reported in:

The US has reported more than 870 coronavirus cases, including 49 patients who were brought into the country after getting sick.

"We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad," Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said at a recent press briefing. 

The US has confirmed 28 deaths, 23 of which were in Washington state.

Florida has reported two deaths: one in Lee County and one in Santa Rosa County. The first California death, announced March 4, was a Placer County woman who traveled on a Grand Princess cruise ship in February that went from San Francisco to Mexico.

The ship docked on Monday at the Port of Oakland, after sitting off the California coast for several days. At least 21 passengers on board tested positive for the virus. After arriving on land, healthy passengers who are from the US were flown or driven by bus to military bases in California, Texas, and Georgia. 

The US' first publicly confirmed death — a man in his 50s who had chronic underlying health issues — was reported in late February at EvergreenHealth, a hospital in King County.

Two coronavirus deaths announced March 3 were patients who died on February 26, but their diagnoses weren't confirmed until later. They are now the earliest known coronavirus fatalities in the US.

New Jersey reported its first COVID-19 death on Tuesday: a man in his 60s who lived in Bergen County.

The US has recorded several cases of "community spread"— patients who had no known exposure to the virus or travel history in China.

At least 36 US states have reported coronavirus cases, though in Nebraska the infections are among only repatriated citizens.

Forty-six of the US patients were passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.

On February 17, more than 300 Americans who had been quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan were brought back to the US. 14 sick people were flown on the same plane as healthy people (though they were kept isolated), and many others on the flight later tested positive. Everyone who was on the cruise was quarantined at US military bases for two weeks.

Health experts and US officials have criticized the decision to quarantine people on the ship, suggesting that the confined spaces and poor hygiene practices on board may have helped the virus spread.

Three US citizens who were evacuated from Wuhan and put under quarantine also tested positive for the virus.

The first case of the coronavirus was reported in Wuhan in December.

The central Chinese city has a population of 11 million.

The global fatality rate for the virus is hovering around 3.4% — but that could change with time.

The death rate based on recent official numbers of deaths and total cases is 3.4%, though health experts expect it to fall as more mild cases get reported and confirmed.

A previous study from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention found a fatality rate of 2.3%.

The virus' pneumonia-like symptoms include fever and difficulty breathing.

A study from the Chinese CDC found that patients older than 80 had a 15% death rate.

The study looked at 44,000 confirmed patients in China. The data suggests that patients in their 50s had a death rate about three times higher than patients in their 40s. 

Coronavirus patients with underlying health problems are also more likely to die than otherwise healthy people.

Patients with heart disease had a 10% death rate, according to the same Chinese CDC study. The death rate for patients who reported no preexisting conditions was less than 1%.

The virus' incubation period is thought to be about five days.

A recent study found that the coronavirus' average incubation period — the amount of time that passes between when a patient gets infected and when their coronavirus test comes back positive — is five days. But in 1% of cases, it may last longer than two weeks.

Many countries have formulated quarantine policies based on a 14-day incubation period 

But one study found that a patient's incubation period was 19 days. Another study published early in February analyzed 1,099 coronavirus cases in China and reported that the incubation period could be as long as 24 days.

A female tour guide in Japan tested positive for the virus a second time last month — evidence that people could get the coronavirus multiple times.

The patient — as a woman in her 40s living in Osaka, Japan — first tested positive for the virus on January 29. She was discharged from the hospital on February 1 and declared virus-free on February 6.

Nearly two weeks later, she developed throat and chest pains. She tested positive again on February 26. China has also reported cases of people getting reinfected. 

Few children have gotten sick, but Chinese authorities reported that a baby received a diagnosis just 30 hours after being born.

Other one-off cases of the virus in children include a 9-month-old girl in Beijing, a child in Germany whose father had the virus as well, and a child in Shenzhen who was infected but displayed no symptoms.

But the virus seems to affect mostly adults. A study published in late January speculated that "children might be less likely to become infected or, if infected, may show milder symptoms" than adults. 

Disease experts say it's good that the virus hasn't spread much among kids because children are less likely to wash their hands and cover their mouths — behaviors that can spread germs.

About 3,400 Chinese healthcare workers have been infected. At least 13 have died.

Research published in February found that nearly a third of hospitalized patients studied at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University were healthcare workers. 

On February 7, Li Wenliang, a doctor in Wuhan who was censored after sounding the alarm about the coronavirus, died from COVID-19. The 34-year-old doctor alerted a group of alumni from his medical school about a worrisome pneumonia-like illness in December. But Li was silenced by the police in Wuhan and forced to sign a letter saying he was "making false comments."

He later caught the coronavirus and died. In total, at least 13 healthcare workers have died from COVID-19. The neurosurgeon Liu Zhiming, a director at the Wuchang hospital in Wuhan, also died of the coronavirus, as did Peng Yinhua, a 29-year-old doctor who postponed his wedding to help treat patients.

The CDC has issued a warning to avoid all nonessential travel to China, South Korea, Italy, and Iran.

The virus has forced school closings in China, Japan, India, the US, Iran, and Italy. The UN said in early March that nearly 300 million kids have had their education disrupted.

Japan has closed all elementary, junior high, and high schools until early April.

On Thursday, Iran announced it was closing schools and universities until at least March 20, and India announced closings of all primary schools up to fifth grade through March 31. A day earlier, Italy said it was closing all schools as well.

Cases in the US have prompted localized school closures, including in New York City and Washington state.

Tourist attractions around the world have been shuttered temporarily.

Shanghai Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Tokyo Disneyland have all been shuttered, though the Tokyo park plans to reopen March 16.

Part of China's Great Wall is temporarily closed as well.

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem closed in early March for two weeks. The Louvre in Paris also closed for three days but reopened on Wednesday. 

A senior member of the International Olympic Committee said the future of the Tokyo Games could be in jeopardy.

The International Olympic Committee member, Dick Pound, told the Associated Press that a decision about the games would most likely come in May. For now, he added, athletes should continue training.

"As far as we all know, you're going to be in Tokyo," Pound said. "All indications are at this stage that it will be business as usual. So keep focused on your sport and be sure that the IOC is not going to send you into a pandemic situation."

The CEO of the Olympic organizing committee, Toshiro Muto, told CNN on Wednesday that that officials intend for the games to go on as planned.

Italy has the highest number of coronavirus deaths outside Asia: 463. The entire nation is on lockdown.

Italy has been wracked by the COVID-19 virus, with more than 9,100 cases.

On Monday, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte placed the entire European nation, home to an estimated 60 million people, under quarantine. Travel is restricted, public gatherings are banned, and a 6 p.m. curfew is in place.

Just one day earlier, Conte had put the northern region of Lombardy — home to 10 million people — and 14 neighboring provinces on lockdown. He expanded the restriction zone to encompass all of Italy when the death toll jumped from 366 to 463 in one day.

"We are asking basically that everyone who has come from areas stricken by the epidemic to remain under a mandatory house stay," Italy's health minister, Roberto Speranza, said at a press conference on February 22.

Italy has also closed down public venues such as schools, gyms, and museums across the country. The measures took effect on Tuesday and are expected to last through April 3. 

South Korea's total cases have surpassed 7,500.

South Korea had confirmed 7,513 infections and 54 deaths as of Tuesday.

The nation saw a spike in coronavirus cases after a 61-year-old woman transmitted the virus to other members of a fringe religious group, the controversial Shincheonji Church of Jesus.

Iran has reported 8,042 infections and 291 deaths.

Senior Iranian officials have contracted the virus. Mohammad Mirmohammadi, a 71-year-old adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died of COVID-19 on March 2. 

Iran's parliament is now closed. The nation has also banned public gatherings like weddings, concerts, and sports games until the Persian New Year on March 20. 

Many nearby countries — including Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kuwait, Pakistan, and Turkey — have restricted travel to and from Iran.

Switzerland, which has 374 infections so far, has banned all public and private events with more than 1,000 attendees until March 15.

The true number of infected people worldwide is probably still higher than the official total, since people with very mild symptoms are not going in to hospitals or doctor's clinics.

"There's another whole cohort that is either asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic," Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a February 6 briefing.

Once more mild cases are tallied and incorporated into models, he added, "we're going to see a diminution in the overall death rate."

The Trump administration has imposed a travel ban on foreign nationals who have been in China within the past 14 days.

The ban went into effect February 2, with exceptions made for immediate family members of American citizens and permanent residents.

US citizens returning home who have been in China's Hubei province — where Wuhan is located — within the past 14 days may be quarantined for up to two weeks. 

To prevent the spread of the coronavirus, all travelers should wash their hands frequently with soap and water, making sure to scrub for at least 20 seconds, the CDC says.

Travelers should also avoid touching their eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands. Wearing a mask is unlikely to be your best defense, however.

Some experts think the coronavirus jumped from animals to people at a seafood market in Wuhan. But a recent study suggested the virus could have originated outside the market in late November or early December.

Since most of the early patients had links to one market where live animals were sold, scientists pinpointed it as the likely origin of the virus.

But a group of Chinese scientists recently published a study suggesting that the virus could have started somewhere else. Though the first 41 cases were reported December 31, the scientists determined that the virus could have started spreading from person to person as early as late November. The seafood market in Wuhan, they wrote, may have "boosted" the circulation of the virus.

Researchers think the new coronavirus originated in bats, then jumped to an intermediary species — most likely pangolins, pigs, or civets — that passed it to people.

Researchers at the South China Agricultural University have suggested that the endangered pangolin may have been the intermediary species between bats and people.

An earlier paper in the Journal of Medical Virology suggested that the virus may have jumped from bats to snakes to humans, but that's unlikely. Cui Jie, a virologist who helped identified SARS-related viruses in bats in 2017, said the strain from Wuhan was clearly a "mammalian virus."

The SARS virus also originated in bats. It jumped to humans from civet cats at a Chinese market that sold live animals. SARS killed 774 people from November 2002 to July 2003.

COVID-19 has been more contagious than SARS. The viruses that cause the two diseases belong to the same coronavirus family.

The total number of cases and deaths have far surpassed those of the SARS outbreak.

Chinese officials have warned that the virus can mutate.

A study of a Chinese family in the southern province of Guangdong found that the virus mutated several times as it spread from one family member to the next. 

But Michael Farzan, a biologist at Scripps Research, told STAT that the mutation rate for the virus was "much, much lower" than that of the flu.

"That lowers the chance that the virus will evolve in some catastrophic way to, say, become significantly more lethal," Farzan said.

In late January, officials quarantined Wuhan and nearby cities by shutting down all transportation. They remain locked down.

All of the city's public transportation — including buses, metros, and ferries — was halted January 23. Trains and airplanes coming into and out of the city were also shut down, and roadblocks were installed to keep taxis and private cars from exiting.

Wuhan's 11 million residents were told not to leave the city, barring special circumstances.

China has imposed travel restrictions on the rest of the Hubei province as well. Huanggang, a city of about 7.5 million people, placed its urban core under lockdown on January 23, closing subway and train stations as well as theaters and internet cafés. Additional cities followed suit with their own travel restrictions.

A CNN analysis in February found that more than 780 million people in China — more than half the population — were under some sort of travel restriction.

China has changed the way its cases are counted multiple times.

On February 13, the Hubei province's health commission added 14,800 people to its list of cases and reported 242 additional deaths — an enormous single-day jump. The commission said the spike was due to a change in the way cases were counted: The newer numbers included clinical diagnoses made via CT scans of patients' lungs in addition to lab-test results.

On February 20, however, the commission went back to counting only lab-confirmed cases.

As the outbreak grew in China in January and February, doctors in Wuhan reported that there were not enough resources to treat the large number of patients.

China has less than two physicians for every 1,000 residents, according to data from the WHO.

In Wuhan, patients faced hours-long lines to receive medical care, the BBC reported. According to Reuters, some people with symptoms of the virus were denied full-time admission to local hospitals in Wuhan because there were no beds available.

The ban on transportation in Wuhan also forced people to travel by foot to hospitals, The New York Times reported.

Initially, test kits were reportedly reserved for patients with the most severe symptoms.

The New York Times reported that doctors in Wuhan were running short on test kits early in February. After a person has been tested, it takes one to two days for the results to come back. 

At the height of the outbreak in China, Wuhan constructed 16 makeshift hospitals. One of those hospitals closed.

Two of the hospitals were constructed in just 10 days.

Construction on the first hospital, the Wuhan Huoshenshan Hospital, started January 23. The facility — which includes 1,000 beds — welcomed its first patients on February 3. By its 10th day of operation, the building was running at about full capacity, according to official figures reviewed by Business Insider.

The second hospital, the Leishenshan Hospital, is slightly larger: 1,600 beds. The site's construction started January 27, and the building was completed February 6. 

China also turned an exhibition hall, gymnasium, and sports stadium into emergency medical sites. The stadium turned hospital closed at the beginning of March after discharging its last 34 patients. 

The Chinese government has barred citizens from booking overseas tours, flights, and hotel stays.

Many countries have evacuated citizens and employees from China.

Airports around the world have implemented screening protocols.

Twenty US airports — including New York's John F. Kennedy, Los Angeles International Airport, and Chicago's O'Hare — are screening passengers for the virus. Airports in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and South Korea are also screening people.

US health officials do not recommend face masks for the general public.

For healthy people, hand-washing and avoiding close contact with sick patients is a better way to prevent infection.

"Wearing masks, except in the situation of a healthcare provider, has never been shown to be a very effective way to protect yourself from infectious diseases," Eric Toner, a scientist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Business Insider.

Stocking up on face masks can also reduce the supply for medical workers who need them. 

At a hearing, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the US needed 300 million N95 masks— which filter out most airborne particles from the surrounding air — to protect healthcare workers during an outbreak. At present, it has only 30 million, he said.

The virus has weakened the tourism industry and disrupted supply chains in China, threatening to slow global economic growth to the lowest point since the financial crisis.

Bank of America recently predicted that global gross-domestic-product growth would slow to 2.8% for 2020. That would be the first reading under 3% since the financial crisis, and the lowest reading since 2009.

The Bank of America economist Aditya Bhave wrote in a note that growth momentum was already weak before the outbreak but added that the virus would most likely have "large spillover effects" on the global economy.

The US stock market fell by nearly 7% at the start of trading on Monday. 

There are no vaccines to prevent humans from contracting the virus, but multiple drugmakers are racing to develop one.

There are several dozen ongoing efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine, according to a World Health Organization report that mentions 35 candidates. 

A wide range of companies, including behemoths like Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi as well as smaller biotech companies and academic research labs, are conducting research.

Some are developing vaccines from scratch, while others are testing existing drugs. At least seven vaccines are likely to enter the human testing stage by the end of 2020.

On February 26, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declined to promise that a coronavirus vaccine would be affordable for all Americans. A day later, he backtracked, saying that any vaccine developed in conjunction with the US government would need to be financially accessible to the public. 

Rosie Perper, Sinéad Baker, Aylin Woodward, and Ali Millington contributed to this report.

• Read more:
• We're in an 'age of epidemics,' a scientist says. More diseases like the coronavirus will jump from animals to people.
• The genetic code of the Wuhan coronavirus shows it's 80% similar to SARS. New research suggests a potential way to neutralize the virus.
• Scientists have published over 50 studies on Wuhan coronavirus in the last 3 weeks. They learned that 75,800 people in Wuhan could be infected.
• The first patients have arrived at the hospital China panic-built to treat the Wuhan coronavirus. Here's what it looks like inside.

• Wristwatches are a stylish, functional accessory that you can wear every single day. 
• Keeping in mind value, lifestyle, and versatility, we did the research and rounded up the best under-$500 options on the internet. 
• The MVMT Santa Monica is our best pick overall because of the relatively affordable price tag, and the classic styling will feel current for years to come.
• If you're looking for affordable men's styles, check out our guide to the best men's watches under $100.

Whether you want a timeless and understated look or you want to make a statement, there are plenty of watches to choose from — and that's where the challenge arises.

There is an overwhelming number of women's watches to choose from in terms of both style and brand. We realize time is of the essence (both literally and figuratively) so we've scoured the reviews and done the research for you to find five different watches that look good, but won't have you maxing out your credit card. 

All our picks for this guide come in at $500 or less, but even though they're more budget-friendly, you won't be sacrificing quality with any of these watches.

Here the best watches for women under $500:

• Best watch overall:MVMT Santa Monica
• Best bracelet strap watch: Daniel Wellington Petite Mesh Strap
• Best smartwatch:Michael Kors Bradshaw 2
• Best budget watch:Timex Modern Easy Reader
• Best luxury watch:Michele Deco Sport Watch Head and Silicone Strap
• Best digital watch:Apple Watch

Prices and links are current as of 3/10/2020.

The best watch overall

MVMT's Santa Monica watch has a classic look that's ideal for everyday wear. It's also relatively affordable, well made, and lets you switch out the straps.

There are plenty of attractive, well-made watches on the market. But affordable ones? Not so much. MVMT came on the scene in 2013 with the aim to fill the void with its line of quality timepieces that feature modern styling and price tags that won't make you cringe. They've since sold over 1.5 million watches, and even started to dabble in eyewear and jewelry, too.

Similarly frustrated with the lack of nice-looking options that don't run into the thousands, I was immediately smitten with MVMT. All of the watches look expensive, but nothing is over $165. Because of the brand's clean, minimalist aesthetic, you'll find plenty of options suited for daily wear, but the Santa Monica earns the top spot. It has a slightly oversized 38mm face and rose gold accents that strike just the right balance between classic and on-trend. Plus, if you ever feel like switching things up, the straps are interchangeable. MVMT sells metal, nylon, and leather straps in other colors, ranging from $24.50 to $40 each. Every watch also comes with a two-year warranty. 

Pros: Minimalist aesthetic looks expensive, large selection, interchangeable straps

Cons: Only water-resistant up to 3 meters

The best bracelet strap watch

For a sleek metal look with a fully adjustable strap, Daniel Wellington's Classic Petite Mesh Watch is a solid choice in a sea of options.

If you're on the hunt for a bracelet watch, then you're likely feeling overwhelmed by the number of options — the selection is truly endless. This one from Daniel Wellington is a solid place to start. Bracelet watches are popular for their super sleek look that you can wear with a suit as easily as a T-shirt, but there's just one thing: You'll likely have to remove a few links in order to get the right fit, which usually requires a trip to a jewelry store for expert help.

Even though you may only have to do this once or twice, it's still a pain, and wrist sizes can fluctuate with changing temperatures. Daniel Wellington's Classic Petite Mesh Watch still has that sleek metal look, but it's fully adjustable along the length of the strap. It's also water-resistant up to three meters (which is enough to wash your hands, but you'll want to avoid submerging it in the pool or shower), and features a Japanese movement. If you prefer another color scheme, this style comes in several different combinations, including silver, black, and yellow gold. 

Pros: Classic look that you can wear for years, easy-to-adjust clasp

Cons: Only water-resistant up to 3 meters

The best smartwatch

The Michael Kors Access Smartwatch is attractive enough to wear in a formal office setting, feature-packed, and has a touchscreen display. There are also over a dozen styles to choose from.

A basic analog style just doesn't offer enough functionality for some busy lifestyles. If you need digital features, but find the look of the Apple Watch to be too sporty or bulky, consider this smartwatch from Michael Kors. It lives between both worlds with its large touchscreen display and classic bracelet strap. The metal design won't look out of place in a work meeting, but the oversized face is stylish enough to wear outside the office, too.

Powered by Wear OS by Google, this watch can sync up with iPhones and Androids to deliver email, text, and calendar notifications straight to your wrist. In other words, you no longer need to be tethered to your phone throughout the day to make sure you haven't missed an important message. While I don't recommend wearing this watch for intense sport activities (the metal bracelet won't keep the watch in place the same way a rubber strap will), it does have fitness tracking capabilities, including heart-rate tracking and GPS distance tracking, and it's even water-resistant up to 30M. If you leave your wallet at home, you can also link up your credit card using Google Pay. Overall, this is an attractive smartwatch that has tons of features and the ability to keep you truly hands-free. 

Along with this simple gold style, Michael Kors offers the same digital functionality in a variety of color choices, including blue, pink, tri-tone, and a few options with pave crystal embellishment. Similar to MVMT, additional straps can be purchased separately for $50 to $95.

Pros: 2-year warranty, touchscreen digital display, water-resistant, straps are interchangeable

Cons: Not comfortable for some fitness activities, oversized design isn't for everyone

The best budget watch

The Modern Easy Reader is a fresh take on the brand's original design from 1977, and includes more features than you would expect for the price point. 

Around since 1854, Timex is one of the most recognizable brands in watchmaking. It's also one of the most affordable. The watches aren't full of frills, but they're dependable, classic, and an effortless choice for anyone who's not looking to make a major investment. The brand's wide range of styles means there's something for everyone, but the women's Modern Easy Reader is my top recommendation for a wallet-friendly timepiece that you can wear everyday and for most occasions.

An update to the original Easy Reader that was first introduced in 1977, the Modern version includes the same clean styling but has subtle design updates (like a larger 32mm face) that feels fresh and contemporary. The features that you'll get for this under-$60 watch also make it an exceptional value. The straps are real leather, it's water-resistant up to 30 meters, and there's an Indiglo backlight that glows in the dark. Aside from a missing date window, which is an option with the original Easy Reader, there's not much more you could ask for in a watch at this price point.

Pros: Affordable, water-resistant, Indiglo backlight

Cons: No date window like the previous version, limited color options

The best luxury watch

While most Michele watches cross the $1k mark, the Deco Sport is a beautiful, entry level timepiece from the brand that offers quality, elegance, and versatility for less than $500.

The price range of luxury watches can vary from a few hundred dollars to a few hundred thousand. For those looking in the former category, the Deco Sport watch is one of the best values you'll find. Luxury watch brand Michele has long been making beautiful, classic watches that are ideal for daily wear. The average one runs around $1,500 to $2,000 — relatively affordable in the world of luxury watches — but I recommend the sport version because it comes close in terms of style and function, and it's a fraction of the price. 

With most Michele watches, you have to buy the watch head and straps separately, but the Deco Sport comes as a complete set. Dozens of iterations allow you to choose a silver, yellow gold, rose gold, or two-tone case, and then from rubber or leather straps. Depending on the style, the prices range from $395 to $595. Along with a Swiss movement, the face has a simple sunray design with numberless markers, and includes a date window which is a nice bonus given the price point. 

What I love most about this watch, though, is the interchangeable straps. Since many of the Deco Sport styles come with a sporty silicone strap, you can easily switch to a leather strap to give the watch a more formal look when needed. 

Pros: Luxury watch at an accessible price, interchangeable straps

Cons: Technically a sport watch, so it might not be the right look for everyone

The best digital watch

For those who want a digital watch and don't mind the sporty look, the Apple Watch has countless features and seamlessly links up with your iPhone. 

If you don't mind the sporty aesthetic of the Apple Watch, then its many features make it the ultimate choice for a digital watch. The latest version, the Series 5, has a touchscreen face and a stunning always-on retina display, which means you'll never have to wake the watch up from sleep mode to check the time or view fitness stats during a workout. There are also countless apps you can download. 

Along with standard features like being able to receive text and calendar notifications, the Apple Watch has a number of abilities that make it a great companion for fitness and outdoor activities. The Series 3 (from $199) and Series 5 (from $399) both have an optical heart sensor, water resistance up to 50 meters, an altimeter, and GPS tracking. However, with the Series 5, you'll also get an ECG app and a compass. Both versions have a battery life of up to 18 hours. For an extra $100, you have the ability to add cellular service through your phone carrier if you want to make calls directly through the watch. For a full comparison of the two models, read our review here. 

Although I mentioned that the design is on the sportier side, the Apple Watch does have tons of ways to customize its look. You can choose from a 40mm or a 44mm case size, dozens of straps in different colors and materials (both from Apple and third-party brands like Casetify), and there are even hundreds of digital watch faces to choose from. By adding a leather strap or metal strap, it'll definitely look sleek enough to wear in a formal office setting. In general, it's a great option for anyone who needs to constant access to messages or advanced fitness tracking.

Pros: Tons of ways to customize, great for fitness tracking, too many features to count

Cons: Expensive, might be too sporty-looking for dressier occasions, only works with iPhones

Check out our other great watch guides

The best smartwatches for women

As more and more fashion-forward brands join the latest tech craze, smartwatches for women have started to arrive. These are our top picks for the best smartwatches for women.

The best smartwatches

Smartwatches aren't yet mandatory tech purchases, but they may be one day. For those of you who like to live on the cutting-edge side of the tech world, there's no better status symbol than the smartwatch. These are the best smartwatches.

The best men's watches under $100

A nice watch is an essential accessory for men, but that doesn't mean you have to spend big bucks to look good. Even on a tight budget, you can buy just about any desirable watch style, so we rounded up the best styles for under $100.

• This is a preview of The Digital Therapeutics research report from Business Insider Intelligence.
• Purchase this report.
• Business Insider Intelligence offers even more healthcare coverage with Digital Health Pro. Subscribe today to receive industry-changing digital health news and analysis to your inbox.

A new class of medicine — digital therapeutics (DTx) — has emerged, offering a novel means of treating the swelling number of patients with chronic diseases and keeping associated costs down.

Digital therapeutics deliver evidence-based therapies via software — often in the form of consumer-facing mobile health apps — that replace or complement the existing treatment of a disease. They diverge from the broader digital health market in that they must be approved by regulatory bodies — and displaying proof-of-concept is at the core of their model.

DTx vendors leverage their tech to treat chronic conditions, which gobble up the lion's share of the US' healthcare spending: Business Insider Intelligence estimates that the US shelled out up to $3.3 trillion on chronic disease in 2018. The surging prevalence of chronic conditions combined with their sky-high price tags is fueling fast growth in the global DTx market, which is poised to expand 21% annually to hit nearly $9 billion by 2025. 

The sea change sparked by the advent of digital medicines threatens to reshape the entire healthcare value chain. Because drugs interact with nearly every healthcare stakeholder, DTx solutions are leading a variety of players to carve out room for digital solutions: Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are creating logs for DTx as they would drugs, insurers are linking their members up with digital solutions in an effort to mitigate spending, and entrenched pharma and medtech companies are tying up with DTx vendors to dip into new revenue streams.

Those that choose not to get on the DTx bandwagon might miss out on a massive opportunity — and we think laggard drugmakers and medical device makers that don't jump at the chance of linking up with DTx providers could put themselves at risk of losing market share to new competitors. 

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence will explore the drivers lighting a fire under the DTx market, identify the leading DTx market players, and unpack the varied ways vendors reach their intended audiences. We will also assess both the opportunities and risks DTx companies and their products pose to payers, pharmaceutical companies, and medtech firms. Finally, we will forecast what we expect to see next in the DTX space and outline the barriers holding DTx firms back to help stakeholders navigate the crowding field and develop strategies to capture a piece of the DTx pie.

The companies mentioned in this report are: 23andMe, 2morrow, Inc., Advocate Health Care, Akili Interactive, Apple, Aptar Pharma, Aurora Health Care, Bayer, Better Therapeutics, Big Health, Biofourmis, Blue Shield of California, Cambia Health Solutions, Cigna, Click Therapeutics, Cognoa, CVS Caremark, DarioHealth, Dexcom, Diabeto, Eli Lilly, ExpressScripts, Glooko, Happify Health, Health2Sync, Kaia Health, Lark Health, Livongo, MedRhythms, myStrength, mySugr, Noom, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Omada Health, Omron, One Drop, Otsuka, Pear Therapeutics, Propeller Health, Proteus Digital Health, ResMed, Retrofit, Roche, Sanofi, Teva Pharmaceutical, Teladoc, UnitedHealth Group, Vida Health, Virta Health, Voluntis, Walgreens, Walmart, and Welldoc.

Here are some key takeaways from the report: 

• Digital therapeutics are shaking up the healthcare value chain: The digital therapeutics market is set to triple in size over the next six years, blossoming into a $9 billion opportunity — and Business Insider Intelligence predicts consumer adoption of the digital treatments will grow more than 10-fold by 2023. 
• Payers should stock portfolios with digital therapeutics to shore up on drug spending, curb their sizable share of chronic disease costs, keep patients healthy, and woo employer contracts. 
• Proactive pharmaceutical firms and medical device makers can benefit from DTx's proliferation through tie-ups with vendors that give the incumbents access to piles of real-time data as well as the possibility to expand revenue opportunities through commercializing new products and programs — but sluggish drug- and device makers risk waving goodbye to consumers opting for digital solutions. 
• We expect to see heightened activity in the space over the next several years, but hurdles to growth remain, including winning over doctors and consumers as well as paltry reimbursement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

In full, the report: 

• Provides a roadmap to the digital therapeutics market and explains how companies developing digital drug alternatives are transforming healthcare. 
• Identifies key players operating in the space. 
• Explores how digital therapeutics stand to benefit — and threaten — entrenched players, like payers, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device makers. 
• Considers what the future of digital therapeutics looks like and what still stands in the way of their proliferation.  

Want to learn more about the fast-moving world of digital health? Here's how to get access:

1. Purchase and download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now
2. Sign up for Digital Health Pro, Business Insider Intelligence's expert product suite keeping you up-to-date on the people, technologies, trends, and companies shaping the future of healthcare, delivered to your inbox 6x a week. >>Get Started
3. Join thousands of top companies worldwide who trust Business Insider Intelligence for their competitive research needs. >> Inquire About Our Enterprise Memberships
4. Current subscribers can read the report here.

Join the conversation about this story »

• The coronavirus outbreak is taking a toll on the economy in China and beyond.
• Certain sectors and companies are more exposed to risk than others.
• Business Insider contacted numerous retailers to get a sense of how the coronavirus is affecting their international operations and supply chains.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus has spread far beyond China, impacting retailers around the globe.

So far, international companies have had to contend with shuttering stores in affected areas, accommodating sick and worried employees, and dealing with supply chain disruptions.

Business Insider contacted a slew of consumer companies to find out how they were contending with the outbreak.

Here's a look at how different big-box stores, luxury brands, and fast-food chains are responding to the coronavirus:

SEE ALSO: Risks of coronavirus infection from packages are 'extremely low,' even though the virus could live on surfaces for days, one expert says

Walmart

Burberry

The outbreak has posed a major problem for Burberry and other luxury fashion brands.

"The outbreak of the coronavirus in mainland China is having a material negative effect on luxury demand," Burberry CEO Marco Gobbetti said in a statement the retailer provided to Business Insider in February. "While we cannot currently predict how long this situation will last, we remain confident in our strategy."

Twenty-four of its 64 stores in mainland China are closed, while the 40 remaining locations are running under "reduced hours" with "significant footfall declines."

Gobbetti went on to say in the statement that the company was "taking mitigating actions and every precaution to help ensure the safety and well-being of our employees."

Home Depot

According to Seth Basham, the managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, Home Depot — and its North Carolina-based rival Lowe's — sources about 30% of its products from China.

"This is a fluid situation that we're watching closely," a Home Depot representative said in a statement to Business Insider. "We're in constant touch with our suppliers and are making contingency plans to ensure minimal impact to our supply chain."

Basham said "consumer uncertainty" could also prompt shoppers to "delay bigger-ticket home improvement projects," thus harming the home-improvement sector.

On the product front, the Hill reported that the home improvement company "is limiting online purchases of face masks to 10 per customer."

McDonald's

McDonald's employees have pushed the fast-food giant to bolster its paid sick leave policy in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic.

In a call on March 10, employees and members of the advocacy group Fight for $15 called for paid sick leave, as well as proper sanitation training and paid time off in the event of store closures. 

A McDonald's spokesperson told Business Insider it's the company's "expectation that crewmembers stay home when they are sick." While policies differ depending on state and restaurant ownership, McDonald's has decided to pay employees of corporate-owned establishments if they are required to quarantine. 

McDonald's also announced it would cancel its Worldwide Convention in Orlando and instead convene managing directors and franchisees online.

In a video announcement on March 6, Kempczinski said the decision "was not made lightly" and came after consulting with a wide swath of McDonald's leadership as well as considering global travel restrictions and updates from the World Health Organizations. 

"While I wish our system can come together in person this year, I can promise you this — we can do something truly special," he said in the video. "We will look to change the format to a digital experience and host the most inclusive Worldwide Convention in our history." 

Walgreens Boots Alliance

Walgreens Boots Alliance is noticing an uptick in demand for products like face masks and bottles of hand sanitizer in many of its locations. A company spokesperson told CNN that the epidemic may lead to a shortage of hand sanitizer.

"We're continually working with our supplier partners to help ensure we can meet the needs of our customers," a Walgreens representative told Business Insider.

The spokesperson added that the company — which acquired a 40% minority stake in the Chinese pharmacy chain Sinopharm Holding GuoDa Drugstores Co. back in 2018 — was taking steps to protect employees.

"Working closely with our clinical and safety offices, we continuously share information with our pharmacy team members to help address patient questions based on the latest information available from public health officials and the CDC," the person said.

Starbucks

Starbucks announced on Wednesday that it will offer "catastrophe pay" for employees in the case of a possible quarantine. The chain will join companies like Darden Restaurants and Walmart that also updated their policies this week. 

"As we navigate COVID-19 together, what matters most is how we, as a company, care for you," Starbucks president Rossann Williams wrote in a letter to partners on Wednesday. "I want you to know that here at Starbucks, you should never have to choose between work and taking care of yourself."

Last week, CNN reported that a Starbucks employee fell ill with the coronavirus in Seattle.  The company has also banned the use of reusable cups as a health measure.

Starbucks also warned investors of an estimated 50% decline in same-store sales in China as a result of mass closures in January and February at the height of the outbreak in the region, though it noted signs of recovery, according to CNBC. 

In a recent statement released to coincide with Starbucks' latest earnings, the coffee chain addressed concerns over the coronavirus outbreak. 

The company's president and CEO, Kevin Johnson, said the company's "partners in China are navigating as health officials respond to the coronavirus."

Macy's

A Macy's in Tacoma, Washington, has shut down following reports of an employee who tested positive for the virus, according to the New Tribune.

In a call with investors on February 25, Macy's CFO Paula Price said that while it's "too early to know" the full impact of the coronavirus, the company expected drops in international sales and delays in importing products sourced from China. 

"We anticipate that there could be a small impact on international sales from tourism," Price said. "We're working with vendor partners to minimize any disruption."

Also during the call, Macy's CEO Jeff Gennette said that while the company had a corporate office in Hong Kong, it had continued to operate with normal hours since employees returned after the Lunar New Year holiday. Macy's is, however, using policies like flexible schedules that it first developed during the SARS epidemic in 2002, he said.

As far as supply-chain lags, Gennette said the 2019 increases in Chinese tariffs had ultimately helped the retailer better understand vendor relations and subsequently aided during its monitoring of the coronavirus.

"We expect a slowdown of products coming from China, but nothing concerning yet," he said. "This is an example of where the tariff situation over the last 18 months really gave us a clear line of sight into China and suppliers." 

KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and other Yum China brands

Thanks in part to the coronavirus, shares of Yum Brands dropped 15.6% in February, the Motley Fool reported.

But Yum Brands itself doesn't directly operate popular chains like KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut in China. Yum China spun off from its franchisor and former parent company in 2016. The Shanghai-based independent company has the exclusive right to run KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut franchises in China, and it also owns a slew of other brands.

In the company's latest earnings call, CFO Ka Wai Yeung said the coronavirus epidemic — which broke out just before the Lunar New Year, a significant holiday shopping period in China — "caused significant interruptions to our business."

"The impact comes from temporary closure of our restaurants as well as substantial decline in sales to the restaurant that remained open," Yeung said.

The CFO went on to explain that "travel restriction, suspended festivities, and shortened operating hours" had also been pain points. As a bright spot, Yeung said "delivery is holding up well" for Yum China.

"Now to better serve our customer and protect our employees, we rolled out contactless delivery, which is very well received by our customers," Yeung said. "In addition, we also rolled out order online, pick up in store, contactless services and saw some encouraging early results as well."

JCPenney

On a February 27 call to investors, JCPenney CEO Jill Soltau said "it remains too early to quantify any potential financial impact to our business" as a result of the coronavirus. 

"The coronavirus continues to be a fluid situation that we are of course watching closely," Soltau said. "We have a diversified supply chain and no stores in China or the impacted countries. We do have associates in our international buying offices including Shanghai and Hong Kong and we are in constant contact with them."

Similar to remarks made by Macy's CEO Jeff Gennette earlier in the week, Soltau said the increase in Chinese tariffs in 2019 ultimately served as a silver lining in protecting against business losses in the face of the coronavirus. 

"As we worked through the tariff situation, we found our self in a pretty good place there because our sourcing organization has worked to diversify away from China," she said. "So that's been a bit of comfort as we watch the news unfold, but we are very connected to our suppliers and associates and I don't have any forecasts to share today."

Wayfair

Wayfair reported quarter-to-date revenue growth well below expectations due to "some disruptions in the supply chain," 50% of which includes goods sourced sourced from China, as first reported by Bloomberg at the end of February. 

The company is forecasting sales increases of under 20% for the full quarter, which would be "the slowest growth in its history as a public company," according to Bloomberg. However, Wayfair did not attribute its weak forecast to the impact of the coronavirus, despite heavily sourcing from affected areas. 

Kohl's

On a call with investors on March 3, Kohl's executives said that while it's too early to tell whether coronavirus will have an impact on sales, the team is "actively monitoring" both the health of its employees and potential shifts to its supply chain. 

"Our first concern is the well being of our employees, associates, and vendor partners," Kohl's CEO Michelle Gass said on the call. "The situation is fluid and we're working closely with our partners on any changes to our supply chain." 

Gass added that China is not Kohl's top sourcing market, as the company has "pursued a diversified supply chain" in recent years, which may protect the retailer from possible sales dips. 

Target

During Target's 2020 financial community meeting and fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 earnings call, CFO Michael Fiddelke said that the company has not seen a large impact on the business from the coronavirus, adding that any adjustments made for Target's future outlook have been slight.

"Like all of you, we're monitoring this situation hour by hour as conditions evolve," Target CEO Brian Cornell said in the call. "At Target, we've been prioritizing our team, starting by ensuring that all of our China-based team members have been able to work from home. More broadly, we spent considerable time focused on the best way to support our team members all around the world to make sure they stay healthy and safe."

Target CEO Brian Cornell posted a message to customers on Tuesday that briefly explained the company's new cleaning procedures. Target also posted a memo to its internal communications website that detailed an intricate process for cleaning its stores, the retailer confirmed to Business Insider.

Victoria's Secret

Morgan Stanley analysts published a note on March 2, delving into the potential impact of the coronavirus on Victoria's Secret.

The analysts wrote that parent company L Brands' "management highlighted China is a critical source of raw materials for the overall business." Certain lingerie and apparel items for Victoria's Secret's spring lineup are facing a delay of two to four weeks.

Ikea

Ikea's "primary focus" throughout the coronavirus crisis has remained the "safety of our co-workers and customers," a spokesperson said in a statement shared with Business Insider.

The spokesperson said that all Ikea stores in mainland China were temporarily closed in late January, "in line with guidance from the Chinese government." Online shopping services were still available to Chinese consumers.

"A gradual store reopening program from March 1 is underway and we will continue to monitor developments closely and adjust as needed," the spokesperson said. "We are keeping a close eye on the evolving situation in Europe and remain in close contact with local health authorities to ensure an appropriate and timely response in line with their recommendations."

Ikea also temporarily shuttered two Italian locations, in Brescia and Corsico, on February 29 and March 1 "following advice from the local authorities."

Ikea said that its suppliers in China "are largely operational again," although the furniture giant will keep monitoring developments to ensure that health and safety remain "a priority at all times."

"As the situation is evolving, it is too early to clarify the total impact on our business in China and globally," the spokesperson said. "But we are prepared and planning for multiple scenarios." 

What's more, the Ikea spokesperson said that the company will continue to work with local authorities and the World Health Organization.

"Our thoughts remain with those directly affected by the disease and those working tirelessly to treat them," the Ikea spokesperson told Business Insider. 

Nordstrom

The Nordstrom family sent an email to customers on March 7 detailing updated protocols for coronavirus prevention, including placing hand sanitizer dispensers around its stores, as well as increasing the frequency of cleanings. 

"We are confident our stores continue to be safe, and we remain open for business," the email states. 

Nordstrom CEO Erik Nordstrom told investors on March 3 that the company has assembled a team to monitor possible impact from coronavirus and is "assessing implications to traffic and the supply chain."

Private label products account for about 10% of Nordstrom's sales — 30% of which is sourced from China, he said on the call. 

"At this time, we haven't seen very much material change or disruption to the supply chain and we are having a lot of conversations with our vendors," added Nordstrom CFO Anne Bramman.  "Our private label business, relatively speaking, is pretty small." 

Kroger

Though several grocers have experienced runs on essential items in recent weeks, Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said it's too early to tell how the coronavirus may impact sales. 

"Certainly we could see an increase in volume in certain categories," he said on a call with investors on March 5. "All of our teams — our stores, our supply chain team, our procurement folks — are incredibly focused on staying in stock of our critical items."

Kroger CFO Gary Millerchip added that the company is not especially concerned about possible supply chain issues given that a vast majority of the company's items are sourced domestically. Instead, the company is focusing its efforts on employee and customer health and safety. 

"From a business preparedness standpoint we have established an internal task force and developed an epidemic plan," he said. "The health of our associates, customers and communities is our top priority." 

Adidas

The German sportswear company reported on Wednesday that it expects first-quarter sales to drop by $1.14 billion in greater China, CNBC reported.

In a statement to Business Insider, an Adidas representative said, "The safety and health of our people always comes first. Globally we implement applicable local, officially issued regulations and reserve the right to take further measures if necessary. To protect our employees, consumers and partners, we have taken a number of measures at all adidas sites including increased hygiene measures, corresponding recommendations to our employees or travel restrictions."

Lowe's

On March 11, Lowe's posted a note from CEO Marvin Ellison addressing precautions it is taking over the coronavirus pandemic.

Ellison wrote that the home improvement giant has established a task force to work with the CDC. It has also enacted a new leave policy for employees and boosted its sanitation regime.

"To help prevent the spread of the virus, we're encouraging anyone who feels sick to stay home, and we've also put in place new temporary time-off guidelines to give our associates even greater flexibility and pay them for the time they need to stay home and get well," Ellison wrote.

When it comes to customer orders, Ellison noted that Lowe's will "continue to run all services as usual," including installations, deliveries, and in-home consultations.

• Keith Donovan – the head of Microsoft's multibillion-dollar headquarters renovation in Redmond, Washington – just left the company for a job at Netflix, Business Insider has learned.
• Microsoft has yet to respond to a request about who will take over the project, but Donovan recently wrote a LinkedIn post mentioning other members of his team. It's unclear whether Donovan's part in the project has already concluded.
• Donovan has updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect a new role as Netflix global head of design and construction, which he describes as "developing real estate solutions that support our desire to attract and retain top talent across the globe."
• Microsoft's renovation will add 2.5 million square feet of office space, enough room for 8,000 additional employees. Microsoft announced the project in 2017 and said it planned to complete it within five to seven years.
• Click here to read more BI Prime stories.

The head of Microsoft's multibillion-dollar headquarters renovation left the company for a job at Netflix mid-project, Business Insider has learned.

Keith Donovan – former Microsoft head of development for the Puget Sound region – is now global head of design and construction at Netflix, his LinkedIn describes as "supporting the Netflix mission by developing real estate solutions that support our desire to attract and retain top talent across the globe."

Donovan declined to comment.

Microsoft is ungoing a massive renovation and expansion of its 500-acre headquarters in Redmond, Washington to make room for 8,000 more employees. Microsoft announced the project in November 2017 and said it expected to complete it within five to seven years, which means Donovan's departure comes mid-project — though Microsoft says the project is still moving forward.

"A replacement for Keith has not yet been announced, and the project remains on schedule, with the first new building expected to be available for occupancy in early 2023," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email to Business Insider.

Donovan recently wrote a LinkedIn post mentioning other members of his team, including Microsoft Senior Construction Services Manager Kyra Bruns, as well as Jeff Rovegno and Eric Ragde, both of whom are Microsoft senior development managers of real estate and facilities.

The renovation will add 2.5 million square feet of office space, plus a two-acre plaza with room for 8,000 to 12,000 people for meetings and events, soccer and cricket fields, and a pedestrian and cyclist bridge to connect Microsoft's East and West Redmond campuses.

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at astewart@businessinsider.com, message her on Twitter @ashannstew, or send her a secure message through Signal at 425-344-8242.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A podiatrist explains heel spurs, the medical condition Trump said earned him a medical deferment from Vietnam

• A high-quality office chair should be comfortable to sit in through long workdays, adjustable to fit your body, and durable enough to handle years of use.
• I like the Eureka Ergonomic High-Back Mesh Office Chair because its sturdy frame can support up to 275 pounds and the seat tilts 120 degrees, so I don't start to get antsy or sore during marathon writing sessions.
• Though it's in the middle of the pack price-wise (currently $300 on Amazon or Newegg), the Eureka Ergonomic Office Chair is built to last and is backed by a three-year limited warranty.
• See more: The best office chairs

A good office chair can have a major impact on your productivity. If the chair isn't right for your body, it can distract you from your work and force you to get up often. Plus, your body may feel sore and spent after a long workday. 

When you're spending eight or more hours per day in a chair, you want it to be comfortable and supportive above all else. In my experience, the Eureka Ergonomic High-Back Mesh Office Chair gets the job done. 

Based in Texas, Eureka Ergonomic specializes in gaming desks, standing desks, and sit-to-stand converters. I tested out the company's High-Back Mesh Office Chair and was impressed by its balance of comfort and durable construction. Below are the specifics of my experience with this chair.

Specs

There are several ways to adjust the Eureka Ergonomic High-Back Mesh Office Chair to fit your body.

The U-shaped headrest is height adjustable, the seatback tilts, and you can adjust the height of the seat. Since the precise dimensions of a chair will determine if it's a good fit for you, here are some key measurements:

• The arm height is approximately 10 inches above the seat.
• The seat height adjusts from 16 inches to 20 inches above the floor.
• The seat depth is about 19 inches.
• From arm to arm, the seat width is 21 inches.
• The seatback extends approximately 22 inches above the seat.
• The top of the headrest adjusts from 5 inches to 7 inches above the seatback.
• The overall dimensions of the chair are 27.5 inches wide and deep by 45.7 inches high.
• The chair is heavy-duty, weighing in at a little more than 50 pounds.

The seat, seatback, and headrest are made of a flexible, ventilated nylon mesh attached to a plastic frame. The mesh is coated in a 3M substance designed to resist flames and protect the materials from stains and dust.

The Eureka Ergonomic Office Chair is backed by a three-year limited warranty.

Set-up process

Unboxing the pieces took about 10 minutes since there was a lot of packaging to ensure the chair wasn't damaged in transport. I also had a little trouble locating the assembly directions, which are thankfully all printed on one page. Fortunately, they were straightforward and easy to follow. The directions are IKEA-like, featuring diagrams and no words. 

I didn't run into any hiccups putting the chair together. It comes with an Allen wrench, which is all you need. With my 5-year-old's help tightening the screws, assembly took about 20 minutes.

What makes the chair stand out

I'm not a small guy. I weigh about 245 pounds. Consequently, I have to be careful about what chairs I sit on and how I sit on them. Fortunately, the Eureka Ergonomic High-Back Mesh Office Chair is heavy-duty enough to support my frame.

As I assembled the chair, I noticed the pieces had some heft to them and felt strong and durable. The chair has a 275-pound weight capacity, and at no point did I feel like the chair was straining under my burden.

I like how far the seatback tilts. It has an adjustable angle of 90 to 120 degrees. I occasionally adjust it to 120 degrees when meditating or if I just feel like taking a break and lounging a bit. I also like that it takes minimal effort to tilt the seatback. I turn the lever under the left side of the seat and adjust the seatback to where I want it, then I lock it in place.

I appreciate that the chair is mesh because it breathes better than other materials. After a long run, I like to sit down and get some work done before I shower. Consequently, I get a lot of sweat on the chair as I cool down. Fortunately, the open construction dissipates the moisture and keeps the chair from absorbing any associated foul odors. 

As a writer, I need to be able to sit at my desk for countless hours, especially when I'm approaching a deadline. With the Eureka Ergonomic Office Chair, this isn't a problem. I don't feel fidgety. And even after marathon writing sessions, I remain comfortable and don't feel any arm or shoulder soreness, which has been a problem with other chairs I've tried.

Cons to consider

As mentioned above, all of the instructions come on one sheet, with the back of it listing the safety precautions. There aren't any details on what each lever adjusts so to figure that out, I referred to the product page on Amazon. Even then, it was a bit of trial and error. 

I also wish the chair was more adjustable. For instance, arm-height adjustments would be useful. Seat depth and lumbar support are also non-negotiable. Fortunately, the geometry of the chair fit my body well, and I never experienced pain during long sitting sessions.

The swivel casters are approximately 2.5 inches in diameter, which isn't large enough to easily handle low-pile carpeting. I recommend purchasing a good carpet chair mat to correct for this. On hardwood floors, the casters worked pretty well, though I noticed that the base would sometimes rotate continuously rather than remain stationary as I moved from one spot to another. This translates into uneven movement. Luckily, I don't need to move much while working at my desk, and the chair swivels smoothly for the effortless grabbing of nearby items.

The bottom line

Thanks to its heavy-duty construction and comfortable mesh fabric, I plan on using the Eureka Ergonomic High-Back Mesh Office Chair for years to come. It provides the support I need for long sitting sessions, and I like that I can tilt it back 120 degrees for relaxed lounging.

Should you buy it?

I've gone through a long list of sub-$100 office chairs that are rated highly but don't last. In my experience, you need to spend at least $200 to get an office chair that will last you and has enough adjustments to ensure you can customize it to your body.

I think the Eureka Ergonomic Office Chair hits the right balance of affordability and adjustability. Plus, it's heavy-duty enough to support heavier individuals. For these reasons, I'd recommend buying it if you're in the market for an office chair, especially if you're a bigger person like me (6 feet tall, 245 pounds).

What are your alternatives?

Recently, I tested a couple of different chairs. My most recent was the Essentials Racing Style Leather Gaming Chair (currently $114.99). Assembly was easy, you can put the arms up for an armless experience, and it's comfortable enough. However, after using it for only a couple of months, I started to notice significant wear. It isn't designed to last — at least not with a big guy sitting on it.

My favorite chair is the Uplift Vert Ergonomic Office Chair. You can adjust the armrest height, seat depth, and lumbar support. However, it currently costs $90 more than the Eureka Ergonomic Chair, doesn't have a mesh seat (just mesh seat back and headrest), the weight capacity is just 250 pounds, and the nonadjustable angle of the seat seemed to be tilted forward slightly.

For even more alternatives, check out our guide to the best office chairs you can buy.

Overall, I'm a fan of the Eureka Ergonomic High-Back Mesh Office Chair. It keeps me comfortable throughout the day so I can get my work done and feel spry enough afterward to play with my sons or go for a run. 

Pros: 275-pound weight capacity, mesh seat and seat back, seatback adjusts from 90 to 120 degrees, easy to assemble, adjustable headrest, durable construction

Cons: The arms are stationary, the casters don't move easily on low-pile carpeting

Join the conversation about this story »

• Bain & Company is known to be one of the best places to work. The firm has earned spots on both national workplace rankings and diversity awards.
• With 58 offices in 37 countries, the firm plans to welcome 600 consultant hires and the largest class of 200 associate interns this year, the company told Business Insider. 
• Keith Bevans, the firm's recruitment head, shared some insights on how Bain approaches hiring and promotions.
• Bevans encourages candidates to not only demonstrate empathy during interviews but also have a clear career vision of where they see themselves down the line. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories. 

Keith Bevans knows what it's like to succeed at Bain. He moved from an entry-level consultant role, to partner, and now recruitment head.

When Bevans joined Bain as an associate consultant in 1996, he had just completed his master's degree in engineering at MIT. He briefly left the firm in 2000 to pursue an MBA degree at Harvard Business School and rejoined in 2002 as a managing partner at the consultancy's Chicago office.

"Our recruiting system, the careers portion of our website, the social media feeds for recruiting — those types of things all fall in my role," he said. "I've given a lot of thought to the career path and what people need to do to get to the next stage of their career at Bain or how they should think about that, the universities, other opportunities available to them."

Bain frequently lands the top spot on national workplace rankings such as Glassdoor's Employee Choice Awards (the firm has been in the top four for the last 12 years). It has also earned diversity honors from Mogul and Human Rights Campaign for being one of the most inclusive companies.

Throughout the Bevans's 23-year tenure at Bain, he's taken on leadership positions on the firm's promotion committee and diversity and inclusion initiatives. Bevans recruits for MBA and PhD-level candidates from all industries.  

Bevans said the company plans to welcome 600 full-time hires and 200 interns this year. New hires with an MBA degree can expect a $165,000 base salary or a $32,000 compensation for a 10-week long internship.

Business Insider caught up with Bevans to discuss exactly how to get hired at the consultancy.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bain will pay for your MBA

Weng Cheong: You mentioned that you worked at Bain then went to Harvard Business School for an MBA. If you already had your foot into the door into consulting, why leave the firm for business school? 

Keith Bevans: My goal was always about finding the right path after MIT that would get me back to business school. And while I was in college, I heard about consulting as an industry and met some people that seem to be doing really cool things. Honestly, the biggest attraction for me to consulting was that they sent a lot of people back to business school and pay for it. That was very compelling, relative to the engineering jobs that wanted me to go back part-time much further into my career.

And so I came into Bain knowing that I was going to go back to business school. I think what's more interesting is that my plan was to go to school, come back due to commitment and then go back into industry. But at every step of the journey, Bain has been a better answer for my career goals than the hundreds of phone calls I've gotten to take other roles.

Hiring managers look for people with problem-solving skills and empathy

Cheong: How do you assess candidates? 

Bevans: For one thing, there are a lot of commonalities regardless of the level you're coming in at Bain. You have to be a strong problem solver, and you have to be somebody who demonstrates empathy and gritty skills and can basically build those types of connections with clients.

Somebody who we think can give and receive coaching, and value the development of themselves as well as their team's. We want people who think about not just winning as an individual, but winning as a team to stand out in the process.

Know why you want to work at Bain  

Cheong: How can candidates stand out in the process? 

Bevans: To me, the first thing is knowing the clarity of your career vision. I think a lot of people out there don't know what they want to do with their lives and can't really focus on anything. Somewhere along the way their mentors tell them, "Well if you don't know what you want to do, you should do consulting because they do a little bit of everything." That turns out to not only be terrible career advice because it doesn't force you to be as introspective as you should be, but it's also not the most compelling reason somebody can make as to why they should be hired. "I'm not sure what I want, but you guys really don't seem to care so I want to work for you."

That isn't really a winning sales pitch. For me, understanding the journey you're on for your career and how Bain fits into that journey is step one. Step two is understanding the value proposition of Bain and how it's different than other consulting options that you consider.  We work with our clients to get really great results — that's what we're about. We might publish papers and win awards. But at the end of the day, we are maniacally focused on doing right by our clients. 

Diversity and inclusion goes far beyond hiring practices 

Cheong: You mentioned your involvement with the company's diversity efforts. How are you diversifying your hires?

Bevans: We have six diversity affinity groups that focus on different aspects within diversity. But the way we approach diversity — it's not solely for the members of those affiliated groups. Our diversity groups are focused on recruiting, mentoring, coaching feedback, pro bono work, external advocacy, and generating intellectual property.

Where it gets interesting is how that actually manifests itself. For example, Blacks at Bain and Latinos at Bain are focused primarily on four different areas. One is to significantly increase Black and Latinx talent at Bain, two is strengthening our community within and beyond Bain, three is developing successful diverse leaders, and four is fostering a culture for inclusion at Bain.

In February, all the offices across North America were doing different events for Black History month. We often do cuisine events, where we will have Caribbean foods, African foods, and Southern food. We also did a group discussion on podcasts. We do it because it creates the type of environment where people can bring their whole selves and best selves to work. It creates an environment where people from very different backgrounds can come in and thrive regardless of their backgrounds. We're proud of the success we've seen, but we also realize there's a lot of work to get done. 

Unlike other consulting firms, you don't get your specialization right away

Cheong: So I understand that there are different divisions within consulting. Do you recruit by placing candidates in certain departments right away or do you evaluate these candidates first and figure out their fit later? 

Bevans: Yeah. The people we bring in 99% of the time, we bring them in as general manager consultants, which means we don't expect you to specialize right away in your career. We don't expect you to pick a practice area in your first year. And that is  different than some firms where you can come in and say, "Look, I really want to do retail and I want to join your retail practice." 

At Bain, we actually want you to see a lot of different industries. Overtime, especially once you're a first or second year manager, you'll affiliate more closely with a practice area and build on it. That's not to say you won't be an expert early in your career. You'll be an expert probably in two or three different areas after a few years at Bain, but we're not going to keep you exclusively to a practice area right up front. You join Bain and overtime, you specialize. 

Cheong: So is finding your specialization is how you get promoted? 

Bevans: The way to think about this is — earlier in your career, we're looking at your progress in three main dimensions: Problem-solving skills, communication skills, and team skills. And we have a pretty robust set of sub-components.

These three areas are where you need to show proficiency at each stage of your career, and when you show the proficiency in all those areas at a level for promotion, you get promoted. That doesn't mean that you get promoted on a fixed timeline. Your specialization becomes more important the more senior you get. If you're an associate consultant trying to get promoted to senior associate consultant, I wouldn't be promoting you because you're an expert in a particular industry. I'd be promoting you because you've proven to be a very capable analyst that can oftentimes run independently on complicated work streams, communicate with equity clients effectively, and be a leader on the team.

As you get promoted to partner, that's where your expertise becomes very relevant in the unique expertise and the skills that you bring into the three practice areas we discussed. 

Your success at Bain is measured based on three main areas, and that determines your chances for a promotion

Cheong: How do you determine who is ready for a promotion? 

Bevans: Firms certainly look at utilization and billable hours, and all the other metrics. For us, we're looking at people who continue to grow in all the three areas. Are they growing in the problem-solving dimension? One is understanding their work stream and driving their work stream. As they get more senior, they're now managing people with competitive work streams and they'll be managing a whole project or multiple projects before they know it.

Success in problem solving is about increasing complexity and increasing the breadth of the problem that you're solving. A junior person on the team might be working on a manufacturing facility case to improve the inbound and outbound logistics. But a more senior person on the team might be managing two or three associate consultants across multiple facilities. A more senior person might actually be looking at the entire manufacturing network and trying to get that to full potential — it would be a transformation case for a client. We have a pretty well-defined criteria for what it means to show that you're ready for promotion on the problem-solving side. But the same is true in client and communication skills and team skills. We need to see you demonstrate that you're ready for the next level. 

Bain hires with the intent to fill their leadership pipeline

Cheong: Why do you invest in young professionals right out of college or business school?

Bevans: We've been on a 16% growth rate each year for 20 years. We also tend to hire people and develop them to be our leadership team members.

When I'm on campus and I'm recruiting bachelor degree students or I'm on an MBA campus recruiting MBA students, I'm thinking about their potential to be leaders at Bain. From a promotion standpoint, it's a very rigorous job and you have to be very committed to doing it well. For us, I hire every single person looking at their potential to be a future member of the leadership team and I work like hell to get them there. It's nice to say we have industry-leading growth from a business standpoint, but for me what that means is that we are delivering the value proposition to our employees, which is we are hiring people with phenomenal potential and and realizing that potential because they're the leadership of the firm today.

What our growth means to me is that I'm hiring really great people, but I'm investing in them like crazy. We wouldn't be able to grow anywhere near the way that we've grown for the last 20 years. That takes you back full circle to us being the best place to work and all of those things and having great training and great diversity. We all have a mutually aligned goal. I want you to come here and be successful because your success helps the business. It becomes a virtuous cycle for us. 

SEE ALSO: The first year at Bain is like 'training for the Navy SEALs.' Here's how to be successful at the consulting firm, according to a recruitment director and a former employee

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Taylor Swift is the world's highest-paid celebrity. Here's how she makes and spends her $360 million.

• Brooklyn public school teacher Erin McCarthy went to the NYU Langone Health–Cobble Hill emergency department after experiencing symptoms associated with the coronavirus. 
• A physician at the ER told her she didn't meet the criteria to be tested for the coronavirus and was sent home.
• She later discovered NYU Langone charged her over $10,000 for her visit, even without being tested for the coronavirus. 
• Thanks to her health insurance, she will only have to pay $75 out-of-pocket — but it raises issues of how those without insurance will be able to afford tests and care for COVID-19.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Suffering from fever, headaches, and tightness in her chest, Brooklyn public school teacher Erin McCarthy went to a local emergency room to get tested for the coronavirus. 

After a nearly 6-hour visit, she says she left without getting tested for the coronavirus and was later slapped with an astonishing medical bill of $10,382.96.

While she will only pay $75 out-of-pocket while her insurance company will pay a negotiated-down rate, she claims her experience laid bare some very real concerns as the novel virus sweeps the US: the cost of COVID-19 testing and care.

While her insurance coverage saved her thousands of dollars this time around, McCarthy was previously hurt in a fall while she was uninsured — it took her years to pay off the ambulance bill. 

"But imagine if I didn't have insurance," McCarthy told The City. 

Doctors said McCarthy was not eligible for the coronavirus test

On March 2, McCarthy, 44, says she took herself to NYU Langone Cobble Hill emergency department after experiencing symptoms associated with COVID-19. She had recently traveled to a region of Italy hard-hit by the novel virus. The government is now fighting to control the spread of the virus in the country where infections have soared past 10,000.

Hoping to get a tested for the virus, the veteran teacher says she spent 6 hours in the emergency room — 20 minutes spent with a doctor, a short period getting a chest x-ray, and the majority of the visit spent waiting. 

"And I wasn't even tested," McCarthy told The City. 

After hours of waiting around for a test, a doctor fitted in a hazmat suit notified her that she would not be eligible for the test, despite showing possible COVID-19 symptoms because she did not have immune system issues and was not elderly.

A patient displaying possible coronavirus symptoms should fit certain criteria provided by the CDC to receive a test for COVID-19 since the testing capacity for the virus remains limited. This includes individuals who have a history of travel to an area with ongoing transmission of the disease, including China, Iran, Japan, and South Korea. Travel to Italy was not included in the affected areas that now prompt a coronavirus test at the time of McCarthy's visit — but it is included now. 

A spokesperson for NYU Langone told Business Insider that billing for hospital services is different for each patient, provider, and insurer. The final bill is also affected by what the patient is being seen for and what services were provided by the hospital. 

"In addition, there are different parts to a patient bill.  One part is what the hospital charges the insurance company; one part is what the insurance company negotiates with the provider and eventually pays; the last part is what the patient owes for the services (also called the co-pay)." 

The spokesperson emphasized that "the bill in question charged the insurer a fee, the insurer paid a negotiated percentage of that fee and the patient owed only a co-pay of $75.00." However, it remains unclear why the  NYU Langone-Cobble Hill emergency department initially billed her and her insurance company over $10,000.

Business Insider asked NYU Langone to clarify whether the high costs for her care were related to her services or were specific to treating a patient who believes they have coronavirus. They declined, but commented that "HIPPA regulations restrict us from speaking to other issues related to her case."

McCarthy was later tested for COVID-19 after the New York City health commissioner expanded testing for educators, emergency responders, and health workers. While she, fortunately, discovered that she had not contracted the disease, she believes her visit raises questions about the access and affordability of care for those without health insurance. 

The accessibility of coronavirus care 

So far, the US has 31 reported coronavirus deaths and more than 1,150 cases. As the novel virus sweeps the country, Americans have raised concerns about the costs of testing and care related to COVID-19, which many believe could discourage individuals from seeking care.

On Tuesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a directive ordering health insurers to waive all costs related to the coronavirus for emergency-room, urgent-care, and doctor visits.

"We can't let cost be a barrier to access to COVID-19 testing for any New Yorker," Cuomo tweeted.

Vice President Mike Pence, who has been charged with tackling the spread of the virus in the US, announced on March 10 that major insurance companies including Anthem, Cigna, Humana, and Aetna, will waive co-pays and for testing and cover the cost of treatment of COVID-19 for Americans nationwide.

However, those without health insurance and Americans on Medicare and Medicaid may be forced to pay up. The Trump administration said Medicare and Medicaid might not cover all care related to the coronavirus.

Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on Monday evening that her agency may not be able to pay for all "products and services" required for coronavirus patients dependent on government insurance.

"We are looking at what we cover and clarifying the types of products and services that our programs will be able to pay for in terms of Medicare and Medicaid," the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.

• Read More: 

• Health insurers are cutting members' costs for coronavirus testing and letting them get refills early as the outbreak threatens the US

• The Trump administration says Medicare and Medicaid might not cover all healthcare for coronavirus patients

• The US has reported 31 coronavirus deaths among more than 1,150 cases. Here's what we know about the US patients.

• Italy recorded its most deaths from the coronavirus in a single day, more evidence it's now the hardest-hit place on Earth

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 5 things about the NFL that football fans may not know

• A senate report released this week urges the US government to make sweeping changes in its approach to defending the country against cyber threats.
• The report's 80+ recommendations include a creating a new "national cyber director" position, a larger cyber force, and a fund to help the government respond to cyberattacks.
• The bipartisan committee behind the study was inspired by a similar one the US formed in the 1950s to devise its strategy for the Cold War.
• "We want this to be the 9/11 Commission Report without the 9/11," Sen. Angus King, a committee co-chair, told Cyberscoop.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US cyber strategy needs some major improvements if the country hopes to defend itself against threats from China, Russia, and other adversaries, according to a report released this week by a bipartisan group of senators.

Among its 80+ recommendations are the creation of a "national cyber director" overseen by new congressional committees on cybersecurity, more personnel trained in cyber operations, and increased funding to ensure federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and Election Assistance Commission are equipped to carry out increasingly complicated missions.

"The U.S. government is currently not designed to act with the speed and agility necessary to defend the country in cyberspace," concluded the report, the result of a year-long study by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a group created by Congress in 2018.

"We want this to be the 9/11 Commission Report without the 9/11," Sen. Angus King, one of the commission's co-chairs, told Cyberscoop, adding that the group is "trying to urge and foment change without a catastrophic event."

Click here to subscribe to Trending, Business Insider's weekly tech newsletter.

To accomplish that goal, the commission suggested the US adopt a "layered cyber deterrence" strategy. Broadly, that involves encouraging allies to promote responsible behavior in cyberspace, shoring up vulnerabilities in private and public networks that enemies could exploit, and being able to retaliate against attackers.

"China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea all probed U.S. critical infrastructure with impunity," the report said, while globally connected networks allowed criminals to commit cyber theft and extremist groups to raise funds and recruit followers.

"American restraint was met with unchecked predation," the report said, advocating that the US take a more active role in deterring bad actors.

However, the report did not address some of the more controversial topics surrounding cybersecurity, like encryption — a frequent target of US Attorney General William Barr and others in law enforcement — and which offensive capabilities the US might be willing to give up to secure similar agreements from adversaries.

The Cyberspace Solarium Commission was modeled after President Dwight Eisenhower's Project Solarium, which was formed in the 1950s to help the US devise a new foreign policy strategy around the Cold War, showing that the US is fundamentally rethinking how it's approaching new digital battlegrounds as the nature of warfare evolves.

SEE ALSO: Cybersecurity experts warn that hackers are targeting people now working from home amid the coronavirus outbreak

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 62 new emoji and emoji variations were just finalized, including a bubble tea emoji and a transgender flag. Here's how everyday people submit their own emoji.

• Top public health officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified before Congress on Wednesday about the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.
• There are now over 1,080 reported cases and 31 deaths from the coronavirus reported in the United States throughout 38 states and Washington, DC as the US has been relatively slow to respond.
• Dr. Fauci's testimony laid out a stark and sobering picture of what the United States faces in the coming days and weeks as he warned things will get worse before they get better. Here are some key moments.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

On Wednesday, March 11, top public health officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about the government response to the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

The outbreak of the new coronavirus, first identified in China, has now spread to 118 countries and regions, infecting an estimated 121,500 people with over 4,300 deaths reported worldwide. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization officially declared the coronavirus a pandemic. 

There are now over 1,080 reported cases and 31 deaths from the coronavirus reported in the United States throughout 38 states and Washington, DC, many of which have declared a state of emergency over the diseases' rapid spread. 

The US has been relatively slow to respond to the coronavirus compared to other nations, testing far fewer people per capita for the coronavirus and dispatching far fewer coordinated resources to combat its spread as President Donald Trump has publicly downplayed its severity. 

Dr. Fauci, a legendary figure in public health and an infectious disease expert, has served under six presidents since 1984 in various capacities.

Fauci has consistently been one of the most public-facing and trusted voices on the coronavirus crisis — sometimes at odds with the White House's more optimistic messaging in doing so.

His testimony laid out a stark, sobering picture of what the United States faces in the coming weeks and months. Here are the important exchanges, with bolding to highlight key points: 

Fauci said the US is still a long way off from deploying a vaccine

Right at the outset of his testimony, Dr. Fauci laid out the timeline for a possible coronavirus vaccine, estimating a "deployable vaccine" will not be available for at least another year to a year in a half.  

"We are going to go into a phase one clinical trial to determine if one of the candidates — and there are more than one candidate, there are probably ten or so that are at various stages of development. The one that we're talking about is a platform called messenger RNA. It really serves as a prototype for other types of vaccines that are simultaneously being developed," Fauci explained. 

"Getting it into phase one in a matter of months is the quickest that anyone has ever done literally in the history of vaccinology. But the process of developing a vaccine is one that is not that quick. It will bring us three or four months down the pike and then you go into an important phase called phase two to determine if it works," he continued. "That will take at least another eight months or so." 

Fauci said the worst of the virus is still yet to come

Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney asked: "Is the worst yet to come, Dr. Fauci?"

Dr. Fauci responded: "Yes, it is." 

Rep. Maloney: "Can you elaborate?"

Dr. Fauci: "Whenever you have an outbreak that you can start seeing community spread, which means by definition that you don't know what the index case is and the way you can approach it is by contact tracing, when you have enough of that, then it becomes a situation where you're not going to be able to effectively and efficiently contain it."

"Whenever you look at the history of outbreaks, what you see now in an uncontained way, and although we are containing it in some respects, we keep getting people coming in from the country that are travel-related. we've seen that in many of the states that are now involved. and then when you get community spread, it makes the challenge much greater. So I can say we will see more cases and things will get worse than they are right now. How much worse we'll get will depend on our ability to do two things, to contain the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside, and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country. Bottom line, it's going to get worse."

Fauci told the committee that the federal government is looking to massively expand testing, including surveillance 

Rep. Maloney: "Well, bottom line, Mr. Fauci, if we don't test people then we don't know how many people are infected. Is that correct?

Dr. Fauci: "That is correct. As I'm sure Dr. Redfield will tell you, looking forward right now, as commercial entities get involved in making a large amount of test kits available, there are two aspects of testing. One, a person comes into a physician and asks for a test because they have symptoms or a circumstance, which suggests they may be infected. The other way to do testing is to do surveillance, where you go out into the community and not wait for someone to come in and ask for a test, but you actively, proactively get a test. We are pushing for that, and as Dr. Redfield will tell you, that the CDC has already started that in six sentinel cities and will expand that in many more cities. You're absolutely correct. We need to know how many people, to the best of our ability, are infected, as we say, under the radar screen."

Fauci said he 'never held back' in telling the president the facts:

Rep. Stephen Lynch: "When the president's economic director says we've got this contained, not quite airtight but almost there, we need you — we need you, our public health officials, to step up and say that is not true, that is hurting us. that is making the spread of this virus more extended, more prolific and more possible. The American people need to step up here and make sure they're aware of the dangers. Dr. Fauci?"

Dr. Fauci: "I appreciate your comments, but I can tell you absolutely that I tell the president, the vice president and everyone on the task force what exactl the scientific data is and what the evidence is."

Rep. Lynch: "I don't doubt that."

Dr. Fauci: "I have never, ever held back telling exactly what is going on from a public health standpoint. Thank you."

Fauci said 'it would be nice' if the Trump administration hadn't eliminated the National Security Council's global health unit

Rep. Gerry Connolly: "Was it a mistake, Dr. Fauci, do you believe, to dismantle the office within the National Security Council charged within global health and security?"

Dr. Fauci: "I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as a mistake. I would say we worked very well with that office. It would be nice if the office was still there."

Fauci pushed back on Trump's false and misleading assertions about the virus

Rep. Jamie Raskin: "I want to quickly clear up a few things that have been said over the course of this process. One was by the president in early February when he said, 'It looks like by April you know in theory when it gets a little warmer it miraculously goes away.' Is there any scientific reason to believe that?"

Dr. Fauci: "The basis for any surmising that that might happen is based on what we see every year with influenza, which actually as you get to March and April and May, it actually goes way down. And other non-novel coronavirus but common cold coronaviruses often do that. So for someone to at least consider that that might happen is reasonable, but, underline, we do not know what this virus is going to do. We would hope that as we get to warmer weather it would go down, but we can't proceed under that assumption. We've got to assume that it's going to get worse and worse and worse."

Rep. Jamie Raskin: The president predicted there could be a vaccine in a few months. I think you contradicted that today and at that time. Is there any chance we will have a vaccine in a few months?

Dr. Fauci: "No, I made myself clear in my statement."

Fauci said the novel coronavirus is 'ten times more lethal than the seasonal flu'

Rep. Michael Cloud: "Dr. Fauci, can you by way of comparison, briefly explain how does COVID-19 compare to other previous health situations? SARS? H1N1, things like that?"

Dr. Fauci: "Well, SARS was also a coronavirus in 2002. It infected 8,000 people, and it killed about 775. It had a mortality of about 9 to 10%. That's only 8,000 people in about a year. In the two and a half months that we've had this coronavirus, as you know we now have multiple multiples of that. So it clearly is not as lethal. And I'll get to the lethality in a moment, but it certainly spreads better. Probably for the practical understanding of the American people, the seasonal flu we deal with every year has a mortality of 0.1%. The stated mortality overall of this when you look at all the data, including China, is about 3%, it first started off as 2 and now 3. I think if you count all the cases of minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic, that probably brings the mortality down to around 1%. Which means this is ten times more lethal than the seasonal flu. I think that's something that people can get their arms around and understand."

Rep. Cloud: "I'm trying to help the American people figure out where to appropriately set their gauge."

Dr. Fauci: "Set their gauges that this is a really serious problem, we have to take seriously. People always say, 'well, the flu, you know, the flu does it, the flu does that.' The flu has a mortality of 0.1%. This is ten times that. That's the reason I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game."

Fauci warned that 'we've got to change our behavior' as a country to combat the virus before its too late:

Rep. Harley Rouda: "I think we're concerned that we're not getting the full understanding or modeling that has taken place that would suggest the true impact of this virus across the United States as well as potential models for deaths. Can you elaborate a little bit? I get that there's no perfect model. But can you be helpful in helping us understand what we're really looking at here?"

Dr. Fauci: "Yeah. If you look at the curves of outbreaks historically that are similar to this, the curve looks like this and then it goes up exponentially. That's the reason why it depends on how you respond now. So if we wait until we have many, many more cases, we will be multiple weeks behind. You know, I use the analogy at the press conference yesterday and I'll use it today. It's the old metaphor that the Wayne Gretzky approach, you skate not to where the puck is but to where the puck is going to be."

He continued: "If we don't do very serious mitigation now, that what's going to happen is that we're going to be weeks behind and the horse is going to be out of the barn. And that's the reason we've been saying, even in areas of the country where there are no or few cases, we've got to change our behavior. We have to essentially assume that we are going to get hit. And that's why we talk about making mitigation and containment in a much more vigorous way. People ask, why would you want to make any mitigation? We don't have any cases. That's when you do it. Because we want this curve to be this, and it's not going to do that unless we act now."

Read more:

The US's top infectious disease expert said 'it would be nice' if Trump hadn't scrapped the NSC's global health unit

Anthony Fauci, whose stark warnings about the coronavirus have contradicted Trump's optimism, is a public-health hero

Top NIH Dr. Anthony Fauci says the coronavirus outbreak could be 'one of those things we look back on and say boy, that was bad'

Public health legend Anthony Fauci says working with the White House during an outbreak can be difficult because politicians can cause complacency in their attempts to 'calm people down'

All the times Trump risked exposing himself to coronavirus as his advisers urge people his age to be extremely cautious

SEE ALSO: Coronavirus live updates: More than 121,500 people have been infected and over 4,300 have died. The US has reported 31 deaths. Here's everything we know.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The Marvel movies pay incredible attention to the physics of Captain America's shield

• The World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic Wednesday in response to both the growing number and severity of cases and "alarming levels of inaction" by some countries. 
• When asked which specific countries needed to do more to address the threat, the director-general deferred to the executive director, who said, "You know who you are." 
• He continued to say that different countries lag in different areas, including testing and surveillance, and communication. 
• WHO officials emphasized that all countries need to be regularly asking themselves, "Are we doing enough?" and taking action. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced Wednesday that his organization was officially declaring the novel coronavirus a pandemic, he noted that one reason for the decision was complacency. 

"WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock, and we're deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction," he said. 

Later, when asked by a Financial Times reporter if he could specify which countries need to do more to combat the threat, WHO's executive director, Dr. Michael J. Ryan, stepped in. 

"You know who you are," he said, adding that his organization doesn't call out individual member countries in public, but rather works with them "constructively" on measures they believe aren't aggressive or comprehensive enough. 

WHO wants to see improvements in testing and surveillance 

Ryan detail areas the WHO would like to see improvements in, including diagnostic and testing capacities. Countries  limiting tests to people who meet certain criteria like being fully symptomatic, over a certain age, or having recently traveled to countries like China "isn't the way forward in this epidemic," he said. 

"There are countries who have not updated their surveillance regimes to be adequately up to date with the current threats," he said. "So surveillance systems have to improve in terms of case finding and isolation." 

The US, for one, lags behind other countries in testing and is now struggling to acquire enough materials to run the tests, Business Insider previously reported. 

Some countries also lag in their efforts to stop infections in healthcare settings, leading to healthcare professionals getting sick. "We must protect our frontline hospital workers," Ryan said. 

Other countries "have been too willing to give up on contact tracing at a very early stage of the fight against the epidemic," Ryan said. Contact tracing involves identifying and following up with people who may have come into contact with an infected person.

Earlier, he emphasized that the strategy is an inexpensive and "very basic public health intervention" compared to broad measures like social distancing, which is more burdensome and doesn't work if there's no cultural buy-in.  

"When people move towards broader-based social distancing measures," he said, "it effectively accepts that the chains of transmission are no longer visible."

Contact tracing, by contrast, "does involve interrupting the lives of a small proportion of the population in terms of quarantine, of contacts, isolation of cases, and that's a very tough on those individual families," he said. "But please tell me if that's less or more expensive than social distancing measures [that involve] locking down all areas, canceling all sporting events, canceling all religious events, closing schools." 

Epidemics are a 'stress test for the system' 

Ryan pointed out that a key problem for some countries is communication between government agencies, as well as between a country's leadership and its citizens. 

"Some countries have not been communicating well with their populations and creating some confusion in the minds of the population, and ... trust between governments and their citizens really does need to come to the center," he said. 

Ultimately, Ryan said, all countries can do better, as epidemics are "a stress test for the system," stressing governance, trust between the government and citizens, the hospital system, the public health systems, and the economic systems. 

"The issue is how much resilience is built into those systems," Ryan said. "And I'm frankly, well, l have to say to you that, in many cases, what we're witnessing across society is a lack of resilience." 

• Read more:
• South Korea has tested 140,000 people for the coronavirus. That could explain why its death rate is just 0.6% — far lower than in China or the US.
• US medical worker who tested positive for the new coronavirus says his condition is 'getting worse' every day, even though he's 32 and has no underlying conditions
• The US is struggling to test more people for coronavirus. Now, it's facing a shortage of the raw materials used to run those tests.

FOLLOW US: Insider is on Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A 45-year-long study discovered trends in successful hyper-intelligent children

• A high-quality mattress will last for more than a decade, provide the right balance of comfort and support for your body type and sleeping style, and offer superb motion transfer isolation.
• The Leesa Hybrid Mattress is our top pick in 2020 because it sleeps cool, has impressive edge support, and features motion isolation so good that you won't notice when your partner gets up in the morning.
• Many of these mattresses are made with foam or a mix of foam and spring, so if you're looking for one with just springs, check out our guide to the best spring mattresses.
• And if you're shopping around for good mattress deals, here's where you'll find updated sales.
• Check out Business Insider Coupons for potentially even more savings.

One of the most important purchases you will make in your life is a bed. After all, you spend a third of your life sleeping. It's a tired, old cliché, but it's true. And, if you don't put enough research and money into finding the best mattress for your needs, that third of your life you spend sleeping could end up having a negative impact on the two thirds you're awake.

One of the biggest mistakes mattress shoppers make is putting too much emphasis on the price tag. Instead of focusing on that, you should pay attention to the most powerful tool for finding the right mattress for you: the risk-free trial period. We can tell you all about what to look for when mattress shopping, but the best way to tell if a bed is right for you is to sleep on it for several nights. Fortunately, the best brands offer trial periods of 100 nights or more. Most will give you a full refund if you decide the mattress isn't right for you. 

Most mattresses have warranties of at least 10 years. Even if you splurge on a $2,000 bed, that works out to about 50 cents per day over the life of the warranty. I think most of us would agree that your comfort is worth that. If money is tight, check out the financing options offered by most online mattress sellers. 

How we test mattresses

I've personally tested more than a dozen brands, and with the help of my Business Insider colleagues, we've tested all of the top online mattresses. Each bed I receive goes through a series of tests, and for the ones I haven't personally tested, I've extrapolated the key performance indicators based on our team's reviews along with expert testing from sites like Sleepopolis and Consumer Reports. 

Here are the main attributes we look for and how we test them:

Firmness: For many buyers, this is a key consideration. Yet, there isn't really a standard way to measure firmness. A mattress maker's firmness claims are often hit or miss. I prefer an average firmness, and the main bed that I sleep on has an average rating based on my experience and expert ratings. Any new mattress that comes in is compared to my main baseline mattress to determine its firmness level.

Sleeper type: Back, stomach, and side sleepers will all have different preferences. I'm a side sleeper, but I often sleep on my stomach on firmer mattresses. My wife is a back sleeper. Our subjective sleeping experiences on a particular bed will determine the type of sleeper that will benefit most from the mattress.

Sleep temperature: Most beds-in-a-box feature some type of memory foam, which tends to trap heat. This can lead to a night of tossing and turning. So, to determine heat dissipation, I first lay on the bed for at least an hour. Next, I get up for about five minutes leaving the bed uncovered. I then return to assess how warm it feels. I combine these results with my comfort temperature-wise while sleeping on the mattress to form an overall opinion of the heat dissipation properties.

Edge support: Edge support is important if you like sitting on the side of your bed when putting on shoes or if you sleep with someone who tends to take up a lot of bed space. To test edge support, I sit on the edge of the bed and gauge how much it sinks. I also lie on the side of the bed and slowly rotate closer to the edge until I fall off. I note how secure I feel on the edge and how far I can go without falling. 

Motion transfer: If you share a bed with someone or have pets, you don't want their nocturnal movements to disturb your sleep. This is where motion transfer isolation is important. To assess this, I place a 12-ounce can of pop in the middle of the mattress. Next, I drop a 20-pound weight from approximately four feet above the bed so that it lands 12 inches from the pop can. I do this a few times. If the can falls over consistently, the motion isolation isn't very good. If it stays upright, we have a good motion dissipating mattress.

Moving the mattress: If you move often or want to rotate your mattress regularly to improve its longevity, it needs to be easily movable. I test movability by rotating the mattress a few times and taking it from one room to another. I pay close attention to how much effort it requires.

In addition to these tests, we look closely at a mattress's trial period, warranty, in-home delivery/white-glove service, and the type of foundation needed for best performance.

Along with testing out dozens of mattresses, we looked at countless expert and buyer ratings and reviews of the top brands while researching this guide. Our guide features mattresses that performed well in our tests, have long trial periods, and are designed to suit a broad range of sleepers. Also, all of the prices listed in our guide are for the queen size. You can follow our links to find the prices for other mattress sizes.

Here are the best mattresses you can buy in 2020:

• Best mattress overall:Leesa Hybrid Mattress
• Best mattress for hot sleepers:Tempur-Pedic PRObreeze Mattress
• Best all-foam mattress:The Casper Mattress
• Best mattress for back pain:Saatva Classic Mattress
• Best natural mattress:Birch Mattress by Helix
• Best ultra-firm mattress:Plank Mattress by Brooklyn Bedding

Prices and links are accurate as of 3/11/20.

The best mattress overall

With its perfect balance of comfort and support for a broad range of sleeping styles and body types, the Leesa Hybrid Mattress is the best mattress I've slept on providing exceptional motion transfer isolation and edge support.

For about a year, the Leesa Hybrid Mattress, formerly known as the "Sapira," was the bed my wife and I slept on when I wasn't testing other models. My wife is tall and weight-proportional. She sleeps on her back. I'm six feet tall and weigh 250 pounds and sleep on my stomach and side. This mattress is the most comfortable of the countless varieties I've tested. 

I usually overheat in bed, but the Leesa Hybrid keeps me cool at night by dissipating the heat. It's ideal for couples thanks to its outstanding edge support and superb performance in the motion transfer tests I put it through.

The firmness level of the Leesa Hybrid is right around average. The company recommends using a "firm, flat, and sturdy" foundation. I used the Leesa Foundation, which did the job but had several minor annoyances you can read about in my full review of the Leesa Hybrid.

The mattress is backed by a 10-year warranty, and Leesa offers a 100-night risk-free trial. You can also choose the white glove service for $150, which covers setting up your mattress and foundation and removing your old bed. Though the mattress is bulky and hard to move around, most individuals in good health should be able to set it up with the help of a friend.

Slumber Yard recommends the Leesa Hybrid for stomach and back sleepers who want a great combination of springs and soft memory foam feel. The reviewer was impressed with how well-made, comfortable, and supportive the bed is.

Wirecutter also recommends this model because of the pressure relief afforded by the memory foam and the subtle bounce of the coils. The reviewer found the bed had excellent cooling abilities and worked for side, stomach, and back sleepers along with people who weigh over 200 pounds.

Pros: Works for a broad range of sleepers, excellent heat dissipation properties, extraordinary motion isolation, impressive edge support

Cons: Petite side sleepers may find the mattress is too firm

Read our full Leesa Hybrid Mattress review 

The best mattress for hot sleepers

If heat-trapping mattresses have kept you tossing and turning through the night, the Tempur-Pedic PRObreeze Mattress will help you rest easy.

The Tempur-Pedic PRObreeze Mattress is what my wife and I sleep on when we're not testing other brands. It's passed all of my motion transfer tests, and I don't even notice when my wife gets up before me in the morning. Though I've found it holds my body heat when I come back from using the bathroom at night, overall, the PRObreeze sleeps cooler than most mattresses. 

The PRObreeze is 12 inches thick and features a cooling cover, Purecool+ phase change material, a Tempur CM+ comfort layer, and the original Tempur material support layer. It's also available as a hybrid, which is what I have. Tempur-Pedic offers a 90-night risk-free trial and 10-year warranty. Plus, you can try it out in hundreds of stores across the country.

Tempur-Pedic supplies free white glove delivery, which was incredibly helpful since our king mattress is a bit much for even two people to carry. We use the Tempur-Ergo Extend with Sleeptracker as the foundation, which is worth the investment if you like to watch TV or read in bed. And, if you are looking for an even cooler sleeping solution, consider the PRObreeze's sibling the LUXEbreeze, which is designed to be up to 5 degrees cooler.

Pros: Good cooling, impressive motion isolation, great for side sleepers and petite individuals, free white glove delivery

Cons: Expensive, questionable edge support, only available in medium firmness

Read our full Tempur-Pedic PRObreeze review 

The best all-foam mattress

The Casper mattress has a firm feel that provides excellent support right to the edge, and it will keep your body cool through the night.

Last year, Casper updated its best-selling all-foam mattress with a zoned-support layer, which provides specialized pressure relief to targeted body parts. The slightly firmer than average support is ideal for back and stomach sleepers, but it was significantly less comfortable when I moved to my side. The firmness also rendered the bed less bouncy but made rotating the mattress and moving around on it easier. 

The Casper passed my motion transfer test with flying colors. And, I found the edge support was also impressive. Plus, on hot summer nights, the breathable design kept my usually overheating body nice and cool. You can check out my full review here. I've also tested and recommended the Casper Hybrid mattress, which you can read about here.

Consumer Reports recommends the Casper Mattress as the "best buy" and best overall memory foam mattress. In the review site's tests, the mattress was excellent for petite side and back sleepers and very good for average and large individuals. After eight years of simulated use, the mattress only showed minor changes in performance. The only negative noted was the lack of grips, which could make moving the mattress difficult. 

Sleepopolis and Sleep Advisor also recommend the Casper Mattress. And Wirecutter does as well but only if you are looking for a medium-firm foam mattress and "don't mind possibly overpaying for it."

Pros: Includes 100-day risk-free trial, has great edge support, has excellent motion transfer dampening, offers firm support, breathable open-cell foam top layer helps keep you cool

Cons: Has very little bounce, might be too firm for side sleepers

Read our full Casper Mattress review 

The best mattress for back pain

The Saatva Classic Mattress provides luxurious comfort with its plush top and is designed to suit an array of sleeping styles.

The Saatva Classic Mattress comes in six standard sizes, two thicknesses (11.5 inches and 14.5 inches), and three firmness levels: plush soft, luxury firm, and firm. Saatva also sells a frame, foundation, and adjustable base to go with your mattress. 

The individually-wrapped coils offer impressive support to the bed's edge. Also, no matter your sleep style, there's sure to be a firmness level that caters to you. The bed is backed by a 15-year warranty and a 120-night trial, though if you decide to return the mattress, a $99 transportation fee is deducted from your refund.

Insider Picks' Kylie Joyner loved the "Goldilocks" feel of support and comfort of the Saatva Classic Mattress. She and her partner have enjoyed decreased back pain since sleeping on the luxury firm bed. And, she rested easy knowing the company uses environmentally-friendly materials to manufacture its mattress in the United States.

Sleep Advisor, Mattress Clarity, Sleepopolis, Tuck, and Wirecutter all recommend the Saatva Classic. Wirecutter ranks it as the best spring mattress. The reviewer liked that the pocket coils and plush top afforded a pleasant combination of bounce and softness. The delivery experience was convenient with the mattress coming fully expanded. Yet, since the Euro top is susceptible to body impressions, she warns against heavier individuals purchasing this model.

Though they were tired of the high-pressure in-person mattress shopping experience, several Saatva buyers were resistant to buying a mattress online at first. But, the high-quality feel of the materials won them over. Thanks to the comfort of his luxury firm mattress, one buyer noted that he looks forward to bedtime now. Another reviewer using a sleep-tracker app discovered that her sleep per night went from three or four hours to six or seven hours with the purchase of this bed.

Pros: Free in-home delivery and mattress removal, three firmness levels, plush softness, nice bounce, 120-night trial

Cons: Fees associated with returns, not the best for people weighing more than 200 pounds

Read our full Saatva Classic Mattress review 

The best natural mattress

Environmentally-conscious folks can choose the Birch Mattress without guilt thanks to its all-natural materials.

The Birch Mattress comes from Helix, which is known for offering a wide array of excellent mattresses, including the Helix Dusk and the Helix Luxe Dusk. The Birch is positioned as an earth-friendly alternative using organic cotton, wool, natural latex, and high-quality steel. The mattress comes with a 100-night sleep trial and a 25-year warranty.

I've tested the Birch Mattress with and without the optional $400 plush pillow top. Without the pillow top, the mattress has above-average firmness, which felt great when I slept on my stomach. With the top, sleeping on my side was much more comfortable. The bed passed my motion transfer tests and offered outstanding edge support. I also found it does a good — not great — job of dissipating heat. 

Sleepopolis recommends the Birch Mattress because it has fantastic bounce and the firmness works well for stomach and back sleepers. The reviewer also appreciated that the mattress is made of all-natural elements and is Greenguard Gold certified. However, he doesn't think the mattress without the pillowtop is good for side sleepers. Sleep Sherpa recommends this model if you're looking for a mattress made of renewable materials, that doesn't contain foam, and is temperature neutral.

Buyers like that the mattress is made with natural, organic materials, which makes it so the bed doesn't have an off-putting odor when it comes out of the packaging. One person shared her story of dealing with hip pain. At first, the Birch mattress with the pillow top helped, but after about a month and a half, the pain came back. Birch worked with her to provide another layer of soft latex, which seemed to relieve the pressure points.

Pros: Greenguard Gold certified, made of natural materials, exceptional bounce, very good motion transfer isolation, above-average firmness, optional plush pillow top for a softer feel

Cons: Not ideal for side sleepers without the pillow top

The best ultra-firm mattress

If the idea of sleeping on the floor sounds more appealing than most beds, the Plank Mattress should give you the ultra-firmness you seek.

The Plank Mattress is made by Brooklyn Bedding, a mattress company that manufactures an array of top-rated beds and bedding.  The Plank is about as firm as it gets. The top side is just firm, while the bottom side is extra firm. So, you can flip the bed to achieve your optimal feel. You can also choose to add a cooling top layer to the extra firm side. 

Senior reporter Owen Burke tested the Plank. After having lived in Taiwan, it was the first truly-firm mattress he'd found in the Western Hemisphere. He preferred the ultra-firm side. You can read his full review here.

Tuck recommends the Plank Mattress to heavier stomach and back sleepers because it's so firm. In the review site's tests, the mattress was durable, provided good motion isolation and edge support, was quiet, had minimal off-gassing, and slept cooler than other all-foam models. The main negatives were that the 120-night sleep trial required a 30-night break-in period, and the mattress doesn't tend to conform to the contours of your body.

You really can't go wrong with a Brooklyn Bedding mattress. If ultra-firm isn't your thing, consider their Aurora mattress.

Pros: Great for heavier back and stomach sleepers, incredibly firm, great motion isolation, exceptional edge support, two levels of firmness

Cons: Not the best for petite individuals or side sleepers, doesn't contour to your body

Read our full Plank Mattress review

How to pick the right mattress for you

There are a ton of things to consider when buying a mattress, including firmness, materials, warranties, return policies, and whether to go with a direct-to-consumer mattress startup or a big-name brand. We break it down for you below:

Finding the right level of firmness

Before you buy, you'll want to know what level of firmness is best for you. Side sleepers tend to like medium-to-soft mattresses, while back and stomach sleepers prefer firmer mattresses.

While your first reaction might be to get the plushest mattress out there, the fact is that sometimes ultra-soft mattresses can be bad for your back. On top of that, if you're half of a couple, you'll need to take into consideration what your partner wants, too. If you've got a big budget, you can go with a high-end mattress that allows for adjustments to be made on each side of the mattress.

Look for a good return policy or a long trial period in case the mattress you thought you wanted doesn't work out for you. Mattress choice is deeply personal and varies widely from person to person.

What kind of mattress do you want?

There are a lot of different mattress types, but Sleepopolis breaks them down extremely well. We've summarized each type of mattress below based on the site's expert mattress buying guide: 

• Hybrid mattresses combine memory foam and latex with spring coils and other materials to appeal to a wide range of sleepers. These mattresses are great all-around options for couples.
• Latex foam mattresses are best known for being cooling, bouncy, and responsive.
• Memory foam mattresses conform to your body's needs and offer excellent support. They're huggier than other mattresses, so they may not appeal to hot sleepers.
• Innerspring or Coil mattresses are more old-fashioned and traditional, but they're great for strong support and durability. If you sleep on the edge, coil mattresses are good for you.
• Pillow-top mattresses are ideal for people who like soft, cushy mattresses. Pillow-top mattresses can have springs underneath or not, but they always have a fluffy, pillowy top for extra softness.
• Adjustable mattresses let you choose and alter the position and firmness of your bed and some even vibrate or massage you while you sleep. These are pricey but can be great for people with back problems.

Pro tip: Don't fall for big-name brands or add-ons

Anyone who's ever shopped for a new mattress has probably wondered why on Earth these things are so expensive. As Wirecutter and Slate explain, it's all about marketing costs, brand recognition, crazy profit margins, and monopolies in the mattress market. In the US, you have four major brands owned by two companies: Simmons and Serta vs. Tempur-Pedic and Sealy.

Often, these companies seem to be your only choices, so you end up paying a premium and the big brands end up reaping a killer profit. However, now there are dozens of mattress startups out there that are direct to consumer, offer great warranties, have long return windows, and low prices. We recommend you stay away from the big names and buy from one of these great startups.

You'll also want to consider if you want any add-ons like a mattress cover, mattress pad, sheets, and so on. In the process of buying a mattress, you'll likely be pitched all kinds of different accessories to get, and if you don't go in with a clear idea of what you want, it's easy to fall victim to those pitches and spend way more money than you thought you would. It's best to buy everything else separately, so go to the last section in this guide to learn about our other great buying guides for bedding.

Check out our other mattress buying guides

The best spring mattress you can buy

If you're leaning toward a traditional spring mattress (also called an innerspring mattress), we have five great recommendations, including our favorite, the Saatva Classic because you can try it for 120 nights, there are three firmness options, and the company offers free in-home set-up and mattress removal.

Here are the best spring mattresses you can buy.

The best mattresses for side sleepers

Finding the perfect mattress is tough for side sleepers. Regardless of which one you choose from our favorites, though, we're confident that you'll get a good night's sleep.

And if you find that these mattresses don't work for you, rest assured that they come with a sleep trial so you can take these beds for a test run before making a long-term commitment. Here are the best mattresses for side sleepers.

The best mattresses for back pain

If you've suffered long enough with back pain, it's time to wake up to the advantages of a supportive, quality mattress.

Choosing a new mattress can be a chore, however, there's no doubt about it. There are a lot of brands on the market, and a good mattress can be quite expensive. Here are the best mattresses for back pain.

Check out our bedding guides

The best sheets

Few would deny that at the end of a long, hard day, sliding into a comfortable bed outfitted with soft, smooth sheets that pamper your skin is one of life's greatest pleasures. After reviewing dozens of contenders for the best sheets, we've narrowed it down to our favorites. Here are the best sheets you can buy. 

The best mattress toppers

Although a mattress topper isn't a must-have for your bed, it's one of the easiest ways to up your sleep quality and comfort. We researched dozens of mattress toppers and determined that these are our favorites. Here are the best mattress toppers you can buy. 

The best pillows

A good pillow means a good night's sleep. We reviewed dozens of pillows to narrow down the choices to the ones you'll love best. From down pillows to memory foam and everything in between, here are the best pillows you can buy. 

• Some say a clean car drives better, but at the very least it will look better.
• As the spring season nears, everyday drivers and collectors alike work to keep their car free of dirt, pollen, bird droppings, and other road debris.
• As a car collector, these are the products I use and recommend other people to use. You'll find everything from soaps and waxes to microfiber cloths and leather conditioner. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

During winter, the extent of cleaning your car probably consists of removing snow and salt so you can actually see where you're going — but during warmer seasons it's all about attention to detail.

Dirt, pollen, tree sap, bird droppings, and normal road build up are just some of the many things that can prevent your ride from looking its best.

Instead of constantly spending money at the car wash, you can create an arsenal of products that will keep your car in pristine condition — and in the long run, you'll save a lot of money.

I own three classic BMWs: a 1991 325i convertible, a 1991 318is, and a 1993 525i wagon. With each of them being more than 25 years old, I do my very best to maintain and preserve their appearance and these are the products I use.

Whether you're a meticulous enthusiast preparing for a car show or an average person trying to care for your car, these are the products you'll also want at your disposal. You'll find everything from car wash soaps and waxes to leather cleaners and microfiber cloths — plus a few other unexpected picks.

Check out the best car cleaning and detailing products, below:

Chemical Guys Snow Foam Car Wash

$9.99 for 16 ounces or $29.99 for 1 gallon, available on Amazon

If your at-home car washes include using liquid dish soap from the kitchen, you're doing it all wrong. Chemical Guys' car wash eliminates dirt and grime with a pH-neutral formula that's safe on all surfaces of your car. It has a foaming agent for maximum suds and a fresh honeydew scent.

Chemical Guys Microfiber Wash Mitt

$5.59, available on Amazon

To go along with the right car wash soap, you need the right cleaning tool. The Chemical Wash mitt easily cleans your car without scratching your paint. Its made of an extra plush, soft, and absorbent microfiber material, and is easier to control than a towel. 

303 Touchless Sealant (wax alternative)

$18.22, available on Amazon

Waxing your car with traditional paste wax can be a long and tedious process. If you want the protection and shine of wax within minutes, 303 Touchless can provide it. The spray uses a SiO₂ (silicon dioxide) base to create a hydrophobic and UV barrier on paint, and it's also safe to use on windows and wheels. It made my car shiny, smooth, and repelled water longer than other waxes I've used. Read my full review here. 

SuperClean Degreaser

$5.47, available at Walmart

SuperClean Degreaser has a multitude of cleaning uses, so it comes in handy for many of your car detailing needs. I wouldn't recommend using it at full strength on your paint, but it works wonders cleaning built-up oil, grime, or dirt on your engine bay, under-body, or exhaust pipes. When diluted, it does a great job at cleaning carpets, floor mats, and chrome pieces as well.

Brush Hero

$39.99, available on Amazon

Described as "the ultimate detail brush," the Brush Hero is perfect for cleaning car parts — most specifically tough to reach areas like wheels. It features a rotating brush head that is powered entirely by water pressure from a standard garden hose. I recently had the opportunity to try it out and experienced amazing results. You can read my full review here.

Mother's California Gold Clay Kit

$18.79, available on Amazon

Even after washing your car meticulously, there's still dirt and debris that you just can't get off. That's where claying your car comes into play. The Mother's California Gold Clay Kit comes with two clay bars, Instant Detailer spray, and a microfiber cloth. Simply spray a liberal amount of detailer on the car and use the clay in a sweeping motion. At first, you'll feel some resistance (that's all the fine dirt and debris). Once it's all clean, your paint will be looking and feeling like glass. Whether your car is relatively new or decades old, you'll definitely notice a difference.

Turtle Wax Microfiber Towels

$14.99 for a 12-pack, available on Amazon

If you thought using old t-shirts and bath towels as rags was an ok idea, it's really not. Although you may not be able to see it immediately, they can scratch the surface of your paint. Microfiber cloths are a safe and effective way to detail your car without creating damage. Instead of using the same dirty cloth over and over, this 12-pack ensures you'll have a bunch of clean cloths at your disposal.

Zymöl Cleaner Wax

$27.95, available on Amazon

One of the most important, but often-skipped, steps to having an immaculately clean car is a decent coat of wax. Unlike thick waxes that take a lot of time to apply, Zymöl Cleaner Wax goes on easy and it works exceptionally well. Derived from a 120-year-old German formula, the wax cleans your paint (though not as a full car wash replacement) and is gentle and safe. For as long as I can remember, I've seen my dad use Zymöl on his cars. I've tried several other waxes for my own, but this is the one I've consistently come back to.

Armor All Extreme Tire Shine Gel and Applicator

$6.74, available at Walmart

While most tire shines dry up and wear away after a day or so, Armor All Extreme Tire Shine lasts for weeks. The gel formula adheres to your tires to create a durable shield from the elements. It's also a great way to avoid messy over-spray on your wheels and fenders that you'd expect from a traditional tire shine.

Turtle Wax Headlight Cleaner & Scrub Daddy Restoration Kit

$9.97, available on Amazon

Almost all modern cars have plastic headlight covers that get dull over time. Not only do they start to look bad, but they can also drastically reduce your headlight output. The Turtle Wax Headlight Cleaner & Scrub Daddy Restoration Kit can bring your plastic lenses to like-new condition — improving your car's appearance and your visibility.

California Car Duster

$19.98, available on Amazon

If you've ever washed your car only to find it covered pollen the next morning, you know how frustrating it can be. Instead of having to clean your car all over again or let your fresh wash go to waste, use the California Car Duster. It effectively lifts dust with one pass and there's no need to use any water or cleaners. 

Black & Decker Dustbuster Auto Vacuum

$69, available on Amazon

Cleaning the inside of your car is just as important as cleaning the outside. With a cordless design and multiple attachments, the Black & Decker Dustbuster Auto Vacuum is perfect for reaching every part of your interior. Its compact design makes it easy to store in your trunk, too.

Leather Honey

$18.95, available on Amazon

If you have leather interior, simply vacuuming isn't the only detailing step you should take. Leather Honey deeply penetrates into the pores of leather to protect new leather and rejuvenate old leather. In the long run, this conditioner can prevent cracks and tears associated with worn-out leather.

CleanTools Absorber

$13, available on Amazon (Originally $14.99) [You save $1.99]

To prevent streaks or watermarks, it's always a good idea to hand dry your car after giving it a wash. If you've ever used a normal towel for this, you know how ineffective it becomes once it's soaking wet. The CleanTools Absorber is more absorbent than a towel makes drying anything faster and easier. Just wring the water out when you're done and put it back in the included storage tube.

• Tyler Haney, founder and former CEO of Outdoor Voices, is speaking out in the aftermath of her recent ousting and in response to reports describing her as "mercurial" and "difficult." 
• The 31-year-old took to Instagram shortly after the New York Times published an explosive report on the company's downfall on Tuesday. Haney's post has drawn the support of fellow female founders including Glossier's Emily Weiss, The Wing's Audrey Gelman, and Away's Jen Rubio.
• "There is an unsettling trend lately to interview ex-employees of female-founded companies and report their claims either at face value or without any context," Haney wrote in the post. "These are trends that will only serve to drive women back out of the board room."
• The company did not address Business Insider's questions about Haney's specific claims, pointing instead to a statement it made previously on February 25. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Two weeks after Tyler Haney was ousted as chief executive of Outdoor Voices, the buzzy athletic wear company she started in 2012, the founder is speaking out against reports describing her as "mercurial" and "difficult." 

Haney took to Instagram to defend herself against what she called a "one-sided narrative," in a post coming shortly after an explosive New York Times report that detailed the downfall of "the startup darling." In her caption, Haney wrote that she "experienced both gender and generational differences firsthand" that led to misunderstandings she found difficult to manage. 

"There is an unsettling trend lately to interview ex-employees of female-founded companies and report their claims either at face value or without any context," Haney wrote. "These are trends that will only serve to drive women back out of the board room."

The post quickly drew the attention of several fellow female startup founders — including Glossier's Emily Weiss, The Wing's Audrey Gelman, and Away's Jen Rubio — who took to the comments section in an outpouring of support. 

"Ty what you've built is amazing," Weiss wrote. "One of my all time favorite brands. Huge respect."

The company did not address Business Insider's questions about Haney's specific claims, pointing instead to a statement it made previously on February 25. 

"We respect her choice and wish her the best," the company said. "As the founder of our company and a creative visionary, she brought Outdoor Voices to an important stage in our evolution. Our focus remains on the future of Outdoor Voices and doing what's best for our company and our team."

Haney first announced in February that she was stepping down as CEO, part of a deal that would position Cliff Moskowitz as interim chief executive, allowing her to stay on as founder and maintain her seat on the board.

However, just days later, Haney announced she would exit the company completely, in a "personal decision to resign from Outdoor Voices," the company said in a statement to Business Insider's Hayley Peterson in February. The company also decided to "eliminate a small number of positions," a spokesperson said at the time. 

The New York Times piece sheds additional light on animosity between Haney and Mickey Drexler — the former CEO of Gap and J.Crew who served as an integral investor and chairman of Outdoor Voices when he came aboard in 2017 — and sales woes that contributed to forcing Haney out. In January, Outdoor Voices was valued at $40 million, down from $110 million in 2018, according to the article. 

In her post, Haney said she wished she was "more equipped for the trials and tribulations of being a manager of people." She noted that as a result of a non-disclosure agreement she signed while leaving the company, she has not been able to share her story "in full." 

"I believed in zigging when others zagged and we built a beautiful, strong #doingthings community with a powerful mindset that moves people by doing so," she wrote. "This approach was uncomfortable for some especially those who had done it one way for a long time and I understand and appreciate that."

You can read the entire caption in her post, below.

SEE ALSO: Outdoor Voices releases bizarre statement saying its CEO, who founded the company, will step down to become 'founder'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We went to a Champagne vineyard in France to find out why it's so expensive