Specialist Meric Greenbaum works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Feb. 28, 2020. Stocks are opening sharply lower on Wall Street, putting the market on track for its worst week since October 2008 during the global financial crisis. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

NEW YORK (AP) – Stocks sank around the globe again Friday as investors braced for more economic pain from the coronavirus outbreak, sending U.S. markets to their worst weekly finish since the 2008 financial crisis.

The damage from the week of relentless selling was eye-popping: The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3,583 points, or 12.4%. Microsoft and Apple, the two most valuable companies in the S&P 500, lost a combined $300 billion. In a sign of the severity of the concern about the possible economic blow, the price of oil sank 16%.

As global markets plunged, President Donald Trump and his allies pulled from a familiar playbook Friday and blamed others for the slide. It’s a challenging sell for a president who has connected his fate to Wall Street like no other.

The president’s team played down the threat and eagerly dispatched responsibility to Democrats, the media and the entrenched government bureaucracy.

Trump tweeted “The Do Nothing Democrats” had wasted time on impeachment and “anything else they could do to make the Republican Party look bad” while defending his own response to the virus outbreak, which many across the aisle have deemed sluggish and scattershot.

“So, the Coronavirus, which started in China and spread to various countries throughout the world, but very slowly in the U.S. because President Trump closed our border, and ended flights, VERY EARLY, is now being blamed, by the Do Nothing Democrats, to be the fault of ‘Trump,'” the president wrote, aggressively employing third-person narration.

Some of his closest allies amplified that message and accused White House foes for hyping the threat posed by the virus, which has killed more than 2,800 people — most of them in China, where it originated.

“The flu kills people,” said acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering for conservative activists. “This is not Ebola. It’s not SARS, it’s not MERS. It’s not a death sentence, it’s not the same as the Ebola crisis.”

Mulvaney went on to accuse the news media of giving short shrift to administration efforts to combat the virus — namely, barring entry by most foreign nationals who had recently visited China — in favor of focusing on negative stories about Trump.

“Why didn’t you hear about it? What was still going on four or five weeks ago? Impeachment, that’s all the press wanted to talk about,” Mulvaney said. “The reason you’re seeing so much attention to it today is that they think this is going to be the thing that brings down the president. That’s what this is all about.”

The travel restrictions were widely covered in the news media.

Donald Trump Jr. embraced another unfounded conspiracy theory, claiming without evidence that Democrats were rooting for people to die.

“For them to take a pandemic and seemingly hope it comes here and kills millions of people so they can end Donald Trump’s streak of winning is a new level of sickness,” the president’s eldest son said on “Fox and Friends.”

The comment drew an immediate rebuke from Democrats, including Rep. John Garamendi of California, who said Trump Jr. should keep his distance after the “totally outrageous” comment because “there would be a serious altercation.”

The president has been consumed by the virus’ impact on Wall Street, peppering aides with questions about the markets and supply chains, according to three White House officials and Republicans close to the West Wing.

Even as the White House has ricocheted from scandal to controversy to tempest over the past three years, including the president’s impeachment, the nation’s economy has hummed steadily along, giving Republicans reason to stick with the president and bolstering Trump’s re-election chances.

While Trump remains confident in the economy, citing low unemployment numbers and growth in the GDP, he has told confidants that a recession or slowdown would be perilous to his presidency. His re-election campaign has built much of its messaging around a strong economy and it fears becoming vulnerable to attacks on that front.

This week’s relentless sell-off has demonstrated how little authority Trump holds over the stock market, undermining his previous claims to voters in speeches and tweets that repeated gains reflected his leadership.

Instead, the Trump administration’s words and actions have inspired little confidence among investors who are grappling with the costs and disruptions of the actions needed to contain the coronavirus. Investors have felt too afraid to hold out their hands and, in the parlance of traders, catch the falling knife that has been the U.S. stock market.

“We’re looking at a serious economic downturn because of coronavirus,” tweeted 2020 Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren, “and the Trump administration is bungling every aspect of this crisis.”

Global financial markets have been rattled by the virus outbreak that has been shutting down industrial centers, emptying shops and severely crimping travel all over the world. More companies are warning investors that their finances will take a hit because of disruptions to supply chains and sales. Governments are taking increasingly drastic measures as they scramble to contain the virus.

The rout has knocked every major index into what market watchers call a “correction,” or a fall of 10% or more from a peak. The last time that occurred was in late 2018, as a tariff war with China was escalating. Market watchers have said for months that stocks were overpriced and long overdue for another pullback.

Bond prices soared again as investors sought safety and became more pessimistic about the economy’s prospects. That pushed yields to more record lows. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell sharply, to 1.14% from 1.30% late Thursday. That’s a record low, according to TradeWeb. That yield is a benchmark for home mortgages and many other kinds of loans.

The sell-off follows months of uncertainty about the spread of the virus, which hit China in December and shut down large swaths of that nation by January. China is still the hardest hit country and has most of the 83,000 cases worldwide and related deaths.

Uncertainty turned into fear as the virus started jumping to places outside of the epicenter and dashed hopes for containment.

“Fear is a stronger emotion than hope,” said Ann Miletti, head of active equity at Wells Fargo Asset Management. “This is what we’re seeing today and this week and over the past seven days.”

Airlines have suffered some of the worst hits as flight routes are canceled, along with travel plans. Big names like Apple and Budweiser brewer AB InBev are part of a growing list of companies expecting financial pain from the virus. Dell and athletic-wear company Columbia Sportswear are the latest companies expecting an impact to their bottom lines.

Cruise operators have also been hard hit, with shares sinking 30% or more as shipboard infections rose. But those companies were having a far better day Friday, with some on Wall Street believing that the sell-off was overdone. Shares of Royal Caribbean Cruises rose 4.4%, while Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings gained 7.3%. Carnival’s shares climbed 5.1%.

A big concern investors have is that the stock market rout could have a psychological effect on consumers, making them reluctant to spend money and go to crowded places like stores, restaurants and movie theaters.

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