| Africa's week in pictures: 6-12 March 2020 Posted: 12 Mar 2020 05:13 PM PDT  A selection of the best photos from across the continent and beyond this week.
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| Europe Grinds to Halt as ECB Is Criticized for Too Little Action Posted: 12 Mar 2020 04:01 PM PDT |
| Coronavirus Sparked Prison Riots in Italy. Will It Happen Here? Posted: 12 Mar 2020 03:52 PM PDT  By Lauren Weber, Kaiser Health NewsFederal prison union officials and inmate advocates warn that the combination of chronic understaffing, a new leave policy and the realities of coronavirus quarantines could lead to the first nationwide federal prison lockdown since 1995.As coronavirus races across the country, staffing challenges are particularly complicated in the nation's jails and prisons where conditions create a tinderbox for contagion. There is no such thing as teleworking for a correctional officer tasked with guarding inmates.Union leaders for the Council of Prison Locals worry that existing low staffing levels in federal detention centers and prisons—which have required teachers and other social workers to fill in for correctional officers in the past—will exacerbate the impact of losing staff members to quarantines for coronavirus infections.The federal prison system, which houses nearly 175,000 inmates, represents only a fraction of the overall prison and jail complex in the United States. More than 2.2 million people throughout the country are estimated to be behind bars. Though small by comparison, the federal system sheds light on issues many state, county and local officials are grappling with now. Because the facilities are typically dense and crowded, they could become prime breeding grounds for the highly contagious coronavirus.Italy Prison in Flames in Coronavirus Lockdown Riot Among Cut-Off InmatesIf the coronavirus begins to spread rapidly among staff and inmates, it could prompt a nationwide prison lockdown at federal sites, said Aaron McGlothin, head of the prison staffers' local union at Federal Correctional Institution-Mendota near Fresno, California."You've got to understand we're in a prison—there's nowhere to go," he stressed. "If somebody comes down sick, what are you going to do? Everybody's going to get sick."The Federal Bureau of Prisons said there have been no confirmed coronavirus cases in its 122 facilities as of March 10. But Joe Rojas, the union's Southeast regional vice president, said there have been scares in federal facilities in Seattle and Miami. The state corrections departments in Florida, California and Colorado all said this week they are cutting off visitation to inmates at their sites.Worldwide, prisons have become a flashpoint amid this rapidly escalating public health crisis. Iran temporarily released 70,000 prisoners to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus within jails, while Italy is facing prison riots over lockdown conditions that have led to at least 50 inmate escapes and six deaths.In the U.S., union officials are questioning a federal Bureau of Prisons leave policy issued Monday in an internal memo obtained by Kaiser Health News that says staff who contract the coronavirus and are symptomatic must use sick leave to self-quarantine. The memo said it follows guidance from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which advises the federal government workforce on leave policies.What Aggressive Coronavirus Lockdown Might Look Like in the U.S.Union officials said the policy discourages those who have the virus from staying home for the full duration of the illness. Federal prison employees receive four hours of sick leave every two weeks, amounting to about 13 days a year. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 14 days of isolation for those who only have been exposed and says those who are sick should remain quarantined until cleared by a public health official, which could be far longer.That means most federal prison employees would need to borrow time they had not yet accrued if they do get sick. And even then, it might not cover the full time needed to get better and no longer be contagious."I wouldn't want to give them any excuse or reason to come back in before they're ready," said Rick Heldreth, the local union president of West Virginia's Hazelton.That's in contrast to the prison system guidance for those who have potentially come in contact with the virus but remain asymptomatic: They are allowed to use administrative "weather and safety" leave for up to 14 days."Everybody is saying, what the hell does this mean? If you have the symptoms? If you don't have the symptoms?" said Rojas. "It's just a mess."If conditions deteriorate to a lockdown or mass outbreak situation, "what happened in Italy could easily happen over here," Rojas said.McGlothin outlined the steps federal prisons would take as the threat grows: first canceling visitation, then limiting movement of prisoners transported between facilities, and finally locking down institutions. Lockdown conditions—in which inmates are kept in their cells except for limited showers—are not uncommon in individual federal prisons following violent events or even high levels of the flu, but they're usually temporary.It's been more than 24 years since the entire federal Bureau of Prisons locked down. Inmates were fed in their rooms and all recreational activities were canceled following a series of prison riots in October 1995.When asked about the possibility of a national lockdown, bureau spokesperson Emery Nelson declined to comment on the specifics of the contingency plans because of safety and security reasons.Fifteen Democratic U.S. senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, sent a letter on Monday asking the Bureau of Prisons to explain its coronavirus plan. They had yet to get a response as of Thursday, according to Warren's office.David Patton, the executive director of the Federal Defenders of New York, a nonprofit that defends poor people accused of federal crimes, said he is concerned about the lack of information."I have no confidence that they're prepared or whatever plans they have are acceptable from even the most minimal human rights perspective," he said, stressing that a long-term lockdown would be unconstitutional because inmates need to have access to legal counsel.Patton already had been sounding the alarm over inmate treatment at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan following a recent lockdown. He detailed "hellish conditions" of inmates left in just boxer briefs in cold cells, a lack of access to soap, severe overcrowding and rodent infestations. And that's without coronavirus added in."We're starting with a baseline of mismanagement and poor conditions," he said. "In the best of the times, we can't get people medical care when they need it."Many advocates are pushing for officials to commute some inmates' sentences to lessen the potential number of incarcerated individuals exposed to the virus. In San Francisco, public defender Mano Raju has pushed for the release of pretrial detainees who are older than 60 and have underlying medical conditions, as well as those up for work-release, electronic monitoring or with less than six months on their sentence.Officials at every political level need to seriously consider such measures to protect the public, said Nazgol Ghandnoosh, a senior research analyst for The Sentencing Project, a group that pushes for criminal justice system improvements.As does the public, Ghandnoosh noted. Even if people are not personally connected to anyone in prison, she said, they will be personally affected as inmates fill up hospital beds and ICU resources.Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Chelsea Manning Will Be Released From Prison After An Attempted Suicide Posted: 12 Mar 2020 03:16 PM PDT  Update: On Thursday afternoon, a U.S. judge ordered the immediate release of Chelsea Manning from an Alexandria jail after her third attempted suicide. Manning was supposed to testify in court on Friday, but the judge says that it no longer necessary. This story was originally published on March 12, 2020 at 10 am.On Wednesday, activist and whistleblower Chelsea Manning attempted suicide inside the Alexandria jail where she's been held for the last year. She was taken to a local hospital, and, according to her legal team, is "currently recovering."This news comes two days shy of a hearing to rule on dismissing civil contempt sanctions against Manning. The sanctions came after Manning refused to testify in May 2019 in front of a grand jury investigating. Manning was being investigated for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in 2010. Alexandria Sheriff Dana Lawhorne confirmed the suicide attempt in a statement to Refinery29, saying, "There was an incident at approximately 12:11 p.m. today at the Alexandria Adult Detention Center involving inmate Chelsea Manning."Manning served seven years in prison on these charges before President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017. Obama's decision came after two attempted suicides by Manning in years prior, which many attribute to the fact that Manning was a transgender women being held at a men's prison. Although Manning is no longer in a men's facility, she is being held in prison after her 2017 release for refusing to comply with a grand jury subpoena.The act of clemency in the final moment's of Obama's presidency sparked an ongoing outcry for Manning's release. From activists to government officials, many have called for her early release, including a United Nations torture expert and a petition with over 64,000 signatures. Her legal team filed a motion for release in February 2020. In a 2019 letter from Manning to Judge Anthony Trenga, the presiding judge regarding the sanctions, she wrote: "Each person must make the world we want to live in around us where we stand… I object to the use of grand juries as tools to tear apart vulnerable communities. I object to this grand jury in particular as an effort to frighten journalists and publishers, who serve a crucial public good. I have had these values since I was a child, and I've had years of confinement to reflect on them. For much of that time, I depended for survival on my values, my decisions, and my conscience. I will not abandon them now."Over the years since Manning first entered the public eye as an Army intelligence analyst and Iraq War veteran, she's become a significant figure and advocate, notably on trans rights. She ran for Senate in 2018 in her home district in Maryland and is continuing to fight for transgender rights behind bars.One in six trans Americans — and one in two black trans Americans — have been to prison, according to Lambda Legal. Incarcerated trans people face higher levels of violence, and and experience higher rates of rape and sexual assault. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, trans people are "ten times as likely to be sexually assaulted by their fellow inmates and five times as likely to be sexually assaulted by staff." Trans women are often refused gender-affirming care while incarcerated, or are placed in solitary confinement, which happened to Manning several times while previously imprisoned, leading to suicide attempts. In June 2019, 27-year-old Layleen Polanco was found dead in solitary confinement on Rikers Island after being unable to meet $500 bail, sparking community outrage. The same month, Johana Medina Leon, an asylum seeker from El Salvador, died in ICE detention. Although Manning continues to face life-threatening circumstances while imprisoned, Sheriff Lawhorne told Refinery29 that she is currently alive and stable. "It was handled appropriately by our professional staff and Ms. Manning is safe," he said.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?A Man Died In Jail After He Couldn't Pay $100 BondSuspect Arrested In The Murder Of Chynal LindseyChelsea Manning In Vogue: The Fashion Star
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| Satellite images show Iran has built mass graves amid coronavirus outbreak Posted: 12 Mar 2020 02:52 PM PDT  Trenches in city of Qom confirm worst fears about extent of the epidemic and the government's subsequent cover-upSatellite images of mass graves in the city of Qom suggest Iran's coronavirus epidemic is even more serious than the authorities are admitting.The pictures, first published by the New York Times, show the excavation of a new section in a cemetery on the northern fringe of Iran's holy city in late February, and two long trenches dug, of a total length of 100 yards, by the end of the month.They confirm the worst fears about the extent of the epidemic and the government's subsequent cover-up. On 24 February, at the time the trenches were being dug, a legislator from Qom, 75 miles (120 km) south of Tehran, accused the health ministry of lying about the scale of the outbreak, saying there had already been 50 deaths in the city, at a time when the ministry was claiming only 12 people had died from the virus nationwide.The deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, held a press conference to "categorically deny" the allegations, but he was clearly sweating and coughing as he did so. The next day, Harirchi confirmed that he had tested positive for the Covid-19 virus.Since then, members of Iranian parliament, the Majlis, a former diplomat and a senior adviser to the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, have died. Another Khamenei adviser and one of the most powerful voices in Iranian foreign policy, Ali Akbar Velayati, was reported on Thursday to have been infected. The top ranks of Iran's clerical leadership are particularly vulnerable because of their advanced age.According to the latest health ministry figures, more than 10,000 Iranians have fallen ill from the virus and 429 have died.Amir Afkhami, who has written a history of Iran's experience of cholera epidemics, A Modern Contagion, said the mass graves add weight to suspicions the real mortality figures are much higher and are still being covered by the leadership."It doesn't surprise me that they are now trying to create mass graves and trying to hide the actual extent of the impact of the disease," Dr Afkhami, an associate professor at George Washington University, said.He added that the close trading partnership between Iran and China, and the government's fear of disrupting that partnership had contributed to the early and rapid spread of the disease."Because of China's status as the country's principal commercial partner, the Iranian government took inadequate cautionary measures to restrict and monitor travelers from China," Dr Afkhami said. "Then, later on, Tehran's lack of transparency and unwillingness to take robust measures such as social distancing and quarantine, particularly at the epicenter of the outbreak, helped spread the virus."
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| NYC Declares Emergency; France Closes All Schools: Virus Update Posted: 12 Mar 2020 02:39 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- New York City declared a state of emergency.France will close all schools starting next week, as President Emmanuel Macron called the coronavirus the epidemic of the century. Macron was slated to speak with President Donald Trump on Friday amid Europe's anger about flight bans the U.S. has imposed.New York will ban events over 500 people, in rules that will apply to Broadway theaters. The leading U.S. infectious-disease official said the testing system in the country is failing.U.S. stocks tumbled, with benchmark gauges posting their worst drop since 1987.Key Developments:Confirmed cases at 128,393 globally; 4,742 deathsNCAA baskeball, baseball and NHL all suspend playItaly's death surged despite a nationwide lockdownTrump flight clampdown is a hammer blow for airlinesU.S. has cases in 44 statesSubscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg's Prognosis team here.Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus and here for maps and charts. For analysis of the impact from Bloomberg Economics, click here. To see the impact on oil and commodities demand, click here.Two New York Hospitals Ask Doctors Not to Travel (5:35 p.m. NY)Two major New York City hospital systems have asked physicians and other staff to stay close to home in case they're needed because of a surge of infected patients. Northwell Health has requested that doctors not make personal or business trips, said a spokesman. A physician at Mount Sinai Health System, another of the metropolitan area's largest hospital groups, said doctors had been told not to take personal trips.Disney to Shut California Theme Parks (4:49 p.m. NY)Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure will be closed from March 14 through the end of the month. The move follows an order by California Governor Gavin Newsom for the state to limit public gatherings to 250 people. NYC Declares Emergency (4:22 p.m. NY)Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency for New York, saying the city would enforce its decree against many public gatherings to combat the new coronavirus outbreak."All of our large venues will no longer have gatherings," the mayor said at a news conference. "I suspect it will be a number of months."The order also applies to restaurants and bars, he said. Venues under 500 capacity will operate at 50% occupancy.He called the overall numbers of new virus cases "striking and troubling.""We now have 95 confirmed cases, 42 new since yesterday," the mayor said, "29 in mandatory quarantine, more than 1,700 in voluntary quarantine."Ohio Closes Schools, Bans Mass Gatherings (4:07 p.m. NY)Ohio is banning mass gatherings with 100 or more people, with exclusions including normal operations at airports, offices, factories, restaurants, and a few other venues. Governor Mike DeWine also said children will get an extended spring break for at least three weeks starting at the end of the school day on Monday.France to Close All Schools (3:35 p.m. NY)France ordered the closing of nurseries, schools and universities from the beginning of next week to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which President Emmanuel Macron called the worst health crisis in a century.France urged people to work from home, limit travel, and keep the most fragile citizens and people over 70 in their houses."The government will use all the financial means necessary to save lives, whatever the cost," the president said.Baseball, Boston Marathon Curbed (3:15 p.m. NY)Major League Baseball will suspend spring training games and to delay the start of the 2020 regular season by at least two weeks, it said in a statement.The iconic Boston Marathon will be run in September instead of on April 20, CBS Boston reported.Pro basketball, hockey and Nascar have all announced curtailed activities in recent days.New York to Ban Events Over 500 People (2:28 p.m.)New York Governor Andrew Cuomo banned gatherings of more than 500 people to slow the virus's spread. He also banned visitors to nursing homes, though the restrictions didn't apply to them, nor to hospitals, schools or mass transit.He said the density rules will apply to Broadway, starting Thursday night.The New York Philharmonic canceled performances through March, it said in a statement.Cuomo reported a 112 new cases in New York for a total of 328. There were no deaths, he said.Trump Had Limited Interaction With Infected Brazil Official (2:15 p.m. NY)The White House said President Trump had "almost no interactions" with a visiting staff member of Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro. The aide had attended a dinner with the president at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend and has since tested positive with the coronavirus.Pictures show the aide, Fabio Wajngarten, Bolsonaro's communications secretary, side by side with Trump, wearing a "Make Brazil Great Again" hat."I'm not concerned," Trump said at a news conference.U.K. Sees Peak in 10-14 Weeks (1:46 p.m. NY)U.K. coronavirus infections are likely to be between 5,000 and 10,000, the government's chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said in a press conference alongside Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Vallance said the peak of the outbreak may be 10 to 14 weeks away in the U.K.The number of cases will rise sharply and more people will die, Johnson said, as he described the outbreak as "the worst public health crisis for a generation." Johnson also confirmed the government has moved on from trying to contain the virus to instead focus on delaying the worst of outbreak.NHL Suspends Games, Nascar Bans Fans (1:45 p.m. NY)The National Hockey League has decided to follow the National Basketball Association's lead and suspend its season in response to the coronavirus. NASCAR will hold its Miami, Atlanta races without fans.Italy Deaths Surge By Third, Surpass 1,000 (1:22 p.m. NY)The death toll in Italy rose to 1,016 from 827, civil protection officials said on Thursday. The European nation has 15,113 total cases, up from 12,462 previously reported.Metropolitan Museum to Close Starting Friday (1 p.m. NY)The Metropolitan Museum's three sites in New York City are closing starting on Friday, joining cultural and sports institutions globally that have shut to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. There was no date set to reopen, according to a phone operator.Virus Threatens to Overwhelm EU Health Care (12:39 p.m. NY)The coronavirus threatens to exceed health care capacity across the European Union, according to the bloc's disease prevention office.Trends across Europe mirror those seen earlier in China, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, which called for and "immediate targeted action" to counteract the spread of the disease. The virus has reached all EU countries and the U.K., with a total of 17,413 cases in the region as of March 11, with more than half of those cases in Italy, the agency said."In a few weeks or even days, it is likely that similar situations to those seen in China and Italy may be seen" in other countries in the region, the organization said in a statement.Democrats Move Debate to Washington Without Audience (12:35 p.m. NY)The Democratic debate between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden will be held in the nation's capital on Sunday without an audience to reduce the risk of spreading coronavirus.U.S. Should Put on Hold Sports Events for 8 Weeks (12:09 p.m. NY)Large events, especially sports like the NCAA's March Madness should be put on hold for four to eight weeks until the significance of the outbreak is determined, said Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Trudeau to Self-Isolate After Wife's Illness (12:01 p.m. NY)Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in self-isolation and working from home while his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, is awaiting the results of a COVID-19 test.U.S. Testing System a Failing, Fauci Says (11:41 a.m. NY)Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told lawmakers Thursday that the U.S. testing system for coronavirus is "a failing" and not yet ready to ramp up to test more Americans."The idea of anyone getting it easily the way people in other countries are doing it, we're not setup for that," he said at a House Oversight Committee hearing.Netherlands Canceling All Events of More Than 100 (11:02 a.m. NY)The Netherlands plans to cancel all events, including sports games and trade shows, attended by more than 100 people for the rest of the month. The move scales up measures announced earlier in the week that targeted only the province hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak.At a briefing in The Hague, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that he sees no reason to close schools. He also said that health officials have noticed new cases that can't be traced back to a specific source. Dutch Minister for Medical Care Bruno Bruins called on all people with a cold, cough, or fever to stay home, while calling on the country's residents to work from home as much as possible.As of Thursday, the Netherlands has 614 confirmed cases, an increase of 111 from the day before, and five deaths.Emirates to Delay Delivery of A380 Planes (10:15 a.m. New York)Dubai's Emirates is seeking to delay delivery of the last handful of Airbus's A380 double-decker jetliner it has ordered, as the coronavirus pandemic eviscerates demand for flight. The world's largest long-haul airline still plans to take the eight remaining A380s and is discussing the timing of the handovers with Airbus, people familiar with the matter said.Two European Countries Restrict Entry (9:02 a.m. NY)Slovakia is closing its borders to non-residents after the number of infections rose to 16 from 10 a day earlier, Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini told journalists in Bratislava. The Czech Republic declared a 30-day state of emergency and barred entry to non-residents from 15 countries.Carnival's Princess Cruises Pauses Operations (9 a.m. NY)Carnival Corp. fell as much as 24% in London after its Princess Cruises unit said it will pause global operations for two months because of the impact of the coronavirus, which has spread on several ships worldwide. Some voyages under way will be completed.ECB Holds Rates, Boosts QE (8:40 a.m. NY)European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde followed through on her pledge to counter the economic shock of the coronavirus outbreak with a stimulus package that included more bond purchases and loans for banks but not an interest-rate cut.Lagarde called for an "ambitious and coordinated policy response" to counter the economic effects of the virus.Germany Ready to Ditch Balanced Budget (8:28 a.m. NY)Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration is prepared to abandon its long-standing balanced-budget policy to help finance measures to contain the economic fallout of the coronavirus. Given the threat of an economic recession from the pandemic, Merkel and her economic team are now willing to accept deficit spending to help finance containment measures, according to people with direct knowledge.U.S. Urging 14-Day Isolation for Americans Coming from Europe (8:10 a.m. NY)"Americans coming home will be funneled through 13 different airports, they'll be screened and then we're going to ask every American and legal resident returning to the United States to self-quarantine for 14 days," Vice President Mike Pence told CNN.JPMorgan Tells NY Employees to Work From Home (8:05 a.m. NY)JPMorgan Chase & Co. is planning to implement a staggered work-from-home plan for its New York-area employees after the governor asked businesses to help the state slow the spread of the coronavirus.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in an interview on CNN Wednesday he would ask businesses to voluntarily consider staggering shifts for employees and letting them telecommute to help stem the spread of the highly contagious virus. New York cases jumped to 212 on Wednesday after not having a single case less than two weeks ago, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.Singapore Prepares Second Virus Package (8 a.m. NY)Singapore is preparing a second package of support measures as the coronavirus outbreak weighs on the economy, but it isn't going to lock down the city-state with more stringent measures, according to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.The city-state will take steps to support firms and workers, Lee said, without providing financial details on the package. The government will assist companies with their costs and cash-flow, while also helping people keep their jobs and retrain them during their downtime, he said.U.K. Looks at Contingency Plan for EU Brexit Talks (7:44 a.m NY)The U.K. is looking at "a contingency plan" for next week's trade talks with the European Union in London due to the coronavirus outbreak, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman told reporters. There will be a joint EU-U.K. decision on the talks, spokesman James Slack said.Merkel's CDU Postpones Meeting to Select New Leader (7:36 a.m. NY)Outgoing CDU chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said the scheduled April 25 meeting in Berlin will not take place and will be rearranged "as soon as the situation around this epidemic permits it."Ireland to Shut Schools (7:33 a.m. NY)Irish PM Leo Varadkar said schools and colleges will close from 6 p.m. Thursday until March 29, as will cultural institutions. He said mass outdoor gatherings should be canceled, indoor meetings curtailed, and urged people to work form home where possible. Speaking to reporters in Washington, he said stores and cafes can remain open, but urged caution in social settings.Separately, news agency NTB reported Norwegian schools and kindergartens will also be closed to limit the spread of coronavirus, as part of measures to be announced by Prime Minister Erna Solberg.Cases Soar in Iran (6:50 a.m. NY)Iran reported 1,075 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total count in the country to 10,075. The health ministry revealed 75 new deaths in the past day, with 429 total fatalities. The country has asked the International Monetary Fund for $5 billion to help deal with outbreak.Iran earlier said the virus had probably passed its peak in two of its worst-hit provinces, Qom -- where the country's outbreak started -- and Gilan in the northern Caspian Sea region. Iran currently has the capacity to carry at 6,000 coronavirus tests daily, but is hoping to increase that figure to 10,000.EU Hits Out at Trump Travel Ban (6:40 a.m. NY)"The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action," the heads of the European Union's main institutions said in a statement. "The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation," Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel said in a joint statement.President Trump said he will suspend all travel from Europe to the U.S. for the next 30 days, the most far-reaching measure yet in the administration's efforts to combat the spread of coronavirus. The restrictions, which will not apply to the U.K., will go into effect Friday at midnight, he said in an Oval Office address.\--With assistance from Adveith Nair, Tim Ross, Jennifer Jacobs, Saleha Mohsin, Michael Hirtzer, Cecilia Yap, Clarissa Batino, Jason Scott, Alexandra Veroude, Derek Wallbank, Golnar Motevalli, Stuart Biggs, Nikos Chrysoloras, Dara Doyle, Layan Odeh, Siddharth Philip, Joost Akkermans, Rudy Ruitenberg, Alexander Ruoff, Alex Morales, Scott Soshnick, Kevin Miller and Mark Niquette.To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Adveith Nair in London at anair29@bloomberg.net;John Harney in Washington at jharney2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Stuart Wallace at swallace6@bloomberg.net, ;Drew Armstrong at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net, Mark Schoifet, Ian FisherFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump’s Coronavirus Speech Sparks ‘Total Chaos’ in His Own Administration Posted: 12 Mar 2020 02:38 PM PDT  President Donald Trump's Oval Office address Wednesday evening was supposed to calm concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. Instead, it sparked panic and confusion. Not just among the markets, U.S. travelers, and international leaders but within his own administration as well.Two officials in the U.S. State Department told The Daily Beast that foreign service officers and diplomats were unprepared for the president's announcement and spent the early hours of Thursday scrambling to figure out how their work and travel would be affected in the short term. "It is just total chaos," said one official currently abroad, adding that they did not know if they would have to return to the U.S. immediately or if they would need to quarantine for two weeks upon arriving. Diplomats and other U.S. staff overseas did not know if they'd be able to even visit their families back in the States, and they frantically searched for answers that weren't immediately available from Foggy Bottom or the West Wing.In his Oval Office address Wednesday night, President Trump announced that he was banning travel from Europe to the U.S. but did not specify the details of how that plan would be rolled out or if Americans could still travel to the region. He also did not give European officials a heads up, saying the situation required him to move with haste.The result was confusion. Another U.S. official said they received calls from their European counterparts asking for clarification on exactly what the president was restricting in regard to travel to and from European countries. As of Thursday night, U.S. officials abroad said they were still unclear exactly how Trump's proclamation would be implemented in real-time. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had not updated embassies with any guidance or notes on preventive measures."I'm used to it with this administration that we wouldn't know anything until the morning after," another U.S. official said. "But now basically a full work day later? That's surprising even for these times."That lack of clarity extended to within the walls of the White House. Shortly after President Trump's speech on Wednesday, White House aides and administration officials were already scrambling to walk back, clarify, or straight-up correct key portions of his high-stakes Oval Office address, furiously communicating with one another and inquisitive media outlets trying to figure out what had just happened.During Wednesday's address, the president asserted that new travel restrictions would "apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo," a claim administration officials almost immediately clarified would not apply to individuals or trade outright. Trump also mentioned that health insurance companies had "agreed to waive all copayments for coronavirus treatments," a claim that was news to befuddled health insurers. And Trump's travel ban was widely interpreted as applying wholesale to continental Europe, only to have White House communicators clear up that the intended policy exempted several countries beyond the UK. "We are wasting time playing mop-up on something we absolutely should not have to do right now," said a senior Trump administration official working on the communications clean-up since Wednesday evening. "And it goes without say[ing] that we aren't allowed to admit that any of it is the fault of the president."The corrective blitz went late into the night and then continued well into Thursday, as senior officials held several closed-door meetings into the early afternoon gaming out how to finish cleaning up for the misinformation and inaccurate assertions that President Trump made in his prepared remarks, which were largely co-authored by the White House's immigration policy adviser Stephen Miller and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.Seven Trump administration officials described to The Daily Beast a mad dash to contain fallout from Trump's delivery that could further spook the markets or stir panic in Americans, at home and abroad, and international trade partners and allied nations.The chaos only added to the frustrations that the upper ranks of the Trump administration have felt this week as top officials have scrambled to control the fallout of a growing pandemic. And it's been complicated by the fact that part of their efforts have been devoted to making sure that Trump himself doesn't feel under siege. Trump Is Seething Over Having to Work With Pelosi on a Coronavirus ResponseIn the midst of this maelstrom, administration officials and top Republicans have gone out of their way to insist that the president has been doing an unimpeachable job at managing the crisis, mainstream media and Democratic politicos be damned."President @realDonaldTrump has taken bold action in response to the Coronavirus. The steps the President announced in regard to Europe protect the American people—our highest priority—and are part of the most comprehensive effort to confront a virus in modern history," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gushed on Twitter Thursday.On Wednesday, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos tweeted, "From day one, @realDonaldTrumphas taken an aggressive, unprecedented approach to combating coronavirus. His decisive actions, including the additional steps announced tonight, will help prevent the spread of this virus and keep more students, parents and communities safe."HHS Secretary Alex Azar released a statement lauding Trump's "bold new steps," while blasting those who've "criticized the President's decisive steps early on in this outbreak." Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross similarly rushed to applaud the president's "unprecedented whole-of-government approach."The marshaling of the federal government's communications resources to provide a near-constant stream of statements, social-media posts, and press releases coddling the president's ego was treated internally as business as usual inside the administration. But for veterans of past White Houses, it was both remarkable and dispiriting. "[President Barack] Obama would never have allowed us to host a North Korea-style press conference where he was lavished with praise [in a public-health crisis]. He wanted his team to regularly release factual, science-based information, even when it was bad news," said Tommy Vietor, who served as a White House spokesman during the 2009 swine-flu crisis, a pandemic that Trump, as well as various Republican figures and conservative-media stars, have frequently cited as a "whatabout" in defending the current administration's response."We were never told to put out information about how great Obama's response effort was," Vietor added. "His focus was on managing the actual problem, and if we were able to do that, public opinion about the response would follow." 'Pandumbic': 'Daily Show' Gives Trump the Disaster Movie TreatmentRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Fleeing Maduro, Venezuelans find nightmare in Trump's jails Posted: 12 Mar 2020 02:13 PM PDT  When Jose Ramon Zambrano and his pregnant wife crossed the Rio Grande to apply for asylum in the U.S., they were looking for a fresh start far away from a certain arrest in his native Venezuela, where his mother is a prominent government opponent. "Crossing the border in search of protection isn't a crime," Zambrano said from a detention center near Houston. Zambrano is one of hundreds of Venezuelans fleeing the socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro and showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border in larger numbers in recent months, only to encounter President Donald Trump's hard-line immigration policies.
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| WHO: Don't expect travel bans, 'Mother Nature' to beat virus Posted: 12 Mar 2020 02:03 PM PDT  Countries may gain time in the short-term as they limit travel to fight the new coronavirus pandemic, but the World Health Organization thinks overall that "it doesn't help to restrict movement," a top adviser to the U.N. health agency's chief said Thursday. Dr. Bruce Aylward, who led a WHO team in China during the raging COVID-19 outbreak there last month, said in an interview that travel bans "generally aren't part of the armamentarium you bring to bear on something like this." "What we found, as a general principle - not a general principle, a pretty robust principle - is that it doesn't help to to restrict movement," Aylward, a former WHO emergencies chief, said outside a room at agency headquarters devoted to the outbreak.
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| The Appeal of Conscience Foundation: United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, World Diplomats and Religious Leaders Honor Rabbi Arthur Schneier for His Sixty Years of Leadership on behalf of Human Rights, Religious Freedom, Peaceful Coexistence and Inter-religious Cooperation Posted: 12 Mar 2020 01:50 PM PDT  The event was held at the United Nations under the auspices of the United Nations Alliance of Civilization led by the High Representative H.Born in Vienna, Austria, March 20, 1930, Rabbi Schneier lived under Nazi occupation in Budapest during World War II and arrived in the United States in 1947.
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| Germany without Merkel: Where does Europe’s engine go next? Posted: 12 Mar 2020 12:38 PM PDT |
| Virus testing is a 'failing,' leaving cases uncounted Posted: 12 Mar 2020 12:29 PM PDT  Seven weeks have passed since the first U.S. case of coronavirus was announced, and the government is failing to account for what could be thousands of additional infections because of ongoing problems with testing. "The system is not really geared to what we need right now," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert at the National Institutes of Health. The effort initially was hobbled by delays in getting testing kits out to public health labs, but the stumbles have continued, leading scientists to conclude that the virus has taken root in more places than government officials say.
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| The World Has a Plan to Fight Coronavirus. Most Countries Are Not Using it. Posted: 12 Mar 2020 12:06 PM PDT  For weeks, the World Health Organization resisted declaring the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, fearing that doing so would incite panic across the globe.But facing the cameras on Wednesday, the agency's director general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, did just that, asking for global unity to "change the course of this pandemic."It was a symbolic moment that underscored the standing of the WHO as the world's leading public health agency. But it also reflected the WHO's underlying weakness as an organization that by international treaty is supposed to lead and coordinate the global fight against the coronavirus -- yet that has, in many ways, been marginalized.Global solidarity has been noticeably absent in the fight to stop an outbreak that has already killed more than 4,300 people and spread to more than 110 countries. No one seems to be in charge. There doesn't seem to be a plan.Except there is one. The problem is that relatively few countries are paying much attention to it.Fifteen years ago, the WHO undertook a major revision of the International Health Regulations, the global framework for responding to outbreaks. The revision was intended to correct flaws in the global response to the 2003 SARS outbreak, which killed hundreds of people and pushed advanced health care systems to the breaking point.The basic idea was that the WHO would serve as a central coordinating body. Countries would notify the agency about outbreaks and share information to help scientists address an epidemic at the global level. The WHO would coordinate efforts on containment, declare emergencies and make recommendations. The revised regulation is legally binding and has been signed by 196 countries, including the United States.But dozens of countries are flouting the international regulations and snubbing their obligations. Some have failed to report outbreaks to the organization, as required. Others have instituted international travel restrictions, against the advice of the WHO and without notifying global health officials."One of the biggest challenges we face is that too many affected countries are still not sharing data with WHO," Tedros said last month. He has also blamed some countries -- he has refused to specify which ones -- for failing to take the outbreak seriously enough.As part of the United Nations, the WHO is broadly influential yet hampered by budget and political pressures. It lacks meaningful enforcement authority, creating a telling power imbalance. It is often accused of kowtowing to its donors -- from powerful players like the United States and China to private funders like the Gates Foundation.These contradictions contributed to the agency's much-criticized response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and led some scholars to question the need for such a weak institution. But Rebecca Katz, a scholar at Georgetown University, said such criticism misses a fundamental point."If there wasn't a WHO, you'd have to invent it," said Katz, who has studied health regulations for more than a decade. "They are in a bit of a tough spot because you know you have international law but then you also know that every nation is sovereign," she said.This time, some former critics credit the WHO for doing a better job, declaring a global emergency much quicker than it did during the SARS and Ebola outbreaks, consistently sharing information with the public and convening more than 300 scientists and research funders to help develop tests, vaccines and medicines.Even so, the agency is also marginalized in many ways.The most obvious examples are the global flouting of international travel restrictions. More than 70 countries have instituted the restrictions, according to the WHO including the United States, where President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday night restrictions to travel from the European continent.Yet in four advisories it has issued since early January, the WHO has consistently advised against them, cautioning that limits on international movement during public health emergencies are unlikely to stop the pathogen's spread.The rules do not apply to domestic travel restrictions or to decisions made by private airlines, but the WHO has repeatedly warned that international bans can block needed resources or delay aid and technical support. Such restrictions are only justified at the beginning of an outbreak to buy nations time to prepare, the agency said. Beyond that, they are more likely to cause significant economic and social harm.Meanwhile, only 45 of the more than 70 countries who have adopted international travel restrictions have fulfilled the requirement to report their actions to the agency, a spokesman said.Restricting travel "is a good political placebo. It's going to make people feel safe," said Clare Wenham at the London School of Economics, a scholar who has studied the health regulations for more than a decade. "Why are we not learning that this doesn't work?" Wenham asked about travel restrictions.WHO itself has sent out mixed signals in recent weeks. In a report it issued this week, the agency said that some travel restrictions "may have delayed the importation of new cases." But WHO did not change its fundamental opposition to international restrictions or revise its travel advisory.Then there is the unwillingness of some countries to lift a ban on the export of protective equipment, complicating the broader fight against the disease. France and Germany have put limits on exports of such gear."We can understand that governments have a primary responsibility to their own health workers," said Dr. Michael Ryan, who heads the WHO's health emergencies program.He urged nations to stop hoarding gear and called for solidarity across the globe."The life of a health worker in one country is certainly as valued as the life of a health worker in another," Ryan said Monday.The national governments who signed onto the international regulation also left themselves a loophole, which they are exploiting now.The loophole was the product of hours of negotiations in Geneva, where the revisions were finalized in 2005, according to Gian Luca Burci, who served as the agency's legal counsel for 11 years. Burci said negotiators stayed up until 5 a.m. before agreeing on a trade-off that balanced "public health considerations and the retention of the ultimate political power."Countries were reluctant to cede total control to an international agency. They drafted a provision that gave them the right to take health measures that they believed would have similar or better results than WHO recommendations -- on the premise that these measures were scientifically grounded and for the common good."States gave themselves a 'get-out-of-jail-free' card," Burci said.Under the rules, countries are obligated to report to the health agency within 48 hours any measures that they take beyond the collective guidelines as well as report the rationale behind their actions. Many countries have failed to do so during the coronavirus outbreak, and the WHO can do little about it.In some cases, WHO officials only learned of travel shutdowns after they happened, from reports in the media."What do we really mean if nobody is following WHO's recommendation with impunity," Burci asked.Because they have no power to enforce international regulations, WHO officials have to walk a diplomatic tightrope. In a statement, a WHO spokesman said that the agency "cannot compel countries to change measures they have implemented."Last month, Tedros sent two letters, which have not been made public, reminding nations about their obligations. His staff has collated media reports on the flurry of travel restrictions and is chasing after countries to obtain their rationale.Agency officials have resisted naming and shaming countries that breach the rules and have largely dodged media questions on the subject."The WHO doesn't interact in public debate or criticize our member states in public," Ryan said Wednesday when asked which countries had failed to rise to the occasion."You know who you are," Ryan said.Part of that hesitation comes down to money, said Dr. Ashish Jha, a director of Harvard Global Health Institute. The organization has said that it needs $675 million to fund its response to the coronavirus outbreaks. As of this week, nations have pledged to donate about $300 million."WHO is at the mercy of its member states," Jha said. "Countries don't have to listen."Even as the agency struggles to nudge member states to comply with the regulations, the coronavirus pandemic poses major questions for the future. One pressing question is on how the world will cope if an outbreak develops in countries with underdeveloped health care systems.Two-thirds of the world's countries lack the necessary laboratories and surveillance systems to detect outbreaks and comply with international regulations. The Group of 7 has pledged to help poorer nations but have not always followed through.The world is not ready for "a fast-moving, virulent respiratory pathogen pandemic," a WHO report said last year.Katz, the Georgetown scholar, said stronger international regulations would help prepare for such an outbreak."This is what we have. This is the agreement we have. This is the organization we have," she said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Russian lawmakers told to rally behind Putin's move to extend rule Posted: 12 Mar 2020 11:58 AM PDT |
| Donald Trump is the very worst person to handle the coronavirus crisis Posted: 12 Mar 2020 11:39 AM PDT  The president responded to the pandemic with denial and blaming foreigners. His incompetence and selfishness will be lethalCoronavirus is the first major crisis Donald Trump has faced that is not of his own making. People who know what it is like to be in charge when disaster strikes have warned us this moment would come eventually – and we can now see why they were so terrified.Trump in a time of coronavirus is a lethal combination. Everything about the president – his reliance on his gut instincts in place of expertise, his overwhelming selfishness, and his unfailing tendency to lash out at others when things go wrong – make him the worst person imaginable to hold the world's most powerful job in the face of pandemic.Confronting the threat requires global cooperation, perhaps more than at any time since the second world war. But Trump and his junior imitators around the world have taken a sledgehammer to the very notion of international solidarity.America's closest allies were given no notice of his decision on Wednesday night to suspend flights from Europe. The EU mission in Washington only found out about it when journalists started calling.The president has dealt with coronavirus the same way he approached every other challenge in his administration, first trying denial – and when that failed, blaming outsiders. The disease has slid from a Democratic "hoax" to the "foreign virus". It came as little surprise that his speech had been written by Stephen Miller, the author of the administration's cruellest anti-immigration policies.The declaration of a European travel ban was only the second time Trump has addressed the nation from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. The first time was to announce the building of a wall on the Mexican border. The administration has made xenophobia its defining ethos.It can stir up passions and corral votes, but railing against foreigners is useless against a virus that is indifferent to ethnicity and nationality.Slamming the gates shut is also pointless in the face of a disease that already has taken hold within. Its incidence appears lower in the US than in much of Europe so far – but almost certainly because US has barely started testing.And the US is only shutting some of its gates. The exclusion of the UK and non-Schengen countries like Ireland from the ban makes no sense if stopping the spread of disease is really the aim. Contrary to Trump's claim, the UK is not doing a "great job" in containing coronavirus compared with most of its European neighbours.It may or may not be a coincidence that Trump has golf resorts in the UK and Ireland. Given Trump's preoccupation with his investments throughout his time in office, it is as plausible an explanation as any for an otherwise pointless decision.On the one strategy known to be effective in curbing the pandemic – screening for the virus and organised social distancing – the US is far behind most of the countries it has now cut off.The production and distribution of diagnostic tests has been a fiasco. The initial test distributed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was flawed and had to be recalled. Production of new tests has been held back by a global shortage of a key component, reagents used to extract RNA from samples. Largely because of complacency at the top, the US was last in line putting its order in.The same complacency has allowed the institutions that the US now most needs to wither and die. Trump's third national security adviser, John Bolton, axed the office in the national security council to coordinate a US response to pandemics, which was established after the Ebola outbreak.Bolton, like Trump, did not see it as a real national security issue, like China or Iran."Who would have thought we would even be having the subject?" Trump wondered aloud, in explanation of why the administration had been taken by surprise.With an eye fixed on the money markets, the president has sought to cover up the real lack of resilience in the system, insisting: "We're testing everybody that we need to test."But the truth has quickly become felt around the country, as people with symptoms and risk factors have been denied testing.The CDC director, Robert Redfield, an evangelical conservative with no previous experience in managing a large state agency, revealed how out of touch the administration was with the reality on the ground on Wednesday.When asked by the House oversight committee why the US was not providing drive-through tests, as have been introduced elsewhere – he replied: "We're trying to maintain the relationship between individuals and their healthcare providers."Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat pointed out to him that most Americans do not have a regular doctor, and certainly do not see a physician often enough to have a "relationship". When they get seriously ill, most head for the emergency room of the country's overstrained hospitals.The lack of tests means that the country is stumbling blindfolded into the worst health crisis in decades. Despite warnings from his own experts, the president reportedly clings to the relatively low number of confirmed cases as a sign that the US might be spared the worst.When the country is struck by the inevitable wave of sickness and deaths, sweeping aside Trump's reassurances, it is hard to predict how he will react.We do know he will see it through the prism of his prospects for re-election, and we can be fairly certain he will look for someone to blame along with a distraction, most likely some form of conflict at home or abroad.The scale of the debacle will require a major distraction. Awful as the coronavirus pandemic looks now, Trump's backlash could be even worse.
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| Israel's Netanyahu calls for emergency government with rival Posted: 12 Mar 2020 11:29 AM PDT  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday called for the formation of an emergency government to confront a growing crisis over the coronavirus, offering a potential way out of the deadlock that has paralyzed the political system for the past year. Netanyahu made the offer in a nationally televised address, saying the virus does "not differentiate" between Jews and non-Jews or between the political left and right.
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| US airports calm after Trump's coronavirus travel restrictions as Europe scrambles Posted: 12 Mar 2020 11:15 AM PDT  In Europe thousands of travelers are rushing to fly out after Trump issued an overnight order but in America airports are empty * Follow live US updates on the coronavirusPassengers at New York's JFK airport waiting for flights to Europe experienced almost none of the chaos reported at European international airports, where some passengers have been paying exorbitant sums to get to the US ahead of tomorrow's travel ban.With a single Alitalia flight, from Rome, on the arrivals board at JFK's terminal two, many passengers said they had decided to leave early and – without confirmations – hoped that they would be allowed to switch to a Europe-bound flight today, knowing that with inbound flights shutting down their chances of returning home beyond tomorrow are limited."I came to the airport a day early because I do not know how I will get home otherwise," said Pasquale Fimiani, waiting for the Alitalia desk to open.The Wednesday night sudden decision by Donald Trump to close down European flights, he said, seemed "very chaotic"."Frankly, I don't think this is the best way to manage this situation," Fimiani added. "There are many people like me – Europeans in America and Americans in Europe – who want to come back home."Returning to Italy, where millions are under restricted travel and home quarantine, Pasquale added, was preferable, despite New York life – at least judging by full restaurants and operating subways – remaining mostly uninterrupted."When I get home to Rome I will be under great restrictions, but I think the government is handling it," Fimiani added.Only foreign travelers to countries who have been in the Schengen area of Europe 14 days prior are affected by the new restrictions. US nationals are not affected, though disruption to trans-Atlantic flights is likely to impact US-bound travelers of all nationalities as airlines cut schedules.Travel restrictions would not apply to those who had been in the UK, Trump clarified, and would begin on Friday 13 March at midnight and last for 30 days.Micaela from Austria said she decided last night after Trump's address to come directly to the airport to try and get home after being placed on a two-hour telephone hold by United. "It feels like it is just getting serious here now so decided to try to leave today. So I came here to see what flight I could take," she said.But on the way into the US, on 5 March, she encountered almost no screening checks. "They asked me if I'd been to China or Iran, but they didn't ask me if I'd had any fever. I said no, and that was it. I expected much more."Jose Andres, hoping to fly home to Valencia, Spain, via Madrid, said the choice between staying in America, where testing for coronavirus is still sporadic, and being under the European system of healthcare was a relatively easy choice to make."Our system is better than here because everyone who has the virus is getting free healthcare," Andres noted.But with almost empty terminals, a smattering of airline staff in face-masks and generalized sense of foreboding, JFK seemed to be a ghost town compared to pre-coronavirus activity.Curbside attendant Anthony Peart said his hours had already been cut down. "They says they will increase again when this coronavirus is over but who knows when that will be."An airport official, who declined to be identified, said Trump's abrupt directive is not necessarily the last word in the fast-moving crisis."Saying something and enforcing it are two different things. So who knows? What's he going to do? Force flights to stop? I think it's a waiting game."But others traveling said they believed the decision was a prudent one, despite inconveniencing millions of travelers and helping to cause global stocks to take another precipitous plunge.In Europe, thousands of travelers planning to travel to the US have been left scrambling after Trump issued the overnight order hours after the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic.US-bound traveler Mike McIntire posted a photo on Twitter earlier today of the scene at Charles de Gaulle in Paris, France where thousands lined up to board US-bound flights."Bedlam at US-bound airlines at CDG in Paris early this am, as Americans pay as much as $20,000 for last-minute flights," McIntire wrote.In his statement, Trump said: "The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots. As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe."He continued: "We made a lifesaving move with early action on China. Now we must take the same action with Europe."But at JFK, as travelers milled around hoping for news from airplane representatives, some said it was a good time to leave the US."You can't get any masks, not even at the hardware or beauty-supply stores, and even bottles of hand-sanitizer is restricted to one per customer," said Anna Nobokova-Henry, returning to Moscow.The airport, she said, might be empty but remaining staff seemed on the verge of nonchalance. "Nothing is really happening here – I can't see TSA or airport staff making any protective measures. People probably are scared but they don't seem to be taking actions to protect themselves as seriously here."
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| Brexit trade talks have been cancelled next week due to the coronavirus pandemic Posted: 12 Mar 2020 11:10 AM PDT  The next round of Brexit trade negotiations, due to take place in London next week, have been cancelled because of the coronavirus.
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| Talking to kids about virus? Experts say be calm and honest Posted: 12 Mar 2020 11:10 AM PDT  It was a routine game of schoolyard tag — except the children had dubbed this version "coronavirus." The kids ran around and tagged one another, but instead of being "it," they "caught" the virus. Children like the ones a reporter saw playing recently at a school in Washington, D.C., are becoming more aware of the coronavirus — though they may not fully understand it or know how seriously to take it — as it begins to affect their daily lives with school closures and event cancellations, restrictions on travel, and the NBA nixing the rest of its season.
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| Iran’s Khamenei Says Virus Outbreak May Be ‘Biological Attack’ Posted: 12 Mar 2020 10:53 AM PDT |
| EU’s Eastern Wing Restricts Entry, Shuts Sites to Stop Virus Posted: 12 Mar 2020 10:52 AM PDT |
| Foxx touts record as Smollett case engulfs Illinois primary Posted: 12 Mar 2020 10:33 AM PDT |
| Iran accuses US of `economic terrorism,' urges sanctions end Posted: 12 Mar 2020 10:28 AM PDT  Iran's foreign minister demanded Thursday that the United States immediately halt what he called a "campaign of economic terrorism" and lift sanctions, saying they have made it increasingly difficult for the country to export oil and virtually impossible to import medicine and medical equipment, including to identify and treat coronavirus patients. Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that U.S. sanctions have also left thousands of Iranians stranded abroad and severely disrupted air links with Europe.
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| Only on AP: Pepper-sprayed inmates reach $177K settlement Posted: 12 Mar 2020 09:58 AM PDT |
| Brazilian who met Trump has virus; no plans to test Trump Posted: 12 Mar 2020 09:46 AM PDT  A senior Brazilian official who attended weekend events with President Donald Trump in Florida has tested positive for the coronavirus, marking the first time that someone known to have the virus was in close proximity to the president. Trump does not plan to be tested or go into self-quarantine, the White House said. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's communications director, Fábio Wajngarten, tested positive just days after traveling with Bolsonaro to a meeting with Trump and senior aides in Florida.
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| Iran asks IMF for loan to combat virus as infections pass 10,000 Posted: 12 Mar 2020 09:29 AM PDT  Iran said Thursday it has asked the IMF for its first loan in decades to combat a coronavirus outbreak that has claimed 429 lives and infected more than 10,000 people. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced the request on Twitter, calling on the International Monetary Fund to "stand on the right side of history". In a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Zarif also called for an end to US sanctions, which he said were "undermining our efforts to fight the COVID-19 epidemic in Iran".
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| Turkey blames Kurdish fighters for Syria blast that killed 4 Posted: 12 Mar 2020 09:26 AM PDT |
| Pentagon: US strikes Iran-backed group that hit Iraq base Posted: 12 Mar 2020 09:11 AM PDT  The U.S. launched airstrikes Thursday in Iraq, targeting the Iranian-backed Shia militia members believed responsible for the rocket attack that killed and wounded American and British troops at a base north of Baghdad, the Pentagon said.. U.S. officials said multiple strikes by U.S. fighter jets hit five locations and mainly targeted Kataib Hezbollah weapons facilities inside Iraq. The strikes marked a rapid escalation in tensions with Tehran and its proxy groups in Iraq, just two months after Iran carried out a massive ballistic missile attack against American troops at a base in Iraq.
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| Biden pivots focus to Trump amid coronavirus concerns Posted: 12 Mar 2020 08:57 AM PDT  Joe Biden blasted President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus outbreak on Thursday and outlined how he would combat the threat differently by relying more heavily on global alliances and listening more closely to the recommendations of scientists. "This administration has left us woefully unprepared for the exact crisis we now face," Biden said from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. The new coronavirus has upended the presidential campaign at a crucial moment.
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| Top General: Coronavirus Could Push Iran To Lash Out at U.S. Posted: 12 Mar 2020 08:55 AM PDT  The coronavirus outbreak in Iran could lead to an increase in Tehran-sponsored attacks on the U.S. and its allies, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East said Thursday. Regimes like Iran's tend to look to external threats during moments of crisis, Marine Gen. Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie of U.S. Central Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee. While McKenzie cautioned that he and his staff have limited visibility into Iran and the effect of the Coronavirus outbreak there, "it probably makes them, in terms of decision-making, more dangerous rather than less dangerous," he testified. The outbreak already appears acute in Iran, despite regime attempts to tamp down word of its impact. Its health minister tested positive for the virus shortly after asserting it was under control. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that satellite photography indicates the construction of mass graves for Coronavirus casualties near Qom.McKenzie's testimony came the morning after the Pentagon confirmed that two U.S. servicemembers and a U.K. colleague were killed in a rocket attack on Camp Taji in Iraq, a violation of President Trump's "red line," and at least 12 others were wounded. The attacks raised fears that, as predicted, Iranian-sponsored reprisals for the January killing of external-security chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike were ramping up after an interval of relative quiet. McKenzie did not affirmatively attribute blame for the lethal rocketing of Taji, but indicated he considered the Iranian proxy militia Kata'ib Hezbollah a prime suspect. After a wave of varying explanations for the assassination of Soleimani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials explained the slaying as "re-establishing deterrence" against Iran. But several senators of both parties, including armed-services chairman Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), pointed out that the Taji attack suggested that no such bolstered deterrent has manifested. Nor has the dramatic escalation of U.S. forces to the Middle East since May – a figure McKenzie placed at an additional 10,000 U.S. troops, rather than the oft-cited 14,000 figure. "While periods of decreased tension may provide the illusion of a return to normalcy, ample intelligence exists indicating the Iranian regime's desire to continue malign operations that threaten lives, disrupt the internal matters of sovereign nations, and threaten freedom of navigation, regional commerce, global energy supplies, and the global economy," McKenzie testified. Pressed by senators, McKenzie said that the Soleimani assassination – a word he did not use – had restored "a rough form of deterrence," by which he meant direct state conflict. But proxy attacks, which are by far the more typical mode of Iranian operation against U.S. forces over the past 15 years, have not ended, even with the Soleimani killing and the force buildup. That U.S. force escalation ought to continue, McKenzie judged, "so long as we continue a Maximum Pressure campaign" against Iran. He conceded that the U.S. might have to "ultimately live with a low level of proxy attacks."McKenzie offered no connection between the Coronavirus outbreak and Wednesday's rocketing of Camp Taji. But he revealed a different Coronavirus episode: a CENTCOM contractor has displayed symptoms of the virus. That person, as yet unnamed, has been placed in quarantine, as has another person who interacted with that person, McKenzie stated. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Trump gives Pentagon authority for potential response after deadly Iraq attack Posted: 12 Mar 2020 08:37 AM PDT |
| Who Do You Trust in a Pandemic: Donald Trump or Angela Merkel? Posted: 12 Mar 2020 08:01 AM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Say there's a pandemic and you have a choice. You could camp on the set of a reality television show that's run by its star actor. Or you could wait it out in a chemistry lab that's administered by the university dean in consultation with all the doctors. Where would you feel more confident as news of the virus rushes in from all sides?That, in a nutshell, is the contrast in style displayed this week by U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The metaphors aren't far-fetched. Trump really did star on a reality TV show, and Merkel really does have a PhD in quantum chemistry. Since Trump's election in 2016, he and Merkel have been the yang and yin of world leaders, diametrical opposites in every way. The coronavirus shines a stark light on those differences.By definition, a pandemic is global and tests politicians everywhere, from South Korea to Italy. In general, it seems to bring out each leader's essence. China's President Xi Jinping, for example, dealt with the initial outbreak in Wuhan in characteristically authoritarian form, locking down entire populations and dictating behavior top-down.Trump and Merkel, for their parts, came in for a lot of criticism in their initial handling of the crisis. Trump, as is his wont, tried to brush off the danger with macho bluster, suggesting it's yet more fake news spread by Democrats to make him look bad. Next, he began posing as the alpha male among scientists and lab rats, barely hiding his disdain for experts and their expertise. "I like this stuff, I really get it," he boasted. "People are surprised that I understand it." Surprised they were; reassured they weren't.Merkel, meanwhile, was conspicuously absent in recent weeks. This was mainly because her party and country are in the midst of a leadership transition, and Merkel wanted to discreetly stay out of the news to avoid eclipsing the candidates. But as the cases started mounting, her silence wasn't tenable anymore.On Wednesday, Trump and Merkel both changed tack. Trump, enthroned behind his desk in the Oval Office, reverted to familiar tactics, such as scapegoating and creating a sense of "us" versus "them." Calling Covid-19 a "foreign virus," he blamed not only China but also Europe for being slow to act. For good measure, he announced a suspension of travel from Europe, explicitly exempting his Brexit buddies in the U.K. His vocabulary mixed terms of war and law enforcement, with "tough measures" to "defeat" the "threat."Merkel spoke at a big press conference Berlin. She was flanked by her health minister, Jens Spahn, as well as the head of Germany's public health institute. With balanced and matter-of-fact answers, the three jointly fielded journalists' questions.Merkel conveyed no sense of "us" and "them." Instead, she rejected the idea of closing the European Union's borders, emphasizing that the virus was already circulating within populations and that this was a test of "our solidarity, our common sense, our open-heartedness for one another." Again and again, she nodded to the experts next to her and deferred to scientists not even in the room. Without embellishment, she reported the pessimistic end of the "expert consensus," warning that between 60% and 70% of people in Germany may become infected eventually.Trump's attempt at leadership relies on signalling command and control: over resources, doctors, experts, the domestic population and foreign countries, ultimately even a virus. He asserts certainty where there is none. And he tries to rally support by appealing to those he considers to be on his side against those he deems outsiders.Merkel not only acknowledges but emphasizes that our main problem is that we don't yet know much — whether the virus will recede in warmer weather, say, or how many people have already been exposed. She explicitly defers to experts. She urges solidarity over exclusion. She's not promising victory but preparing Germans for a possibly long and uncertain, but joint, struggle, in which bans and prohibitions will play a smaller role than voluntary cooperation and grit.The whole government will do "whatever is necessary" to prevent the worst, she said. And suddenly, a chancellor who'd for months been considered a lame duck was back as the seasoned crisis manager she is — not "tough" but measured, not commanding but credible, not presumptuous but trustworthy. The coming months will show which style of leadership fares better in a real crisis. I'm a dual citizen of the U.S. and Germany. And I'll choose the lab.To contact the author of this story: Andreas Kluth at akluth1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andreas Kluth is a member of Bloomberg's editorial board. He was previously editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Who Do You Trust in a Pandemic: Donald Trump or Angela Merkel? Posted: 12 Mar 2020 08:01 AM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Say there's a pandemic and you have a choice. You could camp on the set of a reality television show that's run by its star actor. Or you could wait it out in a chemistry lab that's administered by the university dean in consultation with all the doctors. Where would you feel more confident as news of the virus rushes in from all sides?That, in a nutshell, is the contrast in style displayed this week by U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The metaphors aren't far-fetched. Trump really did star on a reality TV show, and Merkel really does have a PhD in quantum chemistry. Since Trump's election in 2016, he and Merkel have been the yang and yin of world leaders, diametrical opposites in every way. The coronavirus shines a stark light on those differences.By definition, a pandemic is global and tests politicians everywhere, from South Korea to Italy. In general, it seems to bring out each leader's essence. China's President Xi Jinping, for example, dealt with the initial outbreak in Wuhan in characteristically authoritarian form, locking down entire populations and dictating behavior top-down.Trump and Merkel, for their parts, came in for a lot of criticism in their initial handling of the crisis. Trump, as is his wont, tried to brush off the danger with macho bluster, suggesting it's yet more fake news spread by Democrats to make him look bad. Next, he began posing as the alpha male among scientists and lab rats, barely hiding his disdain for experts and their expertise. "I like this stuff, I really get it," he boasted. "People are surprised that I understand it." Surprised they were; reassured they weren't.Merkel, meanwhile, was conspicuously absent in recent weeks. This was mainly because her party and country are in the midst of a leadership transition, and Merkel wanted to discreetly stay out of the news to avoid eclipsing the candidates. But as the cases started mounting, her silence wasn't tenable anymore.On Wednesday, Trump and Merkel both changed tack. Trump, enthroned behind his desk in the Oval Office, reverted to familiar tactics, such as scapegoating and creating a sense of "us" versus "them." Calling Covid-19 a "foreign virus," he blamed not only China but also Europe for being slow to act. For good measure, he announced a suspension of travel from Europe, explicitly exempting his Brexit buddies in the U.K. His vocabulary mixed terms of war and law enforcement, with "tough measures" to "defeat" the "threat."Merkel spoke at a big press conference Berlin. She was flanked by her health minister, Jens Spahn, as well as the head of Germany's public health institute. With balanced and matter-of-fact answers, the three jointly fielded journalists' questions.Merkel conveyed no sense of "us" and "them." Instead, she rejected the idea of closing the European Union's borders, emphasizing that the virus was already circulating within populations and that this was a test of "our solidarity, our common sense, our open-heartedness for one another." Again and again, she nodded to the experts next to her and deferred to scientists not even in the room. Without embellishment, she reported the pessimistic end of the "expert consensus," warning that between 60% and 70% of people in Germany may become infected eventually.Trump's attempt at leadership relies on signalling command and control: over resources, doctors, experts, the domestic population and foreign countries, ultimately even a virus. He asserts certainty where there is none. And he tries to rally support by appealing to those he considers to be on his side against those he deems outsiders.Merkel not only acknowledges but emphasizes that our main problem is that we don't yet know much — whether the virus will recede in warmer weather, say, or how many people have already been exposed. She explicitly defers to experts. She urges solidarity over exclusion. She's not promising victory but preparing Germans for a possibly long and uncertain, but joint, struggle, in which bans and prohibitions will play a smaller role than voluntary cooperation and grit.The whole government will do "whatever is necessary" to prevent the worst, she said. And suddenly, a chancellor who'd for months been considered a lame duck was back as the seasoned crisis manager she is — not "tough" but measured, not commanding but credible, not presumptuous but trustworthy. The coming months will show which style of leadership fares better in a real crisis. I'm a dual citizen of the U.S. and Germany. And I'll choose the lab.To contact the author of this story: Andreas Kluth at akluth1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at jboxell@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Andreas Kluth is a member of Bloomberg's editorial board. He was previously editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Flight Bans Don’t Help Much This Late in a Pandemic Posted: 12 Mar 2020 07:34 AM PDT |
| Germany Ready to Ditch Balanced Budget to Combat Coronavirus Posted: 12 Mar 2020 07:15 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration is prepared to abandon its long-standing balanced-budget policy to help finance measures to contain the fallout of the coronavirus.Given the dimension of the crisis, Merkel and her economic team are now willing to accept deficit spending to help finance containment measures, according to people with direct knowledge of the government's economic policy. The virus-triggered crisis is one of the "exceptional circumstances" under the constitutional debt brake that allows for additional borrowing, said the people, who requested not to be named because the discussions are not public.While Merkel's government is ready to explore additional spending, no decisions have been made on specific measures or an amount. The government did not respond to requests for comment.The about-turn from Merkel's Christian Democratic-led bloc comes as economic authorities around the world are stepping up their crisis management, including a stimulus package announced by the European Central Bank on Thursday. For years Merkel's CDU upheld fiscal discipline as one of its mantras. Party members have half-jokingly boasted that the balanced budget policy, known as the black zero in German, is a fetish of theirs.Even when Germany flirted with a recession last year, Merkel resisted calls from Washington, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary to loosen its pursue strings. Over the past decade, its savings have cut public debt by more than 20 percentage points to less than 60% of gross domestic product. Last year, Berlin recorded a budget surplus of more than 13 billion euros.The new stance does not mean that the government is planning to launch a massive stimulus program or raise debt. In fact, the government still has as much as 50 billion euros ($56 billion) in reserves that it could tap. But it does mean that it can ramp up spending beyond budgetary limitations, the people said."We don't want to give it up light heartedly, but what needs to be done will be done," Andreas Jung, deputy leader of the Christian Democratic-led caucus in parliament, told NTV television on Thursday in reference to the zero deficit policy.Major ShockA day before Merkel gave her first indication of a change in attitude when she said that the government would do "whatever is necessary" to combat the crisis triggered by the virus.Any measures need to be timely and targeted as the outbreak already constitutes a "major shock" to global growth prospects, ECB President Christine Lagarde said after laying out Europe's monetary answer to the crisis. "An ambitious and coordinated fiscal policy response is required to support businesses and workers at risk," Lagarde said.Germany, where the death toll has been far below that in Italy or Spain, has been gripped by crisis mode this week. Visits to the iconic dome of the Reichstag have been banned and soccer games are being held in empty stadiums. The CDU on Thursday postponed the party conference that was to elect a new leader and potential Merkel successor on April 25, extending uncertainty at a time of political and economic turmoil.Europe's largest economy is set to enter recession "with all certainty" in the first half of the year, seven leading forecasters said this week. Until then officials said that they will look for clear evidence of a deep economic crisis before unleashing classic stimulus measures.Read More:The Plot to Scrap Germany's Balanced Budgets Has Already BegunVirus Hits Search for Merkel's Successor as CDU Meeting DelayedMerkel Says Germany Will Do Whatever It Takes to Fight Virus(Updates with context, ECB move, official comments)To contact the reporter on this story: Birgit Jennen in Berlin at bjennen1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, ;Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Raymond Colitt, Caroline AlexanderFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Thunderstorms bring widespread flooding to Egypt, killing 5 Posted: 12 Mar 2020 06:51 AM PDT  Thunderstorms packing heavy rains and lightning caused widespread flooding across Egypt on Thursday, killing at least five people and injuring five others, officials said as authorities shuttered schools, government offices and an airport. A child died and five people were injured when floods demolished their houses in a rural area in the southern province of Qena, where lightning ignited several fires. Also in Qena, a motorist was killed when winds blew his car into a canal.
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| New Yorker stranded in Egypt in virus quarantine hospital Posted: 12 Mar 2020 06:22 AM PDT  When Matt Swider was tested for the new coronavirus on his Nile cruise in Egypt's tourist hub of Luxor, he assumed the government was just taking extreme precautions. At that point, Swider, a 35-year-old tech editor living in New York, couldn't have imagined that he would become the face of Egypt's coronavirus outbreak, confined indefinitely to a remote hospital on the country's north coast. When his lab results came back negative Saturday, Swider was so overcome with relief that he called his anxiety-prone mother in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, inadvertently admitting he had traveled to Egypt in the first place.
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| Virus Hits Search for Merkel’s Successor as CDU Meeting Delayed Posted: 12 Mar 2020 05:29 AM PDT |
| From Pandemic to Social Distancing: A Coronavirus Glossary Posted: 12 Mar 2020 05:11 AM PDT  When is an epidemic considered a pandemic, and what is the difference? What do health officials mean when they recommend "self-quarantining" or "social distancing"?As the coronavirus spreads around the world, new terms are entering the lexicon -- and we're here to help. Here's a guide to the words and phrases you need to know to keep informed of the latest developments.PandemicOn Wednesday, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic after it spread across six continents and more than 100 countries. A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease that affects large numbers of people. The WHO had avoided using the word before Wednesday because it didn't want to give the impression that the disease was unstoppable."Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly," Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, said at a news conference.EpidemicAn epidemic is a regional outbreak of an illness that spreads unexpectedly, according to the WHO. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines it as an increase, often sudden, in the number of cases of a disease above normal expectations in a set population.COVID-19The technical name for the coronavirus is SARS-CoV-2. The respiratory disease it causes has been named the "coronavirus disease 2019," or COVID-19.Coronaviruses are named for the crown-like spikes that protrude from their surfaces, resembling the sun's corona. Coronaviruses are among a large number of viruses that are common in people and many animals. The new virus, first detected in China, is believed to have originated in bats.While antibiotics don't work against viruses, researchers are testing drugs that could disrupt viral proteins and stop the infection.State of emergencyA state of emergency can be declared during natural disasters, epidemics and other public health emergencies. Declaring a state of emergency, as more than a dozen states -- including New York, New Jersey and Michigan -- have done, gives government officials the authority to take extra measures to protect the public, such as suspending regulations or reallocating funds to mitigate the spread of a disease.IncubationThe incubation period is the time it takes for symptoms to appear after a person is infected. This time can be critical for prevention and control, and it allows health officials to quarantine or observe people who may have been exposed to the virus.The new coronavirus has an incubation period of two to 14 days, according to the CDC, with symptoms appearing about five days after infection in most cases.During the incubation period, people may shed infectious virus particles before they exhibit symptoms, making it almost impossible to identify and isolate people who have the virus.Social distancingThe virus can easily spread in dense places -- in a packed subway car, for example, or at a rally or concert.Social distancing refers to measures that are taken to increase the physical space between people to slow the spread of the virus. Examples include working from home, school closures and the postponement or cancellation of mass gatherings, such as the South by Southwest music, technology and film conference.By maintaining a distance of 6 feet from others when possible, people may limit the spread of the virus.Self-quarantineThis is key to keeping the virus from spreading, along with measures like social distancing, frequent hand-washing and wearing masks.While isolation refers to separating sick people from people who aren't sick, quarantine refers to the separation and restriction of movement of people who were exposed to the virus to see if they become sick.Who should self-quarantine? If you've left an area with widespread or continuing transmission, including China, Iran, Italy and South Korea, you should self-quarantine at home for a period of 14 days from the time you left, according to the CDC.While in quarantine, you shouldn't receive any visitors and must stay 3 to 6 feet from others at all times.According to the CDC, once someone has been in isolation for 14 days and hasn't become ill, he or she is not considered to be a risk to other people.Fatality rateThe case fatality rate is the number of deaths divided by the total number of confirmed cases. Eventually, scientists hope to have a more comprehensive number called the infection fatality rate, which includes everyone who was infected with the virus.The WHO estimates the fatality rate of the new coronavirus to be about 3%, based on current data, but experts suggest 1% is more realistic.R-naughtThe R-naught, or R0, is a virus's basic reproductive number -- an epidemiologic metric used to describe the contagiousness of infectious agents.At its simplest, the basic reproductive number can show us how worried we should be about infection, according to Dr. Adam Kucharski, a mathematician at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. If the R0 is above one, each case is expected to infect at least one other person on average, and the virus is likely to keep spreading. If it's less than one, a group of infected people are less likely to spread the infection.Research is still in its early stages, but some estimates suggest that each person with the new coronavirus could infect between two and four people.ContainmentThe virus's high transmission rate has made it difficult to effectively contain the outbreak. Containment refers to the use of any available tools to mitigate the spread of a disease, said Adam Ratner, the director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at NYU Langone Health.Early on, the Trump administration sought to slow the spread of the virus by barring entry into the United States by any foreign nationals who had traveled to China in the previous 14 days, excluding the immediate family members of American citizens or permanent residents. While that measure may have bought the government time to prepare, the administration made key missteps in its efforts to make widespread testing available in the early days of the outbreak, when containment would have been easier.Ratner said the coronavirus is particularly hard to contain because it is "reasonably transmissible" and some people who don't have a lot of symptoms can still pass the virus to others. "That's been part of the problem," he said, "but it also points to the fact to how interconnected we all are and how quickly this thing spread from Asia to the rest of the world."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| If Sean Hannity Thinks Coronavirus Panic Is a 'Hoax,' How Many Millions of His Listeners Do Too? Posted: 12 Mar 2020 05:05 AM PDT  Sean Hannity used his syndicated talk-radio program Wednesday to share a prediction he had found on Twitter about what is really happening with the coronavirus: It's a "fraud" by the deep state to spread panic in the populace, manipulate the economy and suppress dissent."May be true," Hannity declared to millions of listeners around the country.As the coronavirus spreads around the globe, denial and disinformation about the risks are proliferating on media outlets popular with conservatives."This coronavirus?" Rush Limbaugh asked skeptically during his Wednesday program. "All of this panic is just not warranted."The Fox Business anchor Trish Regan told viewers Monday that the worry over coronavirus "is yet another attempt to impeach the president."Where doctors and scientists see a public health crisis, President Donald Trump and his media allies see a political coup afoot.Even on Wednesday night, after Trump gave an unusually somber address to the nation in which he announced he was suspending all travel from Europe for 30 days, Hannity criticized Democrats and vigorously defended the president's response to the crisis, saying that when he instituted travel restrictions on China more than a month ago, "no president had ever acted that fast."Distorted realities and discarded facts are now such a part of everyday life that the way they shape events like impeachment, a mass shooting or a presidential address often goes unmentioned.But when partisan news meets a pandemic, the information silos where people shelter themselves can become not just deluded but also dangerous, according to those who criticize conservative commentators for shedding any semblance of objectivity when it comes to covering the president."This sort of media spin poses a clear and present danger to public health," said Charlie Sykes, a longtime conservative host and author who published a book, "How the Right Lost Its Mind," in 2018. "If you have people out there who feel all of this is overblown, and feel the need to act out their lack of concern by not taking precautions, it could be exceptionally dangerous."That's not just a problem for the right wing, that becomes a real threat to the general population," added Sykes, who is also a contributor to MSNBC. "When people start dying, the entertainment value wears off."In the case of Fox News viewers and talk radio listeners, who tend to be older than the general population, the danger of playing down the threat is potentially far worse. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has specifically identified older people as being at higher risk from serious complications if they contract the virus. Nielsen, the TV ratings agency, lists the average age of a Fox News viewer as 65 years old.Despite Hannity's own skeptical commentary, his Tuesday show featured Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a guest. He told Hannity that he wanted to "make sure" viewers knew that the coronavirus "is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu -- you got to make sure that people understand that."It was not difficult to see why Fauci would think Hannity's roughly 4 million viewers -- the biggest audience in cable news -- might not understand. On Tuesday, the star anchor told his viewers, effectively, to relax."Sadly, these viruses pop up time to time," Hannity said, with the certitude of a medical professional. "Pandemics happen, time to time."Limbaugh has offered clinical advice of his own. Recently he defended his widely criticized comparison of the coronavirus to the common cold and suggested the timing of the coverage of the outbreak raised "a gigantic series of question marks and red flags."And not all the prominent players in conservative opinion are denying the seriousness of the threat. Disagreement on the right has spilled into public view in a way that is unusual, given how swiftly dissent is often punished by Trump and his media loyalists."It's a matter of public health. How can these shills face their followers after all the lies and deceit?" asked Michael Savage, the radio host and author who was one of Trump's earliest supporters in conservative media and urged him to run for president in 2011."Are these mouthpieces without any social conscience?" added Savage, who called the words of Limbaugh and others "criminal negligence."Speaking on his Monday Fox News show, Tucker Carlson seemed to speak directly to skeptics like the president and Hannity, whose prime-time program follows his. "People you trust, people you probably voted for, have spent weeks minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem," Carlson said, adding: "People you know will get sick, some may die. This is real."Trump pays close attention to Carlson's show, and the two are in regular contact by phone. Earlier this year, the anchor was credited with helping persuade the president to dial back his hawkish approach on Iran -- and Carlson's words on the virus this week were interpreted as a message aimed at the White House.There are also signs that political views affect how seriously someone takes the public health risk posed by the virus.A Reuters poll last week found that roughly 4 in 10 Democrats believed the coronavirus was an imminent threat -- but only 2 in 10 Republicans felt the same way. And Americans who approve of the way the president is handling his job are far more likely to believe that the government can stop a nationwide epidemic from occurring than those who disapprove, the poll said.Seventy-nine percent of those who gave Trump high job approval ratings said they were very or somewhat confident in the government's ability to prevent the outbreak from becoming much worse, compared with only 39% of those who disapprove of him, according to a CNN poll conducted last week.At times, there has been a jarring split screen between the president's nonchalance and the sober warnings of the nation's top health officials, who have been more aggressive about warning certain vulnerable populations not to travel.Asked Wednesday at the White House what he had to say to those concerned he is not taking the situation seriously enough, Trump offered a tart, terse reply: "Fake news," the president snapped, before dismissing reporters from the room.The fallout from the president's handling of the crisis might have been more easily dismissed as liberal, anti-Trump paranoia if not for an improbable twist of events. A person infected with the coronavirus attended one of the conservative world's biggest annual gatherings last week, the Conservative Political Action Conference, leading some politicians like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to voluntarily quarantine themselves.Before this person's status was made public -- he was a VIP attendee who purchased a $5,750 "gold" package that granted him access to backstage reception rooms where members of Congress and other high-profile figures mingled -- conservatives at the conference were accusing the president's enemies of inflating the seriousness of the outbreak.The former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, speaking from the conference stage last Friday, insisted falsely that the media had only just started paying attention to the coronavirus after the impeachment trial ended. And the reason, he added, was "they think this is going to be what brings down the president."But over the next few days, CPAC's organizers were pelted with questions from fellow conservatives, some of whom said they shook the infected guest's hand, about why they had been left in the dark.Suddenly the "hoax," as Hannity and others have called the response to the virus, hit home.Raheem Kassam, a former Breitbart News editor, was one of several conservative activists who attended CPAC and expressed frustration about how the group handled the incident. Kassam, who said he felt sick over the weekend and on social media chronicled his frustrated attempts to obtain a coronavirus test, knew that he might have been exposed only after someone who works in the office of a member of Congress who was also exposed contacted him."I think there's a grown-up conversation to be had about what happened," Kassam said in an interview, adding that he did not believe that some conservatives wanted to have that conversation now. "Imagine being that sick, and then finding out why I might be that sick in a thirdhand way. I was angry. I was frustrated. I was scared," he added.But the president's allies have attacked Kassam, accusing him of sowing panic when there are no other known cases to come out of the conference.Matt Schlapp, president of CPAC, who has sequestered himself at home because he also shook the infected attendee's hand, appeared on Fox News in recent days to malign the media for exaggerating the threat.And though he acknowledged in a subsequent interview that he had no medical training, he has made claims about the coronavirus and its apparent lack of contagiousness."It's actually hard to get," he said on Fox News on Wednesday, speaking via Skype from his home, where he still has a few days left in his self-imposed quarantine.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Why on Earth Did Iran Bait Trump Now? Posted: 12 Mar 2020 04:49 AM PDT |
| Why on Earth Did Iran Bait Trump Now? Posted: 12 Mar 2020 04:49 AM PDT |
| Europe Shocked by Trump’s Travel Ban: ‘He Needed a Scapegoat’ Posted: 12 Mar 2020 04:33 AM PDT  PARIS—Europeans woke to the news Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump has banned most of them from traveling to the United States for at least a month. And while some of the details seemed to be confusing and contradictory, there was no mistaking his administration's effort to blame their governments, and the European Union specifically, for the growing novel coronavirus crisis in the United States.The pandemic is "not limited to any continent and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action," said a European Union statement on Thursday morning. Directly contradicting Trump's assertion that his administration has been "in frequent contact with our allies," they said the EU "disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation."In the meantime, media all over the Continent picked up on a line in testimony before Congress on Wednesday by Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Europe," he said, "is the new China."Many commentators saw Trump's action as overtly political, punishing the EU, which he has criticized frequently, while exempting the post-Brexit United Kingdom from the travel ban.Embattled Trump Blames Europe for Coronavirus in the U.S., Bans Travel"Trump needed a narrative to exonerate his administration from any responsibility in the crisis," the former French ambassador to Washington, Gérard Araud, wrote on Twitter. "The foreigner is always a good scapegoat." Since Trump had already blamed the Chinese, now it was the Europeans' turn and not any Europeans, but those of the EU. "Doesn't make sense but ideologically healthy," at least from Trump's point of view.Commentary in the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung was even more acerbic. Trump's address was "a speech that leaves you speechless," wrote its New York correspondent. Trump "talks about the virus the way he talks about illegal immigrants. And he has only one recipe for that: sealing borders, building walls."If Trump is looking for kudos from Great Britain for its exemption from his travel ban, he may be disappointed. Chancellor Rishi Sunak was asked Thursday morning about the travel ban. "We haven't believed that that's the right thing to do, the evidence here doesn't support that," he said. "What we are trying to do is contain the virus while recognizing that it is now likely that it will spread more significantly."While Trump has been widely criticized for his administration's handling of the pandemic looming on the American horizon, he has been praised for his relatively early decision to suspend travel from China and Iran. In his remarks from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening, he said, "The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots," which is true. "As a result," Trump said, "a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe." In fact, as Trump's own experts have testified, one of the biggest problems containing the spread of what Trump called "a foreign virus" in the U.S. has been the inability to identify the original source in any given group of infections.Trump Supporters Fuel Dangerous 'Election Year' Coronavirus ClaimAccording to World Health Organization numbers as of Wednesday, China—where the disease now known as COVID-19 was first diagnosed in December—has counted 80,955 infections and 3,162 deaths. In Europe the situation is indeed serious, but not yet that serious. Italy has been hit very hard, with more than 10,000 confirmed cases and 631 deaths as of Wednesday, and Rome has taken extreme measures, effectively locking down the entire country to try to contain the spread of the disease. Great Britain has 373 confirmed cases.The U.S. up to Wednesday had recorded 696 confirmed infections, but testing has been so poorly handled and so limited that the number is considered highly unreliable. As testing improves, the figure is expected to increase dramatically.France, Spain and Germany each have between 1,000 and 2,000 confirmed cases, while the rest of the countries in what the World Health Organization calls "The European Region," have fewer than 500, in most instances far fewer. But they are lumped together as part of what is called the Schengen Area, which includes 26 countries where travel is allowed without any border controls. A week ago, Vice President Mike Pence was pointing this out—"The nature of the European Union is one doesn't require a passport to move around"— signaling the administration's consideration of the action taken by Trump on Wednesday night. REPORTS FROM THE FIELDWhile the EU does appear to have been scapegoated by Trump, it is also true that its several states have not been able to develop a single coherent and effective approach to the coronavirus threat, and the situations are dramatically different in different countries with different cultures, even as the infection spreads. In Germany (1,296 infections, 2 deaths), Chancellor Angela Merkel warned this week that as much as 70 percent of the population could be infected, and the government reportedly is experimenting with a system of drive-thru tests, enabling people to be screened for coronavirus without ever getting out of their cars.President Emmanuel Macron warned last week that in France (1,774 cases, 33 deaths) the epidemic is "inevitable," and a series of measures have been taken to try to contain the spread, stopping short of full lockdowns. He is due to make a major address to the nation on Thursday night. Meanwhile the impact on tourism in the world's most visited country and its capital, Paris, already is being felt. The Louvre Museum in Paris, for instance, was closed down briefly last week by concerned staff. It is now open but often virtually empty. Overnight many American tourists were scrambling to book flights back to the United States.Daily Beast correspondent Dana Kennedy reports from the Riviera that most of the people she's talked to refuse to take the coronavirus threat seriously, including her doctor when she saw him earlier this week. "He was wearing a mask and had an office full of patients," Kennedy writes. "He said he had yet to see one patient with the coronavirus. My doctor is a solid, intelligent guy I've known for 10 years. 'We're being manipulated by the media and who knows what else,' he said."The Netherlands (382 cases, 4 deaths) has been criticized for what some critics see as too cool a response, says correspondent Nadette De Visser. The basic approach considers that the disease cannot be prevented, but may be managed. The head of the public health institute RIVM, Jaap van Dissel, is quoted Thursday in the Dutch daily De Volkskrant explaining that the Dutch policy aims to make sure the Dutch health services can handle the influx of patients. The idea is to "make it as hard as possible for the virus. Not by putting a fire hose on it and asking for applause," van Dissell said, "but rather by putting a damper on as many little fires as possible, so the fire can be extinguished. Isolate cases. Avoid transmission. Trace new cases quickly. All this in an effort to prevent the accumulation of sick people that could cause the health care system to be disrupted." In Spain (1,639 cases, 36 deaths), Itxu Díaz reports, one member of the cabinet, Equality Minister Irene Montero, has tested positive for coronavirus and her husband has been quarantined. Both attended the huge International Women's Day march on Sunday, as did the rest of the cabinet, raising the question how many other members of the government might be infected.The situation in Spain is so serious, Díaz writes, that many people are saying they think Trump's travel ban makes sense, "despite the fact most Spaniards detest him." The Madrid regional government reportedly has been begging the government for 10 days to take drastic measures, but the government continued through Sunday, the day of the march, telling Spaniards that this was "a flu" and that no extraordinary measures were necessary.Schools and universities have been shut down but, as in other countries, students appear to see this as a holiday. "Last night the bars and terraces of Madrid were full of students celebrating the suspension of classes," writes Díaz. Office workers are leaving the capital to "tele-commute" from their home towns in Galicia, Valencia, Andalusia, and in many cases probably taking the virus with them. "The example of Italy has been useless," says Díaz.In Rome, the capital of an entire nation on lockdown, Correspondent-at-Large Barbie Latza Nadeau has been tracking disaster hour by hour."This city is in a state of shock after harsher restrictions were laid down last night," she wrote on Thursday morning. "The [Trump] travel ban for us has been in effect (though not official) for quite some time.""I sense a feeling of relief that we may see the end of this dark tunnel though," Nadeau wrote. "I think when you are in the middle of the worst of the pandemic outside of China (we are at 12,462 cases and 827 deaths according to the latest Italian government numbers) you sort of welcome someone trying to stop it."I do think Italy failed initially on its handling of the lockdown and I am sure they would also agree that the spread is almost entirely a result of mishandling of the first few cases, not believing that 'patient one' could have it because he hadn't traveled. Denial is deadly in cases like this."On one hand, and this is from a ground zero perspective, the situation feels less hopeless now that the restrictions are tighter than it did a few days ago when it seemed out of control," Nadeau wrote. "We were also told last night the numbers here might peak in another week, meaning we could easily hit 50,000 infections in Italy. The effect of the lockdown won't be seen for at least two weeks. If it failed? God only knows."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Putin Saw a World in Turmoil and Decided It Needs More Putin Posted: 12 Mar 2020 04:21 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Vladimir Putin changed his mind and backed a plan to allow him to run for two more presidential terms because of the current turbulent period in the world, his spokesman said, in the Kremlin's first public explanation of a move that would let him rule until 2036."The situation in the world has become less stable," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call Thursday. He cited the coronavirus pandemic, the risks of "global recession," numerous "acute regional conflicts" and western sanctions as among the factors that led to Putin's decision."In these difficult years, the stability of the authorities, the firmness and consistency of government have huge significance," he told reporters. "In such hard years, some countries have taken decisions to allow the incumbent president to remain on his path into the future."Putin has had a hand in some of the latest turmoil, setting off a price war in the oil market by refusing last week to agree to deepen output cuts in a deal with other major producers and fueling a crisis earlier this year with Turkey over the civil war in Syria. Peskov didn't explain why the Russian leader felt the current instability will continue to be a factor requiring his continued rule four or more years from now.Putin had previously said he would respect term limits, meaning he would have had to step down in 2024, even as he left the door open to take another role to retain control. But Tuesday he reversed himself and backed a constitutional amendment that would exempt him from the restrictions. While Putin had been widely expected to find a way to extend his 20-year rule, he had previously suggested he would likely step down as president.'Our Advantage is Putin'Under the new plan, Putin, 67, would be allowed to run for up to two more terms, opening the way for him to remain president until 2036, when he would be 83. Peskov said Putin hasn't yet announced whether he will run again in 2024."I doubt these arguments will be seen as convincing," said Mikhail Vinogradov, a St. Peterburg political analyst. "Now it's coronavirus, but there was a time when the Icelandic volcano erupted and they suspended air service. These things happen but it's no reason to change the constitution."The amendments were approved by parliament this week and are expected to go to a national vote next month after Putin signs them and the Constitutional Court signs off. They would take effect immediately."Today, with the challenges and threats that are out there in the world, it's not oil and gas that are our advantages," Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin told members of the State Duma Thursday. "Our advantage is Putin and we should defend him."Despite the apparent alarm about coronavirus, Peskov said the Kremlin isn't currently considering changes to its plans for the constitutional vote next month or the May 9 festivities to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. The government Wednesday recommended canceling public events because of the risk of spreading the virus."The Putin regime is a classic personalistic autocracy of the Latin American or Asian type, which always uses current circumstances to justify cracking down," said Andrei Kolesnikov, analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "They assume that an authoritarian system deals with crises more confidently."(Updates with parliament speaker quote in ninth paragraph)To contact the reporters on this story: Andrey Biryukov in Moscow at abiryukov5@bloomberg.net;Evgenia Pismennaya in Moscow at epismennaya@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony HalpinFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump's EU coronavirus travel suspension explained: who is affected and will it help? Posted: 12 Mar 2020 03:39 AM PDT  President's order takes effect Friday and halts most travel from Europe * Coronavirus – latest newsDonald Trump has announced that the US is temporarily suspending most travel from Europe to the US in an effort to contain the spread of coronavirus.In a rare Oval Office address, the president said the US would bar arrivals from 26 European countries for 30 days from midnight on Friday, accusing them of not acting quickly enough to address what he called the "foreign virus".Details of how exactly the restrictions will work have yet to be fully clarified, and public health experts have questioned the effectiveness of the measure when the virus is already being transmitted person-to-person in the US.Here is what we know: Which countries does the ban apply to?According to the US Department for Homeland Security (DHS) and the president's proclamation, the ban applies to the countries belonging to the 26-member Schengen passport-free zone. These are:Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.As non-members of Schengen, Britain and Ireland are not covered by the ban. Who is affected?The restrictions will cover "most foreign nationals" who have been in any of the Schengen zone countries "at any point during the 14 days prior to their scheduled arrival to the US", the DHS says.The ban does not apply to US citizens returning home, nor to foreign nationals who are legal permanent residents of the the US. Also exempted are foreign nationals who are: * married to US citizens or legal permanent residents * parents and guardians of US citizens or legal permanent residents aged under 21 * brothers and sisters of US citizens or legal permanent residents, providing both are unmarried and under 21 * children or foster children of US citizens or legal permanent residentsIt also does not apply to ship and plane crews; foreign nationals invited to the US to help tackle the virus; foreign government officials and their immediate family; and foreign nationals who work for the US armed forces, international organisations including Nato and the UN, or whose entry "is deemed in the national interest".The ban resembles the restrictions imposed by the US on foreign nationals who have visited China in the 14 days before their arrival to the US. Washington has also issued restrictions on travellers from Iran, and "do not travel" warnings to areas in Italy and South Korea. When does the suspension start and how long will it last?The restrictions will begin at 11.59pm ET on Friday and are scheduled to last for 30 days, but could be adjusted subject to conditions on the ground. How will it work in practice?There is little clarity on how the restrictions will be implemented beyond the statement that US authorities will take the necessary steps as regards visas and at point of entry to the US, while also ensuring that "any alien subject to this proclamation does not board an aircraft travelling to the United States".The DHS has said it will issue practical guidance within 48 hours. What about British citizens travelling from outside the UK, and Europeans travelling to the US from Britain?It seems clear from the proclamation that as foreign nationals, Britons travelling to the US from within the Schengen zone – or who have spent any of the previous 14 days there – will be covered by the suspension, although it is not yet clear how that will work in practice.Nationals of the Schengen member states should be able to fly to the US from Britain but will have to have spent 14 days in the UK first. Again, how exactly this will be checked is not yet clear. Will the measure be effective?A study published in the Science journal found the effectiveness of travel restrictions in China was limited once the disease had spread widely within the country.On 23 January, Chinese officials banned travel in and out of Wuhan, where the Covid-19 outbreak originated, but by then the virus had spread to other cities and the travel ban only delayed its progression by three to five days, it suggested.Daniel Drezner, a professor of International politics at Tufts University's Fletcher School, questioned whether limiting travel from Europe would amount to anything more than "a drop in the bucket", given the number of people who have already been infected with the virus in the US.According to the latest US figures, more than 1,250 people in 44 states and Washington DC, have tested positive for coronavirus and at least 30 have died.Democrats were also swift to criticie Trump's approach, saying the president had failed to address the shortage of testing kits that has hampered containment efforts across the country."The best way to help keep the American people safe and ensure their economic security is for the president to focus on fighting the spread of the coronavirus itself," the Democratic leaders of the Senate and House said in a joint statement.
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| Virus lockdown means Italy's old are isolated from relatives Posted: 12 Mar 2020 03:20 AM PDT  Natalina De Santis' three adult children come to her front door, bringing food to keep her healthy and books to relieve her boredom, but she doesn't let them in any more. Widowed a few months ago and living alone, the 83-year-old resident of Rome is so afraid of catching the coronavirus that she foregoes all visits as the disease that is especially deadly for the elderly grips Italy. "If I get sick, what would my children do?" she said in a telephone interview.
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| S. Korea adds 114 virus cases, warns on Seoul cluster Posted: 12 Mar 2020 02:44 AM PDT  South Korea reported fewer than 120 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, but authorities warned that a new cluster in Seoul could see the infection spread in the capital. "This could lead to a 'super spread' in the metropolitan area, where half of the entire population are concentrated," Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun told a meeting on Thursday. The South was the first country to report significant coronavirus numbers outside China, where the disease first emerged, and remains one of the world's worst-affected countries despite being overtaken by both Italy and Iran in declared cases.
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| World Health Organisation declares coronavirus pandemic as cases soar worldwide Posted: 12 Mar 2020 02:30 AM PDT  The World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on Wednesday, with 114 countries reporting combined cases adding up to nearly 120,000."In the days and weeks ahead we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries to climb even higher," WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press briefing in Geneva."WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction," he said."We have therefore made the assessment that Covid-19 can be characterised as a pandemic," the director general said, referring to the illness caused by the new coronavirus that began spreading globally in January.Adoption of the new terminology comes as the US, Britain and other countries with rising case counts struggle to come up with emergency responses to the contagion that causes the potentially deadly respiratory ailment, in the form of stimulus packages and other economic measures.WHO officials cautioned countries to step up containment efforts to prevent Covid-19 from overburdening health care workers.Tedros' statement "is not an escape clause to mitigation", Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organisation's health emergencies programme, said in the briefing, referring to the stage when public health authorities give up on containment efforts."It is not the time for countries to move to mitigation only, unless and until they are not in a position to effect the course of the epidemic," Ryan said. "If you do not try to suppress this virus, it can overwhelm your health system."In Washington, amid a volley of recriminations over flaws in the way US health authorities initially responded to the pathogen's spread, the administration of President Donald Trump is locked in a battle with lawmakers over his economic stimulus package proposal that includes a payroll tax holiday to cushion the economic blow caused by the outbreak."81 countries have not reported any COVID19 cases, and 57 countries have reported 10 cases or less.We cannot say this loudly enough, or clearly enough, or often enough: all countries can still change the course of this pandemic"-@DrTedros coronavirus" World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) March 11, 2020Confirmed cases in the US have risen to more than 1,000, by some estimates, while the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention pegged the number at 938, as of Wednesday.The US numbers and counts for many other countries might be set to rise sharply considering an estimate last week by Marc Lipsitch, head of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health's Centre for Communicable Disease Dynamics.Lipsitch said 20 per cent to 60 per cent of the world's adult population could become infected with the new coronavirus, and of those, 1 per cent could die from Covid-19.Meanwhile, other countries are also ramping up response measures.Britain, for example, announced a US$39 billion stimulus package soon after the Bank of England cut interest rates. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to do "whatever is necessary", and the European Central Bank's president warned of a significant shock.Shortly after the WHO briefing, India announced that it suspended all tourist visas, a move that takes effect on Friday and will run until April 15.Purchase the China AI Report 2020 brought to you by SCMP Research and enjoy a 20% discount (original price US$400). This 60-page all new intelligence report gives you first-hand insights and analysis into the latest industry developments and intelligence about China AI. Get exclusive access to our webinars for continuous learning, and interact with China AI executives in live Q&A.; Offer valid until 31 March 2020.This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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