May 17 coronavirus news

There have been 139 coronavirus-related deaths across New York state as the number of hospitalizations continue to fall, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference today.

At least 157 people died from Covid-19 on May 15, Cuomo said Saturday.

The United Kingdom is reporting 170 coronavirus deaths in the last 24 hours, UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma said Sunday.

Sharma, speaking at the daily Downing Street news conference, said this brings the UK’s total death toll to at least 34,636.

There are approximately 10,035 people in hospital with Covid-19, which is a 15% decrease from 11,817 patients this time last week, Sharma said.

Amid reports of growing tension between the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro slammed the top healthy agency, saying “it let the country down” on testing.

A spokesperson for the CDC did not have any immediate comment.

More from the White House: The comments from Navarro Sunday come as CNN reported that tensions are rising between the White House and the nation’s leading public health agency.

In interviews, senior administration officials in Washington as well as top officials at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta described a growing sense of mistrust and animosity between the White House and CDC over how quickly the US should reopen and how the government tracks data on the virus.

In particular, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator for the President’s coronavirus task force, has become increasingly critical of the CDC, making clear in recent meetings that she is more than frustrated with the agency, according to two senior administration officials.

Specifically, Birx believes the way the CDC gathers data on the coronavirus is antiquated, causing inaccurate and delayed numbers on both virus cases and deaths.

Some background: Contamination in manufacturing the CDC test for the coronavirus caused weeks of delays that slowed the US response to the pandemic, multiple health officials told CNN last month, a problem that stemmed in part from the CDC not adhering to its own protocols, according to a US Food and Drug Administration spokesperson.

The government has never fully explained what stalled the rollout of a crucial test needed to begin measuring the extent of the spread of Covid-19. It would take until the end of February to correct.

The gates of Graceland will reopen May 21 with a more private and social distanced tour experience, according to the Memphis mansion’s website. 

The estate will reduce mansion tour capacity to 25%, the website added.

Graceland temporarily closed on March 21 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to its Facebook page. 

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The percentage of positive tests and intensive care unit admissions in New York City have both dropped, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news briefing on Sunday.

At least 469 people were reported in ICU’s as of Friday, and those numbers are down from the 506 reported on Thursday.

Of the people tested for Covid-19, about 11% have tested positive across the city as of Friday, down 13% from Thursday.

Another spike in cases: While the city is preparing for things to get better they are also preparing for bad scenarios “and that would mean tightening up restrictions” if cases were to “boomerang,” de Blasio said.

“If you don’t follow these rules unfortunately there’s a danger of that boomerang and even more restrictions,” de Blasio said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said beaches in New York City will not be opened on Memorial Day, saying “it is not safe.”

But even though beaches remain closed to swimming, walking on the beach is permitted. The New York Police Department will increase patrols across the beaches and parks, de Blasio said.

“There will not be swimming, it will not be allowed, there will not be lifeguards on duty,” he added.

The city will add fencing to control entry points and more fencing in reserve to close off the beaches if needed, adding its not something they want to do. Access will be further restricted if social distancing or no-swim rules are not observed.

“Were going to give people a chance to get it right,” de Blasio said.

The mayor is asking people to not have gatherings on the beach and if they do, “up will come the fences, closing off those beaches.”

Asked about the sidelining of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the coronavirus pandemic, former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said it was “like fighting with one arm tied behind your back.”

Frieden, the CDC director under President Obama, was asked about the agency on Fox News this weekend.

“Very briefly, do you think it’s been a mistake for this administration to sideline the CDC?” Fox’s Chris Wallace asked.

“I think fighting this pandemic without the CDC is like fighting with one arm tied behind your back,” Frieden said. 

These comments came after a discussion about the agency’s role under the Trump administration.

“As far back as I can remember, the CDC has always been the lead agency in health crises like this,” Wallace noted, pointing to Ebola and other diseases. “This time, it seems like the CDC has been sidelined to some degree,” Wallace said, noting the agency’s lack of public briefings.

Some context: CNN has previously reported on growing tensions between the White House and the CDC during the coronavirus pandemic.

Senior administration officials in Washington and at the CDC, for example, have described a growing sense of mistrust and animosity over how quickly the US should reopen and how the government tracks data on the virus.

CNN has also reported on tensions between the White House and CDC over guidelines on how to reopen the country.

A leaked 68-page document from the agency described a detailed approach to reopening states and businesses, but those guidelines have not been publicly released. On Thursday, the CDC published six ages of graphics labeled “decision trees” as updated guidance.  

Mayor Bill de Blasio said New York City is partnering with 123 CityMd urgent care centers across the five boroughs to increase Covid-19 testing across the city,

De Blasio also announced that daily citywide testing capacity has reached 20,000 ahead of scheduled.

“We predict to begin 6,000 testings per day,” de Blasio said Sunday.

If an individual has insurance, they will use it, if they do not, CityMd will cover it, the mayor said, adding that testing will take place seven days a week.

More on the contact tracers: The first class of 500 contact tracers have completed their Johns Hopkins training and there are 1,000 more in progress, the mayor said.

Field training will take place the week of May 24. This includes learning about more than 100 potential case types.

The mayor expects to have an additional 1,000 tracers ready to go by the end of May, he said.

The test and trace corps are deploying Resource Navigators in every community by June 1. De Blasio said 200 to 300 people will be hired as Resource Navigators by June 1 and will be overseen by local organizations in each borough.

There are coronavirus-related deaths in Yemen’s southern port city of city of Aden that are going unreported due to lack of testing, a source with intimate knowledge of the situation in Aden told CNN.

Aden accounts for 71 out of the 122 cases reported in government-controlled areas, according to the latest statistics published by the country’s Supreme National Emergency Committee for Covid-19 on Saturday.

In one hospital, 20 out of 60 patients that arrived over a five-day period, died due to what doctors believe were Covid-19 related reasons, the local source said.

“The patients died shortly after their arrival to hospital and were not tested – so their deaths were not ‘officially’ considered to be Covid-19 related even though all the signs said otherwise,” said the local source who declined to be named for security reasons.

A new study found that social distancing worked to limit the spread of coronavirus in the United States and may have prevented tens of millions of infections.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Health Affairs, found that government-imposed social distancing cut the virus’ daily growth rate by about 9% after roughly three weeks.

Without any social distancing measures at all, the number of coronavirus cases in the US could have been 35 times higher, the researchers estimated.

“Our paper illustrates the potential danger of exponential spread in the absence of interventions, providing relevant information to strategies for restarting economic activity,” they wrote.

Charles Courtemanche from the University of Kentucky — as well and colleagues there and at the University of Louisville and Georgia State University – estimated the effects of social distancing by comparing coronavirus cases in counties with and without a number of social distancing measures.

Shelter-in-place orders and the closure of restaurants and bars seemed particularly effective at slowing the spread of the virus, the researchers found. Bans on large events and the closure of public schools alone didn’t seem to affect the growth rate.

They did note that their study had some limitations. Official case counts, for example, are likely an undercount because they may not include people who aren’t sick enough to go to the doctor.

Other factors could have skewed the results too, such as “informal encouragement by government officials to wear masks or improve hygiene, changing business practices, and social norms regarding distancing.”

As California faces a $54.3 billion budget deficit that is “directly Covid-induced,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said the federal government has an obligation to support states and local governments moving forward.

“We have an obligation, a moral, an ethical obligation to American citizens across this country to help support cities, states and counties,” he told CNN on Sunday.

Newsom said before the pandemic the state had been “managing our budget effectively.”

Some background: Newsom’s comments come after the House passed a $3 trillion emergency relief bill on Friday, which allocates funding for state and local governments, coronavirus testing and a new round of direct payments to Americans, is urgently needed to address the crisis.

But, the White House and Senate Republicans have made it clear they do not support another massive spending bill right now.

Because county health care systems are also struggling financially, health care workers and nurses would also be affected, Newsom added.

Watch:

People crowd the popular street market of Al Ataba in Cairo on May 15.

Egypt will impose stricter measures during the Eid Al-Fitr religious holiday including extending its curfew hours to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced on Sunday according to state news Ahram Online.

A nationwide curfew will begin at 5 p.m. starting from Sunday through Friday, Madbouly said in a televised briefing.

All shops, malls, beaches and parks will be closed during the period.

Saudi Arabia also declared Thursday that a 24-hour curfew will be imposed during the Eid Al-Fitr from May 23 through May 27 across all cities and regions.

Some context: Eid Al-Fitr — also called the Festival of Breaking the Fast, set to start on May 23 — is a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide that marks the end of the month-long dawn-to-sunset fasting of Ramadan. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said reopening the economy is an issue of “health versus health” and that there are “serious health consequences” to keeping states shut down.

As states across the country start to loosen restrictions, he said these determinations need to be made on a local level.

“It’s very hard to judge in any community whether a bar being open, a restaurant, a school is the right thing,” he told CNN on Sunday. “That’s why the local leaders lead this, the state supervises, and the federal government provides expertise and support from our level.”

So far there has not been a spike in cases in states that have already started to reopen, he added.

Watch:

Texas saw its highest single day increase in positive coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic this past Saturday, according to numbers released by Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).

The state reported an increase of at least 1,801 positive coronavirus cases yesterday.

The majority of positive cases, 734 cases, originated from employees of meat plants in Potter and Randall counties, a result of targeted testing of employees at meat plants in the area, according to Texas DSHS. 

CNN reporting shows an upward trend in increase of positive Covid-19 cases in Texas based on numbers reported from Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Numbers from the Texas DSHS also shows this upward trend.

John Lynch delivers iPads to Cape Regional Medical Center in Cape May, New Jersey.

Last month, John Lynch of New Jersey said a final goodbye to his father over FaceTime.

Hugh Lynch, who had dementia, died of natural causes at a memory care center in Atlanta on April 13. Because of Covid-19 guidelines restricting visitation to hospitals and care centers, John couldn’t see his father in person before he died.

It was Lynch’s experience with his father during the pandemic and conversations with medical worker friends that inspired him to take action.

Through the Lunch with Lynch Foundation, which Lynch founded in 2007, he launched Operation Connection: The iPad Project and asked members of his community to donate iPads with the goal of distributing them to local medical centers.

The foundation, which usually focuses on providing educational experiences to local children, has since collected and distributed 60 iPads to hospitals in New Jersey, New York and South Carolina as well as nursing homes in Cape May County, New Jersey, according to Lynch.

Read the rest of the article here

CDC releases illustration of the Coronavirus.

With the virus largely contained in China, life is slowly returning to normal there. Lockdowns have eased while some schools and factories have reopened.

There have been worrying signs. Most recently, eight sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt tested positive for the virus a second time.

Fresh clusters of cases have emerged across China recently. On Friday more than 8,000 people were quarantined in and around Shulan, in the northeastern province of Jilin.

Fears of a potential second wave have also rattled South Korea, where confirmed cases believed to be linked to Seoul’s nightclub cluster rose to 168 today.

Many from the country’s LGBTQ community, which still faces discrimination in South Korea, frequent the nightclubs. And fears of having their sexuality outed have kept some patrons who were potentially exposed from coming forward.

As global leaders weigh the risk of second waves of infections with the need to reopen their economies, people are increasingly losing patience. Protests against lockdown measures spread this weekend in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom.

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Q: My kids don’t want to wear a mask. What should I do?

A: To ease their fears, try buying or making masks with fun designs. Or have your child customize his or her own mask by drawing on them with markers. You can also order children’s face masks with superheroes on them, or show your kids photos of their favorite celebrities wearing masks. It’s also important to wear a mask yourself. And let them know that by wearing one they’ll be just like mom or dad.

Read the rest of CNN’s Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction newsletter here

People relax at the Cheonggye Stream in the South Korean capital, Seoul, amid a lifting of restrictions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

South Korean schools will begin opening Wednesday, May 20, for students in third year through high school, South Korea’s Vice Education Minister said during a briefing on Sunday.

Public concern was raised about reopening of schools after a cluster infection was reported at nightclubs in Itaewon in the capital Seoul. As of Sunday, a total of 168 people have tested positive for the virus linked to the Itaewon cluster.

The minister, Park Baeg-beom, pointed out that many students are at a critical junction of their education, particularly those taking exams for job placement opportunities and students applying for arts and sports majors. 

All students and faculty members with temperature of 37.5 degrees Celsius (99.5 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher will not be allowed to go to school, the minister added. Temperature checks will happen twice a day and anyone with symptoms will be transported to centers.

Why is this happening now: South Korea was among the first places to deal with a major coronavirus epidemic, and seemed to be on track to loosen restrictions, after weeks of social distancing measures and careful surveillance. But the new cluster raised questions as to whether restrictions should be eased.

Before the latest cases, the number of new infections in South Korea had slowed to a trickle, with local transmission appearing to be halted. South Korea’s response has been hailed as one of the best globally, aided in part by the country’s relative small size, easily-controlled borders and aggressive testing regime.

Read more here

A woman opens her store in Palma de Mallorca during phase one of Spain's reopening.

The number of daily deaths due to Covid-19 fell to 87 for the latest 24-hour period – the lowest figure since March 16, figures from the Spanish Health Ministry on Sunday show.

The total number of deaths in Spain now stands at 27,650.

The number of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 has reached 231,350, an increase of 421. Of that total, the number of health workers infected is 50,938, according to the Health Ministry.

The Spanish government has embarked on a major, nationwide testing program to discover who has or may have had the virus.

Most of the new cases and reported deaths are in Madrid and Catalonia.

Michael Gove says UK's contact tracing scheme could be running by the end of May.

The UK government is close to reaching its target of recruiting 18,000 contact tracers to help health authorities understand who may have been exposed to Covid-19 patients, Cabinet minister Michel Gove said Sunday.

Gove said the contact-tracing scheme should be up and running “by the end of this month.”

The job advert says contact tracers will be responsible for “liaising over the phone with Covid-19 patients, understanding their situation and assisting in the tracing and tracking of anyone they have been in contact with.”

People ride and walk on a path along beach on May 15, 2020 in California after beaches across the state began to reopen.

Most of the country has loosened restrictions meant to curb the spread of coronavirus – but as Americans begin to gather again, health officials warn moving too fast could have dire consequences.

In California, more than 180 people may have been exposed by a person who had the virus during an in-person religious service last week, the Butte County Public Health Department said.

“We all need to do our part to follow the orders and mitigation efforts so that our Reopen Butte County plan can continue to move forward,” Butte County Public Health Director Danette York said in a statement Friday. “Moving too quickly through the reopening process can cause a major setback and could require us to revert back to more restrictive measures.”

And in Erie, Pennsylvania, officials said they will keep city park facilities closed to ensure a continued path toward the state’s reopening – despite repeated requests from residents to utilize park grounds for sports, exercise and picnics.

“It is vital for the health of our community that we all refrain from gathering in large groups to ensure that our community members remain safe while we work towards moving into the Green Phase,” Mayor Joe Schember said in a statement.

The green phase is the last of three reopening stages for Pennsylvania, during which most restrictions will be lifted and regions can proceed into a “new normal,” according to the governor’s office.

The warnings echo conversations taking place across the US by health officials, residents, business owners and experts who are trying to tackle what a safe reopening looks like – and what could happen if it’s rushed.

Read the rest of the article here

Alicia Kappers meets her weeks-old son Laith after he was released from the hospital on May 6.

Alicia Kappers doesn’t remember her contractions or her baby’s first cries. Other than her newborn son, her only reminder of that day is the scar from her cesarean section.

She was 31 weeks pregnant when her husband took her to a Cincinnati, Ohio, hospital in late March. She had a cough, fever and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

The novel coronavirus was putting a strain on her body and the 40-year-old mother would have to deliver her baby early while in a medically induced coma.

Kappers and her husband dreamed of giving a sibling to their 3-year-old son Zayne. Conceiving had never been an easy task for them and a pandemic was about to make things even more difficult.

From putting together a nursery for the baby to having to hunker down at home because of the virus, the life of this family of three was already changing.

Read the rest of the article here

People wear face masks and gloves on a subway escalator in Moscow on Tuesday.

Russia recorded 9,709 new confirmed cases of coronavirus, bringing the official total to 281,752 cases on Sunday, according to a statement from the country’s coronavirus response headquarters.

At least 94 people died in the last 24 hours, raising the official death toll to 2,631. Moscow is the worst-hit city and accounts for over a half of all cases and deaths in the country.

Yet the virus is now spreading across Russia’s regions, an enormous landmass that covers 11 time zones and includes some of the country’s most remote and impoverished places.

Read more here

A restaurant stands empty and closed in Brooklyn on May 12, in New York City.

The US state of Georgia allowed restaurants to reopen on April 27. The three owned by Ryan Pernice are still shuttered.

The entrepreneur hasn’t opened his restaurants, Table & Main, Osteria Mattone and Coalition Food & Beverage, since March 16. Pernice is worried about the health of his employees and customers, but there’s another reason the restaurants are still shut down: They can’t make a profit with social distancing rules in place.

“If you talk to restaurants across the globe, the language might change, but the math is the same,” Pernice told CNN Business. “Restaurants and bars need volume and traffic to make them work.”

Pernice has been forced to lay off or furlough 80 of his 120 staff. Around the world, millions more restaurant and bar workers have lost their jobs as countries impose strict lockdowns designed to contain the pandemic. Some of those restrictions are now being eased, but restaurants and bars are not being prioritized for reopening because they are viewed as venues where the virus might spread.

Restaurant owners and managers are grappling with the brutal math that underpins their industry. Margins are razor thin, forcing eateries and bars to pack in customers every night, and especially on the weekends, in order to stay afloat. In the toughest markets, that means multiple waves of guests, and tables that are pushed together as closely as possible.

It’s a business model that is simply incompatible with social distancing.

Read the rest of the article here

A passenger walks through Suvarnabhumi Airport on April 3 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Travelers seeking respite on Thailand’s beaches will have to wait as the country has announced an extension to its ban on international flights.

The ban has been pushed forward until June 30, the Civil Aviation Authority said in a press release, as the country continues to prevent the spread of the virus.

The ban does not apply to state or military aircraft, emergency landings, technical landings without disembarkation, humanitarian aid, medical and relief flights, repatriation flights and cargo flights.

It comes as cases dwindle in the Southeast Asian country. Three additional coronavirus cases were confirmed in Thailand on Sunday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 3,028.

Among them, 56 people have died, 2,856 have recovered, and 116 are receiving treatment in hospitals. No new deaths were reported on Sunday.

A couple wearing face masks walk past a closed nightclub in the popular nightlife district of Itaewon in Seoul on May 10.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases believed to be linked to Seoul’s nightclub cluster rose Sunday to 168, five more than the day before, according to the South Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). 

Most of the confirmed cases are people in their 20s and 30s, according to Jung Eun-kyeong, director of the KCDC. More than 7,000 tests were conducted Saturday, he added.

Overall, 13 new coronavirus cases were recorded in South Korea since Saturday, six of which are believed to have been locally transmitted, and the remaining seven cases imported.

Of those six locally transmitted cases, five had close contact with people who visited nightclubs in Itaewon, in the capital Seoul, health officials said.

More tests: Director Jung added that the government will conduct tests for all those beginning their mandatory military conscription service, starting May 18, and for the next eight weeks to prevent cluster infections in the military and assess regional infection risks.

Nationally, there are 11,050 confirmed cases in South Korea and 900 patients remain in quarantine. Of those infected, 89.5% have recovered and the death toll remains at 262.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson records a televised message to the nation on May 10 in London.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he understands that people will “feel frustrated” by some of the government’s new coronavirus rules as parts of the country begin to ease restrictions.

Johnson last week announced the government’s roadmap to ease coronavirus restrictions in England, but faced criticism for dropping the “stay at home” message and providing confusing advice about what was and was not allowed.

The UK is made up of four constituent nations, three of which – Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland – have not relaxed their “stay at home” orders.

Officials in Wales and Scotland, neither of which are run by Johnson’s Conservative Party, have criticized the UK government’s response, particularly for creating a potentially confusing mix of rules across mainland Britain, as have other opposition figures.

Speaking to the BBC on Saturday, Labour leader Keir Starmer warned that the divergence was not going to “help us out of this crisis.”

“The sooner, frankly, we get back to operating as four nations together the better,” Starmer told the broadcaster.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Johnson said the process will become easier as time passes.

Johnson said the community needs to understand it could well be living with the virus for “some time to come.”

He has also announced moves to fast-track the development of the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre through an investment of £93 million ($113 million).

Brazil's Armed Forces soldiers prepare to disinfect public shelter in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 14, as a precaution against coronavirus.

The numbers: More than 4,635,830 cases of the coronavirus have been reported worldwide, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. At least 311,824 people have died as a result of the coronavirus. The United States is the world’s worst-hit country. Officials there recorded 25,060 new coronavirus cases on Saturday and 1,224 deaths, bringing the total to 1,467,884 cases of coronavirus. At least 88,754 people have died there as a result of the virus.

Worsening outbreak in South America: Brazil overtook Spain to become the fourth-largest outbreak in the world Saturday. The country has recorded more than 233,500 cases, and 15,600 deaths. Elsewhere in South America, Peru and Chile are both suffering major outbreaks.

Thousands quarantined in China: At least 8,000 people have been quarantined by authorities in northeast China, who are battling a new outbreak which emerged around the city of Shulan. Minor outbreaks have also been recorded elsewhere in the country, amid fears of another wave of the virus.

Top Chinese health adviser speaks to CNN: Those fears are well founded, said Dr. Zhong Nanshan, one of China’s top health experts and an adviser to the government on the coronavirus response. Zhong told CNN that avoiding a new wave of cases remains a “big challenge” for the country.

New Zealand has announced it will invest 264.6 million New Zealand dollars ($157 million) into the country’s sports and recreation sector to help mitigate the “significant impact Covid-19 has had on the sector.”

In a news release issued Sunday, Sport New Zealand said the investment would be rolled out as part of Budget 2020 and that the investment will be spread over four years. The release also pointed to the “important role play, active recreation and sport” have on New Zealand’s economy, mental and physical wellbeing.

A day after India’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases surpassed China’s tally, the country has seen its biggest surge in infections with a record 4,987 cases reported in the last 24 hours.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, as of Sunday morning there were 90,927 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 2,872 deaths. At least 30,152 patients have been treated.

India has jumped from 80,000 to 90,000 confirmed cases in just two days.

China still faces the “big challenge” of a potential second wave of Covid-19 infections, Dr. Zhong Nanshan, China’s top health adviser and hero of the 2003 battle against SARS, told CNN in an exclusive interview.

The lack of immunity among the community a serious concern as the race to develop a vaccine continues, he added.

Watch the full interview here:

A canal and walkways are seen empty on March 9 in Venice, Italy.

A few days before Italy is set to lift restrictions across much of the country after being locked down since March 10, the streets of Venice are starting to spring back to life. 

There are no tourists here just yet. Instead the noise is from vacuum cleaners and sanitation crews inside stores that are getting ready for the grand reopening on May 18. 

But even as shop owners prepare for whatever post-lockdown Venice looks like, everyone here in this deserted tourist town is asking the same question: who are they reopening for? 

Every year, as many as 30 million tourists from all over the world descend on Venice, pumping up to $2.5 billion into the local economy, according to the Italian Tourism Ministry. 

But few are Italians, who have never been as enamored with the lagoon city as the rest of the world, according to Matteo Secchi, head of the tourist group Venessia, who says Venice has always attracted far more international tourists than national ones.

“When the city reopens next week, it will still be much like it looks today,” he told CNN in an eerily empty Venice this week. “Tourists won’t really start coming back until the borders are reopened and international travel is allowed.”

Read more here

Medical workers put on protective gear before tending to coronavirus patients at the Filatov City Clinical Hospital in Moscow, Russia, on May 15.

Russia hit a grim Covid-19 milestone this week: According to Johns Hopkins University, the country now ranks second in the world for confirmed coronavirus cases.

The Russian capital has been hardest hit. Of Russia’s total of 272,043 confirmed cases, around half – 138,969 – are in Moscow, according to the country’s coronavirus headquarters. But the virus is now spreading across Russia’s regions, an enormous landmass that covers 11 time zones and includes some of the country’s most remote and impoverished places.

In a video conference meeting on Monday with Russia’s 85 regional heads, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the burden would fall to local leaders to decide whether to continue lockdown measures or to begin cautiously lifting restrictions to reopen the economy.

“We have a big country,” he said. “The epidemiological situation varies across the regions. We factored this in before, and now at the next stage, we have to act even more specifically and carefully.”

Read the rest here

Medical professionals work at a drive-thru coronavirus testing site on May 15 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

According to Johns Hopkins University’s tally, the United States has at least 1,467,884 cases of coronavirus. At least 88,754 people have died there as a result of the virus.

On Saturday, Johns Hopkins reported 25,060 new cases and 1,224 new deaths in the US.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.

Health workers transport the body of the first recorded victim to die from coronavirus in Nepal on May 16.

Nepal recorded its first coronavirus-related death, the country’s health ministry said late Saturday.

The victim was a 29-year-old woman from a district bordering the capital, Kathmandu, the ministry said in a statement. 

Nepal has been under a nationwide lockdown since March 24, with borders to both India and China sealed. So far, 291 coronavirus cases have been reported in the country, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally.

More than 8,000 people have been quarantined in and around the Chinese city of Shulan, in the northeastern province of Jilin, according to state media.

Shulan is one of a number of places across China – including Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected late last year – to report new cases since the country gradually began reopening this month.

Last week, the city initiated “wartime measures” to fight the new infections. National level health and inspection teams have been dispatched to the area. According to state media, the city’s Communist Party chief, Li Pengfei, has also been sacked.

Speaking to state media during a tour of Jilin Saturday, Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan called for “more decisive, precise, flexible and effective measures in regular epidemic prevention and control to avoid further spread of the Covid-19 outtbreak.”

Chinese health authorities said Sunday that there were five new confirmed coronavirus cases Saturday, two of which were imported.

The three other cases were the result of domestic transmission and all were reported in Jilin province, the National Health Commission said.

There have been over 84,000 cases of the coronavirus in China since the pandemic began, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. More than 4,600 people have died as a result of the virus in China.

Spit into a cup when you land in an airport, and your DNA is stored. Every phone in every city talks to every other nearby device, their exchanges floating somewhere in the ether. Cross-border travel is enabled only by governments sharing data about millions of private movements.

These are all possible visions of a future that the coronavirus pandemic has rushed on us – decades of change effected, sometimes it feels, in just weeks. But a lurch into an even more intense era of mass data-collection – the vast hoovering up of who went near whom and when, who is healthy to travel, and even scraps of personal DNA languishing in databases – appears to be on the verge of becoming the new reality.

Will this grave new world intensify our desire for privacy, or extinguish what little left of it we had?

Read the rest here

Former President Barack Obama speaks during "Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020" on May 16.

Former US President Barack Obama delivered scathing criticism of how the coronavirus pandemic has been handled by American leaders during a second commencement address on Saturday.

Obama did not name his successor, President Donald Trump. But his target was clear as he characterized the US response to the crisis as woefully haphazard.

Obama was speaking in a primetime event called “Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020,” which was broadcast on many networks, including CNN.

In remarks made earlier to graduates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities Saturday, Obama again did not name Trump. But his rebuke of how the current President has handled the worst public health crisis in a general was plain.

Obama said he hopes the graduates decide to ground themselves with “values that last. Like honestly, hard work, responsibility, fairness, generosity, and respect for others.”

A vendor displays hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) tablets at a pharmacy in New Delhi, India.

Sarah Thebarge, a 41-year-old physician assistant living in San Francisco, takes a pill every day to treat her lupus, a chronic condition that causes unbearable joint pain, fatigue and fainting spells.

The medicine she takes is hydroxychloroquine or HCQ.

But in March, HCQ, which is also used to treat malaria, suddenly became harder to get after US President Donald Trump touted the drug as a possible treatment for Covid-19. 

As people started hoarding it, India – which reportedly makes 70% of the world’s supply of HCQ – quickly halted exports to secure its own supplies.

“When the hoarding started, my 30-day supply was in back order,” said Thebarge. “The scenario really scared me, what would happen to me if I couldn’t get HCQ?”

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved HCQ as the treatment for Covid-19, but the episode showed how dependent the US is on India for drugs – namely generic drugs, which are copies of brand-name pharmaceuticals that have the same effects but cost less. 

In the US, 90% of all prescriptions are filled by generic drugs and, one in every three pills consumed is produced by an Indian generics manufacturer, according to an April 2020 study by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and KPMG. 

While the US seems to hold sway with its ally India in obtaining the finished product, there’s a bigger issue earlier in the supply chain. 

India gets around 68% of its raw materials – known as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) – from China. Any disruption in that supply chain can create a major problem, especially during a pandemic.

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Paramedics transport a patient at the General Hospital in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on May 13.

Mexico’s Ministry of Health reported 278 new deaths from coronavirus on Saturday, meaning 5,045 people there have now died from Covid-19.

On Saturday, Mexico reported 2,112 new confirmed cases, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases to 47,144.

Saturday’s toll marked a slight decrease in the rate of new cases, after two days of over 2,400 new cases, the highest daily numbers the country has seen since its first infections were reported on February 28.

Authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus was first reported, suppressed key details about the magnitude of the initial outbreak, according to Dr. Zhong Nanshan, the Chinese government’s senior medical adviser.

“The local authorities, they didn’t like to tell the truth at that time,” Zhong said. “At the very beginning they kept silent, and then I said probably we have (a larger) number of people being infected.”

Zhong said he became suspicious when the number of officially reported cases in Wuhan remained at 41 for more than 10 days — despite infections emerging overseas.

China has reported more than 82,000 coronavirus cases, with at least 4,633 deaths, according to data from the country’s National Health Commission. The number of new infections surged quickly in late January, prompting city lockdowns and nationwide travel bans.

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Cemetery workers place crosses over graves at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery in Manaus, Brazil, on May 13.

More than 15,000 people have died in Brazil after contracting the novel coronavirus, the country’s health ministry says.

Health officials reported 816 new deaths on Saturday, bringing the total to 15,633.

The number of cases in Brazil continues to rise. There are 233,142 cases of the virus in the country and 14,919 new cases were reported in the 24-hour period between Friday and Saturday, the ministry said.

Brazil has the fourth-highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The latest uptick pushed Brazil’s case count past Spain and Italy.