U.S. officials say Americans should be prepared for a potential 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus outbreak, while stressing the need to keep social distancing measures in place to give the best chance of lessening the toll.Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he hopes the number will not go that high, but that realistically people should be ready.“People are suffering. People are dying,” he said. “It’s inconvenient from a societal standpoint, from an economic standpoint to go through this. But this is going to be the answer to our problems. So, let’s all pull together and make sure, as we look forward to the next 30 days, we do it with all the intensity and force that we can.”Countries all over the world have locked down cities, regions and even their entire nations to try to stop the virus from spreading.One of the latest to put in place a two-week ban on all but essential activities is Vietnam, which started Wednesday.Last week, New Zealand shut down restaurants, bars, offices and schools. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Wednesday it is too early to tell to what extent those measures have helped so far and advocated more testing to actively track down infections and stop new transmissions.Her government reported 61 new cases to push New Zealand’s total to 708Vietnam has ordered a national lockdown, as well as moved to decrease public transit, Ho Chi Minh, March 31, 2020.”If virus is in the community in this way… then worst thing we can do is to relax and be complacent, and allow the silent spread,” Ardern said.In South Korea, where mass testing has helped level off local transmission rates, official reported 101 new cases Wednesday. The country also started enforcing new 14-day quarantines for anyone entering the country.The risks of imported cases undermining successes in controlling community spread of COVID-19 have prompted similar measures in China, which for several months was by far the world leader in coronavirus cases but now has become a sign for hope with gradual lifting of lockdown restrictions.The United States, Italy and Spain remain the global hotspots with the most cases and deaths.German health officials said Wednesday there were about 5,500 new cases there, putting the country on track to soon become the next to surpass China.Meanwhile, in keeping with a plea from U.N. chief Antonio Guterres for parties in the world’s conflicts to take this opportunity to halt their fighting, the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday urged Afghanistan’s warring sides to implement a cease-fire.The Council “called on the political leadership of Afghanistan to put aside their differences and put the interest of the country first.”
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After testing negative twice in a row, a coronavirus patient in Wuhan — the former epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak — was discharged recently from one of China’s mobile hospital units.  But her celebration of freedom had barely begun before she got a call from the local health authority who told her the last test she took before leaving the hospital was positive. “I had to go back to the hospital immediately,” the patient said on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform. “My residential compound is under lockdown again.”As China releases more patients who have recovered from the coronavirus, there are an increasing number who are testing positive for the second time. The State Council ’s Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism said last Saturday that second-time infections have been reported in many regions, including Guangdong, Sichuan, Hunan, and Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital city.People wearing face masks line up outside a Hankou Bank branch in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, March 31, 2020.It is not understood why some patients test positive after testing negative, but most virologists believe true second-time infections are extremely rare. Recovered patients have high amounts of antibodies in their blood that fought off the COVID-19 infection, protecting them against a recurrence. That is why in many countries recovered patients are now donating blood plasma for transfusions into sick patients.  Another explanation for the positive tests could be inaccurate testing.  “Testing is not always perfectly sensitive,” said William Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Some of those cases you’re seeing where it looks as if a person was testing positive, negative, then later tested positive again may be likely explained by one of the intermediate tests just not picking it up when it was there. The amount that that’s happening, we don’t really know.”  As countries focus on rapidly deploying coronavirus tests, some versions have been rejected for too many false readings.“At this stage of the pandemic, it’s been hard enough managing to identify those people who are infected once. It’s going to take a while before we can be secure about who’s been infected twice,” he added.Causes of faulty testingDr. Jin Dongyan, a virology expert at the University of Hong Kong, said it is nearly impossible for second-time infections to occur in normal individuals. He told VOA in an email that the negative test results from patients before they were discharged could be “false,” leading hospitals to discharge them too early.  Dr. Zhang Boli, one of the 14 members of China’s national research team to prevent and control the outbreak, said even accurate tests can fail to detect small amounts of virus still within the patient.According to China’s latest coronavirus diagnosis and treatment guidelines issued by the National Health Commission on March 4, diagnostic tests are conducted by gathering mucus from nasal cavities using swabs.   However, viruses often stay deep in patients’ lungs. “At the time of the test, the sputum in the throat were detected, no virus was not detected, showing that the viral nucleic acid in the patient’s body was negative,” said Zhang in a recent interview with the official People’s Daily.”If some people are tested positive for the viral nucleic acid a second time, it is most likely that they have never recovered,” Jin told VOA.How many repeat positives?Despite the possibility that there could be a large number of people who retest positive after being pronounced “recovered” and released from medical care, China is not tracking these people, even though authorities are ordering them back to quarantine.  Tu Yuanchao, deputy director of Hubei health commission, said that they will not be classified as fresh cases. He told the official Hubei Daily recently, “They were already reported as confirmed cases in their initial test. Therefore, they will not be repeatedly counted as new cases.”  China has not been counting as “infected” those people who test positive for COVID-19 but display no symptoms. This policy contradicts World Health Organization guidelines, which recommend tracking asymptomatic patients who test positive because they could still spread the virus.  Volunteers in protective suits disinfect a shopping complex in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicentre of China’s coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, March 31, 2020.It remains unclear how many people in China who tested positive again for COVID-19 after being told they were healed from the disease. The central government does not release national numbers. Local numbers reported by different regional officials vary from less than 1% to 14% of recovered patients.  Last month an official study from southern China’s Guangdong Province found that as many as 14% of those who had recovered tested positive again in later check-ups.  On the other hand, a hospital director in Wuhan last week said the current rate of repeat positives in the city is less than 1%.“Even Guangdong has 14% of people who retested positive, and you are telling me Wuhan only has 1%?” one netizen asked on Weibo.Tongji Hospital, which identified the first COVID-19 case in Wuhan, confirmed that five out of 145 patients, or little more than 3%, tested positive again, according to state broadcaster CCTV.Wang Wei, the hospital’s president, said that these are just “small samples.”“We need a large-scale epidemiological study to guide our disease surveillance and prevention works,” Wang said during the interview.With most countries focused on caring for the sick and ensuring adequate health care support for the spike in sick patients, few have managed to carry out widespread testing that will give epidemiologists the data they need to better understand the virus, and why some people are still testing positive for COVID-19, even after they recover.  VOA’s Steve Baragona contributed to this story.
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Josna Begum lives with her son in a house with four other families in a slum in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, the world’s most densely populated city. “Distancing is impossible for us,” she said.
The 35-year-old, who occupies a single room with her 12-year-old son and earns $100 a month as a domestic worker, shares the single kitchen in the house with 22 other residents.  
The Bangladeshi government this week ordered a nationwide shutdown to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus in a country considered at high risk because hundreds of thousands of overseas workers have returned home from Italy and other virus hot spots. All businesses were ordered closed except food markets, pharmacies and other essential services, and people were told to stay indoors and keep a safe distance from each other.
But in Dhaka, a city of more than 10 million where the average home is less than 120 square feet and a million people live in slums, that is easier said than done.  
From Mumbai to Rio de Janeiro to Johannesburg the same story is playing out in some of the world’s most unequal regions, where tens of millions live in crowded slums without adequate water, sanitation and access to health care.
“The future of this pandemic to a greater extent will be determined by what happens in very large and densely populated countries,” Dr. Michael J. Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, said this week.  
Experts believe the virus is mainly spread through droplets expelled from the mouths and noses of infected people when they speak, cough or sneeze, traveling 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) before gravity pulls them to the ground. And while most people suffer mild or moderate symptoms like cough or fever, in older adults and people with other health problems the risk of pneumonia or death is far higher.
Social distancing, while necessary in the face of such an easily spread virus, envisions a “citizen who is able to live in the most desirable way,” said Hyun Bang Shin, a professor of urban studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. “Injustices and inequities that have basically been embedded are being exposed in face of this outbreak.”  
Abu Bakar, 74, who lives with his family of three in a makeshift two-room structure in a slum in northern Jakarta can’t imagine how social distancing could work. “For me it is more important to keep myself clean,” he said.  
But even that can be nearly impossible in an area regularly ravaged by seasonal flooding from the murky, trash-filled water of a neighboring reservoir. Marks on the walls show the flooding can be as high as 2 feet.
In the sprawling slum, where thousands lived crammed together in dilapidated structures with poor ventilation and narrow walkways, Bakar says that even if he were to become sick, he wouldn’t be able to isolate himself.  
And that’s far from the only problem, said Elisa Sutanudjaja, of the Jakarta-based Rujak Center for Urban Studies.  
“There’s a major lack of clinics, sanitation, and other utilities. So for many it’s not only the lack of space that’s a concern,” she said.
In Mumbai — where the city and its suburbs have seen a tenth of India’s nearly 900 cases — 53-year-old Abrar Salmani lives with 11 family members in a house so small that many regularly sleep outdoors in the Bhim Nagar slum.  
The unemployed weaver said most families don’t have access to water and rely on communal washrooms for bathing. “Our demands to have a water pipeline haven’t been answered for years,” he said.  
In the Gaza Strip, where 2 million Palestinians lived squeezed into 140 square miles and more than half are unemployed, the arrival of the virus this week prompted the territory’s Hamas rulers to order the closure of cafes and wedding halls, and to cancel Friday prayers at mosques. Residents were urged to stay at home and refrain from close contact.
But with chronic power shortages of at least eight hours a day, it’s hard for Gazans to stay inside their homes. And the traditional conservative Muslim society frowns upon a handshake being declined, let alone a kiss on the cheek.  
“My friend was upset after I refused to shake hands with him, even though I tried to explain to him this is because of the coronavirus,” 53-year-old Yasser Anan said. “Eventually, because he is dear to me, I had to kiss his forehead in apology.”
Across Africa, home to some of the world’s fastest-growing cities with badly strained infrastructure, authorities worry that the virus could swiftly spread through slums and impoverished townships. Tear gas and gunfire have been used in a couple of cities in a rough bid to enforce social distancing. So far the continent of more than 1.3 billion people has nearly 3,500 cases, but with the global shortage of testing kits the actual number could be higher and health experts have warned that the rising rate looks like that of Europe.  
In Nigeria’s seaside city of Lagos, Africa’s largest with more than 20 million people, authorities have scrambled to spread the word about the virus among slum dwellers. In the vast Makoko slum, where shacks are built on stilts and sewage runs into the sea, residents listened with a mix of fear and defiance.
Biodun Edward scooped up a handful or the murky water and drank it. “Let (authorities) come and test it, there’s no disease here,” he declared.  
“Firstly, the smoke in the air will ward off disease, strong alcohol,” he added, then pulled a piece of ginger root from his pocket and called it protection.
In South Africa’s crowded, impoverished townships, tens of thousands of workers pack into groaning minibus taxis for commutes with little or no protection. At home, extended families squeeze into a single room or two and communities draw water from collective taps. A countrywide lockdown began Friday.
“Coronavirus scares us since we’re living in a shack,” said one Soweto resident on the outskirts of Johannesburg, Mando Masimola. “We don’t know how we’ll survive if the virus infects us.”
In Latin American and the Caribbean, experts are warning the virus could kill untold numbers in the poorest sectors of society, where not working means not eating, people live packed together and few have access to health care, let alone sophisticated medical care.
“Quarantine here is impossible,” said Raull Santiago, founder of two charities in the favelas, or slums, of Rio de Janeiro.  
“It’s wall to wall, there are homes of two or three rooms with six people living inside,” he said on Twitter, along with a photo of tightly packed brick houses in the Complexo do Alemao favela. “How do you do it?”
The first person to die in Rio de Janeiro state was Cleonice Goncalves, a 63-year-old woman who worked as a maid for a family in Leblon, one of Rio’s wealthiest neighborhoods. The woman of the household was infected during a trip to Italy but didn’t tell Goncalves, the victim’s brother told local media. Concalves, who had hypertension and diabetes, fell ill and died on March 17.
“There’s a large population of working people … that are just going to be unable to simply stay home,” said Geoff Ramsey, a Washington-based researcher at the Washington Office on Latin America.  
“We’re looking at a region that’s going to be deeply, deeply impacted by the global pandemic.” 
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Huawei’s chairman warned Tuesday that more U.S. moves to increase pressure on the Chinese tech giant might trigger retaliation by Beijing that could damage its worldwide industry.  Huawei Technologies Ltd., which makes smartphones and network equipment, reported that its 2019 sales rose by double digits despite curbs imposed in May on its access to U.S. components and technology. But the chairman, Eric Xu, said 2020 will be its “most difficult year” as Huawei struggles with the sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.  Huawei is at the center of tensions with Washington over technology and possible spying that helped to spark Trump’s tariff war with China in 2018.Xu said he couldn’t confirm news reports President Donald Trump might try to extend controls to block access to foreign-made products that contain U.S. technology. Xu said Huawei can find other sources but warned more American action might trigger Chinese retaliation against American companies.”I think the Chinese government will not just stand by and watch Huawei be slaughtered,” Xu said at a news conference. He said U.S. pressure on foreign suppliers “will be destructive to the global technology ecosystem.”  “If the Chinese government followed through with countermeasures, the impact on the global industry would be astonishing,” Xu said. “It’s not only going to be one company, Huawei, that could be destroyed.”  Huawei, China’s first global tech brand, denies U.S. accusations the company is controlled by the ruling Communist Party or facilitates Chinese spying. The company says it is owned by the 104,572 members of its 194,000-member workforce who are Chinese citizens.Chinese officials say the Trump administration is abusing national security claims to restrain a rival to U.S. tech companies.  Last year’s sales rose 19.1% over 2018 to 858.8 billion yuan ($123 billion), in line with the previous year’s 19.5% gain, the company reported. Profit increased 5.6% to 62.7 billion yuan ($9 billion), decelerating from 2018’s 25% jump.  Huawei has had to spend heavily to replace American components in its products and find new suppliers after Trump approved the sanctions on May 16, Xu said.  The controls, if fully enforced, could cut off access to most U.S. components and technology. Washington has granted extensions for some products, but Huawei says it expects the barriers to be enforced.  The company, the world’s No. 2 smartphone brand behind Samsung, said 2019 handset sales rose 15% to 240 million units.  Xu said it was impossible to forecast this year’s handset sales until the spreading coronavirus pandemic is brought under control.Huawei phones can keep using Google’s popular Android operating system, but the American company is blocked from supplying music and other popular services for future models.  Huawei is creating its own services to replace Google and says its system had 400 million active users in 170 countries by the end of 2019. That requires Huawei to persuade developers to write applications for its new system, a challenge in an industry dominated by Android and Apple’s iOS-based applications.  Huawei hopes Google applications can run on the Chinese company’s system and that its apps can be distributed on the American company’s online store, Xu said.  Huawei also is, along with Sweden’s LM Ericsson and Nokia Corp. of Finland, one of the leading developers of fifth-generation, or 5G, technology. It is meant to expand networks to support self-driving cars, medical equipment and other futuristic applications, which makes the technology more intrusive and politically sensitive.  The Trump administration is lobbying European governments and other U.S. allies to avoid Huawei equipment as they prepare to upgrade to 5G. Australia, Taiwan and some other governments have imposed curbs on use of Huawei technology, but Germany and some other nations say the company will be allowed to bid on contracts.  The company has unveiled its own processor chips and smartphone operating system, which helps to reduce its vulnerability to American export controls. The company issued its first smartphone phone last year based on Huawei chips instead of U.S. technology.  Huawei also is embroiled in legal conflicts with Washington.  Its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is Ren’s daughter, is being held in Vancouver, Canada, for possible extradition to face U.S. charges related to accusations Huawei violated trade sanctions on Iran.  Separately, U.S. prosecutors have charged Huawei with theft of trade secrets, accusations the company denies.  The company, headquartered in the southern city of Shenzhen, also has filed lawsuits in American courts challenging government attempts to block phone carriers from purchasing its equipment.   
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The Yemeni-American poet Threa Almontaser has won the Walt Whitman Award for best first book. Almontaser’s “The Wild Fox of Yemen” comes out in April 2021.Presented by the Academy of American Poets, the award includes a six-week residency in Umbria, Italy, and $5,000. In addition, the academy will purchase hundreds of copies of her book and distribute them to members.”The spirit of Whitman lives in these poems that sing and celebrate a vibrant, rebellious body with all its physical and spiritual entanglements,” award judge Harryette Mullen said in a statement.The Whitman award was established in 1975 to champion emerging poets. Previous winners include Jenny Xie, Judy Jordan and Chris Llewellyn.
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South Korea says it will make emergency cash payments to many of its citizens as part of efforts to boost its economy in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. President Moon Jae-in announced Monday during a meeting with a special task force that the government will pay about $820 to all households except for those in the top 30% income bracket, bringing the total amount to $7.4 billion. President Moon said the payments were compensation for South Koreans who have endured days and weeks of measures to halt the spread of COVID-19, including quarantines and social distancing. South Korea has 9,661 confirmed coronavirus cases as of Monday, with 159 deaths and 5,228 others having recovered.  The country has earned global praise for its regular testing of hundreds of people daily which has helped slow the spread of the virus.   But the country has seen a rise of imported cases of COVID-19, prompting the government to announce Sunday that it will impose a mandatory 14-day quarantine on all foreign visitors upon their arrival, effective April 1.  
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Repeated discoveries of an obscure, offshore natural gas known as flammable ice will bolster Chinese claims to a sea that’s contested by five other Asian governments. China extracted 861,400 cubic meters of flammable ice, a natural gas hydrate, for a daily average of 28,700 cubic meters during a mission that started in February, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday.   The findings give China new cause to use the sea, despite protests from other countries, while ensuring an energy supply for its 1.4 billion population, analysts say. China would gain an even more solid footing in the sea if it began licensing flammable gas extraction technology to other countries or partnering with them to extract it, the scholars add.   A new discovery “simply strengthens their argument” about why China should remain in the sea to pursue oil and gas, said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school.   Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam claim all or parts of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea. China calls roughly 90% of the waterway its own, overlapping zones claimed by the other governments and causing occasional clashes. China took a lead over the past decade by landfilling tiny islets for military use. Chinese technology, such as drones and underwater surveillance systems, is considered  more advanced than the knowhow of Southeast Asian claimants. International law would not recognize an energy discovery as cause for claiming sovereignty, Araral said. Although the other claimant governments are busy at home managing Covid-19 disease caseloads, they are expected to take note eventually if China expands exploration. The discovery site, called Shenhu, is located in undisputed Chinese waters 320 kilometers from the mainland shore. “So far, I haven’t (seen) any official diplomatic protests from the Vietnamese side, but I think that they are closely watching the development,” said Nguyen Thanh Trung, Center for International Studies director at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City.   Flammable ice lies under other tracts of the seas, meaning other countries will take interest, said Stuart Orr, professor of management at Deakin University in Australia. Flammable ice China’s minister of land and resources said the country mined flammable ice at sea for the first time in 2017 after about two decades of research, according to Xinhua. Because it can be ignited like ethanol, the gas is called “flammable.”   One cubic meter of ice equals 164 cubic meters of regular natural gas, Xinhua said. The energy source that also occurs in Arctic tundra zones is considered clean and easy to transport yet hard to commercialize. The 2017 effort at Shenhu, which is about 1,225 meters deep, produced less gas than the recent one, Xinhua said. Sino-foreign joint exploration The flammable ice haul this month will let China showcase “technological prowess” and seek exploration partnerships with other countries, said Collin Koh, maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.   Other claimants to the sea lack their own flammable ice technology, Koh said. The four Southeast Asian claimants actively explore, however, for oil and conventional natural gas. “There should be some substantial interest from many other countries in accessing the technology that China has developed, which would give China the option of either licensing or choosing to share these capabilities with countries of interest, and that could provide it with significant political leverage in a world that’s worried about sources of low-cost energy,” Orr said. The Chinese leadership sees this discovery as a chance to remove foreign multinational energy drillers from the disputed sea, Koh said. Deals between Southeast Asian states and firms from Europe, India and the United States let foreign players into a waterway that Beijing sees as Chinese. “China is long aware that Southeast Asian countries will be turning to the foreign multinational energy corporations for this sort of venture, and all the while China wanted to be seen as a viable partner,” Koh said. 
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For some Thais who are turning on their faucets this month, what they are getting in return is a stream of salty water. The seawater intrusion, into Thailand’s lower-level rivers and reservoirs, is just one of the many effects this season as the Southeast Asian nation goes through a drought that could be its worst in four decades. Sea water around Phuket, Thailand and elsewhere is creeping into the nation’s fresh water.The government has introduced a water management command center to handle the drought, funded with $190 million, considered an investment since the prior drought cost Thailand more than $1 billion in 2016.  Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who will head the command center, has also asked citizens to save water by shortening showers and tooth-brushing times by one minute. The reason residents are getting salty water is that the drought has lowered river levels, allowing seawater to enter the water supply, said Senaka Basnayake, the director of climate resilience at the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center in Thailand. And there is not enough fresh water from upriver to wash out the salt.  “This is one of the signs showing the drought situation in low-lying areas in Thailand this year is worse than before,” said Basnayake. Local villagers travel on the Mekong River near Nong Khai, Thailand. The river’s water has become clear since the Xayaburi dam upstream began generating hydropower. (Steve Sandford/VOA)The Mekong River, one of the world’s biggest, winds from Tibet through China and down to several nations including Thailand. Bangkok will discuss with Beijing the upriver activities, including dam building, that are restricting water from reaching the Southeast Asian nation, local media reported.  Besides leaving schools dry, the drought also poses an economic risk.Thailand is already reeling from the big drop in Chinese tourism and ability to export and import with China, one of its biggest trading partners, because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now the drought is making it harder for the nation’s 11 million farmers to grow crops such as sugar and rice, of which Thailand is the second biggest exporter in the world.  “This year’s prolonged dry weather condition can possibly adversely impact agricultural and crop production,” Lam Hung Son, head of the Mekong River Commission Secretariat’s Regional Flood and Drought Management Center, said. Thai farmers are responding by cutting back on the amount of water they use for each plant. Power plants are decreasing their water usage as well, following a request from the government. The responses are part of a broader reaction across the business sector, which is decreasing water consumption. Companies are more aware than ever that their actions have an environmental effect, Sira Intarakumthornchai, chief executive officer at the consulting firm PwC Thailand, said. “Looking at Thailand, we have seen a rising awareness of the importance of sustainable development, especially among listed companies,” he said. The drought is hitting other Mekong nations, Laos and Vietnam, but the worst impacts will be seen in Cambodia and Thailand, the Mekong River Commission said. Part of Thailand’s response to the drought is to divert water from wetter areas to dry ones and to build up more reservoirs, though that will take time. And the nation is having to battle the drought while trying to juggle other environmental priorities at the same time, including air pollution and plastic waste. As Sira put it, “Needless to say, 2020 looks to be another difficult year.” 
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“We know things will get worse before they get better,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says in a letter being sent to British households about battling COVID-19. Johnson, who is in isolation because he has the new coronavirus, also urges people to observe the lockdown and stay home, in an effort to prevent overwhelming the National Health Service and to “save lives.”   Michael Gove, a British senior minister, told the BBC Sunday that people should prepare for a lockdown of “a significant period.”  Britain has 17,315 cases of the virus and 1,019 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.  Homeless and impoverished Indians receive food at a government shelter in New Delhi, India, March 26, 2020.In his monthly radio address Sunday, India’s prime minister asked for the country’s forgiveness for the 21-day lockdown he enforced last week on the entire South Asian nation in the battle against COVID-19. “I seek your forgiveness,” Narenda Modi said.  “I am sure you will forgive me that you had to undergo so much trouble . . .but these are special circumstances . . . this is a battle for life and death.”  Thousands of people fled their homes after Modi ordered a 21-day lockdown that began Wednesday. Most of them are day laborers who, along with millions of others in India, lost their jobs because of restrictions on activity. In his 30-minute radio address, Modi urged Indians “to maintain social distance, not emotional and human distance.”   India has 987 confirmed COVID cases and 25 deaths.  The tolls from the coronavirus continue to creep up as the virus makes its way around the world.  There were 665,616 confirmed cases worldwide early Sunday. The United States, the current epicenter of the virus, has 124,686 cases.   Italy, Europe’s most afflicted country, had 92,472. Global impact
The global coronavirus pandemic death toll was nearly 31,000 Sunday, with the U.S. and France each posting more than 2,000 deaths in a single day, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. Don Marcello Crotti, left, blesses the coffins with Don Mario Carminati in the San Giuseppe church in Seriate, Italy, March 28, 2020.Italy, which has seen more than 10,000 deaths, accounts for a third of the global total. In Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak began late last year, the city slowly began to reopen Saturday after months of near-total isolation. Thousands of people began arriving in the city in Hubei province.  New York
New York, with more than 52,000 confirmed cases of the virus and more than 700 deaths, is the largest hot spot of COVID-19 activity in the U.S. To help ease the burden on New York City’s health care system, which is being overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Navy is sending a hospital ship to New York Harbor to help care for non-coronavirus patients.  President Donald Trump traveled to Norfolk, Virginia, Saturday for the sendoff of the USNS Comfort. The ship, with 1,200 service members aboard, is to arrive in New York Monday. It will provide up to 1,000 beds to care for patients. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyTrump said he had been considering a quarantine of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, all being hard-hit by COVID-19. But he backed away from such a move, instead urging the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to consider a “strong travel advisory” for the tri-state area. Vice President Mike Pence tweeted the CDC was urging residents of the three states to limit nonessential travel for 14 days to try to stem the outbreak. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the donation Saturday of 250,000 surplus protective masks to medical professionals in New York “who have been working courageously, selflessly, and tirelessly in response to the spread of COVID-19 across the boroughs, in the hope that they play some small role in saving lives.”     
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Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus epidemic emerged in December, resumed train services Saturday after months of lockdown.Authorities reduced the city’s virus risk evaluation from high to medium.Commuters riding on six metro lines in the Hubei provincial capital, with a population of 11 million people, were required to have their body temperatures checked before entering metro stations. They were also required to sit in between empty seats, Chinese state television reported.As of Saturday, China confirmed a total of 45 new cases of the coronavirus disease, 44 of whom were people coming from overseas, the National Health Commission said Sunday.A worker sprays disinfectant as a precaution against the new coronavirus at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, March 29, 2020.Hubei reported five deaths and 28 new suspected infections Saturday, the commission said. No new confirmed case was reported in Wuhan.The overall number of confirmed cases in China reached 81,439 by Saturday, with 2,691 patients still being treated, 75,448 patients discharged upon recovery, and 3,300 people who died of the disease.Hong Kong confirmed 582 cases, including four deaths; Taiwan confirmed 283, including two deaths; and Macao reported 37 cases and no deaths.South Korea reported 146 more cases infected with the coronavirus, bringing the total number to 9,478 as of midnight Saturday. The death toll rose to 144.  More than 4,800 patients have fully recovered, and they were discharged from quarantine.The number of infections in Japan passed 1,500 and the death toll was more than 50 as of Friday night, with the capital Tokyo having the most cases of COVID-19 in the country.Thailand had 143 new coronavirus cases as of Sunday, bringing the overall cases to 1,388, a spokesman of the government’s Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration said at the latest daily briefing. The country also recorded one new death, for a total of seven, since the outbreak.New Zealand reported its first victim of the new coronavirus on Sunday, a woman in her 70s. 
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North Korea has conducted another missile test, sending a fresh signal it will not stop developing weapons even amid a coronavirus pandemic.The North launched two short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea off its east coast early Sunday, according to South Korea’s military. The weapons, fired from the eastern coastal city of Wonsan, flew about 230 kilometers and reached a maximum altitude of 30 kilometers before splashing into the ocean.The weapons did not enter Japan’s territory or exclusive economic zone, according to the Japanese Ministry of Defense.North Korea has conducted four rounds of missile tests this month, firing nine missiles in total. That sets a record for the most North Korean missiles fired in a single month, said Shea Cotton of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.’New capabilities’“The only time we’ve seen tests this frequently were in 2016 and 2017, both of which were huge years for North Korea’s missile program,” Cotton said on Twitter. “If things continue, I think we’re going to see something similar to both those years, with more missile tests and new missiles being premiered, giving North Korea new capabilities.”North Korea appears to be taking advantage of the fact that the world’s attention is focused on the coronavirus.Pyongyang, which has called coronavirus prevention a matter of “national survival,” has reported no infections. Even as cases swell across the globe, North Korea is in some ways projecting an image of normality.  
 
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has overseen many of the weapons tests. In state media photos, Kim has not worn a mask, though top officials around him sometimes have.   In what appears to be another show of confidence in its ability to handle the pandemic, North Korea plans to go ahead with a meeting of its rubber-stamp parliament on April 10. The meeting will likely require hundreds of political leaders to gather at the Supreme People’s Assembly.Bid to seal bordersNorth Korea attempted to seal its borders to keep out the coronavirus in late January, just after the outbreak emerged in neighboring China. That move foreshadowed the severe immigration restrictions later seen in countries around the world. But completely sealing North Korea’s borders would be difficult, since its economy relies on both formal and informal trade with China. Many experts say the coronavirus has almost certainly reached North Korea.  A North Korean outbreak could quickly lead to a humanitarian disaster, because the country lacks adequate medical supplies and infrastructure. Global agencies have begun supplying medical aid to North Korea, though the process has been complicated by international sanctions imposed over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.   North Korea is banned from any ballistic missile activity under U.N. Security Council resolutions. But U.S. President Donald Trump says he is not concerned about North Korea’s short-range tests. Trump has not responded to the latest launches, but earlier this month said he had “no reaction” to what he called “short-term missiles.”
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Vietnam is now considering when it will resume exporting rice amid the coronavirus pandemic, after first saying Tuesday it was suspending the signing of any new rice contracts. The nation is the world’s third-largest rice exporter.Authorities are reevaluating the situation because companies are saying there is plenty of rice in domestic storage, which the nation deemed a priority so citizens could stock  up on food and stay at home to slow down the spread of the coronavirus.The government formed a team to “work with local authorities and rice exporting companies to review, inspect and evaluate the supply of rice, the rice exporting conditions, the circulation of reserves and the status of executing rice export contracts,” it said on its official website Wednesday.The Vietnam Food Association said it was safe to ship rice abroad, as domestic inventories are more than enough to serve local demand.FILE – Men load rice bags to a ship for export at a rice processing factory in Vietnam’s southern Mekong delta, Vietnam July 6, 2017.Agriculture professor Vo Tong Xuan agreed, saying the nation could export 3 million tons of rice while still maintaining food security. At the same time, Vietnam aims to have 190,000 tons in reserve for its own use, about the same amount as last year.“Rice is still abundant in companies’ warehouses and right now the family farmers in the Mekong Delta are already harvesting it,” Xuan said in an interview with the state-run newspaper Tuoi Tre.Not to allow exports could risk setting off a negative chain reaction that historically has been a counterproductive move.That is what happened when India stopped exporting rice in 2008, knocking down a series of dominoes that led to other export bans and even rice rationing at Costco stores halfway around the world in the United States.All of that happened despite the fact that there actually was a surplus of rice supplies. India, the biggest exporter of rice in the world, decided at the time to hold on to its domestic rice supply as part of a state initiative to ensure citizens had enough food. That scared other nations into thinking they had to hoard rice, too, and ban exports.FILE – A farmer harvests rice in a paddy field outside Hanoi, June 10, 2019.There was no real shortage of rice, but the collective action caused consumers to hoard rice because they saw prices rising, according to Princeton University economist Harrison Hong.“You can call it survival instincts. You can call it speculative behavior. But people respond,” he said, after he and other academics studied consumer behavior in the crisis.“Our findings suggest that one way to stabilize markets would be to basically promise households a certain ration of rice, which would reduce the fear of households about being able to obtain the food they need,” said Hong.That is a reoccurring concern amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A few nations, such as Russia and Kazakhstan, have begun limiting their exports of food products. Vietnam’s suspension of rice shipments already has shown signs of impact elsewhere, including in Australia.The virus outbreak’s impact on Vietnamese shopper confidence comes as locals already were starting to worry more about food, money and health, according to market researcher Nielsen Vietnam. The company’s managing director, Louise Hawley, said even before the coronavirus, her company’s survey from the last quarter of 2019 showed the Vietnamese were worried about the rising cost of food.“An example of this has been the price of pork, as a result of African swine fever that has hit the pork industry and resulted in rising prices,” said Hawley.
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