Axios

South by Southwest, the annual film, music and technology convention held in Austin, has been canceled due to mounting concerns over the coronavirus outbreak, its organizers and the city announced on Friday.

The big picture: SXSW, which attracts more than 400,000 attendees per year to the city's downtown, made the move after a number of its biggest exhibitors, including Apple, Twitter, Amazon and Facebook, pulled out.

The Atlantic said that it was only able to verify 1,895 people as having been tested for the coronavirus as of Friday morning in the U.S., about 10% of whom tested positive.

The big picture: "The figures we gathered suggest that the American response to the coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19, has been shockingly sluggish, especially compared with that of other developed countries," The Atlantic writes Friday.

Democrats and public health experts are concerned that the Trump administration's immigration policies could scare immigrants away from getting medical help as the coronavirus spreads.

What we're watching: Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told senators on Thursday that health care facilities are already "sensitive locations" where immigration enforcement isn't carried out, except in "exigent circumstances."

Online seller eBay said it's no longer allowing the sale of medical masks and certain cleaning products in the U.S. to prevent customers from buying scarce products at inflated prices.

The big picture: Sales of masks, health and cleaning supplies have skyrocketed in preparation for the further spread of the novel coronavirus across the country. States such as California have issued consumer alerts on price gouging.

As part of our What Matters 2020 series on the critical trends that will outlive this moment, Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen discuss the soaring costs of the American health care system.

Sequoia Capital issued a dire warning Thursday to portfolio company CEOs about the business impacts of the coronavirus, suggesting that they "question every assumption" about their businesses, including cash runway, headcount, sales forecasts, and the availability of future funding.

Why it matters: Sequoia, an early investor in Airbnb and Google, is no Chicken Little. The last time it did something similar was more than 11 years ago, at the peak of the financial crisis, via its famed "RIP Good Times" slide deck.

President Trump's official Friday schedule omitted a planned visit to CDC headquarters in Atlanta amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, though the trip was later put back on his itinerary — but not before the White House and the president offered contradictory explanations for its initial cancellation.

The state of play: The White House issued a statement on Friday morning that Trump did not "want to interfere with the CDC’s mission," while the president later told reporters that somebody at the CDC was suspected to have the virus but had ultimately tested negative.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said at a Morgan Stanley conference in San Francisco Thursday that he was re-evaluating his plan to spend several months in Africa this year.

Between the lines: Dorsey specifically blamed the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, though his decision also comes as Twitter struggles with tough content and business issues and as an activist investor, Elliott Management, is seeking his ouster.

A big reason the novel coronavirus-fueled economic slowdown is hammering oil demand is because China — the center of the outbreak — has grown into such a powerhouse petroleum consumer.

What they're saying: The International Energy Agency's executive director Fatih Birol said China's slowdown is a key reason why the organization is slated to announce a major downward revision in this year's global oil demand estimates next week. Last year China accounted for 80% of total global oil demand growth, he said.

Go deeper: The global scramble to contain the coronavirus

President Trump signed Friday a bipartisan $8 billion deal to provide emergency funding to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

The big picture: The Senate passed the bill 96-1 on Thursday, after it flew through the House 415-2 on Wednesday afternoon — marking a rare moment of congressional unity in the face of a public health crisis.

The Colorado legislature introduced its public option bill yesterday, taking one step further in one of the country's most timely health policy experiments.

Between the lines: The bill takes on hospitals as part of how it lowers costs, which is likely what Democrats would end up trying to do should they win the presidency.

Both health insurers and regulators are working to make sure that coronavirus diagnostic tests will be covered — but that doesn't necessarily mean coronavirus treatment will be affordable.

Driving the news: California, New York and Washington state have announced that health plans are required to cover the diagnostic tests and the associated provider visit, without cost sharing.

Many of the coronavirus stories getting shared the most on social media are packaged to drive fear rather than build understanding about the illness, according to NewsWhip data provided to Axios.

Why it matters: Social media greases and amplifies dramatic headlines, while more functional or nuanced information gets squashed.

New annual financial documents for large health care companies are rolling in with a familiar tune: executives took home large paydays in 2019 that mostly came from large stock gains.

The bottom line: The health care system is a firehose of spending, and a good chunk of that money always makes its way to the top.

Not since the aftermath of 9/11 has there been such a fear of flying.

Why it matters: The novel coronavirus has the airline industry bracing for the worst downturn since the Great Recession. Even though the government says it's safe to fly domestically, the drumbeat of news about COVID-19 has cautious employers stifling business travel and worried families rethinking their summer vacation plans.

Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Twitter all told Axios on Thursday night that they plan to pay their hourly workers regular wages even as they encourage many of their staff to work from home, reducing their on-site support staffing needs.

Why it matters: While many tech employees can do their jobs remotely, large companies also have support staff that do everything from cooking their meals to driving shuttles and cleaning the office. Those workers can't do their jobs remotely, and it was not initially clear how the coronavirus response would affect them.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan issued a statement Thursday confirming three cases of the novel coronavirus in the state.

What they're saying: “The state’s Public Health Laboratory in Baltimore has confirmed the first three positive cases of novel coronavirus in Maryland. The patients, who contracted the virus while traveling overseas, are in good condition ... I encourage all Marylanders not to panic, but to take this seriously and to stay informed as we continue to provide updates.”

Iran’s coronavirus outbreak has reached the upper echelons of power, and ordinary citizens fear that the information filtering down can’t be trusted.

Why it matters: Iran has the largest coronavirus outbreak outside of China, with 3,513 confirmed cases and 107 deaths. But experts fear the real numbers are much higher, and that the government’s instinct to control information and prevent fear undermined hopes of containing it.