i_need_contribute
|
Country, |
Total |
New |
Total |
|
World |
2,555,760 |
+75,254 |
177,459 |
|
818,744 |
+25,985 |
45,318 |
|
|
204,178 |
+3,968 |
21,282 |
|
|
183,957 |
+2,729 |
24,648 |
|
|
158,050 |
+2,667 |
20,796 |
|
|
148,453 |
+1,388 |
5,086 |
|
|
129,044 |
+4,301 |
17,337 |
|
|
95,591 |
+4,611 |
2,259 |
|
|
84,802 |
+1,297 |
5,297 |
|
|
82,758 |
+11 |
4,632 |
|
|
52,763 |
+5,642 |
456 |
|
|
43,079 |
+2,336 |
2,741 |
|
|
40,956 |
+973 |
5,998 |
|
|
38,422 |
+1,593 |
1,834 |
|
|
34,134 |
+729 |
3,916 |
|
|
28,063 |
+119 |
1,478 |
|
|
21,379 |
+516 |
762 |
|
|
20,080 |
+1,541 |
645 |
|
|
17,837 |
+1,512 |
484 |
|
|
16,040 |
+388 |
730 |
|
|
15,322 |
+545 |
1,765 |
|
|
14,873 |
+78 |
491 |
|
|
13,942 |
+229 |
184 |
|
|
11,631 |
+1,147 |
109 |
|
|
11,512 |
+377 |
281 |
|
|
10,832 |
+325 |
147 |
|
|
10,683 |
+9 |
237 |
|
|
10,398 |
+270 |
520 |
|
|
9,856 |
+263 |
401 |
|
|
9,565 |
+673 |
201 |
|
|
9,242 |
+306 |
498 |
|
|
9,125 |
+1,111 |
11 |
|
|
8,772 |
+511 |
712 |
|
|
7,755 |
+490 |
46 |
|
|
7,695 |
+180 |
370 |
|
|
7,241 |
+85 |
182 |
|
|
7,135 |
+375 |
616 |
|
|
7,033 |
+133 |
201 |
|
|
6,890 |
+260 |
130 |
|
|
6,723 |
+459 |
55 |
|
|
6,645 |
+20 |
71 |
|
|
6,599 |
+140 |
437 |
|
|
6,533 |
+518 |
9 |
|
|
6,125 |
+415 |
161 |
|
|
5,482 |
+57 |
92 |
|
|
5,044 |
+80 |
245 |
|
|
4,658 |
+191 |
136 |
|
|
4,149 |
+172 |
196 |
|
|
4,014 |
+146 |
141 |
|
|
3,618 |
+60 |
78 |
|
|
3,490 |
+157 |
264 |
|
|
3,465 |
+165 |
58 |
|
|
3,382 |
+434 |
110 |
|
|
3,209 |
+163 |
145 |
|
|
3,144 |
+113 |
151 |
|
|
2,811 |
+93 |
392 |
|
|
2,811 |
+19 |
48 |
|
|
2,614 |
+66 |
72 |
|
|
2,401 |
+156 |
121 |
|
|
2,098 |
+114 |
213 |
|
|
2,080 |
+85 |
11 |
|
|
1,995 |
+143 |
19 |
|
|
1,973 |
+66 |
7 |
|
|
1,908 |
+27 |
48 |
|
|
1,778 |
+5 |
10 |
|
|
1,678 |
+51 |
6 |
|
|
1,602 |
+28 |
83 |
|
|
1,552 |
+17 |
43 |
|
|
1,508 |
+98 |
8 |
Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Source: The New York Times
The earliest U.S. deaths publicly attributed to the virus had been on Feb. 26, when two people died in the Seattle area. Santa Clara County said an autopsy showed a Feb. 6 death was also related.
The earliest publicly known coronavirus death in the United States came in the Bay Area in early February, health officials said Tuesday.Credit...Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Officials in Santa Clara County, Calif., announced late Tuesday that two residents there died of the coronavirus in early and mid-February, making them the earliest known victims of the pandemic in the United States.
The new information may shift the timeline of the virus’s spread through the country weeks earlier than previously believed.
The first report of a coronavirus-related death in the United States came on Feb. 29 in the Seattle area, although officials there later discovered that two people who had died Feb. 26 also had the virus.
But Santa Clara County officials said that autopsies of two people who died at their homes on Feb. 6 and Feb. 17 showed that the individuals were infected with the virus. The presence of the disease Covid-19 was determined by tissue samples and was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, county health officials said in a statement.
“Each one of those deaths is probably the tip of an iceberg of unknown size,” Dr. Sara Cody, the county’s chief medical officer, said in an interview. “It feels quite significant.”
Dr. Cody said the individuals who died in February did not have any known travel histories that would have exposed them to the virus, which first appeared in China. They are presumed to have contracted the virus in the community, she said.
The newly reported deaths suggest that the coronavirus may have been spreading in California much earlier than was previously known, said Dr. Jeffrey V. Smith, the Santa Clara county executive and a medical doctor.
“It was probably around unrecognized for quite some time,” Dr. Smith said.
It was unclear early Wednesday why it had taken so long to identify the February deaths as caused by the coronavirus.
Much debate has centered on the question of when the virus arrived in the United States and how early it began to spread among people. Problems and delays slowed the availability of widespread testing for the virus, which has killed more than 40,000 people nationwide.
In January, the authorities identified a series of coronavirus cases from travelers abroad, but they did not identify any community spread of the virus for several weeks.
The federal government had strict rules on who qualified for coronavirus testing, and test kits developed by the C.D.C. — that public health labs began receiving on Feb. 7 — turned out to be faulty. Strict definitions of who could be tested limited what local health officials could do to find out how widespread the virus might be.
“We had to ask the C.D.C. every single time: Does this person meet the case definition? May we send a sample?” Dr. Cody said.
“We had this very, very uncomfortable feeling that we were hearing about a lot of patients who really felt that they were cases but we couldn’t test,” she said.
Other indications have emerged that the virus may have been spreading earlier than previously known. The Grand Princess cruise ship that departed San Francisco on Feb. 11 had passengers who developed the coronavirus on board. Researchers believe that the virus also began to circulate in the New York area by mid-February. And in early March, researchers found a range of cases with genetic similarities to each other in the Seattle area, suggesting that it had been spreading undetected for weeks.
In Santa Clara County, Dr. Cody said that the picture of the spread was becoming clearer but that there were still gaps.
“We had so few pixels you could hardly pick out the image,” she said. “Suddenly we have many pixels that all of sudden that we didn’t even realize that we were looking for.”
But, she added, “I can’t put the story together yet.”
On March 16, Santa Clara County was among the first counties in the nation to announce stay-at-home orders. “Clearly in retrospect that was a good decision,” Dr. Cody said. “Now we see there was even more transmission than we recognized.”
Although California was an early state to report that individuals were carrying the virus, it has had one-tenth the number of deaths as New York State, the hardest-hit place in America. Officials believe that the early imposition of stay-at-home orders and the state’s lower population density are among factors that have helped California avoid the worst so far.
Thomas Fuller reported from San Francisco and Mike Baker from Seattle.
The State of Missouri filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Chinese government over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, claiming that China’s response led to a global pandemic and unleashed economic devastation in the state.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court by the state’s attorney general, Eric Schmitt, accuses the Chinese authorities of engaging in an “appalling campaign of deceit, concealment, misfeasance and inaction” to cover up the dangers of the virus, and says those authorities were “responsible for the enormous death, suffering, and economic losses they inflicted on the world,” including billions of dollars in economic losses for Missouri residents.
Earlier, China rejected any calls for compensation after President Trump said China should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the pandemic.
“The virus is a common enemy to all mankind and may strike anytime, anywhere,” Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Monday. “Like other countries, China is also a victim, not a perpetrator, even less an accomplice of Covid-19.”
Source：The New York Times
Iraqi military officials at a border crossing with Iran.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
Truck by truck, border post by border post, a power struggle is unfolding between Iraq and Iran over when to reopen the frontier between the two countries, which Iraq closed five weeks ago to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Iran, which has been hit hard by the virus but needs trade with Iraq to help stabilize its economy, wants it reopened immediately.
Iraq, which fears opening the border to the region’s most heavily infected country, is resisting.
Source：The New York Times
A worker checks the body temperature of a resident before entering a community in Mudanjiang, in China's northeastern Heilongjiang province, on Monday.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Chinese officials are scrambling to control a coronavirus outbreak centered around the northern city of Harbin, even as life in much of the country has gone back to normal.
The outbreak started with a woman flying from the United States into the region in mid-March, state media reported. It has now spread to nearby Liaoning and Inner Mongolia and prompted the closure of a hospital in Harbin. A new outbreak could be particularly dangerous in China, where life has mostly gone back to normal, with people crowding on to subways and filling restaurants.
Source：The New York Times
Sixteen humanitarian groups, including Oxfam and Save the Children, called for a cease-fire throughout Myanmar after a driver for the World Health Organization was shot and killed while transporting coronavirus test samples in troubled Rakhine State.
The driver, Pyae Sone Win Maung, and a Myanmar health ministry official were taking the samples to Yangon in a marked United Nations vehicle Monday evening when they were attacked in an area where the Myanmar military has been battling the Arakan Army, a rebel group that is seeking autonomy.
The unidentified health ministry official was wounded, the authorities said.
Both the national military and rebels denied responsibility for the shooting.
Source：The New York Times
The empty Paradiso concert and event hall in Amsterdam on Thursday.Credit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
It would have been a routine gig, playing electronic dance music in a sports stadium filled with 40,000 fans at a festival in Chengdu, China, last weekend.
Martin Garrix, described as the world’s No. 2 D.J., performs at around 150 such events a year. But now, because of the coronavirus, electronic dance music parties and festivals across the world are over. That is true even in Mr. Garrix’s home country, the Netherlands, where they are an important export product, an $8 billion industry employing around 100,000 people, according to Event Makers, an industry group.
As of Tuesday, all shows and festivals have been canceled until at least Sept. 1. Such is the prominence of the business in the Netherlands that the cancellation was announced by the prime minister, Mark Rutte, in a news conference.
Source：The New York Times
Bar Prasowy, one of the most popular milk bars in Warsaw, has been offering takeout and donating food to hospital workers.Credit...Anna Liminowicz for The New York Times
The Polish milk bar is remarkably well suited to the coronavirus lockdown.
At these traditional restaurants, diners can pick up orders of ready-made pierogi or get home delivery of the familiar comfort of a barszcz beet soup and stuffed cabbage, to warm in the oven. Much of the menu comes at spectacularly low prices, thanks to the government subsidies that the milk bars receive.
Even before the lockdown, milk bars — so called because they were historically vegetarian — straddled a strange divide in Polish society. Somewhere between a diner and a soup kitchen, they are both hip and vital. They offer both Communist nostalgia and Communist-era prices; even the most eyes-bigger-than-stomach customer will struggle to run a bill of more than $5.
From CNN's Simon Cullen
Coronavirus vaccine researchers in London are asking for volunteers to take part in human trials in June.
A team at Imperial College London has been carrying out tests on animals since February and has secured government funding to fast-track its work.
From CNN's Isaac Yee in Hong Kong
People wearing face masks keep their distance in a queue to enter a wet market in Singapore on April 22. Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images
More than 10,000 people in Singapore have contracted the novel coronavirus, authorities in the city-state said Wednesday.
Singapore confirmed another 1,016 new cases as of 12 p.m. today local time, pushing the the total number of infections to 10,141, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.
The vast majority of those newly diagnosed are work permit holders who reside in dormitories for foreign workers, which are cramped. Fifteen of those diagnosed are Singaporean nationals or permanent residents.
From journalists Karina Tsui and Alexandra Lin in Hong Kong
This photo taken on April 21, 2020 shows officials keeping watch at a checkpoint in the border city of Suifenhe, in China's northeastern Heilongjiang province. A cluster of coronavirus cases in the provincial capital Harbin has forced officials to tighten restrictions on movement. Stringer/AFP/Getty Images
All public gatherings have been banned in Harbin, the capital of China's northernmost Heilongjiang province, after an uptick in novel coronavirus cases were recorded in the city.
Seven locally transmitted infections were recorded in Heilongjiang on Tuesday, according to China's National Health Commission, prompting authorities to ramp up social restrictions.
The provincial government said in a statement that all 10 million-plus residents of the city will only be allowed to socialize with people in their respective households.
Currently, there are 54 reported coronavirus cases in Heilongjiang province. Of the 54, a total of 52 cases are from Harbin.
From CNN's Eric Cheung
An empty Bondi Beach is seen in Sydney, Australia on April 22. Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images
Australia will partially reopen Bondi Beach for swimming and surfing on April 28, authorities announced Wednesday.
Paula Masselos, the mayor of Waverley, said access will be provided for surfers and ocean swimmers between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays. All land-based activities on the beach like jogging, sunbathing and gathering socially is still suspended.
From CNN's Jake Kwon in Seoul, South Korea
Employees work on the production line of testing kits used in diagnosing the coronavirus at the Boditech Med Inc. headquarters in Chuncheon, South Korea on April 17. Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
Jung Eun-kyeong, the director of South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, believes that it is likely the country will see a second wave of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
"Unless herd immunity is achieved through natural spread or through vaccines, come autumn or winter season, because most of the people do not have immunity, there is a likely possibility," Jung said.
South Korea's response to the pandemic has been hailed as one of the world's best, in large part due to a massive push by health officials to conduct widespread testing.
At least 10,694 people have contracted the virus in the country, killing 238, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Jung also revealed the preliminary results of a study on retesting positive cases. In the six tests completed so far, the virus did not separate during the cultivation study.
From CNN’s Augie Martin in San Francisco
A medical professional administers a coronavirus test at a drive-through testing location in Bolinas, California on April 20. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
A remote Northern California hamlet became one of the first places in the world Monday to attempt to comprehensively test all of its residents for Covid-19 and the antibodies believed to make one immune from infection.
The community-wide free testing effort in Bolinas, California, is voluntary. The town is one of two communities taking part in the new study launched by the University of California, San Francisco, with the aim of gaining a more complete understanding of how the virus invisibly spread during the initial shortfall of comprehensive nationwide testing.
From CNN's Swati Gupta in New Delhi
The Indian Council of Medical Research has advised all states to discontinue the usage of rapid test kits for the next two days after some of them were revealed to be defective.
The council is sending teams to validate kits already in use so they can assess which ones are faulty and trace them back to the manufacturers.
Raman R Gangakhedkar, the head of the council, said positive samples were showing "too much variation" and required investigating.
The rapid testing kits were deployed in India last week. The health ministry has repeatedly said that the kits should be used only for surveillance and to determine epidemiological trends.
India had tested a total of 462,621 samples from 447,812 individuals as of April 21, according to the council.
From CNN's Yoko Wakatsuki in Tokyo and Eric Cheung in Hong Kong
File photo of the Costa Atlantica cruise ship. Shutterstock
Japan has confirmed that 33 additional crew members onboard the Costa Atlantica cruise ship, which is docked in Nagasaki prefecture, have tested positive for novel coronavirus on Wednesday.
In a news conference, officials from the Nagasaki prefecture said those with symptoms will be admitted to medical centers, while asymptomatic patients will remain onboard in isolated private rooms.
This brings the total number of confirmed cases onboard the ship to 34, after one crew member tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday.
The cruise ship, operated by Italian cruise liner Costa Crociere, has been docked in Japan since March for repairs with 623 crew members. No passengers are currently onboard the ship.
From CNN's Mick Krever
The Netherlands will extend its lockdown for most businesses until May 20 and ban large events until September 1, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said during a news conference on Tuesday.
“As much as I understand that impatience is creeping in, we know that a rapid easing could lead to the virus immediately getting the chance to peak again,” Rutte said.
The uncertainty is still “too large” for businesses that require close contact, like barbers and nail salons, he said.
Primary students will begin attending school in a staggered fashion starting May 11.
source:.reuters.com
Relieved Spanish parents welcomed on Wednesday a decision allowing children out on short walks for the first time in more than a month as the government contemplated a broader easing of one of the world’s strictest coronavirus lockdowns by late May.
With the world’s second most infections at 208,389, and Europe’s second highest death toll of 21,717, Spain’s tough restrictions have included a controversial ban on children leaving their homes since mid-March.
However, on Tuesday night, the government bowed to public pressure and said those under 14 would be able to take short walks outside under supervision from the weekend.
The cabinet had initially said children would only be allowed to accompany parents to buy food or medicine, provoking a social media backlash and pot-banging protests on balconies.
Parents welcomed the concession, though it came late for some, stretched to the limit after nearly six weeks cooped up at home.
“The escalation of anxiety, tantrums, irascible behaviour... have been in crescendo,” said Dr Iban Onandia, 35, a neuropsychologist in the Basque province of Bizkaia, adding that children had paid an “indecent” price during the lockdown.
“The truth is that the educational system we have is not up to the job either because they’ve left many children to their own devices, including my own,” added the father of two children, aged four and two.
Ramon Motta, a Madrid-based maitre d’hotel with two daughters Carla, 11 and Ariadna, 8, resorted to setting up a tent in their fifth-floor apartment to keep them entertained.
“We have Disney +, Netflix and videogames, but you don’t want your kids spending five-six-seven hours in front of a screen, yet at the same time there’s not much else to do,” he said.
“After such a long time locked in, kids and parents start losing patience pretty quickly. A couple of times Carla went into a tantrum.”
TOMATO-THROWING FIESTA OFF
As his left-wing coalition marked 100 days in office, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sought parliamentary approval to prolong a state of emergency until May 9 - the third such extension.
With the epidemic seemingly past its peak, the lockdown could start to be phased out towards the end of May, though measures will be eased gradually, he told lawmakers.
“We will be going back-and-forth depending on how the pandemic evolves,” he said.
A sharp slowdown in infections has Spaniards optimistic their nightmare may be easing, and officials are turning their attention to restarting the flagging economy.
In one sign of nascent recovery, carmaker Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) Spanish unit SEAT, which employs around 15,000 people, said it plans to resume production from April 27, though with 3,000 coronavirus tests a week on its workforce to minimize risk.
But in the latest blow to Spain’s vital tourism industry, authorities in the Valencian town of Bunol postponed the 75th annual “Tomatina” festival, where thousands gather every August to pelt each other with fresh tomatoes.
It was the first cancellation since 1957.
On Tuesday, the San Fermin bull-running fiesta in Pamplona was also suspended, for the first time in four decades.
Spain has been pressing for a stronger European Union-wide economic response, including a 1.5 trillion euro ($1.63 trillion) fund financed by perpetual debt to support the bloc’s worst-hit members.
Sanchez said an initial consensus on the financial response should be reached at a summit on Thursday.
Medicine
