| Pelosi: Trump's downplaying of coronavirus has cost American lives Posted: 29 Mar 2020 07:20 AM PDT  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sharpened her criticism of President Trump's early dismissal of the coronavirus, saying the delay cost American lives. She criticized the president's initial response to the virus during a Sunday morning interview on CNN.
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| Wuhan Residents Dismiss Official Coronavirus Death Toll: ‘The Incinerators Have Been Working Around the Clock’ Posted: 30 Mar 2020 09:48 AM PDT  Wuhan residents are increasingly skeptical of the Chinese Communist Party's reported coronavirus death count of approximately 2,500 deaths in the city to date, with most people believing the actual number is at least 40,000."Maybe the authorities are gradually releasing the real figures, intentionally or unintentionally, so that people will gradually come to accept the reality," a Wuhan resident, who gave only his surname Mao, told Radio Free Asia.A city source added that, based on the aggregation of funeral and cremation numbers, authorities likely know the real number and are keeping it under wraps."Every funeral home reports data on cremations directly to the authorities twice daily," the source said. "This means that each funeral home only knows how many cremations it has conducted, but not the situation at the other funeral homes."The city began lifting its lockdown on Saturday after two months of mandatory shutdown, with a complete lift of restrictions set for April 8. Funeral homes in Wuhan have been handing out the cremated remains to families every day, but rumors began circulating after one funeral home received two shipments of 5,000 urns over the course of two days, according to photos reported by Chinese media outlet Caixin, which were later censored.Reports of the funeral's crematoriums working nonstop also raised questions."It can't be right … because the incinerators have been working round the clock, so how can so few people have died?" a man surnamed Zhang told RFA.Wuhan residents said the government was paying families 3,000 yuan for "funeral allowances" in exchange for silence."There have been a lot of funerals in the past few days, and the authorities are handing out 3,000 yuan in hush money to families who get their loved ones' remains laid to rest ahead of Qing Ming," Wuhan resident Chen Yaohui said, in a reference to the traditional grave tending festival on April 5."During the epidemic, they transferred cremation workers from around China to Wuhan keep cremate bodies around the clock," he added.China has used state propaganda in an attempt to avoid blame for the spreading of COVID-19, despite reports showing how the government suppressed initial reports of human-to-human transmission and gagged Wuhan labs that discovered the novel virus resembled the deadly SARS virus of 2002-2003.
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| Philippines grounds company's aircraft after deadly fire Posted: 30 Mar 2020 04:07 AM PDT  Philippine aviation officials on Monday grounded all aircraft belonging to a company that owns a plane that caught fire while taking off from Manila's airport, killing all eight people on board. All of Lionair Inc.'s aircraft will remain grounded during the investigation of the burning of its Westwind 24 plane late Sunday, they said. The plane had been used earlier to transport medical supplies for the coronavirus outbreak.
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| Police commander killed, 2 officers wounded in Phoenix shooting Posted: 30 Mar 2020 08:07 AM PDT  Commander Greg Carnicle, a 31-year police veteran, died after being shot in the line of duty. Two officers were shot and are expected to recover.
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| Incredible satellite photos show parked planes sitting on runways at airports in the US and Europe, as COVID-19 puts a near stop to global air travel Posted: 30 Mar 2020 08:59 AM PDT  As the coronavirus causes airlines to cancel flights and ground planes, they've piled up on runways and taxiways as airlines look for parking spots.
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| 'I don't know what he's trying to say': Cuomo on Trump's accusation that medical PPE is being stolen by health workers Posted: 30 Mar 2020 11:24 AM PDT  At a coronavirus press briefing, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he didn't know what President Trump was talking about with regard to his accusation that medical personnel were stealing personal protective equipment.
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| US awol from world stage as China tries on global leadership for size Posted: 29 Mar 2020 12:00 AM PDT  Mike Pompeo labelling the virus 'Chinese' has added to lack of international cooperation * Coronavirus – latest updates * See all our coronavirus coverageWhen the UN security council and the G7 group sought to agree a global response to the coronavirus pandemic, the efforts stumbled on the US insistence on describing the threat as distinctively Chinese.There are other reasons for the lack of collaboration in the face of a global crisis, but the focus on labelling the virus Chinese and blaming China pursued by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, helped ensure there would be no meaningful collective response from the world's most powerful nations.For some US allies, the fixation on words at a time when the international order was arguably facing its greatest challenge since the second world war encapsulated the glaring absence of US leadership.And that absence was illustrated just as vividly by news coverage of planes full of medical supplies from China arriving in Italy, at a time when the US was quietly flying in half a million Italian-made diagnostic swabs for use in its own under-equipped health system and Donald Trump was on the phone to the South Korean president pressing him to send test kits."To me what is so striking is the complete absence of the US from public debates. The US is basically off the map, and China very much is on the map," Nathalie Tocci, the director of the Italian Institute for International Affairs and a former EU policy adviser, said."Whatever happens in the US elections, what is happening now is going to linger on, simply because what we're going through now is such a traumatic experience … It is going to remain very much in our individual and collective memories."During the Ebola outbreak that began in 2014, the US was a highly visible leading presence on the ground in West Africa, sending emergency medics, troops and supplies. In sharp contrast, this week's $2tn stimulus bill contained scarcely more than $1bn (about 0.06%) for spending outside the US.The state department pointed out that the US was separately spending $274m in emergency health and humanitarian assistance to help countries in need, on top of the funding to international organisations like the WHO.However, at a time when the scale of the damage is being measured in trillions, the additional aid has done little to soften the image of an administration that has employed xenophobic rhetoric and breaking with its closest partners in its efforts to intensify economic pressure on its enemies, Iran and Venezuela, whose populations are at high risk from the coronavirus.Despite its responsibility for allowing the virus to run rampant in the first place, China has had notable success in reshaping its image as a leader by its later efforts to contain the disease and its outreach to Italy and other vulnerable countries."US global leadership won't just end because they bungled their response to the coronavirus, but I think we will come to find that this was a pivotal point," said Elisabeth Braw, the director of the Modern Deterrence Project at the Royal United Service Institute in London.Braw argued that the coronavirus crisis will inflict more lasting damage on the US's standing than the 2003 Iraq invasion."China wasn't in the wings in 2003," she said. "It wasn't ready to take over that global role. Well, it's now in a position where it can take over global leadership, and it's just waiting for the US to misstep or to lose support among its allies … And the past couple of years have really been beneficial to China from that perspective."From the debacle over testing to Trump's months-long denial about the scale of the threat and his constant political point-scoring, the US has showed itself to be anything but a model for the rest of the world to emulate.Stephen Walt, a Harvard University professor of international relations, has argued that worldwide faith in US competence has been one of the pillars of its global standing, and is currently crumbling."Far from making 'America great again,' this epic policy failure will further tarnish the United States' reputation as a country that knows how to do things effectively," Walt wrote in Foreign Policy, in a commentary titled "the death of American competence".Not all global analysts look at the coronavirus as being so irreversibly negative for US standing in the world, pointing to more long-term trends, like US self-sufficiency in energy and its enduring economic, military and democratic advantages, as well China's many shortcomings as a credible alternative global leader."Geopolitics are not episodic. You cannot talk about geopolitics in two-week timescales," Parag Khanna, a former adviser to US forces who now runs a Singapore-based consulting company, FutureMap. "The power dynamics are what are fundamental, not whether or not China is sending lots of face masks to Africa."Khanna pointed out that China's neighbours in Asia are well aware that Beijing's censorship during the initial outbreak in Wuhan resulted in a missed opportunity to contain the virus, and that its diplomats have been spreading conspiracy theories about the origins of the disease."China is filling a public goods vacuum, not a leadership vacuum," Khanna said. "People here are not idiots. They know exactly where this came from, so you don't need to worry about China winning any global narrative campaign in the world."Tocci argued that the extent to which China succeeds in exploiting the crisis to pursue global primacy would be dependent on whether Beijing can be successfully challenged, for example from a change to a more outward leadership in Washington, or a Europe that can transcend its divisions."It basically depends on how everyone else reacts more than how China itself acts," Tocci said.
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| Kremlin Fights U.S. Sanctions, Backs Maduro in Rosneft Deal Posted: 30 Mar 2020 07:03 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The Kremlin's sudden shift of ownership of multi-billion-dollar oil projects in Venezuela shields oil giant Rosneft PJSC from further U.S. sanctions but keeps Moscow firmly behind embattled President Nicolas Maduro amid a wider stand-off with Washington."Russia is not walking away from Maduro and will seek to thwart U.S. efforts to depose him," said Vladimir Frolov, a former diplomat and foreign policy analyst in Moscow. "Moscow is just shielding Rosneft from sanctions which could result in a blanket embargo on all Rosneft exports."Fears of broader sanctions have grown after the U.S. in recent months slapped restrictions on Rosneft trading companies for handling business with Venezuela. More recently, the U.S. has hinted that it might step up pressure on the Russian oil sector to reduce production. That followed Moscow's decision early this month not to deepen output cuts agreed with OPEC led Saudi Arabia to boost output, flooding the market and pushing prices to the lowest levels in decades.The administration of President Donald Trump has already reached out to Saudi leaders to reconsider their strategy, which has battered producers in the U.S. with low prices. Trump said Monday he plans to speak by phone with Putin later in the day to talk about the oil market and may discuss sanctions and Venezuela.Read: Putin and MBS Draw Trump Into Grudge Match for Oil SupremacyRosneft late Saturday announced it's turning over its Venezuelan projects to an unnamed state-owned company in what it called an effort to protect its shareholders' interests.Sechin AutonomyAs part of the deal, Rosneft gets 9.6% of its own shares previously held by state holding company Rosneftegaz, bringing direct government ownership to just over 40%, according to two people familiar with the transaction. While Rosneft will remain firmly under Kremlin control, the shift in ownership could give Igor Sechin, who as chief executive and a longtime Putin ally is already one of Russia's most influential people, even more autonomy, these people said."Sechin gets Rosneft shares and Putin gets the chance to trade with Trump," said Konstantin Simonov, head of the National Energy Security Fund in Moscow.Neither the company nor the government would comment on whether the deal will bring state ownership below 50%.Rosneft, which produces 40% of Russian oil and 5% of world output and has substantial exposure in the western financial system, can't afford the risk of broad U.S. sanctions that could cripple its operations. Earlier this month, a Chinese company said it wouldn't buy crude from Rosneft because of the risks caused by the sanctions on the trading companies."As recently as February, the Venezuelan business was profitable, which offset the sanctions risk," said Ivan Timofeyev, an analyst at the Kremlin-founded Russian International Affairs Council. "Now the desire to avoid sanctions coincided with the need to avoid losses" after oil prices plunged, he added.The Russian giant has already cut its exposure under multi-billion-dollar prepayment deals reached several years ago. Venezuela's oil producer PDVSA owes Rosneft only $800 million at the end of the third quarter of 2019, according to the last available data, down from $4.6 billion at the end of 2017.Sanctions ProtectionThe latest Russian maneuver mirrored its strategy in 2018 when it used Promsvzyabank to set up a new banking vehicle to serve the defense industry after state-owned weapons producers came under U.S. sanctions, thereby shielding the country's two largest banks, government-controlled Sberbank and VTB. Unlike those big lenders, which have significant exposure to western financial institutions and thus are at risk from sweeping U.S. sanctions, the new special entity operated largely out of Washington's reach.While Rosneft may even push to have the recently imposed sanctions on the trading units lifted, risks remain."Rosneft is trying to stay out of the firing-line but nothing stops the Americans from finding another pretext to sanction it," said Fyodor Lukyanov, who heads the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, a research group in Moscow that advises the Kremlin."Russia understands that Maduro is in an awful situation, especially with oil prices at rock bottom," he said. "But Putin's psychology is that you should stick with partners in difficulty."Frolov said, "Moscow thinks that Maduro is actually winning the fight with the opposition and is likely to split it to the point where he would be able to win parliamentary elections this year." Russia has backed Maduro even as the U.S. and its allies back opposition leader Juan Guaido.Maduro said on state TV on Saturday evening that "President Putin sent me a message through his ambassador reaffirming their strategic and integral support to Venezuela in all areas."(Updates with Rosneft stake shift in sixth paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Photos show crowds of New Yorkers breaking social distancing rules and gawking at the USNS Comfort docked in Manhattan Posted: 30 Mar 2020 02:46 PM PDT  The New York City Mayor's office eventually asked police to disperse the crowd that was not following social distancing guidelines.
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| Pelosi bashes Trump on coronavirus: 'As the president fiddles, people are dying' Posted: 29 Mar 2020 09:04 AM PDT  "This is such a very, very sad time for us," she said.
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| Air strikes hit Houthi-held Yemeni capital Sanaa: witnesses Posted: 30 Mar 2020 03:42 AM PDT  The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi group in Yemen carried out several air strikes on Monday on the capital Sanaa, witnesses and media said, killing dozens of horses at a military school. A number of sensitive sites including the presidential palace compound, the school and an air base close to Sanaa airport were hit, and loud explosions were heard across the city, residents said. The coalition said the operation was aimed at destroying "legitimate military targets including Houthi ballistic batteries which threaten civilian lives".
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| Fit, healthy 33-year-old recounts falling ill to coronavirus Posted: 29 Mar 2020 12:49 PM PDT  Andrea Napoli didn't fit the usual profile of a coronavirus patient. At 33, he was in perfect health, with no history of respiratory disease. Until that day, Napoli was following his routine of work, jogging and swimming.
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| Iran warns of lengthy 'new way of life' as virus deaths rise Posted: 29 Mar 2020 04:20 AM PDT  President Hassan Rouhani warned Sunday that "the new way of life" in Iran was likely to be prolonged, as its declared death toll from the novel coronavirus rose to 2,640. The Islamic republic is one of the countries worst-hit by the virus, which first originated in China. Iran announced its first infection cases on February 19, but a senior health official has acknowledged that the virus was likely to have already reached Iran in January.
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| Mexico's president defends his handshake with 'El Chapo' Guzman's mother — a 'respectable old lady' Posted: 30 Mar 2020 01:35 PM PDT  The president said corruption is a much bigger threat to Mexico than a 92-year-old woman "who deserves my respect."
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| 29 Best Closet Organization Ideas to Maximize Space and Style Posted: 30 Mar 2020 04:06 PM PDT |
| If you're 'essential' enough to work through a coronavirus pandemic, you're essential enough to be paid living wage Posted: 30 Mar 2020 12:13 PM PDT  Healthcare professionals are bravely battling coronavirus. But there are other "essential" workers in harm's way. And they aren't being paid fairly.
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| Fact check: will Covid-19 fade in the summer – then return later like the flu? Posted: 30 Mar 2020 10:05 AM PDT  Experts weigh in on whether coronavirus will dissipate during the summer and warn against letting up on physical distancing * Coronavirus – live US updates * Live global updates * See all our coronavirus coverageThe seasonal flu tends to dissipate during the summer, leading some to hope the coronavirus will do the same. Experts explain why transmission of some illnesses lowers with warmer temperatures – and warn against lowering our guard. Why are some viruses seasonal?Dr Marc Lipsitch: What makes seasonal viruses seasonal is a combination of opportunities for transmission – whether school is in term, which facilitates transmission – and what proportion of the population is immune, combined with weather.Humidity is lower in the winter, which is good for transmission. Low humidity makes [virus-carrying] droplets settle more slowly because they shrink to smaller sizes and then friction keeps them in the air, whereas high humidity doesn't do that.Dr Lee W Riley: People still get the common cold [in the summer] and we're beginning to see this new coronavirus in the southern hemisphere. It's more about the way people behave. Can we expect the number of Covid-19 cases to fall this summer?Lipsitch: Based on our best estimates from other coronaviruses, summer alone is not going to bring transmission to a level where the number of cases shrinks. It's just going to grow more slowly.It's really clear that warmer weather does not stop the transmission or growth of the virus. That's clear from Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Singapore and Hong Kong have kept it to a large degree under control, but that's with incredibly intense control measures. There's no question that coronaviruses are capable of transmitting in hotter, humid climates.Dr George Rutherford: Thinking that it's magically going to go away in April or May or whenever is just that – magical thinking. The projections show quite a bit of transmission out through the summer.Riley: It's a completely new virus, so it's really hard to know what would happen. If you try to extrapolate from [related] viruses, then we don't expect for this new coronavirus to completely disappear by the summer.default Could there be a second wave of infections in the autumn?Riley: A reintroduction of the epidemic is certainly possible; it's beginning to happen in Hong Kong. Hong Kong successfully controlled the epidemic early on, and they started relaxing some of their restrictions. Now they're beginning to see new cases reappear.Rutherford: In 2009, we saw a second wave of the swine flu. It started in the spring in Mexico. Some schools in the United States got out early for the summer, and when [students] went back in the fall, it came back in a bump. That [outbreak] was blunted because a vaccine came out that fall. That's not going to happen here. We're going to have to temporize until a vaccine arrives.Lipsitch: If we let up on social distancing before a large fraction of the population is immune, there could be a second peak of infections in the fall, when it's most contagious, due to school being back in session and cooler temperatures. And that would be the worst possible outcome. Will we need to resume social distancing in the fall?Lipsitch: If our strategy is to use social distancing as our main control measure because we haven't figured out anything better, then the best way to do it is to distance until we bring cases down to low enough levels that we can let transmission resume by relaxing social distancing, and have several weeks or months where we don't overwhelm the healthcare system.And then we distance again, and repeat the cycle. With each cycle, we'll get more time off social distancing, because the buildup of immunity in the population helps to slow the spread. So you don't get to the dangerous peak as quickly.That [scenario] will be destructive to the economy, to education, and all sorts of things. But as a means of trying to preserve the healthcare system, if we don't have another approach, it may be our best option.I want to be clear: as an epidemiologist, I'm saying what I think existing tools make possible for the purposes of disease control, and not what I think is socially desirable. Multiple rounds of social distancing are not something I look forward to.Riley: It's conceivable that we may have to do another round of lockdowns, but we need to look even further ahead. What's going to happen next year? Is it going to come back again like the influenza? Is a new type of coronavirus going to come back? Maybe not next year, but maybe, two years from now? This is not the only time we're going to be doing these lockdowns. Is there another approach we could take?Rutherford: I think as shelter in place starts to get peeled back, it's going to need to be replaced with something more along the South Korean model of aggressive contact tracing, quarantine and isolation, and that's going to be the bridge to get us out to when the vaccine comes in. Given the hit on the economy that's going on now, there's going to be a lot of enthusiasm for the South Korean model.Lipsitch: If we can do that, it's great. The challenge is that reintroductions are a constant threat. We've seen it in China. They're trying to go back to work while doing control based on individual cases, but they've had multiple introductions from outside the country now. I think it's what we should aim for, but I'm not hugely optimistic that it will work.Riley: South Korea and Hong Kong had really efficient contact tracing programs, where they would quarantine the contacts of symptomatic people who were diagnosed with coronavirus. It was a much more focused approach to controlling transmission.The problem in the US is we don't have that kind of manpower, and that's probably something that the US really needs to start looking into in a very serious way, because we just totally neglected our public health system infrastructure.Panel: * Dr Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology and director, Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health * Dr Lee W Riley, professor and chair of the Division of Infectious Disease and Vaccinology, UC–Berkeley School of Public Health * Dr George Rutherford, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, director, Prevention and Public Health Group, UCSF
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| A 90-year-old woman who recovered from the coronavirus said her family's potato soup was partly responsible. Here's the recipe. Posted: 30 Mar 2020 11:24 AM PDT  Geneva Wood, 90, credited family, God, and potato soup for her recovery from COVID-19. The soup is certainly not a cure, but it didn't hurt.
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| Poll: 15% of Sanders supporters will vote for Trump if Biden is nominee; 80% would back Biden Posted: 30 Mar 2020 10:51 AM PDT  The poll also found Biden with a 16-percentage-point advantage (55%-39%) over Sanders among registered Democrats and independents who lean Democratic.
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| Indian police fire tear gas at jobless workers defying coronavirus lockdown Posted: 29 Mar 2020 11:52 PM PDT  NEW DELHI/AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - Police in India fired tear gas to disperse a stone-pelting crowd of migrant workers defying a three-week lockdown against the coronavirus that has left hundreds of thousands of poor without jobs and hungry, authorities said on Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered the country's 1.3 billion people to remain indoors until April 15, declaring such self-isolation was the only hope to stop the viral pandemic. On Sunday, about 500 workers clashed with police in the western city of Surat demanding they be allowed to go home to other parts of India because they had no jobs left.
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| Time to 'revenge shop': China's virus hot spot reopens Posted: 29 Mar 2020 11:56 PM PDT  The city at the center of China's virus outbreak was reopening for business Monday after authorities lifted more of the controls that locked downs tens of millions of people for two months. "I want to revenge shop," declared an excited customer at one of Wuhan's major shopping streets. A teacher from the eastern city of Nanjing was visiting her family in Wuhan when most access to the city of 11 million was suspended Jan. 23 to stem the coronavirus spread.
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| FBI report describes China’s ‘biosecurity risk’ Posted: 30 Mar 2020 08:43 AM PDT  In late November 2018, just over a year before the first coronavirus case was identified in Wuhan, China, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Detroit Metro Airport stopped a Chinese biologist with three vials labeled "Antibodies" in his luggage.
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| New York Gov. Cuomo extends order advising residents to stay at home for at least another two weeks Posted: 29 Mar 2020 10:50 AM PDT  "The non-essential workforce is directed to continue to work from home," Cuomo said a day after the president decided against a mandatory quarantine.
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| 'Italy is closed': A reporter's account inside Rome, where coronavirus brought the city to a halt Posted: 29 Mar 2020 01:37 AM PDT  NBC News' Bill O'Reilly reveals how rapidly the pandemic has changed life in Italy's capital.
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| White House task force official says 'no state, no metro area' will be spared from coronavirus Posted: 29 Mar 2020 10:29 AM PDT  The United States is preparing for a novel coronavirus epidemic that is national in scope."No state, no metro area will be spared," Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, told NBC's Chuck Todd on Sunday's edition of Meet the Press.Birx was clear that no area of the country will evade the effects of the virus, but said the sooner places react and instill mitigation measures, the easier it will be to "move forward."> WATCH: Dr. Deborah Birx says "no metro area will be spared" of the coronavirus outbreak. MTP IfItsSunday> > Dr. Birx: "The sooner we react and the sooner the states and the metro areas react and ensure that they have put in full mitigation ... then we'll be able to move forward." pic.twitter.com/B9Fo3lUVHA> > -- Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) March 29, 2020Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also provided a sense of scale Sunday, but he said he doesn't want to be held to any prediction. Fauci told CNN's Jake Tapper that he's never seen an outbreak match the worst-case scenario of its models, and he believes that remains unlikely for the coronavirus, as well. Nevertheless, he thinks it's possible the U.S. could be looking at somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths. > Dr. Anthony Fauci says there could potentially be between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus and millions of cases. "I just don't think that we really need to make a projection when it's such a moving target, that you could so easily be wrong," he adds. CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/F2MOHY3xl4> > -- State of the Union (@CNNSotu) March 29, 2020More stories from theweek.com Trump's message to blue states battling coronavirus: Drop dead Fox News reportedly fears its early downplaying of COVID-19 leaves it open to lawsuits Nobody knows when Congress will go back to D.C.
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| Can you reuse a face mask? It won't be as effective if you do Posted: 30 Mar 2020 11:25 AM PDT  Face masks are not meant to be reused. But a shortage is forcing health care workers to — here's the best way to reuse a face mask if you have to.
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| Trump in Close Race With Biden, ABC Poll Shows: Campaign Update Posted: 29 Mar 2020 09:14 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump and Joe Biden are in a tight race for the White House, as Americans focus on the response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday.Trump has closed a 7-point deficit from February and is in a statistical tie with the former vice president, 47% to 49%, among registered voters. Among all adults, Trump trails Biden 44% to 50%. But Trump's voters are far more enthusiastic about turning out.Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, is more trusted by voters on health care and Trump more trusted on the economy, according to the poll. When registered voters are asked whom they trust most to confront the coronavirus, there was no statistical difference between the two.The poll of 1,003 adults, including 845 registered voters, was conducted March 22-25. The margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Can I walk outside? Is the virus on my shoes? Q&A with experts Posted: 29 Mar 2020 08:13 PM PDT  "CBS This Morning" assembled a panel of experts to answer questions from viewers who want to know how the coronavirus and its economic impact affects them.
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| U.S. spies find coronavirus spread in China, North Korea, Russia hard to chart Posted: 30 Mar 2020 02:13 PM PDT  As U.S. spy agencies seek to assemble a precise picture of the world's coronavirus outbreaks, they are finding serious gaps in their ability to assess the situation in China, Russia and North Korea, according to five U.S. government sources familiar with the intelligence reporting. The four countries are known by U.S. spy agencies as "hard targets" because of the heavy state controls on information and the difficulty, even in normal times, of collecting intelligence from within their closed leadership circles.
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| Coronavirus: Oil price collapses to lowest level for 18 years Posted: 30 Mar 2020 08:31 AM PDT  The price of crude falls below $23 a barrel as demand plummets due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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| Photos show the 1,000-bed Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort arriving in New York to support the city in its fight against the coronavirus Posted: 30 Mar 2020 10:14 AM PDT  Patients to be treated on the USNS Comfort will be transferred from local hospitals, according to the US Navy.
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| 'Like sitting ducks': Amid coronavirus, families, attorneys sound alarm over ICE detainees Posted: 29 Mar 2020 03:22 AM PDT  "If he ends up catching something— I don't know if he'll survive," said Rosalia Machado-Orellana, whose husband is in a detention facility.
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| Florida, Illinois Emerge as Potential Coronavirus Hotspots Posted: 30 Mar 2020 11:57 AM PDT  Recent updates to state coronavirus case numbers suggest Florida and Illinois may join New York and Washington as hotspots for the virus, with Governor Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) announcing a stay-at-home order for southern Florida until May and Illinois seeing its largest single-day increase in cases on Sunday.Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Monday warned that the two states could be "new epicenters of spread."> THREAD: We'll update charts daily for Florida, Louisiana, Illinois, and Michigan as epidemic becomes national in scope; new epicenters of spread emerge. Florida faces significant challenges with growing spread from seeds likely introduced weeks if not months ago and slow reaction pic.twitter.com/NZRqwGylFF> > -- Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) March 30, 2020> Update for Illinois pic.twitter.com/nCMqdTGKdF> > -- Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) March 30, 2020DeSantis said at a press conference Monday that his order will apply to Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Monroe counties, which have over 50 percent of the state's 5000-plus cases. The state's COVID-19 case count jumped 523, according to a state update on Monday morning."The 'Safer-At-Home' [order] is the right move for southeast Florida," DeSantis said. "This is the time to do the right thing. Listen to all of your local officials. We will do this through the middle of May, and then see where we're at."On Sunday, Illinois health officials announced 18 new deaths — including that of an infant —and 1,105 new cases of the coronavirus, the state's worse increase to-date despite having the first case of human-to-human transmission in the U.S. over a month ago.Governor J. B. Pritzker warned that the upward curve is likely to continue for weeks."It is fair to say that most of the models I've seen . . . show that we'll be peaking sometime in April," Pritzker said at his daily coronavirus news conference. "We're not yet close to that."Last week, New York governor Andrew Cuomo warned other states that New York's outbreak was "your future.""New York is going first. We have the highest and the fastest rate of infection. What is happening to New York is going to wind up happening to California, and Washington state, and Illinois," Cuomo stated. "Where we are today, you will be in three weeks or four weeks or five weeks or six weeks. We are your future."
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| Silent Coronavirus Spreaders Could Unleash Second Wave of Disaster Posted: 29 Mar 2020 02:02 AM PDT  A burst of fresh data on the prevalence of "silent," or asymptomatic, carriers of the 2019 novel coronavirus points to the looming danger of ending America's national shutdown early.Classified Chinese government data suggest "silent carriers" could make up at least one-third of the country's positive cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post recently reported. Approximately 43,000 people in China who had tested positive for COVID-19 last month had no immediate symptoms. And those cases were not included in the official national tally of confirmed cases, which had hit 80,000 at the end of February, the paper said.Last week, China reported no new local infections for the first time since the outbreak started in December. And after weeks of lockdown, the city of Wuhan—where the global pandemic originated—said on Tuesday that public transportation was reopening and that residents would be allowed to leave the city itself starting on April 8.But as extensive testing continues, authorities in Wuhan have found new cases of asymptomatic—or mildly symptomatic—infection, sparking concerns about how many contagious people have been circulating freely. Fresh data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Friday about a nursing home in Washington state only served to compound those fears.Four Ways Experts Say Coronavirus Nightmare Could End"Almost everybody thinks there's the potential of a second wave after we relax the restrictions," said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and an expert on U.S. readiness for pandemics. "There's no good timeframe—it's certainly not by Easter—that we'll be starting to loosen up," he continued, referring to President Donald Trump's suggested finish line. "But once we do, people who did not have coronavirus will be going out to spaces where silent spreaders might be."With Americans still getting acclimated to a quasi-national shutdown, and Trump repeatedly suggesting restrictions might ease in a matter of days or weeks, the prospect of silent spreaders wreaking epidemiological havoc looms large."The biggest danger here is that this is like a stealth attack in that you have no idea that the person you have come into contact with is contagious," said Dr. Adrian Hyzler, the chief medical officer for Healix International, which provides medical information to organizations whose clients travel internationally. "It makes it so much more difficult to try to contain the spread of the virus."For obvious reasons, silent carriers are not nearly as notorious in the public imagination as "super-spreaders," or patients who are extra contagious. A possible super-spreader in the United Kingdom may have transmitted the virus to nearly a dozen people before realizing he was sick earlier this year. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization previously claimed that pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic transmission of the new coronavirus was "relatively rare." But newer studies—out of Japan, Italy, South Korea, and now Washington state—have called that assertion into question. And research suggests that silent spreaders can be just as dangerous to a community.The CDC released a study on Friday of the outbreak's spread—specifically via asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic patients—in a long-term care facility in King County, Washington. The report found that "approximately half of all residents with positive test results did not have any symptoms at the time of testing, suggesting that transmission from asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic residents—who were not recognized as having [the coronavirus] infection and therefore not isolated—might have contributed to further spread.""These findings have important implications for infection control," according to the CDC, since "current interventions" for preventing the virus's transmission, in part because of the shortage of tests, primarily rely on the presence of "signs and symptoms to identify and isolate residents or patients who might have COVID-19." Patients were cohorted, or separated, according to which ones had symptoms. But that method of intervention no longer makes sense if there are asymptomatic—or silent—spreaders within a community, especially one that is at high risk of severe infection.Researchers previously published a study in the journal Science on March 16, finding that 86 percent of all infections in China before Jan. 23—when the government there instituted severe travel restrictions—were undocumented because they were mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic."They may, for the most part, have experienced some symptoms at some point," Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University who worked on the study, explained to WBUR radio. "But it didn't keep them home, didn't stop them from getting on public transportation, going to work, going to school, getting on airplanes and going on business trips."Because those individuals didn't feel sick—or didn't know they were sick—and kept traveling through the community, the researchers found that this group of people "contributed to the vast majority of the spread" of the virus, added Shaman, who called the phenomenon "stealth transmission."In a letter to the International Journal of Infectious Diseases in February, a group of Japanese experts led by epidemiologist Hiroshi Nishiura at Hokkaido University wrote that the growing data outside of China "indicates that a substantial number of cases are underdiagnosed." Nishiura's group estimated—based on the number of asymptomatic Japanese patients who were evacuated from the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, China—that about 30.8 percent of cases were asymptomatic.Of course, American authorities know even less than their foreign counterparts about how many cases there are, period. The same goes for silent spreaders. "This is partly because health systems are just overrun with sick people, as well as a scarcity of testing kits," said Hyzler, adding that a trial in a small Italian town where all 30,000 people were tested revealed that asymptomatic or very mildly symptomatic people represented a whopping 70 percent of all cases, of which an unknown number were able to transmit the virus to others.Redlener noted that, while much is still unknown, "the vast majority of Americans with the virus will be mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic, and we really have to be careful not to relax our stringent requirements too soon." The U.S. health system has generally not tested individuals without symptoms unless they are especially wealthy or well-connected—like NBA players or Sen. Rand Paul—or else health workers with known exposure. And in many places in the U.S., authorities are discouraging testing except in the case of severe symptoms, meaning American officials have limited data on the number of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases, with few exceptions.Hyzler said there were two key assumptions that likely went into the decision to begin opening up Wuhan again: that there are very few unidentified silent spreaders transmitting the infection throughout the community, and that the incubation period is 14 days.If authorities are correct on both points, it might well be safe to resume public transportation and to allow travel to and from the city. But if they're incorrect, Hyzler cautioned: "We will certainly start to see a second wave of cases" emerge in China.Fortunately for Wuhan and its surrounding province, China's zealous testing means that authorities would likely detect a new wave "right away" before it spread very far, according to Arnold Monto, a professor of epidemiology and global health at the University of Michigan who has advised both the World Health Organization and the Defense Department on communicable diseases.But unless the U.S. rapidly expands its testing—and zealously tracks individuals who've had contact with confirmed cases—Americans won't have that same advantage. Both Hyzler and Monto said they hoped the U.S. government could learn from its weeks of delays, as well as failures abroad. But there's no guarantee.Vice President Mike Pence took heat this past week for claiming that federal officials may soon recommend that critical workers—even those who've been exposed to the virus—return to work, as long as they wear a mask."It's premature to try to put a time limit on this," said Monto, who emphasized the importance of continued social distancing throughout the country to control the surge of cases from overwhelming hospitals."From an epidemiological standpoint, one lockdown would be better than waves of lockdown," he said. "With waves, all you'd be doing is letting it up again and then you're back where you started. I think if we're still seeing an overwhelming number of cases in hospitals, it's too early to lift a lockdown."Ultimately, Hyzler argued, there are two main ways that authorities can try to ensure that an end to social distancing isn't premature. One is so-called herd immunity, or, as he put it, "if a good percentage, maybe as many as 70 percent of people... have been infected and therefore, we assume, have an immunity against a re-infection." The other is what's called antibody testing, or, as Hyzler explained, "once you can show that someone has had the virus, and they no longer need to self-isolate and can return to work." (To be clear, the jury's still out on whether some patients who already had coronavirus can be re-infected.)But without enough tests, Monto said, "we have no idea at this point" how many people may be mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic. "After the dust settles," he said, scientists will likely make an effort to collect blood samples, which can detect antibodies for the virus after a person has recovered. "We'll know the numbers only after the fact," he added.Redlener was more optimistic: "The hope is that we get to a point where mass testing will be possible."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 news – live: President now admits coronavirus deaths won’t slow until June as hospital ship arrives in New York harbour Posted: 30 Mar 2020 07:24 AM PDT  Donald Trump has branded House speaker Nancy Pelosi "a sick puppy" during an interview with Fox and Friends after extending the timeline for the US to remain in lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic until at least 30 April, abandoning his "aspiration" to have the country back in business by Easter.The White House's top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, has meanwhile warned that his projection of a potential 100,000 to 200,000 American deaths is "entirely conceivable" if not enough is done to mitigate the crisis, with the president commenting that containing the disaster to that level would represent "a very good job".
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| In Zimbabwe, 'you win coronavirus or you win starvation' Posted: 30 Mar 2020 02:04 AM PDT  The World Health Organization's recommended virus precautions seem far-fetched for many of Zimbabwe's 15 million people. Last year a United Nations expert called the number of hungry people in Zimbabwe "shocking" for a country not in conflict. Harare, like most cities and towns across Zimbabwe, has an acute water shortage and residents at times go for months, even years, without a working tap.
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| Wuhan's death toll could be astronomically higher than the Chinese government has reported, some residents say Posted: 30 Mar 2020 01:45 PM PDT  Officials in Wuhan, China, reported that 2,535 people in the city have died from COVID-19. Some residents suspect that's a severe undercount.
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| U.S. set to lose title as top oil producer as demand plunges and gas drops below $1 per gallon Posted: 30 Mar 2020 09:57 AM PDT  Gas has dipped below $1 a gallon in Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin — but most people are not driving.
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| 'Unacceptable': Florida officials concerned about Holland America ships headed there with ill passengers Posted: 30 Mar 2020 10:25 AM PDT  Passengers on Holland America's MS Zaandam and MS Rotterdam may soon be home, though at least one Florida government official is concerned.
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| Some doctors are telling patients to switch from contact lenses to glasses to lower their risk of contracting the coronavirus Posted: 30 Mar 2020 09:23 AM PDT  Evidence suggests the coronavirus can enter the body through the eyes, so some eye doctors say glasses are safer.
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| Saudi to raise oil exports to record levels as price war rages Posted: 30 Mar 2020 06:19 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia said on Monday it will raise its oil exports to a record 10.6 million barrels per day starting from May, escalating a price war with Russia. Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, which already announced a sharp production increase for April, said it will add additional supplies to the global market, deepening a glut. "The kingdom plans to raise its petroleum exports by 600,000 bpd from May, so total exports will increase to 10.6 million bpd," said an official at the energy ministry, cited by the state-run SPA agency.
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| Tucker Carlson Wants to Have It Both Ways on Coronavirus Posted: 30 Mar 2020 01:41 AM PDT  Fox News primetime star Tucker Carlson has been credited with pushing President Donald Trump to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously and has received mainstream media plaudits for seemingly calling out his own colleagues for actively downplaying the outbreak.Yet, while Carlson has been applauded for preaching concern about the viral outbreak while his fellow pro-Trump hosts on the network attempted to dismiss the COVID-19 fears as a partisan ploy, he has actually played both sides for his audience, giving voice to reckless conspiracies, unserious characters with no expertise, and wholly dangerous rhetoric.Earlier this month, as confirmed cases and deaths began surging across the country, Carlson gained widespread acclaim when he called out those "minimizing" COVID-19, calling the pandemic a "very serious problem." It was seen at the time that Carlson was calling out both Trump and many of his Fox News colleagues—without naming them, of course—for reacting inappropriately to the impending crisis.That March 9 monologue apparently helped prompt the president to finally take action on the pandemic after waving it away for weeks, with White House sources saying Carlson's segment was a "turning point" for Trump. The Fox News host, who has informally advised the president on other matters in the past, also traveled down to Mar-a-Lago the previous weekend to convince the president about the gravity of the situation, later saying he felt it was his "moral obligation" to do so.As a result, Carlson has been the focus of several largely sympathetic portraits and interviews in the mainstream press. Various outlets remarked positively on Carlson's "moral obligation" to convince Trump to take the crisis seriously, with some noting that the Fox host "admirably focused" on pandemic from the beginning.The Fox host's portrayal in the media as courageously standing alone among his overtly pro-Trump primetime brethren has rankled network brass. According to The New York Times, the network's PR chief Irena Briganti has complained about Carlson "casting himself to reporters as a heroic truth-teller in contrast with other hosts."While it is true that Carlson was essentially alone among the network's key stars in sounding the alarm on coronavirus—for instance, now-former Fox Business host Trish Regan labeled it an "impeachment scam" the same time Carlson was declaring the pandemic was "real"—his early warnings also revolved around peddling baseless conspiracies and blaming "woke" politics for the spread of the virus.Tucker Carlson Appears to Call Out Trump, Fox Colleagues for 'Minimizing' CoronavirusThroughout February, Carlson floated the debunked theory that the virus was created by the Chinese government in a research laboratory, potentially as a bioweapon against the United States. The theory began making rounds in the right-wing media ecosystem after former Trump adviser Steve Bannon began pushing it on his radio show.Despite a medical expert shooting down the now-debunked theory earlier in the month, Carlson continued to peddle it on subsequent broadcasts. On Feb. 18, Carlson hosted The Washington Times' Bill Gertz, whose specious reporting was the basis of Bannon's theory, to discuss his speculation. During the interview, the Fox host claimed unnamed "experts" were considering the possibility the virus was created in a Chinese lab while adding it is "worth getting to the bottom of."When he wasn't wildly speculating that the virus was a Chinese bioweapon, Carlson also spent weeks blaming "diversity" for the virus. Taking aim at progressive writers who warned against racist attacks in the wake of the pandemic—hate crimes against Asian-Americans have been on the rise—Carlson groused that "identity politics trumped public health and not for the first time.""Wokeness is a cult," he added. "They would let you die before they admitted that diversity is not our strength."He would continue to blame "identity politics" for the spread of the virus, resulting in him at one point turning to conservative columnist Eddie Scarry—best-known as the "AOC creepshot guy"—for coronavirus expertise in late February. As financial markets started to experience record drops over COVID-19 fears, Carlson gave primetime airspace to the Examiner writer, who called the disease the "Commie cough" while claiming it originated from Chinese people eating skunks. Carlson, meanwhile, applauded Scarry, claiming "everything" he said "is true" as the trollish columnist railed against political correctness and its supposed impact on the health crisis.In the wake of his call for conservatives to take coronavirus seriously, Carlson kept blasting "wokeness" as one of the central causes of the disease's spread, at one point insisting that not calling it the "Chinese virus" or "Wuhan virus" could literally kill people. "In times of crisis euphemisms kill," he said. "You need accuracy and clear language in the way you talk about the threat. It's essential." He later applauded Trump for publicly using the term "Chinese virus."Moreover, and more recently, Carlson seemed to backpedal on his "serious" concerns over the pandemic this week. With the president's declared desire for an early end to social distancing restrictions, many conservatives backed Trump's push despite the warning of public health experts.Texas Lt. Gov: Senior Citizens Willing to Die to Save Economy for GrandkidsDuring last Monday's broadcast of his show, Carlson brought on Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to defend the president's suggestion, who subsequently said that elderly people such as himself would be willing to die from coronavirus to save America's economy for their grandkids."No one reached out to me and said as a senior citizen, 'Are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?'" Patrick said. "And if that is the exchange, I'm all in."At the end of the segment, Carlson nodded along with Patrick and added: "We really needed to hear that perspective."The following night, Carlson hosted Fox News analyst Brit Hume to defend Patrick's comments after they sparked controversy. In Hume's opinion, Patrick saying grandparents were willing to sacrifice themselves to reopen the economy was an "extremely reasonable viewpoint." Carlson, for his part, seemed confused why the lieutenant governor's remarks "enrages so many people," prompting Hume to say it was due to anti-Trump sentiment.Other guests that appeared this past week to share their coronavirus wisdom included comedian Adam Carrola, goofy podcaster Dave Rubin, and talk-radio blowhard Buck Sexton.But Carlson's newfound reputation as a sober and earnest broker on the crisis perhaps looked the silliest on Wednesday when he brought on a self-proclaimed "corona truther" to wax poetic on self-isolation. Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, a notorious troll and semi-regular guest of Carlson's, showed up to talk about how he has taken a "financial beating" because the casino business is currently down—before discussing his choice of sweatpants and his TV-viewing habits.Prior to his Carlson appearance, Portnoy had spent weeks mocking concerns about the pandemic, comparing the virus to "the common cold" and saying he didn't "care about the people dying... I just care about my wallet."In fact, just two weeks before appearing on Tucker's primetime show, Portnoy griped about the NBA suspending its season amid the outbreak, calling himself a "corona truther" and insisting that concern over the virus—which has now killed over 25,000 people worldwide—is either a "fraud, overreaction, or media concoction."Carlson may have won media plaudits for his early concerns about the pandemic, but a closer look at his overall coverage proves we shouldn't be so easily fooled.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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| 'Off the charts': Virus hot spots grow in middle America Posted: 29 Mar 2020 05:42 AM PDT  The coronavirus continued its unrelenting spread across the United States with fatalities doubling in two days and authorities saying Saturday that an infant who tested positive had died. It pummeled big cities like New York, Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago, and made its way, too, into rural America as hotspots erupted in small Midwestern towns and Rocky Mountain ski havens. Worldwide infections surpassed the 660,000 mark with more than 30,000 deaths as new cases also stacked up quickly in Europe, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
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| Singapore gay sex ban: Court rejects appeals to overturn law Posted: 30 Mar 2020 08:54 AM PDT  A judge rejects three appeals, saying the law "remains important in reflecting public sentiment".
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| Coronavirus: New York bar owner becomes first to be arrested for ignoring lockdown Posted: 30 Mar 2020 06:56 AM PDT  The owner of a bar in New York City has been arrested for operating in contravention of the city's coronavirus lockdown measures.New York police confirmed on Monday that 56-year-old Vasil Pando had been arrested on Saturday night at an address in Brooklyn.
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