In an effort to try to prevent importing new cases of the coronavirus, Spain is requiring people arriving from abroad to go into quarantine for two weeks. The country has started to emerge from a seven-week, strict lockdown after an explosion of cases made it one of the world’s COVID-19 hot spots. A health ministry order published Tuesday said the quarantine rules will go into effect on Friday and will apply both to visitors from other countries as well as Spanish citizens who are returning home. People will be allowed only to go grocery shopping or to seek medical care during the 14-day period. China instituted a similar strategy as it saw its locally transmitted cases sharply decline and authorities began easing lockdown restrictions. Governments all over the world are currently weighing their strategies and whether it is time to impose new measures to stop the spread of the virus or allow people to resume parts of normal life. In Singapore, Tuesday brought a new phase in reopening with people allowed to get a haircut, visit bakeries or go to laundromats. India is resuming some train service Tuesday for the first time since March. Passengers must pass temperature checks and adhere to social distancing guidelines. South Korean authorities are worried about a resurgence of cases and are working to track down people who recently visited nightclubs in Seoul where a cluster of new infections has emerged.Quarantine workers spray disinfectants at night spots of Itaewon neighborhood, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Seoul, South Korea, May 11, 2020.Officials said Tuesday teams are using phone and credit card data to try to track down about 2,000 more people so they can be tested. So far, there are more than 100 confirmed cases linked to nightclubs. So-called contact tracing has been a major element as governments try to stop the spread of the coronavirus by finding who may have been close enough to someone who has tested positive. Those people can then be tested themselves, and isolated if necessary. Testing is a big focus in the United States, with the Trump administration saying about 9 million people have been tested and that the capacity for more tests is increasing. A senior administration official told reporters that a new antigen test will speed up the testing process further because it looks only for the presence of the viral protein in the nose, unlike the more complicated and time-consuming nucleic acid tests. “The machines for these tests — there are already 20,000 of them out in the United States because they’re a commonly used platform for things like flu testing and strep throat,” the official said. The World Health Organization is advising nations to ensure that the pandemic is under control before reopening. WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that countries should also have surveillance systems in place to be able to detect and manage any resurgence of cases and ensure that their health systems can cope with a possible resurgence after reopening. He also said there are about seven or eight of what he called “top” vaccine candidates among the many currently being developed around the world. He said that while several months ago experts expected the process of getting a vaccine ready for public use would take 12 to 18 months, there are efforts to accelerate that process with the support of $8 billion in pledges made last week. Worldwide, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases is about 4.2 million. The global death tally is more than 286,000, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.
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Month: May 2020
Supreme Court to Hear Cases Involving Trump’s Financial Records
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments Tuesday on appeals of three lower court decisions involving subpoenas of President Donald Trump’s tax and financial records. Trump filed legal challenges to subpoenas issued last year by several House of Representatives committees and a New York district attorney. The subpoenas seek financial information from the accounting firm Mazars as well as Deutsche Bank and Capital One. Trump has sought to keep his personal and corporate financial information private, including breaking with decades of tradition of presidential candidates releasing tax returns. Lower court decisions have so far gone against Trump, but the records have remained private pending the Supreme Court appeal. The records requests focus on two issues. One issue is the work of congressional committees to examine unlawful activity in the banking system such as money laundering, whether there is adequate regulation and if new legislation is needed. The other issue is the examination of Trump and his business in connection with payments made to Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen to prevent two women from publicly discussing their claims of having extramarital affairs with Trump.President Donald Trump walks on the colonnade to speak about the coronavirus during a press briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House, Monday, May 11, 2020, in Washington.Supreme Court justices are specifically examining whether the House committees had the constitutional and statutory authority to issue subpoenas to third parties demanding the personal records of the president. Trump’s legal team has argued lawmakers should have to identify a legitimate legislative purpose for seeking the president’s financial information. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in December that the committees have sufficiently identified their purposes. “The Committees’ interests in pursuing their constitutional legislative function is a far more significant public interest than whatever public interest inheres in avoiding the risk of a Chief Executive’s distraction arising from disclosure of documents reflecting his private financial transactions,” Judge Jon O. Newman said in writing for the majority. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the nine Supreme Court justices are hearing the cases by telephone. They are likely to issue their rulings next month.
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Fauci: ‘Danger of Multiple Outbreaks’ if Country Opens Prematurely
A top U.S. health official says he will express to a congressional committee Tuesday the dangers of lifting coronavirus restrictions too quickly. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, told the New York Times his main message to lawmakers will be that if the country skips over checkpoints in a three-phase White House plan, “then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country.” “This will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal,” Fauci said. Health officials have warned for weeks that easing stay-at-home restrictions and allowing businesses to resume operations too quickly could lead to a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, both endangering public health and harming the Trump administration’s push to kickstart economic activity.People make preparations for reopening at Vesta Coffee Roasters, Friday, May 8, 2020, in Las Vegas. Nevada.The White House plan outlines several recommendations for states as they consider how to ease restrictions, including that they should show a downward trajectory in positive tests and a two-week fall in documented cases, as well as strong systems for tracing the contacts of those who test positive. Fauci is one of four top officials set to appear Tuesday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for a hearing titled “Safely Getting Back to Work and Back to School.” Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, and the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Stephen Hahn, along with Fauci, are giving their testimony remotely because they are self-isolating after having contact with a White House staffer who has tested positive for COVID-19. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, is also participating in the meeting. The United States has more than 1.3 million confirmed cases and 80,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.
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Senegal Eases COVID Restrictions Tuesday, a Day After Surge in Cases
Senegalese President Macky Sall says the West African country will begin reopening mosques and churches Tuesday and ease other restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus. Sall announced the easing of the restrictions on Monday after Senegal registered a more than 30 percent jump in cases from the previous day, the largest one day increase in cases.Senegal’s President Macky Sall leaves after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and other state leaders at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Wednesday May 15, 2019.President Sall said along with relaxing the state of emergency measures on Tuesday, curfew hours will be from 9pm to 5am, instead of 8pm to 6am. He said markets and other businesses previously restricted to opening on certain days will be now open six days and closed one day for cleaning. So far, Senegal has reported 1,886 coronavirus cases and 19 deaths.
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US, Britain, Russia Plan Return to Work Despite Continued Epidemic
The United States, Britain and Russia are preparing to return their people to work despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday the country is conducting about 300,000 coronavirus tests a day and will soon pass a total of 10 million tests conducted, which he said was more than any other country. A senior administration official told reporters that a new antigen test, approved by a company called Quidel, will speed up the testing process further because this test looks only for the presence of the viral protein in the nose, unlike the more complicated and time-consuming nucleic acid tests. “The machines for these tests — there are already 20,000 of them out in the United States because they’re a commonly used platform for things like flu testing and strep throat,” the official said. The administration expects about 9 million new tests to be available every month.Materials for COVD-19 testing from Abbott Laboratories, U.S. Cotton, and Puritan are displayed as President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus during a press briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 11, 2020.The White House shifted focus from reopening the country to testing after two West Wing aides tested positive for the coronavirus. Trump wants to reopen the country as soon as possible to halt the growing unemployment, which has already reached historic proportions, with more than 30 million people losing their jobs since mid-March. Some state governors have made testing one of the conditions for returning people to work. The United States tops the world with about 1,350,000 confirmed COVID cases and more than 80,000 coronavirus-related deaths. But many states are reopening or planning to do so, including the worst-hit New York and New Jersey. Britain, which ranks third in the world in the number of infections — close to 225,000 — and second in the number of deaths — more than 32,000 — also is taking steps to return people to work, even though infected people are still dying in thousands by day. Labor unions and leaders of the independent regions of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are balking at the three-step plan that Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled Sunday. Johnson spent Monday defending what he called his “baby-steps” approach to reopening the country, and he answered questions from the media and the public. Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that the non-working period ends May 12 even though the country reported 11,656 new cases over the past 24 hours, a record number so far. In a televised address Monday, Putin told the nation that “it is in the interest of all of us for the economy to return to normal quickly.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, addresses the nation via video conference at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Russia, May 11, 2020.Russia reported a total of more than 221,000 COVID cases on Monday and 2,009 coronavirus deaths. Putin said the ultimate decision on reopening remains with local governors, who he said can reinstate shutdowns if necessary. He said the doctors will have a final say. Putin said all sectors should return to work starting with construction, agriculture and energy. Worldwide, many countries have relaxed COVID restrictions with mixed results. New Zealand is set to further ease measures Thursday, after no new cases emerged during the first phase of reopening. Its people are now allowed to go to restaurants, movie theaters and malls. But South Korea, Germany and China have seen a resurgence of cases after easing lockdowns. The World Health Organization is advising nations to ensure that the epidemic is under control before reopening. WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that countries should also have surveillance systems in place to be able to detect and manage any resurgence of cases and ensure that their health systems can cope with a possible resurgence after reopening. Worldwide, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases is more than 4.2 million. The global death tally is more than 285,000, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.
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US to Accuse China of Hacking COVID-19 Vaccine Research
For months, U.S. officials have been warning about a spike in cyberattacks during the coronavirus pandemic, but they’ve stopped short of pointing fingers at any one country. Now, as the all-out global race for a coronavirus vaccine accelerates and hackers home in on related scientific research, U.S. officials are preparing to single out a long-standing cyber adversary: China. In a joint warning slated for the coming days, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security reportedly plan to publicly accuse China of seeking to pilfer U.S. research related to coronavirus vaccines, treatments and tests. Tab Bradshaw, CEO of Redpoint Cybersecurity and a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s advanced information sharing working group, confirmed the planned warning in an interview Monday. “I think it’s what should be happening,” Bradshaw told VOA. “It’s a political move to call out the Chinese Communist government and to state to the world that they’re actively trying to steal U.S. technology.” The FBI did not have a comment. DHS did not respond to a request for comment.The U.S. has long branded China along with Russia, North Korea and Iran as a major source of cyberattacks, accusing Beijing of pilfering U.S. intellectual property in a bid to gain a competitive edge over the United States.FILE – President Donald Trump speaks during a signing ceremony of the “Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act,” in the Oval Office of the White House, Nov. 16, 2018, in Washington.“What else is new with China? Tell me,” President Donald Trump said during a White House press briefing when asked about the report of alleged Chinese theft of vaccine research. Publicly accusing China of seeking to steal proprietary research related to COVID-19 vaccines is likely to exacerbate tensions between Beijing and Washington as the Trump administration continues to pin the blame for the pandemic on China where it originated, and for failing to act quickly enough to warn other countries and block the spread of the coronavirus. The FBI-DHS warning comes on the heels of a joint alert issued last week by U.S. and British cyber officials. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Britain’s National Cyber Security Center said they were investigating a number of incidents involving pharmaceutical companies, medical research organizations and universities. “Organizations involved in COVID-19-related research are attractive targets for … [hackers] looking to obtain information for their domestic research efforts into COVID-19-related medicine,” the agencies said in a statement. The feverish search for a COVID-19 vaccine is taking place in several countries around the globe. The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently tracking eight vaccines in the clinical evaluation phase, including two in the United States and four in China. That is on top of at least 100 vaccine candidates in the preclinical evaluation stage around the world. For China, the ability to rapidly manufacture a successful vaccine is as much about gaining a geopolitical edge over the U.S. as promoting public health, officials say. FILE _ Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, speaks during a news conference to announce a criminal law enforcement action involving China, at the Department of Justice in Washington, Nov. 1, 2018.“It’s of great importance not just from a commercial value but whatever countries, company or research lab develops that vaccine first and is able to produce it is going to have a significant geopolitical success story,” John Demers, the Justice Department’s top national security official, said last month. Given China’s decades-long history of intellectual property theft, the notion that Beijing might be trying to steal research related to coronavirus vaccines and treatments is not far-fetched, Demers said.“It would be beyond absurd to think well, the Chinese, they care about all this other stuff, but this they’re going to lay off,” Demers said. Cyberattacks traced to China and other countries picked up pace following the coronavirus outbreak, with ransomware operations seeing a big uptick.A Chinese cyber espionage group known as APT-41 has long-targeted research universities and is “getting a lot of attention right now because of COVID-19,” Bradshaw said. In January, hackers tied to the Chinese government attacked health care providers and companies in other sectors, according to cybersecurity firm FireEye. FireEye called it “one of the most widespread campaigns we have seen from China-nexus espionage actors in recent years.” FILE – A man walks past a Google sign in San Francisco, May 1, 2019.China is not the only country involved in cyberattacks during the pandemic. Google’s Threat Assessment Group has identified more than a dozen groups of government-backed hackers using COVID-19 themes to gain access to computer networks. Google did not name the countries, but private sector cybersecurity firms have identified several state actors. From January to April, Vietnamese hackers launched cyberattacks on Chinese targets in order to collect intelligence on the coronavirus crisis, FireEye reported last month. FILE – This July 9, 2015, file photo shows the headquarters of Gilead Sciences in Foster City, Calif.In April, Iranian hackers reportedly launched an attack on Gilead Sciences, the maker of remdesivir, the drug recently approved by FDA as a treatment for COVID-19. While the attacks have involved a wide range of activities — from criminals targeting Italian financial institutions to North Korean hackers targeting organizations in South Korea — vaccine and treatment research remains a favorite target of state-sponsored actors “There is nothing more valuable today than biomedical research relating to vaccines for treatments for the coronavirus,” Demers said.
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Shanghai Disneyland Reopens
Thousands of visitors in face masks Monday streamed into the Shanghai Disney Resort, the first of the Disney theme parks to reopen since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Disney is taking precautions to protect visitors and prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The number of visitors is limited. Face masks are required, and temperatures are checked at the gate. Guests are also required to show government-issued identification and use a smartphone app issued by the Shanghai city government that tracks their health and contacts with anyone who might have been exposed to the virus. Andrew Bolstein, senior vice president of Disney operations in Shanghai, says maintaining social distance has been a high priority in the park. They have added markers to show guests where to stand, as well as where not to — outside restaurants, shops and all attractions, anywhere people will congregate. Visitors line up following social distancing markers at Shanghai Disney Resort as the Shanghai Disneyland theme park reopens following a shutdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak, in Shanghai, China, May 11, 2020.China, where the coronavirus was first detected in December, was the first country to reopen factories and other businesses after declaring the disease under control in March, even as infections rose and controls were tightened in other countries. Tourism was hit especially hard by restrictions imposed around the world that shut down airline and cruise ship travel, theme parks and cinemas. Disney’s latest quarterly profit fell 91%, and the company said virus-related costs cut pretax profit by $1.4 billion. Shanghai Disneyland and Disney’s park in Hong Kong closed in late January, as China isolated millions of people to try to contain the virus outbreak. Tokyo Disneyland closed in February, and parks in the United States and Europe closed in March. Headquartered in Burbank, California, Disney has yet to set a date for reopening its other parks worldwide.
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White House Staffers Told to Wear Masks
The system at the White House did not break down and “we’ve controlled it very well,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday when asked about two people close to him or Vice President Mike Pence testing positive for the coronavirus.”I felt no vulnerability whatsoever,” said Trump in the wake of one of his military valets and the vice president’s press secretary contracting COVID-19.Several members of the task force, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, Centers of Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn have been self-isolating following exposure to an official who has tested positive for COVID-19.Members of the U.S. Secret Service stand at their posts as President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus during a press briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 11, 2020.There was evidence of an increased seriousness regarding the virus inside the White House on Monday.During a video conference with governors, Pence and a member of the coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, sat in separate rooms. Pence made reference on the call to some White House staffers testing positive for COVID-19.Some White House aides, who as a group had not previously been seen wearing masks, were doing so on Monday.A directive issued Monday to West Wing staff calls for all to wear masks at all times when in the building except when seated at their desks, a senior administration official confirmed to VOA.When the president on Monday was asked by a reporter why there is no need for him to wear a mask, Trump replied: “I’m not close to anybody.”A number of West Wing staff members are also now being administered coronavirus tests on a daily basis.White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany wears a protective face mask as she listens as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a coronavirus disease outbreak press briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 11, 2020.Since last Monday, members of the designated pool of reporters attending briefings have all been wearing masks at briefings and during other events with Trump.Since Friday, those entering the White House compound have been asked prior to having their temperature taken if they have experienced any number of symptoms during the past 48 hours.COVID-19 tests have been given to reporters who travel with the president or vice president the day prior to such trips.Coronavirus testsThe president on Monday claimed that anyone in the United States who wants a COVID-19 test can get one. He made the remark despite reports coming from certain parts of the country about the difficulty of access to testing.Eleven billion dollars is being sent out to the states to help them continue to ramp up their COVID-19 testing capabilities, according to the Trump administration.”I think we’re in a place now where everyone has what they need,” in terms of swabs, reagents and transport tubes to carry out the tests, according to a senior administration official.Members of the White House press corps wear protective face masks as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a coronavirus disease outbreak response press briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, May 11, 2020.By the end of the week, the United States will have conducted 10 million COVID-19 tests, according to the official.Very soon, Americans returning to work will be able to get tested daily, predicted the president.”We have prevailed on testing,” said Trump on Monday, claiming the country is conducting more tests than any other country.Nursing homesMany of the country’s most at risk for contracting the virus, however, have yet to be tested. The federal government is asking states within the next two weeks, to test all one million residents of nursing homes, as the elderly have been shown to be especially vulnerable to the coronavirus, for which there is no vaccine.About 80,000 people in the United States have died of COVID-19.The University of Washington’s closely watched forecasting model is now indicating the death toll in the country could exceed 137,000 by the end of August as states allow businesses to reopen, prompting “explosive increases in mobility.”More than 1.3 million people in the United States are confirmed to have been infected with the virus, the most reported by any country.
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British PM Defends His New Plan to End Lockdown
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought to assure the public Monday that the government is taking “baby steps” toward leading the country out of the lockdown prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. Johnson answered the public and media questions during a daily briefing after critics called his new approach to COVID-19 vague and potentially dangerous. The United Kingdom has nearly 225,000 confirmed cases and 32,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Three-step roadmapEarlier Monday, Johnson presented his three-step roadmap out of the lockdown to the House of Commons, after unveiling it to the public on Sunday. He said the government is changing the message from “Stay at Home” to “Stay Alert.” According to his plan, people who cannot work from home, such as workers in construction and manufacturing, should be encouraged to go to work. He also announced more freedom for outdoor recreation. Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a daily news conference to update on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, May 11, 2020.The other steps would follow “if and only if” the first phase proves to be successful, the prime minister vowed. Step two, potentially in June, and step three in July would include gradual reopening of shops, some encounters between students and teachers and possibly the reopening of some of the hospitality industry “if the numbers allow it,” he said. Regional leaders of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales said Johnson’s plan could endanger people’s lives and kept their shutdowns mostly in place for the time being. They generally ruled out reopening the primary and secondary schools in June or July. Britain’s opposition Labor Party leader, Keir Starmer, said the government’s plan leaves “questions that need answering.” ‘Stay Alert’ message defendedJohnson, who is the only world’s leader to have been hospitalized for COVID-19, defended his “Stay Alert” message, saying it still requires most people to stay at home. Those who have to leave home for work are encouraged to walk, drive or ride a bike rather than use public transport, which is now limiting the number of passengers. Seats display social distancing signs at Victoria Station, London, May 11, 2020, as the country continues in lockdown to help stop the spread of coronavirus.Workplaces will receive detailed new COVID-19 safety guidelines by the end of the week, he said. Judging by the previous guidelines, new measures could include a ban on sharing a workspace between different shifts and obligatory wearing of protective gear. The government is also asking people to cover their faces in enclosed spaces where social distancing is difficult. The government’s oal is to return elementary-school children to schools on June 1 for a month if possible, but in smaller classes. Secondary schools and colleges should prepare for face-to-face contact with students who have key exams next year, but most of their classes will still be remote learning from home. Cultural and sporting events will be allowed to take place behind closed doors for broadcast from June 1. Costly finesFines for breaking the guidelines will be increased. Violators could face charges of close to $4,000 to ensure compliance. Johnson said a COVID alert system with danger levels 1 to 5 will be established to help adjust the safety measures as needed. Level 5 in red indicates that health care services are being overwhelmed, while Level 1 in green signals an end to COVID-19 presence in Britain. The country is presently at Level 4, which means the virus transmission is high or rising. The prime minister said every step forward will be conditional on the coronavirus situation and taken with precaution.
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US Justice Department Weighs Hate Crime Charges in Shooting of Black Man in Georgia
The U.S. Justice Department says it is weighing whether to issue hate crime charges against two white men in Georgia for the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man. “We are assessing all of the evidence to determine whether federal hate crimes charges are appropriate,” department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement Monday. Arbery was shot in the small coastal town of Brunswick, Georgia, in February while he was jogging. The alleged shooters, a father and son, told police they believed Arbery matched the appearance of a burglary suspect. FILE – Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot and killed in Brunswick, Georgia, U.S., on Feb. 23, 2020, is seen in an undated photo provided by Marcus Arbery.The two, Gregory McMichael and son Travis McMichael, were arrested last week after video of the shooting appeared online and went viral. They have been charged with felony murder and aggravated assault. Gregory McMichael is a former police officer who later worked as an investigator for the local district attorney’s office. He retired last year. U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he was following the case “very closely” and was “very disturbed” by the video of the killing.”Certainly the video, it was a terrible-looking video to me,” Trump told reporters Monday at the White House.Attorneys for Arbery’s parents have requested a federal investigation into possible hate crime violations. Georgia does not have a hate crime law at the state level.On Monday, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr appointed a black district attorney from the Atlanta area, Joyette Holmes, to take over the case.”District Attorney Holmes is a respected attorney with experience, both as a lawyer and a judge,” Carr said in a statement. “And the Cobb County District Attorney’s office has the resources, personnel and experience to lead this prosecution and ensure justice is done.”Carr has also promised to investigate why it took more than two months for local police to arrest the suspects.Kupec said on Monday that the Justice Department is also looking into how local officials handled the case.
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Coronavirus Job losses to Worsen Nigeria’s Unemployment Status, Experts Say
As many businesses reopen across Nigeria, workers are adjusting to the new reality created by the COVID-19 pandemic, including shorter work hours, pay cuts, and higher unemployment. Nigerian authorities expect the jobless rate this year to hit one-in-three while the International Monetary Fund says the economy will shrink by 3.4%. Timothy Obiezu looks at how those made unemployed are trying to cope.
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British Media: Wanted Notice Issued for Wife of US Diplomat over Fatal Crash
British media are reporting that the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) has issued a wanted notice for a U.S. woman who is accused of killing a British teenager during a car crash last year. A so-called “Red Notice” was issued for Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a U.S. diplomat, meaning she could provisionally be arrested if she leaves the United States. Such notices are usually initiated by a member country but are not the same as an international arrest warrant. Sacoolas claimed diplomatic immunity after a deadly car crash in Britain last August and swiftly returned to the United States, setting off a diplomatic dispute between London and Washington. Britain has requested her extradition, but U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected that request in January. When asked Monday if Britain pushed for the Interpol notice, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said only that the British government continues to believe that Sacoolas should return to Britain to face judgment. He said the U.S. decision not to extradite Sacoolas was a “denial of justice.” “She should return to the U.K. We have made this clear to the U.S., including the prime minister to President (Donald) Trump,” the spokesperson said. Sacoolas, 42, has been charged by British prosecutors in the death by dangerous driving of 19-year-old Harry Dunn, who was riding a motorcycle when Sacoolas’s car crashed into him. The accident took place outside RAF Croughton, a British military base in central England used by U.S. forces. At the time, Sacoolas’s husband was an intelligence officer at the base. Dunn’s parents urged Sacoolas to return to Britain to face justice. They met with Trump at the White House last October in an effort to bring about her extradition. Trump had hoped to persuade the family to meet with Sacoolas who was in another room, but they declined. Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, said on Twitter Monday that the Interpol development was “important news.” “I just want to urge Mrs. Sacoolas to come back to the UK and do the right thing,” she added.
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South Africans Tire of Lengthy Viral Restrictions
To say South Africa is tired of the lockdown would be a gross understatement.Officials acknowledge the effect that a curfew and limitations on movement are having on the population’s financial and mental health, but say they are holding firm against a bigger health threat: that of a virus that has killed 3.2% of those known to be infected in the World Health Organization’s African region. The global death rate is about 7%, according to WHO statistics. John Steenhuisen, the leader of South African main political opposition party, arrives ahead of the State of the Nation address by Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa, at the Parliament in Cape Town on Feb. 13, 2020.The head of the opposition Democratic Alliance, John Steenhuisen, told the ruling African National Congress, “We are no longer dealing, with a COVID-19 crisis. We are dealing with a lockdown crisis. An ANC lockdown crisis, to be precise. Let me be very clear about this: There is no longer a justification to keep this hard lockdown in place. Government cannot even produce this justification. They cannot show us the modeling they use to decide when to ease and when to tighten restrictions. They cannot do this, because they don’t seem to know for sure themselves.” The initial five-week hard lockdown, which has now been replaced by slightly loosened restrictions, was aimed at buying the health system time to prepare for an inevitable wave of infections. Critics argue that that time is up, and that the harm done to livelihoods outweighs the risks faced by easing the restrictions. Most of the country is currently under what is known as Phase 4 of the eased lockdown, with a nighttime curfew and reduced shopping hours in place. The sale of alcohol and cigarettes remains illegal. Although several key sectors of the economy have gone back to work, many South Africans remain at home, unable to do so. Shabir Madhi, professor of vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand, urged more targeted testing and screening, and huge improvements to water and sanitation. Lockdowns, he said, aren’t enough. “And if we can’t do that, unfortunately, we’re setting up ourselves for, irrespective of what policy government has, if we’re not able to abide by those sort of conditions, if we can’t create an environment for people to actually practice those sort of interventions, we’re going to have a much quicker rate of transmission of the virus,” Madhi said. “And we’re trying to get a surge much sooner, and the peak with this wave probably will be much greater than we expect, if those non-pharmaceutical interventions don’t work.”People wearing face masks queue at a South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) to collect their government grant in Cape Town, South Africa, May 11, 2020.At this time, the government is holding firm in its positions. Over the weekend, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize noted an alarming rise in new infections in the Western Cape, and threatened that the nation may see a return to a total lockdown, or “heightened interventions of various forms” in some areas where transmission is high. Steenhuisen opposes that. “The real tragedy playing out here is no longer the coronavirus, but the lockdown itself,” Steenhuisen said. “Because this lockdown is going to cost many more lives than it can possibly save.” President Cyril Ramaphosa has yet to say publicly when the restrictions might end; but, in his Monday newsletter, the president said the nation was stepping up its testing, screening and treatment regime. He noted, “The transition to the next phase of the coronavirus response, that of recovery, will be more difficult than the present one.”
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Amsterdam’s Red-Light District to Remain Closed
The red-light district is one of the main tourist attractions in Amsterdam. While coronavirus lockdown restrictions are starting to ease, sex work is not allowed to resume until September. Advocacy groups say the lack of support for sex workers has exposed how vulnerable they are under Dutch law.Hella Dee, not her real name, has been working in brothels in and around Amsterdam for the past 10 years, but she hasn’t had any income since COVID-19 restrictions were enforced in March.She started a fundraising campaign when she realized how many of her colleagues were in financial distress. “We need to take bigger risks because there’s hardly any clients out there and taking bigger risks leads to, you know, more people experiencing violence,” Dee said. “So we’ve been raising funds and distributing emergency fees … for people who need money today to pay for food, to pay for other basic expenses, medicine, transport.”FILE – A lone man walks past closed brothels in the capital’s famous red-light district on a weekend night in the center of Amsterdam, Netherlands, March 20, 2020.The campaign collected over $20,000 that was distributed to over 400 sex workers.Masten Stavast, who rents out 31 windows to sex workers in the famous red-light district of Amsterdam, doesn’t understand why massage parlors are operating again in the Netherlands, but sex workers will be the last group to resume work.Stavast is compiling a protocol with sex workers, club owners and other people from the red-light district to lobby policymakers on how sex work can safely resume before September.”The reason to put it on the last group is really strange, especially because it’s always one to one, and not in a crowd or whatever,” Stavast said. “If everything goes all right on July 1, there can be 100 people together, why not one to one then with all the protection that everybody has?”Many sex workers are excluded from the billions of dollars of government support offered to overcome economic hardship due to coronavirus lockdown measures. The reasons for their exclusion varies, from not being registered at the chamber of commerce, to working in private clubs that fall under different labor laws.The Netherlands was one of the first countries in the world to regulate sex work in 2000, but a new national proposed law would force sex workers to acquire permits. At the same time, the city of Amsterdam wants to limit window prostitution in the center.Yvette Luhrs, a sex worker who mostly works online, is also a rights activist aligned with the Prostitution Information Center in Amsterdam. Luhrs worries about the future of sex work in the Netherlands after coronavirus.”The city council of Amsterdam but also the national government, they’re both in the procedure of creating new laws and regulations around sex work and they turn out to be very restrictive,” Luhrs said. “And the fact that the brothels are closed now and people are in this corona scare, we assume they will use this crisis to push their new laws.”The United Nations stated in April that sex workers across the world are reporting a lack of access to coronavirus emergency social protection schemes, and urged countries to not leave sex workers behind in their response to the virus.The red-light district has been located along the canals of Amsterdam since the 15th century. It attracts millions of tourists each year.
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Amid Pandemic, Voters in Nebraska, Wisconsin Go to Polls Tuesday
Despite the pandemic, voters in the midwestern U.S. states of Nebraska and Wisconsin will be voting in elections on Tuesday.For the mostly rural Wisconsin 7th Congressional District, it is the second time they will leave their homes in five weeks to cast ballots in the middle of a stay-at-home order issued to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Citizens there will be voting to fill the final few months of Republican Congressman Sean Duffy’s term, who stepped down last fall.Last month’s Wisconsin Democratic primary and state supreme court election was controversial after the governor sought to postpone the election because of the pandemic. But state Republicans insisted it go on. It took a U.S. Supreme court ruling to ensure the election was held as scheduled.But election officials in the district, which covers a the northwestern third of the state, say they feel confident moving forward. The district has been largely unaffected by the coronavirus and they are taking precautions.Nebraska is holding a statewide election, with the primary on the ticket. The primary will decide a Democratic contest to pick a nominee to face Republican Congressman Don Bacon in the Omaha area’s 2nd Congressional District, traditionally the only U.S. House seat in Nebraska where Democrats are competitive. Voters will also pick candidates in dozens of ostensibly nonpartisan legislative races, which could help determine whether Republicans gain a super-majority in the Legislature.Republicans, who hold all statewide offices and control the Legislature, have encouraged people to cast early absentee ballots. However, they argue state law requires polling sites to be open and that it is important for voters to have a choice for how they vote, even amid health concerns.Like Wisconsin’s April election, absentee voting in Tuesday’s special election has been high. Nearly 105,000 people requested absentee ballots as of Wednesday, and nearly 59,000 had been returned.
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US Moves Quickly Toward Reopening Commerce
The U.S. is moving quickly toward relaxing restrictions and opening commerce from the coronavirus shutdown, but a leading expert on the pandemic says the result will be more infections and deaths.Governors in 47 of the 50 U.S. states have now eased commercial restrictions, allowing stores, restaurants and other businesses to reopen on a limited basis, while often requiring that social distancing of at least two meters be maintained. Mostly, however, the states have not met federal guidelines of a declining number of infections over a two-week period.Protesters in many states have demanded the resumption of commerce so they could return to work and shop as they once did, although a Pew Research Center poll in the U.S. shows nearly two-thirds of Americans remain wary of resuming their pre-coronavirus lives.A medical staffer moves the body of a coronavirus victim from the Wyckoff Heights Medical Center to a refrigerated truck in Brooklyn, New York, April 2, 2020.Nearly 80,000 people have died in the U.S. from the pandemic, by far more than in any other country across the world. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington now forecasts more than 137,000 Americans will die by early August, an increase from its projection of 134,000 a week ago, which it attributed to the relaxation of coronavirus restrictions throughout the U.S.IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray said, “Unless and until we see accelerated testing, contact tracing, isolating people who test positive, and widespread use of masks in public, there is a significant likelihood of new infections.”U.S. President Donald Trump, facing a re-election contest against former Vice President Joe Biden on Nov. 3, is pushing the U.S. to reopen as quickly as possible while acknowledging that more Americans are likely to die as a result.On Twitter, Trump claimed Monday, “Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere. Big progress being made!”Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere. Big progress being made!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 11, 2020He added, “The Democrats are moving slowly, all over the USA, for political purposes. They would wait until November 3rd if it were up to them. Don’t play politics. Be safe, move quickly!”
The great people of Pennsylvania want their freedom now, and they are fully aware of what that entails. The Democrats are moving slowly, all over the USA, for political purposes. They would wait until November 3rd if it were up to them. Don’t play politics. Be safe, move quickly!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks during a coronavirus response meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, April 29, 2020.Dr. Anthony Fauci – a key White House expert in the fight against the coronavirus – is self-isolating although he has tested negative. Two other top members of the White House coronavirus task force – Food and Drug Administration chief Stephen Hahn and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield – are self-quarantining for two weeks after attending a meeting where one of the infected staff members was present.New York, the hardest-hit U.S. state with nearly 27,000 deaths, is looking to reopen some businesses Friday, following similar moves in many other states that have seen fewer infections.As part of the plan, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered mandatory coronavirus testing twice a week for workers at care homes, and hospitals can no longer discharge patients to the facilities unless the patients have tested negative for COVID-19.
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‘Coronavirus Hairstyle’ Spikes in Popularity in East Africa
The coronavirus has revived a hairstyle in East Africa, one with braided spikes that echo the virus’ distinctive shape. The style’s growing popularity is in part due to economic hardships linked to virus restrictions — it’s cheap, mothers say — and to the goal of spreading awareness that the coronavirus is real.The hairstyle had gone out of fashion in recent years as imported real and synthetic hair from India, China and Brazil began to flood the market and demand by local women increased. Pictures of the flowing or braided imported styles are tacked up in beauty salons across much of Africa. But now, in a makeshift salon beside a busy road in Kibera, a slum in the heart of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, 24-year-old hairdresser Sharon Refa braids young girls’ hair into the antennae-like spikes that people call the “coronavirus hairstyle.” Girls shift in the plastic chairs as she tugs at their scalps.”Some grown-ups don’t believe that the coronavirus is real, but then most young children appear keen to sanitize their hands and wear masks. So many adults do not do this, and that is why we came up with the corona hairstyle,” Refa said, her face mask tucked under her chin.Kenya’s number of confirmed virus cases was nearing 700 as of Monday. With the widespread shortage of testing materials, however, the real number of cases could be higher. Health officials are especially worried about the possible spread of the virus in crowded slums.Mothers like Margaret Andeya, who is struggling to make ends meet, said the coronavirus hairstyle suits her daughters’ styling needs and her pocket. Virus-related restrictions have stifled the daily work for millions of people with little or no savings. “This hairstyle is much more affordable for people like me who cannot afford to pay for the more expensive hairstyles out there and yet we want our kids to look stylish,” Andeya said.It costs 50 shillings, or about 50 U.S. cents, to get the braids while the average hairdo costs 300 to 500 shillings ($3 to $5). That’s money most people in Kibera cannot afford at the moment. The technique used in braiding the coronavirus hairstyle is threading, which uses yarn instead of synthetic hair braids. This is the secret to making it affordable, residents said.”COVID-19 has destroyed the economy, taken our jobs from us, and now money is scarce. I therefore decided to have my child’s hair done up like this at an affordable 50 shillings, and she looks good,” said 26-year-old Mariam Rashid. “The hairstyle also helps in communicating with the public about the virus.”
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AP Fact Check: Trump’s Perfect China ‘Ban,’ Death Toll Myths
Truth often takes a beating when President Donald Trump talks about his administration’s response to the coronavirus and the subsequent death toll in the U.S. This past week was no exception.Over the weekend, the president claimed strong marks for himself for the handling of the pandemic after imposing a “very early ban of people from China.” It actually wasn’t a total ban and had plenty of gaps in containment. One of the government’s top health officials has described the China restrictions as too little, too late.Trump also asserted that the United States is on par with Germany in keeping down COVID-19 deaths, which is not the case in mortality reports. And he’s brushed off projections that deaths in his country will double from earlier forecasts, misrepresenting how the numbers were calculated.These distortions emerged over the past week alongside his relentless bragging about the U.S. testing system, which failed in the crucial early weeks and remains globally subpar.A look at Trump’s remarks, also covering his former national security adviser Michael Flynn:Travel restrictionsTRUMP: “We are getting great marks for the handling of the CoronaVirus pandemic, especially the very early BAN of people from China, the infectious source, entering the USA.” — tweet Sunday.THE FACTS: This is one of Trump’s favorite exaggerations, asserting that travel restrictions he imposed on China in late January had averted much of the virus’ entry into the U.S.In fact, Trump didn’t “ban” all the people infected with coronavirus from entering the U.S. from China. There were many gaps in containment and initial delays in testing, leading to the U.S. rising to No. 1 globally in the number of people infected by COVID-19.His order temporarily barred entry by foreign nationals who had traveled in China within the previous 14 days, with exceptions for the immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents as well as American citizens.In addition, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the No. 2 official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press earlier this month the federal government was slow to understand how much coronavirus was spreading from Europe, which helped drive the acceleration of outbreaks across the U.S. in late February. Trump didn’t announce travel restrictions for many European countries until mid-March.”The extensive travel from Europe, once Europe was having outbreaks, really accelerated our importations and the rapid spread,” she told the AP. “I think the timing of our travel alerts should have been earlier.”TRUMP: “Compare that to the Obama/Sleepy Joe disaster known as H1N1 Swine Flu. Poor marks … didn’t have a clue!” — tweet Sunday.THE FACTS: His suggestion that former President Barack Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden, were oblivious and did nothing during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, initially called “swine flu,” is wrong.Then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s flu surveillance network actually sounded the alarm, spotting two children in California who were the first diagnosed cases of the new flu strain. About two weeks later, the Obama administration declared a public health emergency and CDC began releasing anti-flu drugs from the national stockpile to help hospitals get ready. In contrast, Trump declared a state of emergency in early March, seven weeks after the first U.S. case of COVID-19 was announced.Pandemic death countsTRUMP: “Now, Germany — we’re very close to Germany. We have a very good relationship with Germany. Germany has done very good. They have a very low mortality rate like we do. We have a low mortality rate also.” — remarks Thursday in meeting with Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas.THE FACTS: The U.S. is not in Germany’s league in this regard.The U.S. is experiencing far more reported COVID-19 deaths as a proportion of its population than is Germany. The U.S. has reported COVID-19 deaths at a rate of 234 per 1 million people. For Germany, that rate is 90 deaths per million. The U.S. surpasses many other countries in reported deaths per million, too, and it leads the world in deaths from the virus overall.Because countries track COVID-19 deaths somewhat differently, exact conclusions can’t be reached when comparing nations.The mortality rate is a different measure from deaths per million. It refers to what percentage of people who get the disease die from it.The answer is as yet unknown, and there are several reasons for that.First, the count changes every day as new infections and deaths are recorded. More important, every country is testing differently. Knowing the real denominator, the true number of people who become infected, is key to determining what portion of them die.Some countries, the U.S. among them, have had trouble making enough tests available. A test shortage means the sickest get tested first. Even with a good supply of tests, someone who’s otherwise healthy and has mild symptoms may not be tested and thus go uncounted.TRUMP: “And, frankly, if you took New York out of the equation, we would really have a low mortality rate.” — remarks with Abbott.THE FACTS: New York, being part of the U.S., cannot be subtracted from it to make the numbers look better.It’s true that New York has experienced far more COVID-19 deaths than has any other state.TRUMP, asked about a White House-endorsed model showing 134,000 deaths from the coronavirus by August, doubling its previous prediction: “Those projections are with no mitigation. We are doing mitigation.” — remarks to reporters Tuesday.THE FACTS: That’s incorrect. The projections last Monday by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation do take into account social distancing and other mitigation, which have begun to be loosened in several states at Trump’s urging. On Sunday, the institute revised its estimates upward again, to 137,000.The institute, based at the University of Washington, said both sets of estimates reflect the recent reopening of many states and relaxing of social distancing restrictions. Its initial estimates assumed longer stay at home orders lasting through May.”What’s driving the change is, simply put, the rise in mobility,” Dr. Christopher Murray, the institute’s director, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “We’re seeing in some states, you know, a 20 percentage point increase in just 10 days in mobility. And that will translate into more human contact, more transmission.”More than 30 states have taken steps this month to ease stay-at-home orders.”Our model now assumes that mandates that are currently still in place and have not been scheduled to be relaxed will stay in place through at least August 4,” the institute said on its website. Officials on the White House coronavirus task force have praised the institute’s work and cited its research in their briefings.FlynnTRUMP, on the Justice Department’s move to drop the criminal case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn: “He was targeted by the Obama administration and he was targeted in order to try and take down a president, and what they’ve done is a disgrace.” — remarks Thursday.THE FACTS: He’s suggesting partisan Democratic politics were completely behind Flynn’s investigation that isn’t so.It is true that the investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, and into Russia in particular, began during the Obama administration. But it continued well into Trump’s own administration. The investigation into Flynn was taken over by a special counsel who was appointed by Rod Rosenstein, Trump’s own deputy attorney general.The internal FBI correspondence that has emerged in the last two weeks also doesn’t reveal agents saying that the goal of the investigation was to “take down a president.”Virus testingTRUMP: “In any event, we have great testing capacity, and have performed 6.5 million tests, which is more than every country in the world, combined!” — tweet on May 4.THE FACTS: The claim that the U.S. has performed tests “more than every country in the world, combined” was not remotely true when he said it and it’s no closer to the truth now.The U.S. has tested far fewer than all other countries combined. It also lags dozens of countries in testing its population proportionally.Together, just three countries — Russia, Germany and Italy — had reported more tests than the U.S. when Trump tweeted.That remains the case. As of late Friday, the U.S. had reported conducting more than 8.3 million tests since the pandemic began. That compared with more than 18.7 million tests by the other countries in the top 10 of the testing count.The U.S. was followed by Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, India, France, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.Children; Covid-19TRUMP: “With young children and children, we’d like to see the schools open early next season and on time. It’s incredible how the — it’s very unique how the children aren’t affected, but people that have problems and older people are — can be very badly hurt, injured, or die from this problem.” — remarks with Native American leaders Tuesday in Phoenix.TRUMP: “You see how well children seem to do. It’s incredible. We realize how strong children are, right?” — remarks with nurses Wednesday.TRUMP: “It affects older people. It infects — if you have any problem — heart, diabetes, even a little weak heart, a little diabetes, a little — this thing is vicious, and it can take you out, and it can take you out very strongly. But children do very well.” — remarks May 3 on Fox News.THE FACTS: His suggestion that children are in the clear is false. To say they “do very well” with the disease is more accurate, based on what is known so far. His implication that the risk is limited to the old and sick is incorrect.It’s true kids get sick less often than do adults and tend to be less ill when they do get sick. But his statements overlook severe COVID-19 illnesses and at least several deaths of children in the U.S. And they gloss over the fact that kids can spread disease without showing symptoms themselves.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the pandemic’s effect on different ages in the U.S. early on and reviewed preliminary research in China, where the coronavirus started. It said social distancing is important for children, too, for their own safety and that of others.”Whereas most COVID-19 cases in children are not severe, serious COVID-19 illness resulting in hospitalization still occurs in this age group,” the CDC study says.At the beginning of April, the CDC analyzed nearly 150,000 laboratory-confirmed U.S. COVID-19 cases and found nearly 2,600 children with the disease. Since then the number of confirmed cases overall in the U.S. has rocketed, making the April findings very preliminary.The pediatric cases that were found at the time, though relatively few, spanned all ages of childhood. The median age of children sick with COVID-19 was 11. More than 5%, perhaps as many as 20%, required hospitalization.People 18 to 64 were by far the largest age group sickened by the virus — 76% of the confirmed cases studied by the CDC. COVID-19 was not and is not limited to the oldest people, even if they are the most vulnerable age group.
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African Nations Seek Their Own Solutions in Virus Crisis
A loud hiss and grunt come from a green bag pressing air through a tube, as Senegalese researchers work to develop a prototype ventilator that could cost a mere $160 each instead of tens of thousands of dollars.
The team is using 3-D printed parts as it works to find a homegrown solution to a medical shortfall that has struck even the richest countries: how to have enough breathing machines to handle an avalanche of COVID-19 patients who need the devices to help increase their blood oxygen levels.
Complicating the task in Africa is the fact that the peak in coronavirus cases for the continent’ is expected to come later than in Europe and the United States, well after dozens of other countries have bought out available supplies.
“Africans must find their own solutions to their problems. We must show our independence. It’s a big motivation for this,” said Ibrahima Gueye, a professor at the Polytechnic School of Thies in Senegal, on the 12-member team developing the prototype ventilator.
Their efforts are being mirrored elsewhere across the continent, where medical supplies are usually imported.
Many hope that these efforts to develop ventilators, personal protective equipment, sanitizers and quick-result antibody tests will lead to more independent solutions for future health crises.
Although the quality of some products won’t meet as high a standard as in the U.S. or Europe, Gueye said there is excitement that level can be reached eventually, with enough time and investment.
In Ethiopia, biomedical engineer Bilisumma Anbesse is among those volunteers repairing and upgrading old ventilators. While the country has tried to procure more than 1,000 ventilators abroad, progress has been thwarted by the high demand.
“U.S. and Chinese companies that produce mechanical ventilators are saying they can’t accept new orders until July. The same is true with other medical items like PPE and gloves,” Annbesse said, referring to the personal protective gear worn to minimize exposure to health hazards.
Africans also are helping to develop tools for disease prevention and surveillance.
Institut Pasteur in Dakar is working on a rapid test for COVID-19 in partnership with the British biotech company Mologic, which developed a rapid Ebola test. They hope the coronavirus test, which can give results in 10 minutes, could be distributed across Africa as early as June. Once a prototype is validated, the test kits will be made in the U.K. and at a new facility in Senegal for infectious disease testing, DiaTropix, that was founded by Institut Pasteur.
Workers in Dakar are using laser cutters to make about 1,000 face shields per week for health care workers. They also are creating key chains with prevention messages such as “Stay Home.”
Alcohol-based hand sanitizers are being produced in Zimbabwe on university and technical college campuses that have been transformed into “COVID response factories.” Higher Education Minister Amon Murwira said the teams are also producing face masks, gowns and aprons.
It’s not known whether these projects will be finished before the virus hits its peak in Africa, but observers say the longer-term impact of such ingenuity is substantial.
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Dr. Ahmed Ogwell, deputy director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press. “What we’re seeing in Africa is going to change the way medical supplies in particular are manufactured.”
He predicted there would be a “new public health order” after the pandemic, with changes in global supply chains. Countries already are taking steps toward not having to rely on help from abroad.
Developing countries are scrambling for equipment as deliveries are hindered. But even India,
where some engineers are also trying to build low-cost ventilators, has access to more than 19,000 of them in addition to domestic manufacturers who are expected to deliver tens of thousands more.
African nations are understanding the importance of local production and ingenuity.
Ghana is using drone technology to transport COVID-19 tests and protective gear in collaboration with a U.S.-based company called Zipline that already was distributing vaccines and other medical products to remote parts of the country.
“This is a global pandemic: 210 countries and territories across the globe are affected,” Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari tweeted recently. “We cannot expect others to come to our assistance. No one is coming to defeat this virus for us.”
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‘Tale of 2 Outbreaks’: Singapore Tackles Costly Setback
Weeks after two of his roommates were diagnosed with COVID-19, Mohamad Arif Hassan says he’s still waiting to be tested for the coronavirus. Quarantined in his room in a sprawling foreign workers’ dormitory that has emerged as Singapore’s biggest viral cluster, Arif says he isn’t too worried because neither he nor his eight other roommates have any symptoms.
Still, the 28-year-old Bangladeshi construction worker couldn’t be blamed if he were more than just a bit concerned.
Infections in Singapore, an affluent Southeast Asian city-state of fewer than 6 million people, have jumped more than a hundredfold in two months — from 226 in mid-March to more than 23,800, the most in Asia after China, India and Pakistan. Only 20 of the infections have resulted in deaths.
About 90% of Singapore’s cases are linked to crowded foreign workers’ dormitories that were a blind spot in the government’s crisis management. Arif’s dorm complex, which has 14,000 beds, accounts for 11% of total infections, with over 2,500 cases.
This massive second wave of infections caught Singapore off guard and exposed the danger of overlooking marginalized groups during a health crisis. Despite warnings from human rights activists as early as February about the dorms’ crowded and often unsanitary living conditions, no action was taken until cases spread rampantly last month.
Singapore’s costly oversight was also an important lesson to other countries in the region with large migrant populations. Neighboring Malaysia recently announced mandatory coronavirus testing for its more than 2 million foreign workers after dozens were diagnosed with COVID—19.
The slip-up highlighted Singapore’s treatment of its large population of low-wage foreign workers, who play an integral part in the economy but live on the fringes in conditions where social distancing is impossible. The misjudgment was also an embarrassment for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s government ahead of a general election anticipated in the next few months that is expected to be the last for Lee, who has led Singapore since 2004 and is planning to retire soon.
Singapore’s nanny state government, which won global praise for its meticulous contact tracing and testing in the early stages of the crisis, quickly moved to contain the problem by treating the flare-up in the dorms as a separate outbreak from that in the local community, a policy that some say is discriminatory.
The government shut schools and nonessential businesses island-wide on April 7. So-called “safe distancing ambassadors” were recruited to remind people to wear masks and stay at least a meter apart from each other in public places, or face heavy penalties.
Meanwhile, all construction sites and dorms were locked down and foreign workers largely confined in their rooms. More than 10,000 foreign workers in essential services were moved to safer sites to reduce crowding, and testing was ramped up to include people with no symptoms.
In Arif’s S11 Punggol dorm — advertised as the cheapest in Singapore — police have mounted a 24-hour patrol of the 13 multicolored housing blocks located in the island’s northeast.
Arif, who was sharing a room with 11 other workers, said one of them was moved to an army camp in early April to help ease overcrowding. Shortly afterward, another roommate was hospitalized with a fever, and on April 17 another was isolated with light symptoms, with both testing positive for the coronavirus.
Arif said he hasn’t been tested yet because thousands of residents of his dorm will probably have to be tested. But he said he was comforted by Singapore’s top-notch medical facilities and its relatively low number of deaths from the virus.
He gets food delivered to his room, free Wi-Fi on his cellphone and, most importantly, he said the government has pledged that the workers’ salaries will be paid.
“I am not worried because the government is taking good care of us like Singaporeans,” said Arif, who has lived in Singapore for seven years. “Right now, we take our temperature twice a day, try to stay a meter apart from each other and constantly use hand sanitizer.”
Once belittled as a tiny red dot on the global map, Singapore has relied on overseas workers to build infrastructure and help power its growth into one of the world’s wealthiest nations.
Some 1.4 million foreign workers live in the city-state, accounting for 38% of its workforce. At least two thirds are low-wage, transient migrants from across Asia performing blue-collar jobs that locals shun, such as construction, shipping and maintenance, as well as working as maids.
Roughly 250,000 of the migrants live in 43 privately run dormitories mostly tucked away in the outskirts far from Singapore’s stunning skyscrapers and luxury malls. Workers sleep in bunk beds in rooms usually packed with 12 people, sometimes up to 20, with a required minimum living space of 4.5 square meters (48 square feet) per person.
Another 120,000 migrant laborers live in factory-converted hostels or temporary facilities at work sites, where conditions are sometimes even more dismal.
Most of Singapore’s migrants earn between 500 and 1,000 Singapore dollars ($354-$708) a month.
Since last month, the government’s infection data has separated foreign workers’ cases from those among the general population. Although cases continue to rise among foreign workers, infections have decreased in the local community. The government plans to gradually reopen the economy on Tuesday before island-wide restrictions end June 1, eager to show that it has remedied the situation and that measures have worked.
“The larger narrative that cannot be missed is the tale of two outbreaks in Singapore,” said Eugene Tan, law professor at Singapore Management University. “The outbreak that Singaporeans should pay attention to is the local community. The other outbreak of foreign workers is getting its due attention from the government, but it should not be one that Singaporeans should be unduly concerned about.”
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Actor Jerry Stiller Dies at Age 92
Comedy star of stage, film and television Jerry Stiller has died at the age of 92.His son, actor Ben Stiller, said he died early Monday of natural causes.Stiller became famous in the 1960s as he teamed with wife Anne Meara in films, stage productions, commercials, and television programs, including the “Ed Sullivan Show.”He found renewed fame in the 1990s playing the cranky, loud Frank Costanza on the TV show “Seinfeld.” He won his only Emmy award for the role.Stiller’s career also included roles in Broadway shows “The Ritz” and “Hurlyburly,” as well as hit movies “Hairspray” and “Zoolander.”
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South Korea Delays School Reopening as New Coronavirus Cases Rise
South Korea is extending school closures by an additional week as new COVID-19 infections are on the rise. COVID-19 is the illness caused by the coronavirus.Students in their third and final year of high school were scheduled to return to classrooms on Wednesday, but the country’s Education Ministry has now pushed back the date to May 20.Park Baeg-beom, vice minister of education, said during a press briefing on Monday the postponement was meant to “guarantee the safety of students,” according to the Yonhap News Agency.He said other grade levels will gradually return to schools in the weeks going into June.The start of the school year, which typically commences in early March, was delayed by several weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic and courses have been taught online since last month.The rescheduling announced Monday is in response to a new group of infections that appears to be spreading across Seoul and other regions.The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said on Monday that at least 86 COVID-19 cases have been traced to a man in his 20s who visited a popular Seoul nightlife district earlier this month. Officials warn that thousands of patrons of several bars and clubs in this area could have been exposed and should get tested.A man wearing a face mask takes pictures of a temporary closed dance club in Seoul, South Korea, May 10, 2020.On Saturday, Seoul’s mayor, Park Won-soon, ordered all of the city’s bars and clubs to close down until further notice and criticized those who did not wear masks while inside these venues, saying their “carelessness” risked the health of others.Prior to this recent spike, new coronavirus cases in South Korea had been on a steady decline with the number of community transmissions remaining in the single digits for much of the past few weeks.Last week, Seoul eased social distancing measures that allowed for the planned re-opening of schools and other public facilities, including libraries; but, pressure began to build on the government to again change the start date following the KCDC’s disclosure of the new outbreak.By the time the Education Ministry announced its decision, more than 15,000 people signed a petition on the presidential Blue House’s web page that called for another delay.Some high school seniors feel the back and forth over the safety of reopening schools only makes more difficult their efforts to prepare for exams and complete other requirements for entry into a university.“My distrust of starting school is deepening,” Jung Ujin, 18, wrote in a text message to VOA. “I even think that the opening of school in September, which was considered the worst, would be better. It’s meaningless to stay trapped at home in constant anxiety.”People stand in a line at a testing center for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Seoul, South Korea, May 11, 2020.Jung said she and many of her classmates feel they have “fallen behind” due to the school closures and online classes have not been an effective substitute for in-classroom learning.Education officials had issued various guidelines to schools and students on how to practice proper hygiene and implement social distancing protocols once classes resume.In messages sent to a student from her school and shown to VOA, authorities notified pupils that their temperature would be checked upon arrival each day, masks were to be worn at all times and during lunch break in the cafeteria, students would be required to sit at a distance and minimize talking to one another. Those who presented symptoms, such as a fever or sore throat, would be sent home.But, the push to get students back to the classroom now might have been rushed to begin with, suggests a high school teacher, who spoke with VOA on the condition of anonymity because he did not have permission from his employer.“I think it is dangerous to reopen now,” the 33-year old said. “In light of the recent infection outbreak, students are at risk since many take public transportation to school and come into contact with so many people.”“Classrooms already have limited space, so we can’t practice social distancing well as it is,” he said.South Korea experienced a large COVID-19 outbreak in February but is credited with mitigating the spread of the disease, due to rapid testing and technology-based contact tracing.As of Monday, the total number of coronavirus cases stood at 10,909 with 256 deaths attributed to the disease, according to the KCDC.
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Restart Or Re-Stop? Economies Reopen But Chaos Abounds
Plastic barriers and millions of masks appeared Monday on the streets of Europe’s newly reopened cities, as France and Belgium emerged from lockdowns, the Netherlands sent children back to school and Greece and Spain further eased restrictions. All faced a delicate balance of trying to restart battered economies without fueling a second wave of coronavirus infections.
Social distancing was the order of the day but just how to do that on public transit and in schools was the big question.
With Monday’s partial reopening, the French did not have to carry forms allowing them to leave their homes but crowds quickly developed at some metro stations in Paris, one of France’s viral hot spots. A last-minute legal challenge emerged to the government’s practice of confining people to their own regions, further confusing the post-lockdown landscape.
Antoinette van Zalinge, principal of the De Notenkraker elementary school in Amsterdam, wore a wide white skirt and a hula hoop slung from her shoulders and carried a long stick with a hand at one end so she could shake hands with students while still keeping 1.5-meters (5-foot) apart.
In Paris, hairdressers practiced their new workflow over the weekend ahead of Monday’s reopening, and planned to charge a “participation fee” for the new disposable protective gear they’ll need for each customer. Walk-in customers will be a thing of the past, said Brigitte L’Hoste, manager of the “Hair de Beauté” salon, who expects the number of appointments to be cut in half.
“The face of beauty will change, meaning clients won’t come here to relax. Clients will come because they need to,” said Aurelie Bollini, a beautician at the salon. “They will come and aim at getting the maximum done in the shortest time possible.”
Roughly half of Spain’s 47 million people stepped into a softer version of the country’s strict confinement, beginning to socialize, shop in small stores and enjoy outdoor seating in restaurants and bars. its biggest cities of Madrid and Barcelona remained under lockdown, however.
Fears about new waves of infection have been born out in Germany, where a new cluster was linked to a slaughterhouse; in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus started; and in South Korea, where a single nightclub customer was linked to 85 new infections.
The South Korean government pushed back hard against that wave, halting the school re-openings that had been planned for this week and re-imposing restrictions on nightclubs and bars. It is now trying to track 5,500 people who had visited a popular Seoul entertainment district by checking credit-card transactions, mobile-phone records and security camera footage.
In Germany, gyms re-opened in the most populous state, but authorities there and in France have said any backsliding in the daily number of infections could lead to new restrictions.
“We’re going to have to learn to live with the virus,” Health Minister Olivier Veran said on BFM television.
The hurdles ahead for tourism and the service industries were clear, even in places where infections are diminished. Shanghai Disneyland reopened to visitors, but let in limited numbers and demanded that they wear face masks and have their temperatures checked.
“We hope that today’s reopening serves as a beacon of light across the globe, providing hope and inspiration to everyone,” the president of Shanghai Disney Resort, Joe Schott, told reporters.
In the U.K. — which has the second-most coronavirus deaths in the world behind the U.S. — Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a modest easing of the country’s lockdown but urged citizens not to surrender the progress already made. Some people, however, were confused as the government shifted its slogan from “stay home” slogan to “stay alert” and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland stuck with the old slogan.
People in jobs that can’t be done at home “should be actively encouraged to go to work” this week, he said. He also set a goal of June 1 to begin reopening schools and shops if the U.K. can control new infections and the rate that each patient infects others. Johnson himself is the only world leader to recover from a serious bout of COVID-19.
“We will be driven not by mere hope or economic necessity,” Johnson promised. “We’re going to be driven by the science, the data, and public health.”
In the U.S., Trump administration officials spoke optimistically about a relatively quick rebound from the pandemic — but then had to announce that Vice President Mike Pence “self-isolating” after one of his aides tested positive.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin predicted the American economy would rebound in the second half of this year from unemployment rates that rival the Great Depression. Another 3.2 million U.S. workers applied for jobless benefits last week, bringing the total over seven weeks to 33.5 million unemployed.
The U.S. has seen 1.3 million infections and nearly 80,000 deaths, the most in the world by far, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide, 4 million people have been reported infected and more than 280,000 have died, over 150,000 of them in Europe. Health experts believe all those numbers understate the true toll of the pandemic for different reasons.
The director of the University of Washington institute that created a White House-endorsed coronavirus model said moves by states to reopen businesses “will translate into more cases and deaths in 10 days from now.” Dr. Christopher Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said states where cases and deaths are going up more than expected include Illinois, Arizona, Florida and California.
India reported its biggest daily increase in coronavirus cases Monday as it prepared to resume train service to ease a lockdown that has hit migrant workers especially hard by eliminating the daily wages they use to feed their families. The government reported 4,213 new cases for more than 67,000 total, including 2,206 deaths.
The railway system is India’s lifeline, transporting 23 million people across the vast subcontinent each day. When service restarts Tuesday, passengers must wear masks and pass health screenings before being allowed to board and the trains will make fewer stops than usual.
While unemployed workers in developed nations are temporarily buoyed by benefits and job-protection schemes, millions elsewhere are facing dire economic prospects. In a slum on the banks of a sewage-tainted river in Lebanon, Faiqqa Homsi feels that her family being pushed closer and closer to the edge.
A mother of five, she was already struggling, relying on donations to care for a baby daughter with cancer. The coronavirus shutdown cost her husband his meager income driving a school bus and upended her hopes of earning money selling juice.
“It is all closing in our face,” Homsi said.
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80 Romanian Health Care Workers Arrive in Austria to Assist Elderly
Eighty health care workers from Romania arrived in Vienna, Austria, Monday on a chartered train.The workers, mostly female, have been hired to care for elderly people who require around the clock attention.Austrian EU minister Karoline Edstadler said the negotiations to bring the workers to Austria were not easy and the logistics were time-consuming but the result would be positive.”We know there is a demand. We know that many care workers have been in Austria for many weeks. Of course, demand has to be evaluated constantly. And when you start something it takes a while until it’s fully established. During this crisis it wasn’t quite so easy to get all the necessary permits for the trains – especially inside Romania. Now the time has come and I expect that this opportunity will be used,” said Edstadler.Initially, the workers have to stay at a hotel and be tested for COVID-19. If the test results are negative, they will travel to various destinations in Austria, as needed.Another train bringing more health care workers to Austria is expected to arrive Thursday.The trains then will transport back to Romania care workers who have been stuck in Austria because of the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19.According to data collected by the Johns Hopkins University, Austria has more than 15,800 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 618 deaths. Romania has more than 15,300 and 961 respectively.
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