| CDC's 'disease detectives' are on the coronavirus case Posted: 01 Apr 2020 04:00 AM PDT  While the Washington State Department of Health had prepared a plan for the arrival of the virus in January, it assumed it still had weeks before the disease would reach the U.S. "In three days, the plan was trashed. We went through every step," Marcia Goldoft, a clinical epidemiologist with the Washington State DOH, told Yahoo News. "I don't think anyone involved has ever seen anything go this fast."
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| Angry Wuhan next-of-kin seek answers over virus handling Posted: 02 Apr 2020 12:42 AM PDT  Zhang took his elderly father to a Wuhan hospital for a surgical procedure in January, just as coronavirus was consuming the central Chinese city. Devastated and angry, Zhang is now demanding answers from a government that he accuses of incompetence and lying about the extent of the virus. Zhang says he has linked online with dozens of other people whose grief over lost loved ones is paired with anger.
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| PA Man ‘Upset Over Coronavirus’ Shoots Girlfriend Before Turning Gun on Himself: Cops Posted: 01 Apr 2020 10:54 AM PDT  A Pennsylvania man "extremely upset" about losing his job amidst the coronavirus pandemic allegedly shot his girlfriend, before turning the gun on himself in an attempted murder-suicide, authorities said Wednesday.The Wilson Borough Police Department said in a statement to The Daily Beast that Roderick Bliss IV, 38, attempted to fatally shoot his girlfriend with a semi-automatic pistol on Monday afternoon, before dying by suicide, after he "had become increasingly upset over the COVID-19 pandemic." The 43-year-old girlfriend, who was shot once in the back, survived the attack and is in St. Luke's hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. "In the days prior to the shooting, Bliss had become increasingly upset over the COVID-19 pandemic," police said. "Minutes before the shooting Bliss was extremely upset about the pandemic and the fact that he had recently lost his job."What if This Coronavirus Lockdown Is Only the Beginning?At around 1:20 p.m. on Monday, authorities responded to reports of "multiple shots fired with injuries" at Bliss' Wilson Borough home, about an hour outside of Philadelphia. Upon arrival, officers found Bliss "unresponsive and not breathing" and a semi-automatic pistol near his body. The Northampton County Coroner ruled Bliss' death a suicide.The girlfriend, who is alert, and other witnesses told police that Bliss had become upset that the pandemic—which has infected more than 206,200 people and killed 4,542 nationwide—cost him his job. Authorities said an enraged Bliss "went into the basement and came outside on to the rear porch" with a handgun. "While holding the handgun, Bliss told the victim, 'I already talked to God and I have to do this,'" police said. "The victim ran off of the porch and he shot at her four times striking her once. Bliss then shot himself."The attempted murder-suicide marks the latest example of the collateral damage of the coronavirus pandemic. Domestic violence experts and law enforcement believe domestic violence incidents will rise as families are forced into social isolation across the country.Judy Harris Kluger, executive director of Sanctuary for Families in New York, told The Daily Beast that, for some survivors of domestic violence, being able to leave their home is critical—and forced stay-at-home orders isolate them from the "social support system" that would have previously allowed them to report abuse. White House Trots Out Grim Death Models to Drive Home Social Distancing"Domestic violence is all about power and control and what a powerful tool it is to be able to say to somebody, 'You can't go out of this house, you have to be here,'" Kluger said. "Even though people can go out for certain things, this environment just engages in the most negative way the power of the abuser." Kluger said her organization, and several others across New York—the current epicenter of the outbreak in the United States—are anticipating an increase in domestic violence calls as the pandemic continues. A spokesperson for the National Domestic Violence Hotline said they haven't yet seen a significant increase in call volumes but were receiving an increase in calls related to COVID-19 and the anxiety of people being stuck in their homes. "Right now, the people who are at risk are very isolated," Kluger said, noting her organization is reaching out to former clients who might be at risk. "We are worried that we are going to see an uptick while this 'shelter-in-place' is in effect. Also, as the tension of the crisis rises, we anticipate people will begin reporting soon."But, even as the looming number of domestic violence cases threatens New York and other cities, the number of healthy police officers is also dwindling. New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Wednesday there were at least 1,400 officers who had tested positive for coronavirus, while about 17 percent had called out sick. Despite trying to police a city with a virus-related death toll of more than 1,000, Shea has previously stressed the NYPD is focused on domestic violence cases. "What I'm concerned about is, it's happening and it's not getting reported," Shea said Tuesday, noting that survivors may not be calling for help. "We've asked the domestic violence officers—you know who the people are in your commands, who are most vulnerable. Pick up the phone, pick up the computer keyboard and start communicating with them. Just make sure that things are OK."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Trump doubles U.S. military assets in Caribbean, bolstering drug fight after Maduro indictment Posted: 01 Apr 2020 02:07 PM PDT  The Trump administration said on Wednesday it was deploying more U.S. Navy warships and aircraft to the Caribbean to prevent drug cartels and "corrupt actors" like Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to smuggle more narcotics. President Donald Trump said he was doubling U.S. military resources in the region, including destroyers, surveillance planes and personnel, in an anti-drug crackdown to deal with what he called a "growing threat." The beefed-up operation - quickly dismissed by the Maduro government - will also call for sending Navy ships closer to Venezuela, according to a U.S. official and two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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| India’s coronavirus emergency just beginning as lockdown threatens to turn into human tragedy Posted: 31 Mar 2020 12:08 PM PDT  A week after Narendra Modi ordered the largest national lockdown the planet has ever seen and Delhi's Bhogal market is little quieter than usual. Rather than being confined to home to stop the spread of Covid-19, large groups of residents instead huddle together in the shade, drinking tea and playing cards. Street vendors continue to hawk fresh fruit and vegetables and the police watch as daily life in the capital's backstreets continues, apparently content to enforce movement restrictions only on the capital's major thoroughfares. The failure to abide by the prime minister's decree is due to necessity, rather than defiance, said Muhammad Asif, 21, a cycle-rickshaw driver scanning the crowd for customers. The three-week-long social distancing precautions ordered by Mr Modi are an unaffordable luxury for tens of millions of daily-wage labourers.
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| California appears to be flattening the curve. But its testing lags behind other states Posted: 02 Apr 2020 08:22 AM PDT  The state's testing delays have limited understanding of the outbreak and hindered containment * Coronavirus – latest US updates * Coronavirus – latest global updates * See all our coronavirus coverageCalifornia has not seen the surge in coronavirus cases that have overwhelmed cities like New York and Detroit in the past week, which suggests that the state's early and restrictive shelter-in-place orders could be slowing the virus's spread. But experts say delays in testing have limited the understanding of the outbreak and have hindered containment efforts.California implemented the earliest and strictest orders to stay at home in the United States in mid-March, and as of Wednesday, there were 8,584 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 183 deaths in the state compared with the 76,000 cases and 1,714 deaths in New York. Dr Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus taskforce coordinator, said on Tuesday that she was "reassured by what California has been able to do" to help control the virus with physical distancing orders.Some doctors have said California appears to be succeeding at "flattening the curve", meaning slowing the spread so hospitals have enough resources and workers to manage the number of cases. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, said on Tuesday that "the current modeling is on the lower end of our projection". Last month, Newsom had warned that more than half of the state could be infected within two weeks. "We are in a completely different place than the state of New York," Newsom said at a briefing on Wednesday. "And I hope we continue to be, but we won't unless people continue to practice physical distancing."Indeed, the state's early and ambitious efforts to enforce shelter-in-place rules do seem to have prevented hospitals from becoming as overwhelmed as New York's system, Robert Siegel, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University, told the Guardian. "But it's difficult to accurately know the impact of your interventions if you don't have adequate testing," he said.As of Tuesday, more than 86,100 tests had been administered in the state, and of those, 57,400 results were still pending. By comparison, New York, which has about half the population of California, has processed more than 200,000 tests. Washington state, which has less than a fifth of California's population, has processed 65,462 tests.Testing efforts in California have been set back due to a lack of swabs, vials and media for collecting patient samples, as well as a shortage of kits and bottlenecks at labs.Across the state, tests are in short supply and currently largely limited to people with severe symptoms and those with underlying health conditions, meaning large swaths of the state's population are left untested. "The general idea is that if somebody that has been to the hospital, and they have symptoms, then you assume they're infected," said Siegel. But by testing more, doctors and health officials could be more strategic and selective about who they isolate, he noted.Administering more than one type of test could also help California, and the country as a whole, better understand how the coronavirus spreads through communities. The tests being used in the US detect for the presence of viral RNA. Another type of test – called a serology or antibody test – can help detect if a person's immune system has faced off against Covid-19 and recovered from it. Antibody tests are not currently being done in the US. "It's really important to test for immunity," Siegel said, because people who are immune could return to work without endangering themselves or others. "They could more safely work as frontline healthcare providers," Siegel said.Wendy Parmet, a Northeastern University health policy expert, said the testing problems made tracking the virus challenging: "You need testing to make sure you quickly identify new outbreaks and trace contacts. Put out the small sparks before they become another conflagration." The lack of adequate testing could drag out the sheltering period, she said. "Many of the plans of how you go from where we are now to the next stage rely on testing," she said.A bottleneck in the commercial laboratory Quest Diagnostics, which is processing tests, has further exacerbated California's challenges. Despite initial promises of delivering results within one to two days, the private lab in southern California, which has received tests from hospitals across the country, has not been able to ramp up processing fast enough, meaning some healthcare professionals have had to wait more than a week for results.And although some in Silicon Valley are working on testing solutions, efforts in the international tech hub have been slow and largely unsuccessful."Why California would be lagging I really don't know," Siegel said. "Especially because it does strike me that we do have a lot of experts."South Korea's widespread testing of its population, including people who did not have symptoms but might be at risk of spreading, played a major role in allowing the country to control the virus with significantly less disruption than other nations. Widespread, random testing in Iceland has similarly helped epidemiologists better understand how the virus affects people – data from the country found that half of those who tested positive are non-symptomatic, and overall a low population had been infected.The test shortage not only prevents people suspected of having Covid-19 from getting a diagnosis and being counted and traced, it also hampers officials' efforts to prevent an outbreak in the most vulnerable and high-risk communities.California has the largest homeless population in the US, with 40,000 people living in crowded shelters where advocates say testing access has improved over the last week, but continues to fall short."It's impeding the ability of shelters to identify people who have been infected with the virus and remove them from this incredibly dangerous environment, where the virus has the potential to spread like wildfire," said Eve Garrow, the homelessness policy analyst with the ACLU of Southern California. She argued that all residents and staff should be tested, and noted that she recently heard from one shelter resident who has a fever, but was unable to get a test.> You need testing to make sure you quickly identify new outbreaks and trace contacts. Put out the small sparks before they become another conflagration> > Wendy ParmetAt one shelter at Skid Row in Los Angeles, where an employee tested positive this week, staff have isolated more than 100 people who may have been exposed, and are working to test as many people as they can. "They were slow to come … but hopefully we get enough tests," said the Rev Andy Bales, who runs the shelter. He said he hoped health officials would provide enough tests for those potentially exposed and residents with symptoms."In New York, they were more aggressive about testing," Siegel said. "We in California moved ahead with aggressive public health interventions in the absence of testing." And although testing is crucial, ultimately, distancing measures are more important, he said, adding that California will probably have many more cases, especially in big cities, as testing ramps up. Still, Siegel doesn't think the state will follow New York's pattern.Parmet said when federal and state leaders tout California's progress, it could encourage people to stay home and distance and pressure other jurisdictions to follow suit: "It's important for people to see that there are possibilities, that efforts can make a difference."
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| Iran parliament speaker, Israeli health minister have virus Posted: 01 Apr 2020 10:02 PM PDT  Iran's parliament speaker has contracted the coronavirus, the country's highest-ranking government figure yet to catch the disease, while in Israel, several top officials entered quarantine when the health minister tested positive on Thursday. Iran's parliament announced Ali Larijani's illness on its website, saying he was receiving treatment in quarantine. Iran, the regional epicenter of the coronavirus, has been fighting one of the world's worst outbreaks.
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| Chinese Doctor Disappears after Blowing the Whistle on Coronavirus Threat Posted: 01 Apr 2020 01:20 PM PDT  Wuhan doctor Ai Fen, who expressed early concerns about the coronavirus to the media, has disappeared and is believed detained by Chinese authorities.Fen, the head of emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital, was given a warning after she disseminated information about the coronavirus to several other doctors. She recounted the reprimand in an essay titled, "The one who supplied the whistle," which was published in China's People (Renwu) magazine. The article has since been removed.The reprimand from her boss came after Fen took a photo of a patient's positive test results and circled the words 'SARS coronavirus' in red.She brought several cases of coronavirus to the attention of her colleagues, eight of whom were later called in by police for revealing information about the respiratory illness, according to Radio Free Asia. One, opthalmologist Li Wenliang, warned fellow med school grads to wear protective clothing, an early warning that was condemned by authorities as "rumormongering." Wenliang eventually died from the virus himself.Fen's social media account on the Chinese platform Weibo has been updated several times since her disappearance, although Chinese authorities have been known to update detainees' social media accounts or order them to do so themselves. On Wednesday, a post appeared on her account reading "Happy April Fools Day," with a picture of her in a lab coat and mask.About two weeks ago, a post appeared on Fen's account reading, "Thank you for your care and love. I'm fine at the moment and I'm still working."However, Fen's whereabouts are now unknown, 60 Minutes Australia reported Monday.China has confirmed a total of 81,554 infections and 3,312 deaths from the coronavirus.However, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report Wednesday that China deliberately provided incomplete public numbers for coronavirus cases and deaths resulting from the infection. In December, local and national officials issued a gag order to labs in Wuhan after scientists there identified a new viral pneumonia, ordering them to halt tests, destroy samples, and conceal the news.
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| North Korea insists it is free of coronavirus Posted: 02 Apr 2020 04:01 AM PDT  North Korea remains totally free of the coronavirus, a senior health official in Pyongyang has insisted, despite mounting scepticism overseas as confirmed global infections near one million. The already isolated, nuclear-armed North quickly shut down its borders after the virus was first detected in neighbouring China in January, and imposed strict containment measures. Pak Myong Su, director of the anti-epidemic department of the North's Central Emergency Anti-epidemic Headquarters, insisted that the efforts had been completely successful.
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| Pausing the World to Fight Coronavirus Has Carbon Emissions Down—But True Climate Success Looks Like More Action, Not Less Posted: 01 Apr 2020 10:55 AM PDT  Even if carbon emissions are down due to COVID-19, true climate success doesn't look anything like today's situation
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| Brazil: Amazon land defender Zezico Guajajara shot dead Posted: 02 Apr 2020 04:16 AM PDT  Zezico Guajajara is the latest activist to be killed in a campaign to protect Brazil's indigenous land.
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| China's Shenzhen bans the eating of cats and dogs after coronavirus Posted: 01 Apr 2020 09:41 PM PDT  The Chinese city of Shenzhen has banned the eating of dogs and cats as part of a wider clampdown on the wildlife trade since the emergence of the new coronavirus. Scientists suspect the coronavirus passed to humans from animals. Authorities in the southern Chinese technology hub said the ban on eating dogs and cats would come into force on May 1.
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| Army attack helicopters teamed up with Navy ships to practice holding enemies 'at high risk' in the Middle East Posted: 02 Apr 2020 06:33 AM PDT  The operations were designed to enhance the capabilities of US forces to respond to surface threats.
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| Duterte vows to 'shoot dead' lockdown violators as unrest grows in Philippines Posted: 02 Apr 2020 12:46 AM PDT  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has told security forces they should shoot dead anyone causing "trouble" in areas locked down due to the coronavirus pandemic. About half the country's roughly 110 million people are currently under quarantine - including millions in deep poverty, left jobless by tough restrictions on movement. Hours before Duterte gave the order in a speech late Wednesday, nearly two dozen people from a slum community in the capital Manila were arrested for holding a protest that accused the government of failing to provide food aid to the poor. "My orders are to the police and military, also village officials, that if there is trouble or the situation arises that people fight and your lives are on the line, shoot them dead," Duterte said. "Instead of causing trouble, I'll send you to the grave," he said, adding that the outbreak is getting worse more than two weeks into the lockdown.
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| 28 University of Texas students test positive for coronavirus after Mexico spring break trip, officials say Posted: 01 Apr 2020 07:50 AM PDT  Officials said a group of about 70 people in their 20s departed on a chartered plane to Cabo San Lucas about a week and a half ago.
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| Japan expands ban on visitors as virus cases climb Posted: 31 Mar 2020 05:46 PM PDT  Japan will bar visitors from the United States, China and most of Europe, the prime minister said Wednesday, as the country seeks to stem a recent rise in coronavirus cases. The entry ban, which will also apply to Australia, Britain, South Korea and many Southeast Asia countries, will take effect on Friday, Shinzo Abe's government said. Japan had already barred arrivals from parts of several European nations, China and South Korea.
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| Dr Fauci: security reportedly expanded as infectious disease expert faces threats Posted: 01 Apr 2020 07:46 PM PDT  Reports say immunologist who has become celebrity amid coronavirus has received unwelcome messages from critics and supportersSecurity for Dr Anthony Fauci, the 79-year-old infectious disease expert who has become a calm, reassuring foil to Donald Trump at coronavirus briefings, has been expanded, according to multiple reports.While Fauci's straight talk and willingness to gently correct the president's outrageous exaggerations have drawn admiration from late-night talkshow hosts, professional basketball players and doughnut shop owners alike, the doctor has received threats and unwelcome communications from both critics and fervent admirers. The Washington Post first reported the news.At a coronavirus taskforce briefing at the White House on Wednesday, Fauci declined to comment on whether he was receiving security protection, deferring to the health department's inspector general.Trump interjected, saying that Fauci "doesn't need security, everybody loves him". If anyone were to attack Fauci, Trump added, "they'd be in big trouble", touting the disease expert's high school athletic career."He was a great basketball player, did anybody know that?" Trump said. "He was a little on the short side for the NBA but he was talented." As basketball captain at Regis high school in 1958, Fauci had helped lead the team to an unlikely victory.Asked to comment on any increase in Fauci's security detail, Tesia Williams, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokeswoman, said: "For more than two decades, the office of inspector general has provided professional protective services for the HHS secretary and, as needed, to departmental leadership. In each case, OIG assesses and recommends the appropriate level of protection. I cannot confirm, at this time, that we are providing such services for Dr Fauci."The immunologist has become an unlikely celebrity, representing the US scientific community facing off against the coronavirus pandemic. The NBA star Stephen Curry has called him "the Goat" – greatest of all time. Fans have plastered his likeness on cupcakes, doughnuts, socks and prayer candles.But Fauci has also become a public target for rightwing pundits and bloggers who believe he is undermining the president. An article in the rightwing outlet American Thinker called Fauci a "Deep-State Hillary Clinton-loving stooge", and referred to a seven-year-old email in which he praised Clinton for her stamina through the Benghazi hearings. Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, a conservative group; and Bill Mitchell, host of the far-right online talkshow YourVoice America, have also reinforced Fauci criticisms and conspiracy theories.
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| How to figure out if your student loan qualifies for coronavirus relief Posted: 02 Apr 2020 04:00 AM PDT  Among the provisions of the coronavirus stimulus package is payment relief until after Sept. 30. But it doesn't apply to all types of student loans.
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| Trump says he doesn’t want a nationwide stay-at-home order because some states don’t have a high number of coronavirus cases Posted: 01 Apr 2020 04:42 PM PDT  At the coronavirus task force briefing, President Trump said he didn't want to issue a nationwide stay-at-home order to fight the pandemic because there are some states that don't have a large number of positive coronavirus cases.
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| South Korea's coronavirus crackdown a boon for Moon ahead of polls Posted: 01 Apr 2020 08:20 PM PDT |
| Pakistan court overturns conviction in death of Daniel Pearl Posted: 01 Apr 2020 11:49 PM PDT  A Pakistani court on Thursday overturned the murder conviction of a British Pakistani man found guilty of the 2002 kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Instead, the court found Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh guilty of the lesser charge of kidnapping and sentenced him to seven years in prison. Pearl disappeared Jan. 23, 2002 in Karachi while researching links between Pakistani militants and Richard C. Reid, who became known as the "shoe-bomber" after he was arrested on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives in his shoes.
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| Iran warns of months of crisis as virus deaths reach 3,160 Posted: 02 Apr 2020 04:18 AM PDT  Iran on Thursday reported 124 new deaths from the coronavirus, raising its total to 3,160, as President Rouhani warned that the country may still battle the pandemic for another year. Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour announced the latest toll in a news conference and confirmed 3,111 new infections over the past 24 hours, bringing Iran's total to 50,468. Iran has been scrambling to contain the COVID-19 outbreak since it reported its first cases on February 19.
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| Trump: There Would Be ‘Death All Over’ If We’d Decided to Just ‘Ride It Out’ Posted: 31 Mar 2020 04:37 PM PDT  After spending weeks downplaying the threat of the novel coronavirus, President Trump on Tuesday admitted that at least 100,000 Americans will likely die but said it would have been worse if he had listened to some people he claimed had great "common sense" who wanted to "just ride it out."It was not immediately clear who he was referring to, but the president himself had been pushing to loosen restrictions over the virus until just days ago, having suggested as recently as last week that, despite fatalities from the coronavirus health crisis growing, Americans could start to get back to normal by Easter since "we never turn the country off" for the flu.By Tuesday night, however, after being shown potential death toll predictions by health officials, Trump abruptly took on a grave tone to warn of a "very, very painful" next few weeks."I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead," Trump said. "We're going to go through a very tough two weeks. And then hopefully, as the experts are predicting, as I think a lot of us are predicting after having studied it so hard, you're going to start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel. But this is going to be a very painful, very, very painful two weeks," he said, before going on to take credit for saving millions of lives with measures that he had frequently come out against. Just over a week ago, Trump began calling for re-opening the country in time for Easter, repeatedly comparing the deadly coronavirus to the seasonal flu and suggesting that Americans could return to work and practice social distancing there. He went on to dismiss desperate pleas for medical equipment from local authorities, suggesting they did not really "need" all the life-saving machines they were asking for. His comments and his suggested April 12 time-frame immediately sparked criticism, and governors dealing with the virus in their respective states pushed back on his plans. By Sunday, after a surge of deaths across the nation, the president had backed away from that vision. And at Tuesday's briefing, he appeared to pat himself on the back for following the protective measures, suggesting that some unnamed group of people had recommended doing nothing but he hadn't listened to them. "What would have happened if we did nothing? Because there was a group that said, 'Let's just ride it out,'" he said, noting that even some people with "common sense" had offered such a recommendation. If that had been the case, he said, 2.2 million people would have died in a short span. Trump: I'm Doing a Great Job Fighting the Coronavirus, and 100,000 of You Will Die"Now, I don't think that would have been possible because you would have had people dying all over the place," Trump said. "This would not have been a normal life. How many people have even seen anybody die? You would have seen people dying on airplanes. You would have been seeing people dying in hotel lobbies. You would have seen death all over." Trump also emphasized that the virus is "not the flu," despite his own constant comparisons to the flu when discussing the pandemic a little over a week ago. "We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu," Trump said during a virtual Fox News town hall on March 24. "We don't turn the country off. Every year.""But it's not the flu," Trump said Tuesday. "It's vicious." Before the briefing was over, Trump's warning about the next two weeks had grown to three weeks. "This could be a hell of a bad two weeks," Trump said. "This is going to be a very bad two, and maybe even three weeks. This is going to be three weeks like we haven't seen before." Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Black, Asian and Hispanic House caucus chairs unite in 'no tolerance' for coronavirus racism Posted: 31 Mar 2020 03:08 PM PDT  Rep. Judy Chu, head of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, said about 100 hate incidents a day have been directed at Asian Americans.
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| Coronavirus: US Navy captain pleads for help over outbreak Posted: 31 Mar 2020 04:00 PM PDT  The captain warns of an "accelerating" coronavirus outbreak on his aircraft carrier docked in Guam.
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| Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte orders police to 'shoot dead' any 'troublemakers' who break quarantine Posted: 02 Apr 2020 07:34 AM PDT  Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the police and military to "shoot dead" any "troublemakers" who cause disturbances during the coronavirus quarantine in the Philippines, The Philippine Star reports. The move comes after protestors staged demonstrations over the lack of food and financial aid they've received from the government since the lockdown began in the country on March 17."I will not hesitate [to tell] my soldiers to shoot you. I will not hesitate to order the police to arrest and detain you," said Duterte in his address, adding: "Instead of causing trouble, I'll send you to the grave." The president is infamous for his alleged violations of human rights, previously drawing the fury of the international community over his order for vigilante hit squads to murder suspected drug dealers without due process.Amnesty International condemned Duterte's new statements. "The abusive methods used to punish those accused of breaching quarantine and the vast number of mass arrests that have been carried out to date, against mainly poor people, are further examples of the oppressive approach the government takes against those struggling with basic needs," said the organization's local section director, Butch Olano.The human rights NGO added that more than 17,000 people have already been arrested for violations of the lockdown and curfew in the Philippines, and that "reports have also appeared of inhumane punishments those breaching quarantine have been made to endure, including sitting for hours in the hot sun or being detained in dog cages."More stories from theweek.com Experts warn as many as 1 in 3 coronavirus test results may be incorrectly negative The Secret Service signed an 'emergency order' this week — for 30 golf carts Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp apparently just found out coronavirus can transmit asymptomatically
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| India PM plans staggered exit from vast coronavirus lockdown Posted: 02 Apr 2020 01:40 AM PDT  India will pull out of a three-week lockdown in phases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday, as officials battle to contain the country's biggest cluster of coronavirus infections in the capital, New Delhi. Modi ordered India's 1.3 billion people indoors to avert a massive outbreak of coronavirus infections, but the world's biggest shutdown has left millions without jobs and forced migrant workers to flee to their villages for food and shelter. India has had 2,069 confirmed infections, of whom 53 have died, low figures by comparison with the United States, China, Italy and Spain.
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| 10 major news events no one paid attention to last week because of the coronavirus pandemic Posted: 31 Mar 2020 02:39 PM PDT  The coronavirus pandemic has been dominating headlines for months. Here are 10 major world events that you may have missed out on last week.
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| Iran warns US after Patriot deployment to Iraq Posted: 01 Apr 2020 03:06 AM PDT  Iran warned the US Wednesday that it was leading the Middle East to disaster in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic after it deployed Patriot air defence missiles to Iraq. Washington had been in talks with Baghdad about the proposed deployment since January but it was not immediately clear whether it had secured its approval or not. Iran, which wields huge influence in its western neighbour, said that it had not.
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| Los Angeles mayor tells 4 million to wear masks Posted: 01 Apr 2020 10:02 PM PDT  The mayor of Los Angeles urged 4 million residents to wear masks to combat the coronavirus when they walk out in public, even as state health officials shied away from requiring a coverup. Homemade cloth masks, or even a "tucked-in bandanna," will help reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the nation's second-largest city and remind people to practice safe social distancing, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday as he donned a black cloth mask to make his point. Garcetti also said people should only use masks when they are going out to shop for food or perform other essential tasks.
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| China Rejects U.S. Intelligence Claim It Hid Virus Numbers Posted: 02 Apr 2020 02:01 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- China rejected the American intelligence community's conclusion that Beijing concealed the extent of the coronavirus epidemic, and accused the U.S. of seeking to shift the blame for its own handling of the outbreak.Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying on Thursday defended as "open and transparent" China's response to the virus first identified in December in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. She was responding to a Bloomberg News report saying that the U.S. intelligence community had concluded in a classified report to the White House that Beijing under-reported both total cases and deaths from the disease."Some U.S. officials just want to shift the blame," Hua told a regular briefing in Beijing. "Actually we don't want to fall into an argument with them, but faced with such repeated moral slander by them, I feel compelled to take some time and clarify the truth again."Hua questioned the speed of the U.S.'s response to the virus after banning arrivals from China on Feb. 2. "Can anyone tell us what the U.S. has done in the following two months?" she said.China's public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing three officials, who asked not to be identified because the report is secret. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China's numbers are fake. The report was received by the White House last week, one of the officials said.Since China first disclosed a new form of pneumonia on Dec. 31, the country has publicly reported about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That compares with more than 189,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the U.S., which has the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he hadn't received an intelligence report saying Beijing had concealed the outbreak, but that their statistics appeared low. "Their numbers seem to be a little bit on the light side, and I'm being nice when I say that," he said at a daily coronavirus briefing at the White House.Trump added that the U.S. and China were in constant communication and that Beijing would spend $250 billion to purchase American products. "We'd like to keep it, they'd like to keep it" he said of the U.S.-China trade deal.Communications staff at the White House and the Chinese embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.'More Forthcoming'"The reality is that we could have been better off if China had been more forthcoming," Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday on CNN. "What appears evident now is that long before the world learned in December that China was dealing with this, and maybe as much as a month earlier than that, that the outbreak was real in China."While China eventually imposed lockdowns and mass quarantines, and set up fever clinics to slow the virus's spread, skepticism toward its numbers has lingered. The Chinese government has repeatedly revised its methodology for counting cases and for weeks excluded people without symptoms entirely. Only on Tuesday it added more than 1,500 asymptomatic cases to its total.Stacks of thousands of urns outside funeral homes in Hubei province have driven public doubt in Beijing's reporting."The claim that the United States has more coronavirus deaths than China is false," Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, said in a statement after Bloomberg News published its report. "Without commenting on any classified information, this much is painfully obvious: The Chinese Communist Party has lied, is lying, and will continue to lie about coronavirus to protect the regime."Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have been particularly harsh about China's role in the outbreak. Emphasizing Beijing's responsibility for the pandemic could be politically helpful to Trump, who has sought to shift blame for the U.S. outbreak away from his administration's delays in achieving widespread testing for the virus and mobilizing greater production of supplies such as face masks and hospital ventilators.In her remarks Thursday, Hua lashed out at U.S. politicians who keep attacking China."We'd like to provide support and help to them as our capacity allows," Hua said. "However, these comments by those U.S. politicians are just shameless and morally repulsive, and these slanders, smears and blame games cannot make up for the lost time, but will only cost more lost time and lives."Deborah Birx, the U.S. State Department immunologist advising the White House on its response to the outbreak, said Tuesday that China's public reporting influenced assumptions elsewhere in the world about the nature of the virus."The medical community made -- interpreted the Chinese data as: This was serious, but smaller than anyone expected," she said at a news conference on Tuesday. "Because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data, now that what we see happened to Italy and see what happened to Spain."U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has publicly urged China and other nations to be transparent about their outbreaks. He has repeatedly accused China of covering up the extent of the problem and being slow to share information, especially in the weeks after the virus first emerged, and blocking offers of help from American experts."This data set matters," he said at a news conference in Washington on Tuesday. The development of medical therapies and public-health measures to combat the virus "so that we can save lives depends on the ability to have confidence and information about what has actually transpired," Pompeo said.(Updates with foreign ministry comments in third)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| McConnell Urges Pelosi to Abandon Effort to Use Coronavirus Relief Bill to Achieve Unrelated Policy Goals Posted: 02 Apr 2020 06:40 AM PDT  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissed attempts by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to spearhead talks about a fourth coronavirus relief bill, saying that she should "stand down" on the proposal."She needs to stand down on the notion that we're going to go along with taking advantage of the crisis to do things that are unrelated to the crisis," McConnell said, calling the speaker's suggestions about fourth relief bill "premature."The Senate majority leader's remarks come a week after Congress passed a massive $2 trillion stimulus package to offset the economic destruction caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which continues to spread across the country, causing businesses to shutter and lay off workers.The historic bill, the third coronavirus-related spending bill passed by Congress, provides $367 billion in loans to help small businesses keep making payroll, $100 billion for hospitals, and $150 billion for state and local governments.The plan also provides for Americans who make up to $75,000 to receive a one-time payment of $1,200.A $500 billion fund earmarked for corporations that have been economically damaged by the pandemic will be overseen by an inspector general and a congressional panel, in accordance with Democrats' demands. The previous two emergency bills included free coronavirus testing, more funds for states, a mandate that businesses expand paid sick leave, and funds for medical supplies and vaccine research.In a rare echoing of President Trump, Pelosi has said she would like to see an infrastructure investment in the next coronavirus spending bill to the tune of $760 billion, as well as $10 billion for health centers and housing programs. The speaker said Wednesday that her plan is "probably in the same ballpark" as the president's."The victims of the coronavirus pandemic cannot wait," Pelosi said in a statement responding to McConnell, adding that she hopes both sides in Congress can work together on the next relief legislation. "It is moving faster than the leader may have suspected, and even he has said that some things should wait for the next bill."McConnell maintained that spending vigilance was necessary on both sides, especially after the $2 trillion relief bill."We do have to be mindful of how to pay for it. There has been a lot of fantasizing on both sides about massive packages," McConnell said. "We'd all love to do it, but there is the reality of how you pay for it. We just passed a $2 trillion bill, and it would take a lot of convincing to convince me that we should do transportation in a way that's not credibly paid for after what we just passed last week."
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| Boeing announces voluntary layoff plan Posted: 02 Apr 2020 06:14 AM PDT  Boeing unveiled a voluntary worker layoff program Thursday, telling employees that it hoped to avoid "other workforce actions" as the aviation industry reels from the coronavirus crisis. The initiative was announced by Boeing Chief Executive David Calhoun, who said such belt-tightening was needed amid the hit to the industry caused by the pandemic. Boeing's financial picture was already a bit cloudy prior to the coronavirus outbreak because of the crisis surrounding the 737 MAX, which has been grounded for more than a year following two fatal crashes.
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| 6-week-old in Connecticut dies from COVID-19 complications Posted: 02 Apr 2020 05:33 AM PDT  A 6-week-old has died after contracting coronavirus, becoming one of the youngest recorded deaths from COVID-19.
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