The coronavirus is inflicting severe damage on global economies, and working-class citizens are among the most at risk from being laid off from shuttered businesses. In Europe, governments in Denmark, the Netherlands, and the UK moved to pay workers to stay at home and do nothing in an attempt to salvage their battered economies. In Denmark, the government is promising to pay up to 90% of a worker's salary to private businesses as long as the worker is not laid off. The American response in the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill is focused on mostly helping people after they've lost their jobs. Visit...

Announcing a travel ban affecting most of Europe in an Oval Office speech on March 11, President Donald Trump was scathing about the European response to the coronavirus crisis. "The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots," Trump said. On Thursday, the US overtook China and Italy as the country with most confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 85,500 positive tests. Trump has been criticized for not doing more to slow the disease's spread in the early days of the outbreak. Experts say his desire to lift lockdown measures by Easter could make the crisis...

When the coronavirus outbreak was reported in Wuhan, most people in Italy didn't take the threat too seriously because China is "far, far away" and the infection itself seemed like the flu, Isabella Castoldi, a resident of Florence, Italy, said. But as the COVID-19 virus reached Europe, people went from joking about it to panic-buying toilet paper, and Florence became "a ghost town" almost overnight, she recalled. Looking back, Castoldi acknowledged that underestimating the virus left Italy susceptible to becoming the COVID-19 epicenter in Europe. She urged Americans and others in countries where the coronavirus is creeping in to practice social isolation and...

Disregarding Greece's calls for residents to stay home and prevent the spread of the coronavirus, many flocked to local islands. Fearing the islands' lack of resources to deal with contagion, authorities banned all visitors from traveling to the islands by ferry on Saturday. Greece later instituted a nationwide lockdown effective Monday, March 23, restricting all non-essential travel and gatherings. Residents must now carry their ID and an official form with them whenever they leave home and will be surveilled by drones. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. As the coronavirus spreads across Europe and the globe, Greece has called for residents to...

Spain has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 35,000 cases and more than 2,500 deaths as of Tuesday, making it the second-worst-affected country in Europe. The country is struggling to contain the outbreak and deal with new deaths. Spanish soldiers deployed to disinfect care homes around the country found elderly residents "completely abandoned," with some left dead in their beds, Spain's defense minister said on Monday. A care-home industry leader defended the carers, saying they were being forced to work without enough protective equipment, El País reported. Meanwhile, Madrid is converting a conference center into a...

Startups face going bust if the coronavirus induces a global recession. Founders and venture capitalists say unscrupulous investors are taking advantage of the uncertainty to renege on deals. One founder said their investor would provide further vital funding only at a lower valuation, which is known as a down round. But some investors said venture capitalists must answer to their own investors and become more judicious about investing as the market turns. Click here for more BI Prime stories. Startup investors are in the spotlight for how they've behaved during the coronavirus outbreak, with founders and peer investors complaining of renegotiated terms and withdrawn...