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Coronavirus is ushering in a new wave of racially motivated attacks, warns intelligence bulletin

Federal agencies are concerned that domestic extremists could use the coronavirus pandemic to attack Asians and Jews, according to a joint intelligence bulletin obtained by Yahoo News. That bulletin mirrors what organizations that monitor online hate content are also finding.

Doctors rethinking coronavirus: Are we using ventilators the wrong way?

As hospitals and health care workers grapple with a shortage of supplies, some doctors are raising questions about how ventilators are currently being used on coronavirus patients — and whether they may actually be doing more harm than good.

Taiwan demands apology from WHO chief over virus 'slander'

Taiwan demanded an apology Thursday from the World Health Organization chief after he accused the island's government of leading personal attacks against him and his agency's response to the coronavirus pandemic. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called Wednesday for unity to fight the disease after US President Donald Trump criticised the global health body and threatened to cut its funding. "Three months ago, this attack came from Taiwan," he told reporters in Geneva, referring to online criticism and insults.

Biden joins growing call for release of racial data on virus

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is joining a growing call for the release of comprehensive racial data on the coronavirus pandemic, which he says has put a spotlight on inequity and the impact of “structural racism." Biden's Medium post on Thursday said he is joining Democratic congressional members Ayanna Pressley, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and others who have also called for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies to release more data. Biden said he wants data released on income, too, to better help allocate resources to communities in need.

Bill Gates warns that a coronavirus-like outbreak will probably happen 'every 20 years or so'

Gates said people now realize that there is "a meaningful probability every 20 years or so ... that one of these [viruses] will come along."

Japan to Pay Companies to Move Production Out of China

Japan will devote more than $2.2 billion of its coronavirus economic stimulus package to incentivize its manufacturers to move their production out of China as relations fray between the neighboring countries in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.The record stimulus plan provides $2 billion for manufacturers to transfer production to Japan and over $216 million to help companies move production to other countries. Imports from China, Japan's biggest trading partner, were down by nearly 50 percent in February as facilities in China closed while the coronavirus ripped through the country.A state visit to Japan by Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this month — the first such visit in about a decade — was postponed indefinitely last month amid the coronavirus pandemic.“We are doing our best to resume economic development,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Wednesday of Japan's decision during a press conference in Beijing.“In this process, we hope other countries will act like China and take proper measures to ensure the world economy will be impacted as little as possible and to ensure that supply chains are impacted as little as possible.”Politicians in Japan and the U.S., among other countries, have placed blame on China for failing to respond strongly during the early days of the coronavirus outbreak and concealing the scale of the threat from other nations. Despite recent developments, Japan has donated masks and personal protective equipment to China."Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the Japanese government and people have expressed sympathy, understanding and support to us," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said in early February.As of Thursday, Japan had more than 4,700 confirmed cases of coronavirus and at least 85 deaths from the respiratory illness.

NYC Is Taking Hundreds of Body Bags Out of Houses—and Soon They Will Be Counted

The coronavirus death count in New York City, already unfathomable, is expected to surge in the coming days as officials begin including people who have been dropping dead at home without an official diagnosis.Emergency Medical Service data first reported by Gothamist suggests the undercount of individuals who have likely died from the virus is massive. On Tuesday alone, 256 people were pronounced dead at home across the five boroughs. Until this month, about 25 people in New York City were found dead in their homes on a typical day, suggesting that most of Tuesday’s calls were related to the outbreak that has already killed over 5,400 people across the state and infected 140,386 more.  According to New York City Fire Department data obtained by The Daily Beast, first responders have reported 2,192 “dead-on-arrival” calls over the last two weeks. On average, the department handled about 453 of those calls over the same period last year. That data also showed that the number of cardiac or respiratory arrest calls has exploded, from 20 to 30 a day at the end of March and the beginning of April in 2019, to 322 on one day in April in 2020—with more than 100 calls every day since March 28. While 30 to 50 percent of those calls ended in a death in 2019, more than 50 percent of those calls have ended in a death every day since March 22 this year, with the percentage steadily rising to 75 percent as of April 5.‘New York Is in Crisis’: Cuomo Pleads for Help as State Suffers Worst Single-Day Death Toll “Every person with a lab-confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis is counted in the number of fatalities, whether they passed away at home or in a hospital,” a spokesperson for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) and the NYC Health Department are working together to include into their reports deaths that may be linked to COVID but not lab-confirmed that occur at home.” They did not specify when the city will begin reporting that data, but the decision to include the possible virus-related fatalities comes after Gothamist’s report about at-home deaths that were likely related to the disease and not included in the city’s reports.While New York City reported over 400 coronavirus deaths in less than 24 hours on Wednesday, that number did not include those who died in non-hospital settings without a formal lab diagnosis.While initially refusing to discuss his administration’s reporting system, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday agreed the city should include home deaths to give an accurate account of the tragedy ravaging the city. He acknowledged that a “vast majority” of deaths at home are “coronavirus related.”“The blunt truth is coronavirus is driving these very tragic deaths,” de Blasio said on CNN. “We’re talking about something like 100, 200 people per day. Don’t take this disease ever lightly because the real death toll is even higher.”The mayor added that New York—currently the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States—has seen more deaths in the “last couple of days” than “the number of people who died in the World Trade Center.”State and city officials are still struggling to track the number of coronavirus cases, as officials believe there are a number of individuals infected with the virus who have not, or cannot, be tested. One emergency room doctor told The Daily Beast that his hospital is “aggressively sending people home.” “Being in the hospital is not going to change their course of illness,” the physician said, indicating the hard choices medical professionals face during this pandemic.De Blasio said that he was hopeful the virus was starting to slow after seeing indications that the city’s overwhelmed hospital system was seeing fewer admissions—until he learned that hundreds of people are dying in their homes without seeking medical care. NYC Is on the Brink as Patients Flood Hospitals Already ‘Under Siege’“We never saw anything like this in normal times,” he added. “We have to acknowledge that, and say this is further evidence of just how destructive this disease is.”On Wednesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that 779 more people had died across the state, marking the second day in a row that the Empire State saw an increase in deaths related to the pandemic.“If the hospitalization rate keeps decreasing the way it is now, then the system should stabilize these next couple of weeks, which will minimize the need for an overflow that we have built into the system,” Cuomo said, adding that “the number of deaths, as a matter of fact, will continue to rise as those hospitalized for a longer period of time pass away.” The death toll has already overwhelmed city hospitals and morgues. To deal with the flood of bodies, 45 refrigerated trucks have been set up across the five boroughs, some of which are already full, and a temporary morgue has been erected outside Bellevue Hospital in Midtown Manhattan. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said last week that New York will also receive 250 ambulances, about 500 EMTs and paramedics, and 85 more refrigerated trucks to help with the overload. On Monday, de Blasio, who’d previously refused to detail any plans for mass burials, said that the city has contingency plans in place if needed to bury COVID-19 victims in temporary plots on Hart Island, which has been used as New York’s potter’s field for 150 years, until morgues and cemeteries can handle the influx. “We’re going to try and treat every family with dignity, respect, religious needs of those who are devout, and the focus right now is to try to get through this crisis and obviously also put all of our energy and resources into saving those we can save,” de Blasio said. “That’s how we’re going to go about it. We’ll have the capacity for temporary burials. That’s all I’m going to say.”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.

Modly's Final Message to the Fleet: 'I Lost Situational Awareness'

Thomas Modly, who resigned from his position on Tuesday, told sailors and Marines they are justified in being angry with him.

Adam Schiff says Intelligence Committee may conduct 'Zoom hearings' during current pandemic

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., says he is considering using the teleconferencing software Zoom to hold hearings into foreign election interference and other key issues, including the firing of intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson, while social distancing restrictions remain in place due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Some African countries heading for coronavirus peak in weeks: WHO

Some African countries could see a peak in coronavirus cases in the coming weeks and testing should be urgently increased in the region, World Health Organization officials said on Thursday. "During the last four days we can see that the numbers have already doubled," Michel Yao, the WHO Africa programme manager for emergency response, told a media teleconference on Thursday. The numbers of recorded coronavirus infections in Africa have been relatively low so far - with nearly 11,000 cases and 562 deaths, according to a Reuters tally based on government statements and WHO data.

This is what I want my friends to do if they have COVID-19 symptoms and are asked to go to the ER

As a frontline infectious diseases doctor, this is what I want my friends and neighbors to do if they have COVID-19 symptoms and are asked to go to the emergency room.

Coronavirus: WHO chief and Taiwan in row over 'racist' comments

Taiwan rejects accusations by the UN health body's head that racist slurs against him originated there.

Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 8 points in new poll; majority believe US is in a recession

The poll found Biden is the top choice among 49% of registered voters and Trump the top choice of 41%. Biden is boosted by self-identified independent voters.

Coronavirus: California woman arrested for licking $1,800 worth of groceries

A California woman has been arrested after licking $1,800 worth of groceries and other items at a supermarket in the northern part of the state, police said Wednesday. Chris Fiore, spokesman for the South Lake Tahoe police department, near the border with Nevada, told AFP that officers were called to the Safeway store on Tuesday following reports of "a customer licking groceries" at a time of heightened fears over the spread of the highly contagious novel coronavirus. "When officers arrived on the scene, a Safeway employee informed them that the suspect put numerous pieces of jewelry from the store on her hands," he said.

Rep. Banks Calls on Barr, Pompeo to Bring International Criminal Court Case against China over Coronavirus Coverup

Representative Jim Banks (R., Ind.) is calling on the State Department and Department of Justice to bring a case against China to the United Nations International Court of Justice for damages stemming from the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, joining the growing number of lawmakers who want to see China held responsible.“If China’s leaders hadn’t become embarrassed by the outbreak and tried to cover up its spread, the world may have had a better chance to prepare for this or even contain it in Wuhan or China,” Banks said in a statement. “Instead, we have a pandemic. China shoulders most of that blame. Rather than succumb to the propaganda and spin of Chinese officials, the world must hold them accountable for mishandling this outbreak. If the United Nations cannot even do that, it has completely lost its purpose.”If China refuses a trial in the International Court of Justice, Articles 49-51 of the United Nation's Charter hold that the U.S. and other states could suspend their international obligations to China in order to force Beijing to accept responsibility, including by reversing China’s membership in the World Trade Organization, and by suspending air travel to China.Banks is currently circulating a letter addressed to Attorney General William Barr and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to gather congressional support for his effort. He also co-sponsored a resolution last month that condemned the Chinese Communist Party’s handling of the initial outbreak.The Indiana Republican is not the only member of Congress who has called for an international investigation of China. In March, Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) and Representative Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) proposed a bicameral resolution that called for an international investigation to determine to what extent China’s coverup helped produce a global pandemic.Recent reports have documented how China failed to take the threat seriously and silenced early warnings that the outbreak could turn into a major problem.China has also used propaganda to push a conspiracy theory that the virus originated in the U.S., which experts have called “a counteroffensive” and “a kind of blame-shifting."

'A silent explosion': Coronavirus deaths in U.S. climb past 16,000

COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. surpass 16,000. In New York, new hospitalizations slow, affirming signs that stay-at-home orders are slowing coronavirus spread.

Young people, who are least likely die from the coronavirus, should be released early from the UK's lockdown to help the economy, a new paper said

The paper, from the UK's University of Warwick, says the economic benefit is worth the health risk, since young people are less vulnerable anyway.

Turkey's COVID-19 infection rate is the fastest rising in the world. Here's why it got so many cases so quickly.

Less than a month ago, Turkey didn't have a single case. As of April 10, it had 42,282 confirmed cases with 908 deaths.

Russia aims to prosecute destruction of war monuments abroad

Russia’s defense minister called on law enforcement officials Wednesday to consider filing criminal charges against representatives of other countries where World War II memorials commemorating the actions of the Soviet Union are demolished. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the appeal to the head of the Investigative Committee, Russia’s top criminal investigation body. Russia takes offense at any criticism of the Soviet role in the war.

U.S. expels thousands of migrants to Mexico after largely halting asylum

The Trump administration tapped a law allowing the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ban foreigners if their entry would create “a serious danger” to the spread of communicable disease.

Trump approval dips as Americans question his handling of coronavirus crisis

After rising to some of the highest levels of his presidency, Donald Trump's approval ratings have leveled off in recent surveys.

Pakistan shoots down Indian drone as Kashmir tensions rise

Pakistan's army said Thursday it had shot down a small Indian surveillance drone in Kashmir, as tensions rose over continued cross-border shelling in the disputed territory. "This blatant act was aggressively responded to by Pakistan Army troops shooting down Indian quadcopter," the statement read. An Indian army spokesman said the drone "is not ours".

Leading Scientific Journal Nature Apologizes for ‘Associating’ Coronavirus with China

The leading British scientific journal Nature apologized in an article published on Tuesday for "associating" the coronavirus with its origin place in China on the grounds that the linkage had inspired racist attacks against people with Asian heritage across the world.“That we did so was an error on our part, for which we take responsibility and apologize,” the journal said in an article published Tuesday.The coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan, China and first appeared in bats thought to have infected wild animals that were sold in the city's wet markets. Since then, it has spread to at least 177 countries and infected 1.4 million people. As of Thursday morning, at least 89,000 people had died after contracting the respiratory illness.“It’s clear that since the outbreak was first reported, people of Asian descent around the world have been subjected to racist attacks, with untold human costs – for example, on their health and livelihoods,” the article read.Nature remarked that the World Health Organization's dubbing the new coronavirus COVID-19 was a subtle reminder to “those who had erroneously been associating the virus with Wuhan and with China in their news coverage – including Nature.”The publication urged that “Coronavirus stigma must stop – now.”“It would be tragic if stigma, fueled by the coronavirus, led Asia’s young people to retreat from international campuses, curtailing their own education, reducing their own and others’ opportunities and leaving research worse off – just when the world is relying on it to find a way out,” the journal said.The Nature report also chastised "a minority of politicians," who are "sticking with the outdated script."“Continuing to associate a virus and the disease it causes with a specific place is irresponsible and needs to stop," the report said.President Trump briefly referred to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus,” defending his use of the term by saying "it comes from China," but later backed away from the phrase after reports of an uptick in violence against Asian Americans."Look, everyone knows it came out of China, but I decided we shouldn't make any more of a big deal out of it," Trump said early last month.The Communist Chinese government has denied that the virus originated in China and said that it is “strongly indignant” over the phrase, calling it “a kind of stigmatization.” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang demanded last month that the U.S. “immediately stop its unjustified accusations against China.”

Coronavirus: New York using mass graves amid outbreak

Drone footage shows coffins stacked in a pit in the city, as the state logs more cases than any country.

Italy and Austria share a border, but while one nation grapples with crippling coronavirus deaths, the other is preparing to lift its lockdown

Despite announcing "a step-by-step resurrection" of Austria's economy, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said, "We are not out of the woods."

Head of Global Strike Command Wants to Make Air Force Bombers Even More Lethal

The Air Force plans to have 165 to 175 bombers in its inventory once the B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber comes online.

New York state reports more coronavirus cases than any country except the U.S.: Reuters tally

The U.S. state has 149,316 reported cases compared with Spain at 146,690. Italy is now in third place with 139,422 cases reported on Wednesday. In total, the United States has recorded over 417,000 cases and 14,100 deaths, according to the Reuters tally.

CDC extends 'no sail' order for cruise ships as industry ravaged by the coronavirus

Cruise ships won't be hitting the high seas again anytime soon. A new CDC order says about 100 cruise ships near the U.S. must remain idle.

Woman gives birth standing with trousers on while detained at US-Mexico border

A woman suffering flu-like symptoms gave birth standing and fully clothed while detained near the Mexican-US border, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.The Guatemalan woman, 27, was being processed at the Chula Vista Border Patrol Station near San Diego when her complaints of pain and pleas for help were allegedly ignored by agents, according to a complaint filed on Wednesday by the ACLU and Jewish Family Service of San Diego with the US Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General.

Sanders' exit could bring Obama into the 2020 fold

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is out, and former President Barack Obama is maybe, possibly in.Sanders dropped out of the 2020 race on Wednesday, saying his "path toward victory is virtually impossible" but pledging to stay on primary ballots through the Democratic National Convention to gain influence in the party. That makes former Vice President Joe Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee, and leaves Obama free to campaign for his former second in command.Obama has refused to endorse a primary candidate since the 2020 Democratic race's jam-packed beginnings, though reports did suggest he was quietly backing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Other reports suggested he wasn't thrilled about Biden getting in the race, and told Biden's campaign staff to make sure he didn't "embarrass himself." Biden meanwhile maintained he specifically asked Obama not to endorse him, though he has promised his presidency would essentially be a third Obama term.But Sanders' departure leaves Obama with just one choice, effectively compelling him to take a stand as a Biden surrogate. Obama did reportedly expect to perform a lot of party unifying this summer, after all. There's just one problem: Obama didn't end up turning the tides when he did the same for Hillary Clinton in 2016.More stories from theweek.com Biden is the weakest major party nominee in recent history — but that might be the point Biden pledges to lower Medicare age and reduce some student debt in olive branch to Sanders supporters 4 important parenting lessons from life in lockdown

Trump’s Fox News Cabinet Tells Him the Coronavirus Crisis Is Over

Throughout the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump’s decisions and stances have seemingly been influenced by the unofficial advisers he treasures most: Fox News primetime hosts.After downplaying for weeks the threat of the virus, just as many on Fox News did the same, the president began taking it seriously last month after Tucker Carlson personally confronted him before delivering an on-air monologue calling for action. Elsewhere, Fox stars have been the primary driving force behind Trump’s incessant promotion of an unproven anti-malarial drug as the miracle COVID-19 cure.And in recent days, it seems, the president has been receiving his newest coronavirus intel briefing from Fox News. This time, they say, the pandemic is over and it’s time to move on.Throughout Tuesday night’s primetime stretch, Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham were in lockstep in telegraphing to Trump a message that the pandemic’s threat has been overstated, death counts have been inflated, and the U.S. is already on the downside of the curve.Carlson, who received mainstream plaudits for his “admirable” early coronavirus coverage, kicked off his show by declaring that the crisis “may have passed,” noting that health-care systems across the country haven’t come close to collapsing—“except in a handful of places.”“Patients are not dying alone in the hallways of emergency rooms with physicians too overwhelmed to treat them,” he asserted. “That was the concern. It happens in other countries, it's not happening here. Thank God for that.”There have been numerous reports and testimonials from health-care workers expressing horror over the conditions of overcrowded hospitals and the stress it has placed on both medical staffers and patients. Much reporting has also been done on how many patients are dying alone and away from family members and friends from the disease.But despite nearly 13,000 U.S. deaths and at least 400,000 confirmed cases, with portions of the country having yet to suffer the worst effects of the outbreak, Carlson called for a quick reversal of social-distancing restrictions in order to jumpstart the economy, citing downward revisions of coronavirus models as the key reason.“Before we go ahead and alter our lives and our country forever, it is fair to ask about the numbers, their numbers, the ones we acted on the first time, that turned out to be completely wrong,” the Fox star fumed. “How did they screw that up so thoroughly? That is a fair question.”Adjustments of expected death tolls in some models—which, weeks ago, showed as many as 240,000 American deaths—have largely occurred due to the widespread adoption of social-distancing guidelines and the assumption that school and business closures will stay in place through the summer. Even factoring all that in, the models still project roughly 80,000 deaths.Nevertheless, over the past few days, Carlson has been pushing the president to ignore medical expertise and quickly move forward with economic activity. “Is there a single person who sincerely expects the coronavirus itself will hurt more people in the end than the damage we're causing in our response to it? Probably not,” he said on Monday night. “Mass unemployment is almost certain to cause far more harm, including physical harm, to the average family than this disease.”Carlson has also railed against top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has urged Americans to embrace social distancing in order to flatten the curve. Calling it “bewildering” that the U.S. is allowing medical “experts” to make policy decisions, Carlson claimed last week that Fauci is proposing “national suicide” by pushing aggressive social distancing. “We should never let someone like that run this country,” he said.Fox News senior analyst Brit Hume, who has recently been at the forefront of right-wing media’s questioning of coronavirus deaths, has also joined the chorus of Fox stars agitating against medical expertise. The official COVID-19 death count has been inflated, he declared Carlson on Tuesday evening.“Dr. Birx said tonight during the briefing at the White House that all deaths from anyone who died with coronavirus is counted as if the person died from coronavirus,” Hume said. “Now, we all know that isn’t true.”“And if everybody is being automatically classified, if they're found to have COVID-19, as a COVID-19 death, we’re going to get a very large number of deaths that way and we’re probably not going to have an accurate count of what the real death total is,” he added.Besides the fact that flu deaths—which Trump and Fox figures have constantly used as a comparison point to downplay the pandemic—are tracked the exact same way, and coronavirus disproportionately impacts people with pre-conditions, it is actually far more likely that the COVID-19 death count has been understated so far.Hannity, meanwhile, kicked off his Tuesday evening broadcast by claiming there is a “ton of good news” surrounding the pandemic, touting revised downward estimates of the death count to suggest that regular economic activity should restart very soon.In a phone interview with the president, Hannity—who has served as an unofficial Trump adviser and confidant—noted that the “cure can’t be worse than the problem” and nudged the president to reveal when he’d roll back social-distancing policies.“I’d love to open with a big bang, one beautiful country and just open,” Trump declared, adding, “We’re looking at two concepts. We’re looking at the concept where you open up sections and we’re also looking at the concept where you open up everything.”In a Wednesday morning tweet, Trump further hinted that he is looking to end restrictions “sooner rather than later,” adding that the “horror” of coronavirus “must be quickly forgotten” and predicting that the economy “will BOOM” going forward.Laura Ingraham, however, may have been the most aggressive among her primetime colleagues in openly pushing Trump to view the pandemic threat as completely neutralized.Claiming the experts were “wrong” with their modeling and that it caused undue panic for Americans, Ingraham echoed Carlson by railing against medical officials, claiming this pandemic should “make us less willing to rely on the same experts to help determine when and how we should reopen our economy.”“We didn’t vote for doctors,” exclaimed Ingraham, who recently sat with the president to tout the unproven coronavirus cure hydroxychloroquine. “We voted for political leadership that sees the big picture. That means the whole picture of America.”She continued to hammer away at that message Wednesday on her Twitter account.Tucker Carlson Wants to Have It Both Ways on Coronavirus“At some point, the president is going to have to look at Drs. Fauci and Birx and say, we're opening on May 1,” she wrote on Wednesday morning. “Give me your best guidance on protocols, but we cannot deny our people their basic freedoms any longer.”“America must get back to work,” Ingraham blared in another tweet. “‘Experts’ were wrong on fatalities by a factor of 30 now want to dictate when we reopen.”While Trump’s Fox News cabinet is declaring the crisis over, the network’s brass is still taking the pandemic seriously, implementing strict social-distancing policies for its employees. In a memo sent last week, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott announced the company would distribute thermometers to all essential workers and suggested the use of face masks for anyone who had to come into one of Fox’s offices. Additionally, Scott said that Fox was targeting May 4 as a possible return date for employees currently telecommuting.And as Fox News’ biggest stars tried to convince the president to ditch social distancing altogether, one of Trump’s own health officials rebuked the network’s faux-populist manipulation of the expert data and projections.“Physical distancing is incredibly important—remember the projections,” Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir said Wednesday on Fox & Friends. “I have seen people twist that like this was not going to be that bad after all and we didn’t need to do it. That’s a complete misinterpretation. The estimate of deaths going down is the result of the fact that we have listened to the president and vice president and task force.”“I do want to emphasize the point, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but don’t keep your foot—don’t take your foot off the gas,” Giroir continued. “Because we really need to continue these efforts because we could see another peak, a second peak, a third peak if people don’t do the physical distancing or they think it’s all over.“It’s not over yet.”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.

U.K. truck driver pleads guilty in deaths of Vietnamese migrants found in container

Victims died of a combination of a lack of oxygen and overheating in an enclosed space, police said.

Walmart Says It Will Invest $425 Million to Expand Presence in Wuhan over the Next Five Years

Walmart’s China branch announced at an investment conference hosted by the Wuhan city government on Wednesday that it was committing 3 billion yuan ($425 million) to expand its presence in the origin point of the coronavirus pandemic over the next five years.According to Walmart China, the company will be putting up at least four new Sam's Club stores, 15 additional shopping malls, and more community stores in the capital of China's Hubei province. The U.S.-based retailer already has 34 stores and two distribution centers in the city, where the global coronavirus pandemic first emerged in December.Wern-Yuen Tan, President and CEO of Walmart China, announced the decision in collaboration with Wuhan’s municipal government, saying “the framework marks a new milestone between the two parties and a new beginning for a win-win situation.”Wuhan ended its city-wide lockdown on Wednesday, after 76 days of mandatory shutdown, despite fears that the city was still hosting many asymptomatic cases. City residents have dismissed the official death toll of approximately 2,500, while U.S. intelligence concluded last week that the city has been lying about its number of cases.The corporate response to China’s handling of the coronavirus has been mixed. The American Chamber of Commerce polled 119 companies last month on their China outlook, with 40 percent saying they would maintain their planned levels of investment in China this year, while 24 percent said they plan to cut investment. A third said it was too early to determine coronavirus’s impact.U.S. lawmakers have grown increasingly critical of the U.S.’s over reliance on China in recent months, especially relating to medical supplies — with experts suggesting that “thousands” of basic pharmaceuticals are sourced in China.Last month, Representative Jim Banks (R., Ind.) warned that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s proposed stimulus package did not address U.S. dependence on Chinese supply chains, despite bipartisan concerns about the issue.Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) also proposed a phase-four relief package last week that promoted bringing “critical supply chains back to this country from China and elsewhere and to encourage domestic production.”

South Korea reported that 51 coronavirus patients' infections went away then 'reactivated' But it's unlikely the virus has a dormancy period.

Health authorities said 51 COVID-19 patients in recovery tested negative then positive again within a "relatively short time." It's not clear how.

India says lockdown has spared it from overwhelming number of coronavirus cases

The Indian government on Thursday claimed initial success in its fight against the coronavirus epidemic, saying it would have been hit with 820,000 cases by next week had it not imposed a nationwide lockdown. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to order 1.3 billion Indians indoors for three weeks in the world's biggest lockdown has helped slow the infection rate, foreign ministry additional secretary Vikas Swarup said, even though it has exacted a heavy toll on the economy and on the hundreds of million of poor. By the middle of April, the caseload would have touched 820,000, he said, citing an internal assessment of the government's Indian Council of Medical Research, far more than the country's underfunded and decrepit public health system could handle.

CDC releases data of worst U.S. coronavirus cases

The CDC gathered data on those who were hospitalized from COVID-19 in 14 states from March 1-30, in efforts to get a clearer picture of those infected who needed the most serious medical care.

Linda Tripp: Woman who revealed Clinton-Lewinsky scandal dies

Linda Tripp, who disclosed Bill Clinton's White House affair with Monica Lewinsky dies, aged 70.

Op-Ed: China's coronavirus statistics aren't the real problem

China's reporting obfuscations are blamed for the lack of U.S. preparedness. But other governments recognized the situation in China months ago and took action.

Trump Slammed the WHO Over Coronavirus. He's Not Alone.

President Donald Trump unleashed a tirade against the World Health Organization on Tuesday, accusing it of acting too slowly to sound the alarm about the coronavirus. It was not the first time in this pandemic that the global health body has faced such criticism.Government officials, health experts and analysts have in recent weeks raised concerns about how the organization has responded to the outbreak.In Japan, Taro Aso, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, recently noted that some people have started referring to the World Health Organization as the "Chinese Health Organization" because of what he described as its close ties to Beijing. Taiwanese officials say the WHO ignored its early warnings about the virus because China refuses to allow Taiwan, a self-governing island it claims as its territory, to become a member.Critics say the WHO has been too trusting of the Chinese government, which initially tried to conceal the outbreak in Wuhan. Others have faulted the organization and its leader, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, for moving too slowly in declaring a global health emergency.The WHO, a U.N. agency, has defended its response, saying Wednesday that it alerted the world to the threat posed by the virus in a timely manner and that it was "committed to ensuring all member states are able to respond effectively to this pandemic."The agency's defenders say that its powers over any individual government are limited, and that it has done the best it can in dealing with a public health threat with few precedents in history.There will be time later to assess successes and failings, "this virus and its shattering consequences," the United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, said Wednesday in a statement praising the WHO as "absolutely critical" to vanquishing COVID-19.Here's why the WHO is coming under attack.The WHO has not pushed China on early missteps.When cases of a mysterious viral pneumonia first appeared in Wuhan in December, Chinese health officials silenced whistleblowers and repeatedly played down the severity of the outbreak.Even as late as mid-January, as the virus spread beyond China's borders, Chinese officials described it as "preventable and controllable" and said there was no evidence it could be transmitted between humans on a broad scale.The WHO endorsed the government's claims, saying in mid-January, for example, that human-to-human transmission had not been proved.Critics say the organization's repeated deference to Beijing exacerbated the spread of the disease. A group of international experts was not allowed to visit Wuhan until mid-February."They could have been more forceful, especially in the initial stages in the crisis when there was a cover-up and there was inaction," said Yanzhong Huang, a global health expert specializing in China at Seton Hall University.Huang noted that during the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003, which killed more than 700 people worldwide, the WHO pushed the Chinese government to be more transparent by publicly criticizing it for trying to conceal the outbreak.At one point during the SARS epidemic, officials at hospitals in Beijing forced SARS patients into ambulances and drove them around to avoid their being seen by a visiting delegation of WHO experts, according to reports at the time.WHO officials were slow to declare a public health emergency, critics say.Even as the virus spread to more than half a dozen countries and forced China to place parts of Hubei province under lockdown in late January, the WHO was reluctant to declare it a global health emergency.WHO officials said at the time that a committee that discussed the epidemic was divided on the question of whether to call it an emergency but concluded that it was too early. One official added that they weighed the impact such a declaration might have on the people of China.After the United States announced a ban on most foreign citizens who had recently visited China, the WHO again seemed to show deference to Chinese officials, saying that travel restrictions were unnecessary. The group officially called the spread of the coronavirus a pandemic March 11.Some experts argue that the institution's delay in making such declarations deprived other countries of valuable time to prepare hospitals for an influx of patients."It reinforced the reluctance to take early strong measures before the catastrophe had actually landed on other shores," said François Godement, senior adviser for Asia at Institut Montaigne, a nonprofit group in Paris. "The WHO's tardiness or reluctance to call out the problem in full helped those who wanted to delay difficult decisions."The WHO defended its actions, saying Wednesday that it had "alerted member states to the significant risks and consequences of COVID-19 and provided them with a continuous flow of information" ever since Chinese officials first reported the outbreak Dec. 31.Guterres of the United Nations said, "It is possible that the same facts have had different readings by different entities." He added in his statement: "Once we have finally turned the page on this epidemic, there must be a time to look back fully to understand how such a disease emerged and spread its devastation so quickly across the globe and how all those involved reacted to the crisis."China's influence at the WHO is growing.China's leader, Xi Jinping, has made it a priority to strengthen Beijing's clout at international institutions, including the WHO, seeing the U.S.-dominated global order as an impediment to his country's rise as a superpower.China contributes only a small fraction of the WHO's $6 billion budget, while the United States is one of its main benefactors. But in recent years, Beijing has worked in other ways to expand its influence at the organization.The government has lobbied the WHO to promote traditional Chinese medicine, which Xi has worked to harness as a source of national pride and deployed as a soft-power tool in developing countries, despite skepticism from some scientists about its effectiveness.Last year, the WHO offered an endorsement of traditional Chinese medicine, including it in its influential medical compendium. The move was roundly criticized by animal welfare activists, who argued that it could contribute to a surge in illegal trafficking of wildlife whose parts are used in Chinese remedies.China has sought to promote traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of symptoms of the coronavirus both at home and abroad. Last month, the WHO was criticized after it removed a warning against taking traditional herbal remedies to treat the coronavirus from its websites in mainland China.China's role at the WHO will probably continue to grow in the coming years, especially if Western governments retreat from the organization, as Trump has threatened."This is part of China's efforts to more actively engage in international institutions," said Huang, the global health expert. "It will not please every country or every actor, but it's going to affect the agenda of the WHO."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

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Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner is leading an effort to develop a national coronavirus surveillance system in order to track patient data almost in real time, Politico reported on Tuesday based on conversations with four people involved in the ongoing effort.The system would allow the federal government to monitor where and for what patients are seeking treatment. Ideally, this would provide government officials with the data needed to determine which areas of the country should implement coronavirus mitigation measures and which can safely lift those measures to open up businesses."It allows you to be much more targeted and precise in how you engage," a person familiar with the development process told Politico. "They need data to make the policy decisions, and so that’s what we and others now have been asked to do."Three people working on the project said the data would be handled in such a way as to protect patient privacy. However, the project has sparked civil liberties concerns, especially following criticism of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act."We dealt with similar issues in 9/11," said Jessica Rich, former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection bureau. "One reason that the government doesn’t have all of this data is there’s a lot of concern about big brother maintaining large databases on every consumer on sensitive issues like health, and for good reason."White House spokesman Avi Berkowitz denied that a coronavirus surveillance system was under discussion."This story makes no sense and is completely false," Berkowitz said. "The White House gets many unsolicited random proposals on a variety of topics, but Jared has no knowledge of this proposal or the people mentioned in this article who may have submitted it."The coronavirus pandemic has seen over 1,400,000 infected patients worldwide, with over 80,000 deaths. Medical officials in the U.S. have at times struggled to track the scope of the outbreak, in part due to a lack of testing in the outbreak's early stages.The U.S. has also criticized China's apparent unwillingness to provide a more complete picture of that country's coronavirus outbreak, which Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force said contributed to the U.S.'s slow initial response.

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