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US hostility to the World Health Organization scuppered the publication of a communique by G20 health ministers on Sunday that committed to strengthening the WHO’s mandate in coordinating a response to the global coronavirus pandemic.
In place of a lengthy statement with paragraphs of detail, the leaders instead issued a brief statement saying that gaps existed in the way the world handled pandemics.
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New York City mayor Bill de Blasio ramped up the rhetroic in his campaign for increased federal funding for US cities during the coronavirus crisis during his press briefing on Sunday, asking Donald Trump whether his administration was “going to save New York City or are you telling New York City to drop dead?”
De Blasio’s dramatic language came during his press conference on Sunday, after he warned last week that he planned to cut a further $2bn from the city’s municipal services budget due to the economic downturn. He said the city was likely to lose at least $7.4bn in tax revenue over the current and next fiscal year.
De Blasio has criticized the $2tn coronavirus relief package that Trump signed last month, saying New York only received $1.4bn from the stimulus, compared with around $58bn for the airline industry. He has called for the next package, which congressional and administration leaders say they are “close” to reaching a deal on, to include tens of billions for states, cities and municipalities.
A sensational investigation co-published today by ProPublica and the Seattle Times shows how officials in the first US state to be hit by Covid-19 struggled to send the public a clear, consistent message in the early days of the pandemic, bowing to a professional soccer team’s desire to host a game with 33,000 spectators despite urgent warnings from the health department for a ban on large gatherings.
On March 6, at 2:43 p.m., the health officer for Public Health — Seattle & King County, the hardest-hit region in the first state to be slammed by COVID-19, sent an email to a half-dozen colleagues, saying, “I want to cancel large group gatherings now.”
The county’s numbers — 10 known deaths and nearly 60 confirmed cases as of late morning — were bad and getting worse. Many local events had already been called off for fear of spreading the coronavirus. Oyster Fest. The Puget Sound Puppetry Festival. A Women’s Day speaker series at the Gates Foundation. King County had ordered a stop to in-person government meetings unless they were considered essential.
Demonstrations have taken place across the US against orders put in place to limit the spread of coronavirus. The protests were organised by the far-right media site Infowars. Rallies were held in state capitals, with more planned for next week in other states. Hundreds of people stood and chanted for the US to be reopened. Rightwing media and Donald Trump have supported the protests but they appear to represent a minority opinion
The Trump administration and Russia are blocking efforts to win binding UN security council backing for a global ceasefire to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 150,000 lives worldwide.
Donald Trump said on Saturday that China should face unspecified consequences if it was 'knowingly responsible' for the Covid-19 pandemic. 'If it was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake. But if they were knowingly responsible, yeah, I mean, then, sure, there should be consequences,' he told reporters at the daily briefing
Many had wondered what would happen when Donald Trump, failed salesman and gameshow host, faced a real crisis. Now they know. The man who pledged to stop “American carnage” in his inaugural address now owns it. Covid-19 has crowned him lord of misrule.
That’s fitting for a man who last week claimed to exercise “total authority”. Andrew Cuomo, the New York governor who understands what leadership means, reminded him the US does not do kings. But Trump and America’s last monarch, George III, share much in common, tyranny-wise.
Trump is more instinctive dictator than democrat, in the style of his favourite potentate, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Just look at his recent threat to shut down Congress, and his enthusiasm for suppressing minority voter turnout.
It’s worth recalling that old King George became mentally ill, since Trumpism is clearly dangerous for your health. It’s beyond reasonable dispute that his coronavirus posturing, preening, prevarication and paranoia fatally hindered the early US response.
Lockdowns across Europe have had a dramatic impact on air traffic, with 90% fewer flights taking off from the continent’s largest airports compared to a year ago
Wearing face masks, waving black flags and keeping two yards apart, thousands of Israelis demonstrated against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu under strict coronavirus restrictions on Sunday.
Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing, is under criminal indictment in three corruption cases.
At his latest coronavirus press conference, the president attacked Joe Biden and suggested he might have saved the planet
He bashed “Sleepy Joe” Biden. He railed against the Russia investigation and “fake people” in the media. He predicted that had he not been elected, the world might have ended.
And somewhere along the way, he talked about the coronavirus.
A day after Donald Trump encouraged Americans to protest against strict public health measures aimed at limiting the spread of coronavirus, rallies were held in state capitals in Maryland, Texas and Ohio, with more planned for next week in other states.
Hundreds of people stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the Texas Capitol on Saturday, chanting “Fire Fauci!” as part of a protest organized by the conspiracy theory site InfoWars. Anthony Fauci is the top public health expert on the White House coronavirus taskforce.
The US president urged supporters to 'liberate' three states led by Democratic governors on Friday, apparently encouraging protests against stay-at-home restrictions. 'These are people expressing their views,' Trump said during his daily White House coronavirus briefing.
When a pandemic strikes, the world’s leading experts convene – physically or virtually – in a hi-tech chamber in the basement of the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization.
It is called the “strategic health operations centre”, or SHOC, an appropriately urgent acronym for a place where life and death decisions are taken, and it is where critical choices were made in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.
New York governor criticises Donald Trump during a briefing on the spread of coronavirus in the state after the US president lashed out against Cuomo in a tweet.
Trump’s tweet suggested Cuomo should spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining'. The governor said: 'If he’s sitting at home watching TV, maybe he should get up and go to work'
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New York governor Andrew Cuomo reiterated that the federal government must be involved in expanding testing capacity, after Trump tweeted it was up to the states to make tests more widely available.
“If we don’t have federal help on testing, that’s a real problem,” Cuomo said.
Trump sent a series of tweets trying to deflect responsibility for the coronavirus crisis, suggesting states are the ones who need to expand testing capacity.
Donald Trump and his coronavirus taskforce have unveiled a set of federal guidelines for reopening the economy, which comprise three phases but ultimately defer to governors on when and how to return their states to normal.
‘A prolonged lockdown combined with a forced economic depression would inflict an immense and wide-ranging toll on public health,’ he said. In Trump’s plan, the responsibility for opening businesses across the country lies with state, not federal, authorities. The announcement was in stark contrast to an earlier press conference where Trump said he had ‘total authority’ over the re-opening of the country
Despite the restraint, the plan neglects to mention a firm target date or give an explicit strategy for national testing
“Make America great again” was an election winning slogan with a bold and simple message. “Opening up America again” proved to be less clear cut and left questions in the air.
On Thursday Donald Trump unveiled federal staggered guidelines for getting America back to business after the shutdown forced by the coronavirus pandemic. He had previously billed it as the most important decision of his presidency, but what he called “a science-based reopening” was messier and more ill-defined.
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House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s spokesperson corrected Trump’s claim that she had deleted a tweet containing her comments from late February encouraging people to visit Chinatown.
Pelosi’s spokesperson said the clip the president tweeted was from local news coverage and had never been posted on the speaker’s account.
Fact check: We never posted this video. It’s obviously local TV coverage of the Speaker visiting Chinatown in San Francisco three weeks prior to the shelter-in-place order. https://t.co/sVCqbkD0DF
Trump lashed out against Nancy Pelosi after the House speaker accused the president of causing unnecessary deaths through his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Trump criticized Pelosi for saying in late February, before there were any confirmed cases of coronavirus in San Francisco, that people should continue to visit the city’s Chinatown neighborhood.
It was a pleasure to try my hand at making fortune cookies at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory (with a little guidance from owner Kevin Chan, of course).
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Kari Paul here, logging out for the night. Below are some top stories to be aware of from the last few hours:
For those of us on the West Coast wondering “what’s next?” here is a pretty comprehensive look at what needs to be done to reopen California, written by two medical doctors.
In short, to reopen we will need much more access to testing so we can localize and isolate new cases of the virus, and restrictions on large gatherings will likely persist for awhile. In other words, we are all going to be working from home and washing our hands constantly for the foreseeable future.
Global health leaders have rounded on Donald Trump, warning that his decision to suspend funding to the World Health Organization is recklessly endangering the chances of ending the pandemic as fast as possible.
Experts said they were dismayed and appalled at the US president’s announcement, which will not only deprive the WHO of the resources it needs to lead the fight, but potentially undermine international collaboration between scientists.
Leading health experts have labelled Donald Trump’s decision to cut funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) as a “crime against humanity” and a “damnable” act that will cost lives.
The move also drew a rebuke from the head of the United Nations, who said the WHO was “absolutely critical to the world’s efforts to win the war against Covid-19”.
Donald Trump’s declared suspension of funding of the World Health Organization in the midst of a pandemic is confirmation – if any were needed – that he is in search of scapegoats for his administration’s much delayed and chaotic response to the crisis.
The US is the WHO’s biggest donor, with funding over $400m a year in both assessed contributions (membership fees) and donations – though it is actually $200m in arrears.